Three
“Okay, what was so important?” Brittany asked. She was exhausted, her stomach still hurt, and a giant pit of worry had lodged itself in her chest like indigestion that no Mylanta could cure.
Ethan had ushered her into his apartment and now he was pacing back and forth in front of the patio door. Alexis was biting her nail from her seat in a plaid easy chair.
“I want you to know that you are not the first.”
“The first what?” Woman to get knocked up from a one-night stand? Of course she wasn’t. That number could probably fill the UNLV stadium.
“The first to have a three-quarter vampire child. There was one before, that I know of. It was kept quiet, but I had personal knowledge of the situation.”
Uh-oh. This could get dicey. While her sister knew her husband had a past—a very long one—Brittany still didn’t think it was going to thrill Alexis to hear that Ethan had had a child with a mortal woman.
“Was the baby okay?” Regardless of Alexis’s feelings, she had to know.
“The baby was fine and was kept hidden from her father. I do not believe he has knowledge of her existence to this day.”
“You’re not the father?” Brittany asked in confusion.
Ethan looked startled. “No. Why would you think that?”
“Can we just start at the beginning, please?” Alexis asked. “Before I get pissed off that you’ve kept yet something else from me.”
“Alexis,” Ethan said with a look of forbearance. “I have nine hundred years of existence to account for. There hasn’t been time to tell you everything that’s happened to me, let alone to other people I’ve known.”
Brittany felt guilty. “Don’t fight, you guys, this is all my fault. I’m causing problems for everyone.” She felt close to tears again.
“This isn’t fighting,” Alexis said. “This is our form of communication. I get ticked, Ethan gets exasperated, we gripe at each other, then have sex. It works for us.”
Well, that was too much information about her sister’s marriage.
“Any way,” Brittany said. “So who was the mother and what happened?”
“The mother is my sister, Gwenna.”
Brittany had met Gwenna only once, at Ethan and Alexis’s wedding, and she had popped in, vampire style, said nothing to anyone, then left again. She had looked pale and fragile, and was a full vampire, not an Impure like Brittany was.
“I don’t understand. Gwenna is a vampire, right?”
“Yes. I turned her when she bled to death after giving birth to her daughter. This was the eleventh century, you know, and childbirth was a risky, nasty business.”
“I don’t think this is the beginning,” Alexis complained. “I had no clue Gwenna was an Impure. How was that possible if you weren’t an Impure?”
Ethan’s face hardened. “My mother was raped when my father and I were away at war. Gwenna is seventeen years younger than me, and when I became a vampire and eventually came home, I realized that her biological father had been a vampire, because I could sense her vampire blood. Unfortunately, by that time my father was dead, as were all my other siblings. It was just Gwenna, who was seventeen, and my mother in our castle. I had some issues to the north I needed to resolve, and against my better judgment I left the two of them there, with several of my vampire friends to watch over them. At that time, these were friends I trusted, who had shown me the way of the vampire, and they were staying with me. They assured me they would oversee my mother and sister’s safety. By the time I returned ten months later, they were gone, one of them having betrayed me by seducing my innocent sister, who had just given birth to his child the day before. She bled to death moments before I arrived, and I found my mother with her body. My mother, who had buried everyone she had ever loved, and who assumed I was dead up north, given certain erroneous reports my betrayer had fed to her.”
Ethan had been a warrior, Brittany knew that. But the way he stood now, fists clenched, jaw tight, she realized it wouldn’t take much to strip away the civilized veneer of the British politician and discover that man inside him, who had fought for the safety of his family with his bare hands. It was a little intimidating at the same time it was comforting. Even if Corbin bolted, Ethan had her back because he considered her his sister now.
“So you turned Gwenna?” she asked carefully, her heart filled with compassion for him.
“Yes. I brought her back, though she was never the same as she’d been before. She was quiet, reserved, frightened. But she loved her daughter, and it was very worth it to me. My niece was born healthy and remained so.”
