“Seriously, what was it like for you? Before you met Alastair, did you ever meet anyone else?”
I shrugged. “Sure, I guess. But I didn’t take anything seriously back then. I was a completely different person. I was kind of a spoiled brat.”
He smirked. “I doubt that. You’ve got a big heart, Penny, and you didn’t just grow that out of nowhere. Haven’t you known Felicity since before you knew Alastair?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I don’t know.” I peered out the window.
“You told me before that Alastair made you think horrible things about yourself. Is it you saying you were a brat or him?”
I sighed. “I don’t know anymore.”
“Well, I don’t think you should say it at all.”
I turned back to him, giving him a small smile. “Okay. Maybe I’ll try not to.”
He flashed a smile at me—one of his brilliant movie-star smiles—and then he went back to the road.
We drove in comfortable silence for a few minutes.
After a couple minutes, he shot me another look. “Hey, you, um, you doing okay? You need to stop somewhere for food or anything?”
I giggled. “I’m fine. We didn’t eat that long ago.”
“Yeah, okay.”
I twisted my hands together in my lap. “Um… look, I don’t have to get the paternity test.”
He turned to look at me. “What?”
The car swerved.
“Lachlan!”
He corrected. “Fuck!” he said. “Sorry. But why would you say that? We need to know that. It’s really important to know.”
“Is it?” I said. “You said to me earlier that you wanted to be an uncle or a friend to the baby, and even if—”
“Yeah, sorry about that.” He made a rueful face and gripped the steering wheel.
“It makes a difference if it’s Alastair’s or not, huh? I mean, I can see why it would, and I—”
“It shouldn’t make a difference,” he said. “It’s not about that, anyway.”
“It’s not?”
“I keep thinking I can’t get too attached to the idea of it, you know? Because I think about how much it hurt to lose Hailey, and I just don’t think I could handle it if that happened again.”
“Oh,” I said. “I know how that is. Because until I found out about the thing with the shifting, I thought it was really likely I’d have another miscarriage. Even now, I’m not sure if I should really accept it.”
“When I drank your blood, and we felt it…” His voice was soft. “It reached out of us. It was like it wanted me to pick it up, to hold it, to claim…” He sucked in a breath. “Yeah, I’m just terrified of that.”
“Well, nothing has to change,” I said. “If you don’t want to be the father of the baby, you don’t have to be. Even if you, you know, technically are. I can do this. I don’t need—”
“Me? You don’t need me?” He let out a bitterly tinged laugh. “Thanks for that, Penny.”
“I wasn’t going to say I didn’t need you.”
“You were going to say something that meant that, though.”
“You don’t want to be needed,” I said. “Didn’t you just say that you didn’t want to claim the baby?”
“Want?” he repeated. “It’s not about what I want. Because what I want is to take you and me and the baby someplace safe. I want to be the thing that keeps the monsters away from you. But you… you’re the one who takes on the monsters. You don’t even ask for my help. Not even when you’re pregnant. So, yeah, I guess you’re right. You don’t need me.”
I glared at him. “This is a macho thing? You need me to be the simpering damsel in distress? Are you kidding?”
“No, damn it.” He pounded the steering wheel. “That came out wrong.”
“You bet it did.”
He didn’t say anything. He glared at the windshield.
“I don’t get it, anyway,” I said. “If you want the baby, then why is it big deal?”
“Penny, I can’t… You understand that I failed, right? That I didn’t protect my own child? That she died and I lived. And I thought it was going to be fine, because I was a vampire, and I couldn’t reproduce, so there was no way that I would ever make another child. I wouldn’t fail again. But now… you…”
I bit my lip. “Lachlan, you have to forgive yourself for what happened to Hailey.”
“I can’t do that,” he said. “And you completely don’t understand anything if you think that’s remotely possible.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Whose fault was it, then? Timmy’s?”
“Timmy is your stepson?”
“That’s where I fucked up the worst. I should have tried harder with him. He was a kid, and I resented him. I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I did. I resented the way Debra loved him. I was immature and pathetic, and I think back on all of it, all the ways that I failed—failed all of them—and I want to reach back through time and strangle myself.”
“You didn’t pull the trigger. He did.”
“But he did it because of me.”
“No. He was… disturbed or wrong somehow or… he shot a four-year-old, Lachlan. You can’t carry that responsibility.”
“That’s just it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have responsibilities anymore. Not to children. Maybe not even to women.” He shook his head. “God help me, I tried to stay away from you, but there’s something about you. I can’t resist you.”
“Fuck you,” I said, and now I was crying. I wasn’t really sure why, but I knew it was something to do with hormones and something to do with the fact that Lachlan was practically abandoning me, and right after I’d decided to let him in. “I said I couldn’t handle drama right now. I distinctly asked you if you wanted in, and you said you did.”
“I’m not backing out of anything,” he snapped.
“Well, it sure sounds like you are.”
“Is that what you want, then? I guess it wouldn’t much matter to you if I did, considering you don’t need me and all.”
