by T. S. Ryder
A bright light shone in her eyes. She flinched back from it, a small squeak coming from her throat. Was that the moon, or something else? Whatever it was, Sofia hated it. She batted at it, trying to make it go away. But before her hand could strike it, there was a soft poking in her stomach. She gasped.
"Turn off the light, it's too bright," said a voice.
The bright light disappeared. Sofia blinked a few times as splotches of white danced before her eyes. As her surroundings came into focus, she saw that she was back in the palace, lying in the extra-large king bed that Aaron had custom made for the two of them. The rich red silk sheets clung to her body, though there wasn't anything else covering her except her old flannels.
A woman sat at the side of her bed. Sofia blinked again. "Mama?"
The bed shifted beside her and Aaron's arm wrapped around her shoulders. "You're awake?"
Sofia cried out in delight, throwing her arms around her husband. She kissed him passionately, not stopping until her mother cleared her throat and shoved a hand between their faces. "There will be none of that, not until you are back to your full strength."
Aaron chuckled, helping Sofia to sit. "Can you blame her for getting excited? She passed out while we were still in the swamp. Being attacked by a gorgon was one of the last things she saw."
Sofia remembered Gloria transforming into that hideous creature and shuddered. More movement came from inside her and she put a hand on her belly, shoulders relaxing. "The baby is okay?"
"Yes. You are very lucky, you know. With the amount of blood loss you suffered, not to mention the poison in your system!" Her mother narrowed her eyes at Sofia. "I don't want you to take any more of those unnecessary risks. You are to stay in the palace. Or better yet, come home where I can look after you."
Sofia smothered a smile. "We can talk about that, Mama. But right now can I be alone with Aaron?"
"I don't think so. You'll go back to kissing and you're still far too weak for that."
"No kissing, I promise Mama. I just need to ask him about a few things."
Her mother frowned suspiciously, but nodded and slipped from the room. Sofia noted that she left the door open and rolled her eyes before turning to Aaron. Anxiety spiked through her as she pressed a hand to his chest. His skin was cool and smooth as always.
"Did it work? Are you a vampire again?"
Aaron nodded. "Yes. I'm fully vampire once more. Your mother is right. We were very lucky. I nearly lost you."
She shuddered. "That thing that Gloria turned into. What was it?"
"A gorgon. It's an ancient magical creature. You've heard of Medusa, from Greek legend? She was a gorgon. Representations of her aren't exactly accurate, but they're close enough. Gorgons can take many different forms, but their eggs must be fostered inside human bodies. I'm sorry about your friend, but she was dead the moment she was infested. She took it willingly. That much is clear."
Sofia ducked her head. Tears pricked her eyes. Gloria might not have been the best friend or even a good friend, but she had been a friend. And it made her so angry that she had made such a stupid, stupid mistake.
"What about the rest of the radical witches?"
"They seem to have fled. Haven't heard anything from them. I doubt that they're done, but I'm certain that this was their big secret weapon. As long as we stay vigilant and work harder to improve relations between witches and everybody else, I don't expect that we'll end up in a similar situation again."
Sofia nodded. She pressed a hand to her stomach and shivered. "Am I a horrible person? A terrible mother? I put our child at risk, I–"
"Shhh." Aaron pressed his finger to her lips. "Don't. It's the past, and if you hadn't chosen the way you did, we may not be here together. I have no immune system, if I was human right now, a cold would wipe me out. Our child is safe, and you are safe. That's all that matters."
"You took that thing on, even though you were still recovering from my stupid mistake. I nearly killed you for this child—"
Aaron cut her off with a kiss. "Don't. I don't care what horrible things you're thinking, it was all worth it for the outcome. I love you, Sofia, and I love this child. I would gladly die for either one of you, let alone both together."
"I don't want you to die at all." Sofia laid her head on his chest, shivering yet again. This incident had just been too close… but if there was something good that came from it, it reaffirmed how much they loved one another.