Brittany sensed there was more to the story, but Ethan wasn’t going to divulge it. It had obviously cost him a lot to talk about his mother and sister, and Brittany felt for him, for his pain, for his very long past and all that heartache. Squeezing his hand, she said, “Thanks for telling me, Ethan. That makes me feel better. Is there anything I should know… was the baby normal? No fangs or anything?”
“No fangs. Completely normal, and she was very strong and athletic. Tough both in body and character. She wound up becoming a warrior.” Ethan smiled and glanced over at Alexis. “A bit like your sister, in fact.”
“So I should plan on being a soccer mom then.” It sounded so much better when she thought in normal, everyday terms. She would have an athletic, aggressive child. She could deal with that. After all, she’d lived with Alex for twenty years. “I really appreciate you telling me this, Ethan.”
“You’re welcome.” He kissed the top of her head in a brotherly fashion that pleased her. “Everything will be fine, Brit.”
“Thanks. Alright, I’m going to head home. Corbin is coming over to discuss ‘ze situation,’” she said in an attempt at his French accent.
She blew them both a kiss. “Love you. Talk to you later.”
Alexis looked at Ethan with a hearty dose of suspicion after her sister had left the apartment. Swinging her legs over the arm of the chair, she narrowed her eyes. “Alright, Carrick, what did you leave out of that story?”
“Some details.” Ethan had his back to her, closing the blinds to the patio door.
“What details?” Alexis didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Tell me the truth or I will seriously kick your ass. Who was the father of Gwenna’s baby?”
Ethan’s fist tightened on the blind cord and his jaw clenched. “Donatelli.”
“What? I thought they got married like three hundred years later.” Alexis was surprised. The way Ethan had made it sound, Gwenna had been seduced and abandoned, not lived happily almost ever after with the guy.
“They did get married in the fifteenth century, four hundred years after their original relationship. Gwenna was reclusive and I shunned Donatelli after his betrayal. He didn’t even know she had been turned, and I admit, when they crossed paths inadvertently on a trip we took to Italy, I was surprised he even remembered her. Most womanizers don’t recall all their conquests, especially not after so many years. But not only did he remember, he claimed that he, too, had been betrayed, that he had been forced to leave her, and that he had returned to search for her the following year, only to hear that she had died. Thank God the villagers had been told she died of a fever, because we didn’t want anyone to know about the baby, at Gwenna’s request. She was ashamed of her actions. But I blamed Donatelli, not her. I still do. He should have known better. And I blame myself for leaving in the first place. But when they met again, Donatelli fed Gwenna lie after lie, and she fell for it, sneaking around with him without my knowledge, and after a few months she up and married the bastard. It took her three hundred years to gather the courage to divorce the sorry sot.”
“Oh, yikes. It’s bad enough we all make mistakes with our first shot at love, but three hundred years?” The very thought of being stuck to her high school boyfriend, Bart Winslow, and his fart jokes, for all eternity made Alexis shudder. “Gwenna must be terrified to date.” And she felt a little guilty for not reaching out to her sister-in-law more. Stuck in that nasty old castle in England, beating herself up for picking a crappy guy—like who hasn’t?—with no one to talk to… Gwenna needed some girlfriends to hang with. Vampire girlfriends like herself and Kelsey. And Cara, if she ever came back from Seamus’s farm in Ireland.
“Maybe you should invite Gwenna to visit us. Or maybe we could go visit her.”
“That’s a thoughtful idea.” Ethan looked surprised.
What? She couldn’t be thoughtful without shocking people? Asshole. “I’m not a total bitch. I would like to get to know your sister better.”
“We can’t go over there until after the election, and I doubt she would visit. Coming here for the wedding was difficult for her.”
“I can’t believe the election got bumped back to February just because Donatelli dropped out. I think they should just give it to you.” Alexis still couldn’t believe Donatelli had just agreed to resign his campaign for the presidency. Granted, Ethan and Seamus had promised to kill him if he didn’t drop out, but Alexis would have thought Donatelli would weasel around them somehow. Or at least try to. So far, he’d kept his distance, though.