“Stop putting words in my mouth.”
“I’ll just take you to the hotel, huh?”
“You’re running away?” I said. “All that talk about how I was the one running, and now you’re—”
“Stop talking,” he said. “Please, stop.”
Tears were streaming down my face, and I was angry. So angry. I could feel my fire magic bubbling inside my lungs. I had to fight to swallow it, but a tendril of smoke escaped my lips.
Lachlan saw it too. “Seriously?” he muttered.
“Take me home,” I said. “Take me home and go far, far away from me.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“So, I don’t know, what do you think of that?” I said. “I should just forget about that stupid jerk and move on with everything.”
Felicity was on her hands and knees in the bathroom of one of the rooms. She was scrubbing the floor because one of her maids had called in sick today and there was no one else to fill in. Generally she just did admin tasks with the cleaning staff. “Do you really want to know what I think?”
“I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t want to know.”
She turned to scrub behind the toilet. “I think you pick fights with Lachlan because you’re scared.”
“I did not pick a fight with him.”
She sat up on her knees. “Look, Penny, there’s always some drama with the two of you.”
“Not always,” I said. “For the past couple of months—”
“You’ve been keeping your pregnancy from him.”
I slumped my shoulders. “Okay, point.”
“All I’m saying is that when there’s this much drama in a relationship—”
“It’s doomed,” I said. “Never going to work out.”
“Well, maybe,” she said. “Or maybe it’s because there’s just… sparks between you guys. You know, passion?”
I chewed on my lip. “You think so?”
>
“Honestly, sometimes it annoys me how easily Jensen settled down with me. We’re already boring, and we’ve barely been living together five months.”
“Good, I want things boring for you. Boring is safe.”
“I know how to use magic now, remember? I helped you with the vampires at The Dungeon. I helped you with the drakes at the Order—hey, by the way, did you ever figure out why it was those people wanted our help? Did it really have something to do with the blood bond?”
“Oh, Darla Tell had a crush on me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, she came by and asked me to lunch and was all asking about men in my life and stuff and when I told her I was with Lachlan, I could tell she was disappointed.”
“But you remember how she flirted with Connor?” said Felicity. “She made that comment about his muscles or something, and he was flustered.”
Maybe I did remember something about that. I chewed on my lip. “Well, maybe she’s bisexual.”
Felicity went back to scrubbing. “Anyway, about Lachlan, don’t you think he has a right to be freaked out about this? Last night, it dropped down out of the blue that maybe he’s the father of your baby, and given everything that’s happened to him, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to give him twenty-four hours to get used to it.”
I scuffed my toe against the floor. “Sure, I guess, if you want to be rational about it.”
She laughed. “The stuff about wanting you to be a damsel in distress is a little disturbing though, I admit.”
“Well, he didn’t exactly put it that way.”
“Oh, he didn’t?”
“He kept going on about how I didn’t need him. That he wanted to be able to protect me and the baby from all the monsters or something.”
“That’s kind of sweet,” said Felicity, throwing her scrub brush into her bucket. She pointed behind me at her cleaning cart. “Can you hand me that towel?”
I gave it to her. “It’s not sweet. It’s totally sexist and unenlightened.”
She started to use the towel to soak up any excess water left on the floor. “Penny, you’re going to need some protection soon. I don’t mean to be sexist about it, but pregnant women are vulnerable. And when you have the baby, you’ll both be vulnerable.”
“I can protect the baby.”
“All by yourself all the time?”
I folded my arms over my chest. “Sure.”
She rubbed the towel behind the toilet. “When you’re in labor?”
I didn’t say anything.
Felicity finished sopping up the water on the floor. She got to her feet and dropped the towel in with a bunch of other wet towels on the cart. “Look, I’m not saying you’re wrong. Because Lord knows some of the things that come out of Jensen’s mouth make me crazy mad.”
I chewed on my lip. “Do you think I should call him and apologize?”
Felicity shrugged. “Let him sweat. He should know better than to fight with you, honestly.”
I smiled a little. “Okay, sure.”
“You want to get something to eat?” said Felicity. “Head over to the Flamingo?”
“Heck yes,” I said. I was starving. And they had blood at the Flamingo, which sounded strangely wonderful.
* * *
I did order blood at the Flamingo, and Felicity didn’t make much of a big deal out of it. I guessed she was used to Jensen drinking it all the time.
But drinking the blood did make me weirded out. Was I really carrying a vampire-dragon hybrid baby? And if so, what did that mean? Had there ever been a vampire-dragon hybrid baby before?
At first, I spent some time looking for information on the Internet. But I couldn’t even find any references to blood bonds, which seemed like it had to be a prerequisite for this happening in the first place. I had never heard of the blood bond before it happened to me. It was rare, and it wasn’t something that people made websites about.
I ended up going through boxes in my spare room, which were all full of junk that I’d accumulated over the years. Most of them I hadn’t even gone through. There were all kinds of things in there, like my school yearbooks and photo albums. But I was looking for an old, old book of dragon history that my great-grandmother had given me before she died.