"So I was thinking…" Aaron pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Now that we know how this works, and how to reverse the effects, we could have more children. I know we agreed to adopt, and I still want to, but maybe we can think about being pregnant again sometime in the future."
Sofia smiled. "Well, it's something to talk about, anyway. I think in the future we should have more knowledge about how exactly it works. But I like the idea. I want lots and lots of children."
"I know. I believe you said twelve when I first asked you."
"No, you did." Sofia lightly pushed him, thought she relaxed against him quickly again. "I think I'm still a little too tired to discuss it right now. Everything that happened... Well, we can talk about it later."
Aaron stroked her hair. "You're right. We don't have to decide right away. After all, we still have four months until this little guy is born."
He gently prodded her belly, and she felt a kick from inside her in response. A grin crossed her face. "Or girl."
"Right. Of course. Or girl." Aaron glanced away. "And I know you just woke up, but you did suffer a significant blood loss and you should rest."
Sofia's eyes narrowed. Aaron was acting very elusive… What was he hiding? She pulled away from him, swinging her legs out of bed. Aaron wrapped his arms around her and pulled her back, his brow furrowing. He nestled into her neck.
"Where do you think you're going? I just said you needed to rest."
"You're holding something from me."
"So you're going to go out and walk around when you ought to be in bed?"
Sofia shrugged. "I was just going to get some water."
Aaron swung her around, tucking her feet back into the bed. He plumped the pillows behind her, making her smile. She always enjoyed it when he was this attentive to her. Although she was suspicious that he was just going to try to deflect her attention again, she was going to let him take care of her.
He was wearing a tight pair of pants, and she admired the way his ass looked in them as he got her a glass of water. When he caught her looking, he grinned and undid a couple buttons on his shirt before returning to her.
"Careful, I have to rest," she teased. "And I think my mother is just outside the door making sure that we don't… you know."
The king cocked his head. His nostrils flared and he nodded. "You're right. I can smell her out here."
Sofia accepted the water, watching him. "Okay. So spill."
"Spill?"
"When I said the baby might be a girl, you looked shifty."
Aaron dropped his head but grinned at her all the same. "When the physician was examining you, I saw something on the ultrasound. I know we agreed that it was going to be a surprise—"
"Not fair for you to know and not me!"
"We're having a boy." Aaron's grin was so big it could have split his face.
"A boy?" Sofia placed both her hands on her stomach. "A boy. He's going to be a little hell raiser, isn't it?"
Aaron laughed and kissed her. "If he's anything like you, then yes. But who would want it any other way?"
*****
THE END
The Vampire Prince's Bride
Description
A BBW with a secret PLUS a vampire general who needs human blood PLUS a shifter army out to kill!
Vampire general Darius isn’t looking for love or romance. He’s looking for a promotion. And for that, he needs a human wife and a baby. Just one look at Cleo’s curves and he knows she can give him what he needs. The thought of another man touching he
r makes him want to kill.
Cleo has always been strong, always in charge of her own destiny. But what Darius doesn’t know is that she isn’t as invulnerable as she seems. She keeps her secrets just as he keeps his. They made a deal. Why should they be concerned with each other's intimate lives?
But Darius and Cleo are forced to confront their worst fears when Darius is sent to fight a group of rebel shifters that may just get him killed. Violence is a vampire’s domain. But can he survive this?
As feelings deepen and danger grows ever closer, Cleo and Darius will have to face hard truths–and decide if ambition is really worth their lives, or if love is worthy of sacrifice.
Chapter One – Darius
A picture of Iosif hung over the mantle in Darius's study. The king had ruled all the lands from the Black Sea to the Carpathian Mountain range to the Danube River for almost two thousand years now and was a vampire of great strength and pride. This study had once belonged to his father and Darius had sat on the floor and stared at wonder at the king's picture ever since he was a young boy.