“In all fairness, the other party needs time to choose another candidate and then campaign.”
Alexis understood. She was all about fairness, being a prosecutor. When it worked in her favor. Or her husband’s. But she was tired of the endless banquets and cheesy speeches. Most nights when she wasn’t doing consulting work—daysleeping had killed her prosecutor’s career—Ethan expected her to paste on a smile and a dowdy suit and play Laura to his George. But the problem was, Laura Bush was a nice woman, and Alexis wasn’t. It taxed her patience to be pleasant to people she didn’t like.
“Well, I still think it sucks. And what’s up with you having to basically be nominated again?”
“In light of recent circumstances, it seemed wise to take another primary vote and ensure I am still the candidate with the most popular party vote.”
He was so good at talking political BS. “I’m sure you are. And by the way, what happened to Gwenna’s daughter? I got the feeling you were keeping something from Brittany.”
Ethan turned away from her—one of his lie tells—and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s probably irrelevant to Brittany’s situation.”
“What is?”
“That my niece went insane in her twenties and killed herself.”
“Do you know who Brittany’s father is?” Corbin asked Carrick, having cornered him in the casino several hours later. He had made sure Brittany was home, safely tucked in her apartment, and Ethan’s wife was swimming laps in the casino’s indoor pool, so they would not be interrupted.
Carrick looked at him sharply, before glancing back out over the casino floor. They were seated at a table in the casino’s five-star restaurant, on a balcony that jutted out slightly into the action of the floor, yet kept them above the noise. They had drinks in front of them, since a vampire could digest liquids but not solids, and a serving staff that knew to leave the owner of the establishment alone.
“Why?” Ethan asked.
“Because it would be beneficial to know if he has a particular recessive gene I have run across in both mortals and vampires.”
“So what if he does?”
Corbin tried not to feel frustrated. He realized Ethan was trying to protect Brittany, but Corbin didn’t think he could explain one hundred years of research in genetics to Ethan. “It’s complicated, but you know that vampires carry a virus for vampirism that is transmitted through saliva and blood, yes? Well, that virus lies dormant until a person is drained of blood. The virus is activated, the person feels the urge to replenish their damaged blood cells by drinking blood, and the change is complete. The question in my research has been if I can inhibit the virus even after a body has been drained, even after years of living as a vampire, and reverse its effects. In essence, return a vampire to mortality, with a dormant vampire virus. I believe the answer is yes.”
“Okay. This is shaky territory, Atelier. You know as well as I do this sort of knowledge could split the Nation into two camps. As it is, there are plenty of Impures clamoring for vampire population growth.”
“I know. And what none of them understand is that they are the very key to true vampire procreation because, statistically, a large number of them have the gene from their mother. Vampires can only mate and create a child if they or the mortal woman has the recessive gene I mentioned. Vampires without it who copulate with mortal women without it will never create a child. But what happens when a half-breed Impure, like Brittany, mates with a vampire? I have the gene, and Brittany got it from her mother. I have the active virus, Brittany has the dormant virus. If Brittany has the gene from her vampire father as well, our child gets essentially a double dose of the virus and one whole reproductive gene.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Corbin looked out at the flashing lights of the casino, thoughts troubled, self-recrimination great. He had known the facts, but he hadn’t done anything about them. He had been focused on the creation of a drug to inhibit the virus, not on reproduction. “It means that our child will be born immortal, with no need to feed on blood. Essentially, a superbaby.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Bloody hell.”
“This cannot be found out. No one can know this, or my child will be in danger, Carrick. Those who want growth, like Donatelli, they’ll want this baby. They’ll want to understand how to re-create him, how to generate a superrace, if you will, and that I cannot allow.” Corbin shifted, uneasy, angry. “You know how Brittany is, what a wonderful woman she is. This child has every chance, and every right, to have a normal life with her as his mother. That is what I want, that is what Brittany and our baby deserve, and I cannot let anyone hurt either of them.”