I had never take a serious look at the book before, thinking it looked really boring. I didn’t much see what the point was of reading about dragon history, especially in some book that had been printed over a hundred years ago. The thing was ancient, not the least up to date. But I kept it because of my great-grandmother, who I’d really liked. She’d been a spunky lady who did what she pleased with no concern for convention, much to the chagrin of both my mother and grandmother.
Great-Gran was still alive when my parents died, and that was when she’d given me the book, saying that it might help me understand things at some point.
Actually, now that I was thinking about it, she’d been pretty cryptic. She’d hinted that the book had answers about what had happened to my parents. And I’d tried to read the thing, but it was written in really stilted old-school language, and I’d eventually just given up. I still had no idea why she thought the book had answers for me.
But I guessed that must have stuck in my brain—the answers bit. That was why I was digging this stupid book up, when I was fairly sure that it was going to be just as dense and confusing as it ever had been.
I finally found it stuffed in a box with a bunch of old newsletters from the country club that Alastair and I used to belong to in Connecticut. The club had its own printing press, and it had a couple staff writers who would go around documenting all the things that happened at the club—from tennis matches to wedding receptions. I couldn’t believe I’d kept those.
I gathered them all into a stack to take to the trash. At least one good thing would come out of this, even if I found nothing in the book. I’d get rid of some of this junk.
Pushing the newsletters aside, I yanked the book into my lap. It was heavy. The thing was at least a foot tall and like four inches thick. I blew dust off its cover.
Carefully, I opened the front cover.
Dragons, it read in big, black letters.
Well, short and to the point.
I flipped through the table of contents, skimming for anything that might be useful.
There. Sarah of Andua and the Blood Bond.
I noted the page number, flipped to the page, and began to read.
Herein lies the tragical history of Sarah of Andua and her ties to the murderous creature of the night Dracu of the house of Bedin. Whoso reads these words, mayest thou protect thyself from such evil with all the magic in thy arsenal.
Ick.
I struggled through the whole page, tripping over the old-timey language, which didn’t even seem to be used properly. I seemed to remember Lachlan going on some rant at some point about how writers in the 1800s sometimes tried to adopt the style of the 1600s to lend gravity to their writing. I guess it made it sound like the bible or something.
And it came to pass that the blood blond did take from Sarah her desire for her mate, and she did cleave to the unnatural monster Dracu. From this point on, she and her horrible companion did wreak the fury of hell upon all her family, her children, and all that she once held dear.
I wrinkled my nose up. What? This was like the stuff that Esther was saying, that the blood bond made people into crazy killers. But Lachlan and I weren’t like that at all. I was pretty sure that it was only saying that because it had been a violent time in history, and everyone had been killing everyone anyway. But the dragons who had written this book would have been angry if a woman left her mate, and even more angry if she and her new partner were more powerful than they were. I called bias.
I skimmed through the rest of it.
Blah blah blah, murder. Blah blah blah, razing cities to the ground. Blah blah blah, eventually captured and beheaded by her former mate.
Yuck. What a story. I wondered how true it reall
y was. Even history books got things wrong, I knew.
Anyway, there was nothing about vampire-dragon hybrid babies. Apparently Sarah and Dracu had never made a little blood bond baby.
I flipped to the index of the book. I looked up hybrid.
Nothing.
I looked up baby.
Nothing.
I looked up blood bond.
Oh, well, there were three other stories about blood bonds. I flipped back to read them.
They were more of the same. Some chick left her mate and bonded with a vampire. They were super powerful. Violence ensued.
In at least two of the stories, the bonded couple weren’t the aggressors. In both cases, they went off by themselves to be alone and then the woman’s former mate came after them. Then the blond bond couple tended to blow the dragons out of the water.
According to the book, the blood bond could create something it called whiteflame, some kind of white-hot fire that consumed everything in its path, even water. It would burn hot, leaving nothing in its wake but scorched holes in the ground.
I wondered if Lachlan and I would figure out how to do that.
Did we want to do that?
Had no one else had a vampire-dragon baby?
Maybe it wasn’t Lachlan’s after all. Maybe I was craving blood because of the blood bond. Maybe if you had a blood bond and you were also pregnant…
I sighed.
I wondered why it was always a female dragon who bonded with a male vampire. Could it work another way as well?
I flipped through the book some more, but I didn’t find anything out from reading random snatches here and there. Shoving the book aside, I crawled over to the newspapers. I’d take these down to the trash can—
Hey, what was that?
I tugged one of the papers out, and there was a picture of Richard Remington.
He was standing tall, his chest pushed out. He was holding a bow, and over his shoulder was a quiver of arrows. A headline underneath read, Remington Takes Archery Tournament.
* * *
“He knows how to shoot a bow and arrows,” I said into the phone.
“Penny?” said Lachlan.
“Richard Remington,” I said.
“You’re calling me about Richard Remington?”
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