Hearing about the king's great feats against the shifters, who used to run rampant and murder recklessly, had always made his heart swell with pride. He had determined from a young age that he would be as great as the king, one day wearing the crown on his own head. As he grew up, he realized that his goals required a lot of hard work, but Darius was nothing if not determined.
"There have been reports of wolves here and here," he said, pointing to the map spread out on his desk. "Three dozen sheep were killed and a shepherdess has disappeared only a dozen leagues from here."
His best friend and second-in-command, Gordon, frowned. "You think it's the Rebeluna?"
Darius grimaced as he considered. The Rebeluna was a self-proclaimed rebel group that resisted the vampire king in any way possible. Shifters of various clans gathered and were responsible for more vampire deaths than any other group in the past decade. Since they assassinated the last colonel charged with finding them, the king had turned the investigation over to Darius.
"No," he decided. "The Rebeluna are organized, efficient. These are minor inconveniences, more likely wolves who consider themselves rebels but don't have the courage to actually commit to open rebellion."
"Then why bring them up?"
Darius straightened and grinned. "They're exactly the type that the Rebeluna will recruit for cannon fodder. Send a couple of men to investigate. If humans think that we're allowing shifters to steal them away with no consequences, it might stir up unrest. Find the shepherdess, if nothing else."
"Am I interrupting?"
The cool, confident voice made him turn to the door. His twenty-year-old human wife of four months, Cleo, stood in the doorway. Darius smiled at her. Iosif and his own human mate had had no children of their own and had made it clear that the vampire they chose to replace Iosif had to prove he had good relations with humans. The best way to do that was to marry one, and so he had.
"Darius. Gordon." Cleo strode in, her shoulders back, her head held high, exuding an air of confidence about her.
She had been Darius' choice wife for two reasons. One, she was beautiful. Bronzed skin, long curly hair, stunning black eyes. When Darius first chose her, Gordon had questioned whether he really wanted somebody as 'robust' as her. She was all curves and softness, nothing angular or sharp about her–except her piercing gaze.
Which brought him to his second reason for choosing her. She made no pretenses about what she wanted – a husband who could give her all the luxury and power she desired. She wanted to be queen as much as he wanted to be king, and she would do anything necessary to ensure that happened.
Having a woman like that by his side only heightened his possibilities. She was clever, level-headed, and he had never seen her act based solely on emotion – exactly what he was looking for in a wife.
"You didn't come to bed last night, Darius." Cleo walked into the room, her black eyes never leaving his face. "I bought a new… dress that I wanted to show you."
The colonel could imagine what she would look like in the 'dress' and swallowed hard. Heat curled in his lower belly.
Gordon cleared his throat. "My lord, if you want some privacy—"
Darius waved his hand at his friend, an annoyed expression on his face. "As much as I would like to ravish my wife on every surface available in this room, I don't have the time."
"More news on the Rebeluna?"
"A small envoy of vampires were attacked yesterday evening. It's the Rebeluna's style, but there are many other reports of shifters that I have to have investigated."
Cleo nodded. "What envoy did they attack yesterday?"
"Lord Virgil's taxes. He still insists on delivering them in gold every year. Claims it's safer."
Cleo snorted. "Maybe he'll start using a check or e-transfer now."
"Maybe. And maybe I should have seen it coming. Virgil's so stuck in the past that he's an easy target for the shifters. They pretended to be a roadblock and shot the tires of his Hummer. They took the gold but didn't stick around to kill anybody."
Gordon coughed, drawing attention to himself. "We think they are gathering funds for a larger-scale attack."
The vampire didn't look at Cleo. But then, Gordon had never liked the human. He always thought that Darius deserved someone 'better'. The problem was he thought 'better' meant thinner and more emotional, worshiping the ground Darius walked on. He didn't want that.
He didn't want love.
"They could be collecting funds to bribe the lower-ranked vampires," Cleo suggested. "Or to donate money to the outlying human settlements. Turn them to the shifter cause."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Darius agreed.