“You have my complete support, Atelier. I don’t want Brittany or the baby hurt, either. But I don’t know who Brittany’s father is. Only her mother knew that, and she’s been dead for fifteen years. I’m not even sure the vampire who slept with her knew there was a child. If he did, there is no evidence of it.”
“I have a DNA database of about twenty percent of known vampires. I can run Brittany through it and see if we can find a genetic match.” He would have to secure a sample from her. The night he had drawn her blood, the night they had conceived their child, he had actually left without taking the vial filled with her sample off her dresser. The whole reason for entering her apartment had been to ask her for a donation, and he had just left the blood sitting there. Utterly ridiculous.
“You have a DNA database? How the hell did you do that? Do you have my DNA?” Ethan looked outraged.
“Yes.” Corbin shrugged, feeling just a little sheepish. “It’s not difficult to collect, you know. A stray hair here or there, a glass left sitting there with saliva, skin, blood… ” He trailed off at Carrick’s expression.
“That is just wrong, Atelier. That’s stealing.”
“It is not. If you leave your DNA lying about, it becomes public property.” He wasn’t going to apologize for it. He wasn’t a criminal or an evil scientist. He was conducting his research to give vampires choices . “The point is, I know who has the gene and who doesn’t.”
Ethan shook his head, leaned forward onto the table. “But what you don’t know is that nine hundred years ago my sister gave birth to a child, just like yours will be. My sister was an Impure, though I don’t know who her father was. I do know, however, who the vampire father of her child was. And I do know that my niece gave every appearance of good health, and no sign of ever needing blood.”
Corbin stared at Carrick, disbelieving him. “There was a child? Who was the father?” He knew Carrick’s sister had been married to Donatelli, who was interested in vampire population growth, and who had been Carrick’s presidential opponent until he had suddenly dropped out of the race. But their marriage had been recent, only a few hundred years ago, he thought, not nine hundred.
“It doesn’t matter who he was, because he didn’t know about the child, and I know he’s no longer active in the Nation. I told you to reassure you about the baby, but I respect my sister’s privacy.”
“I understand. Thank you for sharing what you have.” It did reassure him, though he’d been certain his baby wouldn’t need blood once he had thought through the biological repercussions.
“What happened to your niece? Did she have a normal life span?”
Ethan shook his head. “I’m sorry to say that my niece took her own life as a young woman. She did it thoroughly, through decapitation.”
Corbin immediately regretted the question. “Good God, I am sorry, Carrick.”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah, me, too. So how many vampires have this gene?”
“Of the twenty percent of known vampires I have tested, only ten percent have the gene. So allowing for a margin of error, I would suggest between one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty vampires out of our population of ten thousand. Each of those men are capable of producing innumerable offspring with women who carry the gene. I am one of them. You are not.”
Carrick sank back in his chair, exhaling quickly. “Well, that’s a relief. It’s good to know I didn’t scatter a bunch of kids around over the centuries and not know I was the culprit.”
Corbin winced. “Reassuring for you.”
“Sorry.” Carrick made a face.
“Zat is all right. I am certain Brittany is the first woman to carry my child.” Because generally speaking, Corbin wasn’t intimate with women. He approached women, he charmed and flirted, he coaxed them into pleasure glamours and took their blood for research, but he did not seduce them wholly. Until Brittany.
“So what do you need me to do? How do we protect Brittany and the baby?”
This was the hard part, the dilemma that Corbin had turned around and around in his head because he didn’t like it. But it was necessary and he knew it.
“No one can know the father of Brittany’s baby is a vampire. Everyone must be led to believe she is having a baby with a mortal man, who has no interest in her or the child. Then the child is just a quarter of diluted vampire genetics, and nothing special. No one will care. Then later on, when I marry Brittany, the assumption will be that I am the stepfather, that we have fallen in love the normal way despite her carrying another man’s child, and that I will adopt her baby. That way I am physically present in their lives to protect them both.”
The thought that no one would know that she was having his child, his flesh and blood, really bothered him, but Corbin didn’t see that he had a choice.
