“Nothing is tender?”
“No.”
“How far along are you?”
“Nineteen weeks.”
She dims the lights in the room and wheels a stool over, sitting next to the bed. The ultrasound machine is already fired up, and Dr. Forester gives me paper towels to roll into the waistband of my leggings before she puts a clear jelly on my stomach.
There’s a computer on the tiny counter next to the sink, and it syncs to the screen on the ultrasound machine. My heart starts to speed up, and I reach for Lucas’s hand. He’s standing next to the bed, eyes on the screen.
“Do you know what you’re having?” Dr. Forester asks and puts the wand on my stomach, moving it around until something comes into view. Lucas grips my hand tight, and if he could breathe, he’d be holding his breath right now.
“A girl.”
“Ah, there she is.”
A black-and-white image comes up on the screen, and I’m taken aback and instantly emotional. The outline of our baby’s head is clear, and I can make out the cutest little nose.
“She’s beautiful,” Lucas whispers.
“Did you see that?” Dr. Forester asks, moving the wand a tad. “She just yawned.”
“I did see,” I say, voice all choked up. Lucas gives my hand a squeeze and looks down at me, eyes so full of love. Abby is at the end of the bed, smile on her face and tears in her eyes. Dr. Forester moves the wand around again, pushing against my stomach harder than I expected. It’s not comfortable, but it’s not painful, either. She takes different measurements, and Elena flips over, showing us her butt.
“Yes, you definitely have a little girl in there. See those three lines?”
“Oh, Cal,” Abby says, hand landing on my ankle. I told her we were having a girl because my archangel father told me so, but seeing it on the screen makes it legit for her. “Penny is going to love having a cousin.”
Dr. Forester takes some more measurements, tells me my placenta looks good, whatever that means, and lets us listen to Elena’s heart beating. Lucas gets out his phone and records a small clip so we can watch and listen again later. I don’t think I’ll be able to come get another ultrasound again, but at least we know how she’s a perfectly healthy human baby girl.
And I’ll be damned before I let anything happen to her.
Chapter 22
“It’s good to be home,” I say, dropping my purse onto the floor. Binx shadows ahead, getting away from Scarlet, who’s bounding over, sounding like an entire herd of horses running through the house all at once. Freya and Pandora greet me much more gracefully, and I scoop up Freya, running a hand over her fur.
“What have you guys been up to?” I ask them, going right for the fridge to get out the cooked turkey I made a few days ago. Everyone gathers around me now, and Scarlet lets out the most pathetic, high-pitched whine. “Must be nice,” I grumble when Pandora lets me know she and Freya lounged around the conservatory, lying in the sunlight while keeping an eye on the protective lines that circle the house.
“I had an interesting day,” I go on, popping the lid off the Tupperware of turkey. “I accidentally summoned a demon, Lucifer came back for a hot minute, and I’m trying hard to let go of the shit that went down between the Martins and myself, but I’m finding it really hard.” I give my familiars each a handful of turkey and put two pieces in Scarlet’s bowl.
Lucas, who went to check the mail, comes in the house.
“Anything good?” I ask, putting the turkey away.
“No, it’s all junk mail.” He pulls open the drawer with the garbage and recycling and drops an advertisement for window replacements in the recycling. “It’s a waste of paper.”
“It is, and I like this environmentalist side of you.”
“You don’t have to be an environmentalist to be concerned for the world. I’ve lived long enough to see the harsh effects humans have on it.”
“I don’t disagree there.” I yawn and put my hands on the counter, letting my eyes fall shut for a second. A headache started forming halfway home, and it’s getting worse by the second. I’ve had plenty of headaches before, usually caused by stress or the rare occasion I’d been hungover. Still, I’ve spent most of my life with perfect health, and any sort of ache or pain is really fucking annoying.
“Go upstairs and lie down. It’s been a long day and it’s late.”
I rub my forehead, trying to will the headache away. “I’m pooped and my head hurts. I have Tylenol somewhere. I don’t know the last time I took it.” I open my eyes. “That’s safe for me to take, right?”