"I'm having tea with a few of the other wives today. I'll discuss an outreach program to bolster vampire relations with the outliers. I know that the recent earthquakes have caused some flooding. I'll be sure to increase aid to the areas affected."
Darius nodded, smiling at his wife. She didn't think in terms of battles and conquest, but rather how kindness could change the tide of wars. A valuable ally. In this seemingly unending war between vampires and shifters, humans were the key figures. They were vital to vampire survival, and not just because vampires required human blood to sustain themselves.
The common assumption that humans could turn into vampires was wrong. It was true that the humans who lived among vampires and were regularly fed from took on vampiric traits: their aging slowed to the point where they hardly aged at all. They also grew stronger, faster, and developed a taste for blood. But they remained human. Vampires were born vampires – and usually males at that. Without human wives like Cleo, they would be extinct within three generations.
"What are you grinning at?" Cleo narrowed her eyes at him.
"I was just remembering how we met." His voice turned low and husky. "And how I knew instantly that you were the woman to be my bride."
Cleo smirked back at him. Both of them ignored Gordon rolling his eyes.
Their first meeting was indicative of their whole relationship. There had been no romance. He had been patrolling his lands with Gordon and half a dozen sergeants. They stopped at a station in the closest city to refuel their motorcycles. Normally humans looked at them with awe, but Darius had noticed Cleo leaning against the building, gazing at the vampires as though she was measuring them up and finding them lacking.
He hadn't been able to help himself. He walked over to her. Her expression had changed slightly, and when she looked at him, her gaze lingered on the insignia on his jacket.
"You're a colonel," she had said.
"Yes, I am. If you come back to my estate with me, I'll marry you."
She had given him that cool, sharp gaze and shrugged. "I could hold out for a general, but you'll be one soon enough if I have any say in the matter. Let's go."
The wicked grin on Cleo's face showed that she was remembering as well. Darius circled the table and caught his wife
in his arms.
"You took a big risk on me."
"Hardly." Cleo rolled her eyes. "I did my research. I already knew everything about you. I knew you took weekly patrols, and I knew you always stopped at that station for gas. I had everything planned. If you hadn't approached me, I would have gone to you."
With a light chuckle, Darius gave her a quick peck on the lips. She moaned, indicating her wish for more, but the vampire pulled away. It was difficult. He had been so busy lately that he hadn't actually drunk from her in almost two months. Blood bags didn't taste as good as the real deal, but drinking usually led to other things… and when he only had a few minutes to spare, he couldn’t indulge in anything.
Her scent was driving him crazy, though. She was wearing an essential oil fragrance, which most vampires didn't like. He loved it. Rose and lavender with a hint of peppermint. Delicious. Her natural scent was only enhanced by the oils.
"Gordon." Darius turned to his second-in-command. "Tell the fourth squad to prepare for departure. We're going to scour the settlements surrounding Virgil's attack. The Rebeluna is probably long gone, but we might catch something about which way they headed."
Gordon saluted and left, leaving Darius and his wife alone. Cleo gave him a coy smile and pulled her dark curls off her shoulder and stretched out her neck, offering it to him.
"Are you feeling desirous, my dear?"
Cleo shrugged. "Desirous? I desire that you don't embarrass me by collapsing from exhaustion while you're hunting shifters."
"I wouldn't be at that point for another month."
"And if the Rebeluna are closer – if this is an ambush set for you – then I don't want to be widowed. That would ruin all my plans," she added quickly. "You vampires are ridiculous. You don't marry widows unless you've killed the woman's husband. Now drink."
Darius pulled her closer. He couldn't stifle a moan as he delicately bit into her beautiful, smooth skin. Cleo gave a little gasp and clutched at his shirt. Drinking was always a sensual act, and the vampire couldn't help but growl as he sucked hard. His wife shuddered in his grasp, tangling her fingers in his hair.