“Right. I’ll find it. Rest, Callie.”
Nodding, I open the back door to let Scarlet out, and Lucas says he’ll let her in when she’s ready. I go up the back stairs, and all three of my familiars follow. I should change into pajamas, brush my teeth, and wash my face, but I lie down in bed instead. If I don’t feel like doing that now, I definitely won’t feel like doing it later, I know, but I make poor choices every once in a while. Okay, I make poor choices on a weekly basis, but after the day we had, could anyone blame me?
Pulling the ivory-colored comforter back, I wave my other hand and magically toss the decorative pillows onto the ground. Scarlet will lie on them if I don’t put them on the bench at the foot of the bed, which doesn’t really bother me, but Lucas doesn’t like it. He’s not the biggest fan of sharing our bed with my familiars, but since they’re not actual cats, he can’t use his animals shouldn’t be in our bed argument.
I nestle under the covers, get comfy, and them remember I’m not supposed to lie on my back because the growing baby puts pressure on a vein that can restrict blood flow and cause low blood pressure. I’m still carrying small—but Elena is measuring perfectly—so I think it’s okay. Though after seeing her moving around on the ultrasound screen, yawning and flipping around, I’ll sacrifice my comfort for her any day.
I move to my side, shoving pillows underneath me to keep me from rolling onto my back. My shoulders are stiff, and sleeping like this is going to suck. Groaning, I reach up and try to rub a knot out of my shoulder. Letting out a soft meow, Pandora jumps onto the bed and nudges my hand away with her head. She stands on my shoulder and starts kneading her paws.
“Oh, thanks,” I tell her and close my eyes. Freya joins, kneading her little paws into my lower back, and Binx snuggles up against me on my pillow. I start to relax, brain going into the I’ll deal with it later mode I’m way too familiar with. “This is nice.” If I had a fire going, I could easily be lulled to sleep.
The floor creaks, letting me know Lucas is down the hall. The human contractor insisted twice that we fix most of the creaky floorboards. While we had to replace more than I liked due to the water damage, both Lucas and I like the character the creaking gives the house.
And it’s a good way to know if someone—or something—is sneaking through our house.
I slit my eyes open and look up in the doorway. Lucas enters the room, slowing as his brows furrow. “Are your familiars giving you a massage?”
Pandora moves to my neck and starts kneading her paws into my stiff muscles.
“Yes.” I let my eyes fall closed, and a few seconds pass, yet Lucas doesn’t move. I force my eyes open again and look at him. “What?”
“I can’t decide if it’s weird or…or…”
“Or makes you feel useless?” I offer.
“Useless with defective sperm,” he deadpans, and I laugh. “I brought you the medicine. Do you still have a headache?”
“Yeah, it’s not so bad, though.” I know exactly where Lucas’s train of thought is going because he’s read so many damn pregnancy books. Headaches can be a sign of high blood pressure, which isn’t good when you’re pregnant. Maybe I should have let Abby check my vitals like she wanted, but I insisted it was a waste of time.
“If it’s not gone in the morning, you should call the midwife.”
“I will,” I tell him. “It’s just been a long fucking da
y.”
“It has.” He comes into the room and hands me two pills and a glass of water. My familiars move off me so I can sit up and take the pills.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asks, meaning my mental state. “A lot happened in a short time.” He sits on the bed next to me, pulling me close to him once I’ve washed down the medicine and put the glass on the nightstand.
“Something Scott said is bothering me,” I confess. “Right before you came in, he said something like we were wondering why you stay in the shadows and he meant witches. It just…it doesn’t sit right with me.” I run my finger over the scorched material of Lucas’s shirt. My heart speeds up when I think about the police surrounding him, using UV light to force him to submit when he was already complying. The sound of the gunshot echoes through my mind, making me jump.
Lucas brings me onto his lap, able to hear my racing heart. That wasn’t the first time Lucas got shot in front of me, but it was just as terrifying. Demons, monsters, witches using dark magic…they’re dangerous. Very dangerous. But so is a gun in the hands of an unhinged person, and the fact that anyone, anywhere, can be that volatile, raining shots down on the least suspecting, innocent people, terrifies me.
“Was he trying to egg you on?”
“I don’t know.” I flatten my hand over Lucas’s chest. There’s no heartbeat against my palm, and his chest doesn’t rise and fall as he breathes. “Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but it felt like he wanted us to come out so he could attack us. Though the way he said it, stay in the shadows…it’s just not the way Scott talks.”
“I don’t know, my love, but even if he tried to out you, he would end up looking like the insane piece of shit he is. The world still isn’t ready for vampires. They won’t be ready for witches.” Lucas lays us down, keeping me tight in his embrace.
“You’re right. And maybe it was just Scott trying to push my buttons, but it doesn’t make sense. And Roger knowing I was at Abby’s house doesn’t make sense, either.” I close my eyes right as something clicks into place in my mind. “Holy shit.” I sit up, twisting to look at Lucas. “The day Roger tried to shoot me—the first time—I went wedding dress shopping with Abby and Kristy. We ran into Nancy and her hoity-toity friends, and she was embarrassed.”
“And a hunter from the Order was sent after you.”
“Yeah. On the same day.” The Order of the Mystic Realm is an old-school, super intense—and super hateful against anything nonhuman—group of hunters that even Easton and Melinda wouldn’t touch. They told me there are still a few chapters left, and the hunters that make them up are more than a little corrupt.
Lucas’s eyes narrow slightly. “A vampire hired Roger, who was a shitty hunter, to go after you. The purpose of that was to try and piss me off.”
“So you would react in the public eye and get arrested.” More of Scott’s words come back to me. I did what I should have done the second that bloodsucker attacked me at Penny’s party. “When did those vampires start going after you for assimilating?”
“Sometime last year. They went after almost all vampire-owned businesses who abided by the VC’s rules. But it got worse after we met.”
“Holy shit.” I push my hair back, heart hammering even faster in my chest. “I can see the writing on the wall, but why? Why would the Martins work with vampires? They hate vampires with a passion.”
“Yes,” Lucas says, blue eyes meeting mine. “But they hate you more.”
Chapter 23
“Good morning, my love.”
I roll over, stretching my arms out before sitting up. “What time is it?”
“Nearly ten a.m.”
“I slept in late.” It’s bright and sunny today, and wind presses into the side of the house. Hopefully it’s blowing in a warm front.
“Easton texted you last night.” Lucas eyes my phone on the nightstand. “You really should block his number. It was past midnight and too late to be contacting you.”
“Stop being so possessive and jealous,” I grumble. “I’m usually up until two or three a.m., and it could be about a demon.”
“Exactly why he shouldn’t be contacting you.”
I make a face and grab my phone. It only has two percent battery left since I didn’t plug it into the charger.
Easton: Haven’t heard from you in a while. Everything okay?
“He’s just asking how things are going,” I tell Lucas and lie down to type back a reply.
Me: Yeah, overall. What about you guys?
He replies right away, and I watch the screen as the little dots appear to let me know he’s typing.
Easton: Mel and I are good and things seem normal here in the city.
Me: Good.
Easton: Have you watched the news recently?
Great, now what?
Me: No, do I want to?
Easton: Three bodies were found strung upside down from trees in Sedona, AZ with their throats slit and bodies drained of blood.
“Shit,” I grumble.
“What is it?” Lucas asks.
“Bodies were found,” I start, looking away from the phone. “In Sedona.”
“Am I missing the significance of that?”
I nod. “A Ley line runs through Sedona. It would be nothing, but when bodies are strung up from trees with all their blood drained, it’s usually something dark, demonic, or both if we’re really lucky.”
Lucas gets my computer off the dresser and opens Google to search for the news article. “There’s not much more information here, as expected. I hate asking, but does Easton have any connections to the police out there?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask him.”
Me: Are you able to get any more info?
Easton: Melinda is going to call around. We had some friends out there we’ll try reaching out to.
Had. I know a lot of their old hunter friends stopped associating with them after Easton refused to shoot both Lucas and me. He was accused of “going soft” and got called out for letting a vampire live. It made him the better hunter in my mind, able to make his own conclusions about who’s really a monster or not.
There are plenty of humans who have done worse than vampires in a shorter amount of time.
Me: Thanks. I’ll see if I can get anything on my end too.
Easton: Sounds good. And same here.
“I don’t know exactly where the Ley line runs through Sedona,” I tell Lucas, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Ruby might know. Ley lines are covered in introductory magic.”
I tuck my messy hair behind my ear and pick up my sweater from yesterday, which was discarded on the floor next to the bed. I pull it on and go to my dresser, grabbing a random pair of pajama pants from the bottom drawer. They’re gray with little black cats printed all over. I got them from some random gothic website that showed up as an Instagram ad, back in the days when I’d go to bed with a large glass of wine, mindlessly scrolling through social media and doing too much online shopping.
Lucas and I go into the library, where I keep my small collection of books about witchcraft, including my Book of Shadows, which is displayed on a stand near the window. There’s a protective circle cast around it, and another drawn with chalk on the hardwood floor, covered by a circular rug.
“I have like a page on Ley lines in here,” I tell Lucas. “It won’t give much information, but maybe I can narrow things down.”
“I’ll check it,” he tells me. “Send Ruby the note.”
Nodding, I go to a large wooden desk in the center of the library. The whole room is glorious, if you ask me. I didn’t want the shelves restored any more than necessary, which gives the library the look—and smell—of its original state. Lucas goes to the book, flipping through pages with vampire speed, making me cringe just a bit that he’s going to go too fast and might rip a page.
Sinking down into the desk chair, I open one of the drawers and pull out a notebook and a pen
Hey Ruby,
Bodies
were found in Sedona, and given the shit going on, I want to make sure it wasn’t over a Ley line because then we could all be fucked. (I’m not familiar enough with exactly where the lines run.)
Thanks,
Callie
Not the most eloquently worded letter, but it gets the job done. I go to the fireplace, using magic to send the letter to Ruby’s office. She’s probably teaching a class right now and won’t see it for a while. I have no idea if she goes into her office between classes or what her schedule is like today.
“It doesn’t specify in here.” Lucas closes the book.
“I didn’t think so. I should get some books from the Academy and make my own entry, you know, whenever I have time.”
“This week,” Lucas tells me. “Do it this week.”
I get what he’s implying, and I don’t disagree. We’ve been trying hard to take it easy, to put the demon hunting on the backburner until Elena is born. “Okay,” I tell him with a smile. “I will, and taking the rest of the week off sounds really nice.” I close my eyes as I exhale. “I want a quiet day, that’s for sure, but I also can’t sit idly by. We know the demons are planning something, and whoever is going to try and take over is going to do something really drastic. I don’t want Elena born into a world filled with demons and darkness.”
“It would be really fucking nice if your uncle took the throne back,” he spits ruefully, and I see the conflict in Lucas’s eyes. For the last sixteen hundred years, he’s lived for himself and for himself alone. Eliza’s been part of his afterlife for three hundred years, which is still a short amount of time when you compare it to the thirteen hundred years he roamed the world without her. Vampires are selfish by nature, and Lucas was no exception to that. He’s told me before I should do what best suits me, even if it means putting someone else at risk.
Which isn’t something I can do. It’s not who I am, and Lucas has said time and time again he loves every part of me. The good, the bad, and the petty and impulsive. It makes sense to me, now that I know who my father is, why I am the way I am. Michael is God’s fiercest warrior. He’s the defender of the innocent, the one sent to save people’s souls. Physically, I might look like my mother, but I think I take after my father in many more ways.
Reign of Night (The Thorne Hill Series Book 7) Page 19