Carrick’s eyebrow shot up. “Atelier… what the hell makes you think Brittany will agree to marry you just for protection?”
Well, he wasn’t, but surely she would see the logic in it. “She will want what is best for the child.”
“Is it really necessary? It seems a little drastic.”
“Yes, it’s necessary.” He was certain of it. “Do you know what they will do if they get ahold of this information? There are those who would raise this baby in a lab, testing its abilities, pushing the limits to see what he or she is capable of. The logical conclusions of this scientifically are that my child can lead a skilled team of scientists to the creation of a superrace, either through forced breeding or via cloning.”
Carrick’s face reflected the horror Corbin felt. “Oh, my God, this makes my head spin. It’s a scientific nightmare.”
“Zat is the double-edged sword, Carrick. In discovering how to reverse vampirism, I have also unearthed the means to propagate it.” Corbin swished the liquid in his glass. “Now after tonight, I must stay away from Brittany. No one must have reason to suspect that I am the baby’s father.”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to frighten her. You will watch over her, yes? Keep her safe while I keep my distance?”
“Of course.”
Corbin trusted Carrick and his crew of vampire security guards to protect Brittany, though he would have preferred to be with her himself. But he was convinced this was the best way to keep her safe and blissfully unaware of the potentially horrific consequences if anyone knew the real situation. “Then I would prefer she not know the dangers. She’ll only worry.”
Carrick shook his head. “Women don’t like that, Atelier… it will turn around and bite you in the ass later. Besides, how do you know Brittany won’t run around telling everyone you’re the father?”
“She won’t.”
Because Corbin had a plan.
Ringo had a plan and it involved Kelsey cooperating with him. He pulled her onto his lap and gave her a smile.
She tried to shift away from him. “I’ll crush you! You’re still not healthy yet.”
He rolled his eyes. “Kels, you weigh like ten pounds. If your bony ass can crush me, I deserve to die.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Her lip quivered. “I don’t want you to die.”
“I’m not going to die.” Ever. He still had trouble adjusting to his vampire status, the knowledge that he was around for the long haul, but there was no doubt about it. It would take a lot to snuff him out.
“And is my butt really bony? Is it gross?” Perched on the couch next to him, she felt up her ass, patting and rubbing the seat of her extremely tight jeans.
Ringo felt a hard-on stir to life. “Not at all, baby. But stand up, let me check it out.”
Kelsey did, sticking her very tight booty just inches from his face. She peered back over her shoulder, clearly worried, hands still gliding around down there. Damn, she was so clueless, and yet she made him so hot.
“Very nice.” Ringo put his hands over hers and squeezed her firm flesh. Her eyes widened in sudden understanding.
“You did that on purpose,” she said, frowning at him even as she bent her knees slightly and rocked against his grip.
“Yep.” Ringo bit her ass, letting his fangs puncture the denim and nip at her skin.
“Ouch!” She swatted at him with her pale hand and tried to wiggle away. “Stop it, that hurts.”
“Then take your jeans off, let me have a real taste of you.” He tugged her back so she landed in his lap, right on his boner. “Can’t you feel that? I want you. I’m in pain.”
She sighed, one of pleasure, yet regret. “I feel it. But not in here. The guard is right outside the door.”
“So?” He thrust upward, and spread her knees with his hands. It amazed even him how much he really did want her. She was annoying, unpredictable, treated him like a problem child, and really did have a bony ass. Yet she was the only person whose company he could actually stand, and when he looked at her, he felt intense, biting desire, and the urgent need to protect her. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, or what it meant, but the sexual urges he knew how to act on, if she would just let him. “Who cares if the guard is in the hallway?”
She rubbed her butt against his erection. “I would be embarrassed if he heard us.”
Said the woman who had gone down on him the first night they had met. Ringo was resigned to the fact that Kelsey’s logic was never going to be clear to him. He would just use her reluctance in his favor. “Then let’s go away somewhere together. Like a romantic weekend. No one around but you and me.”
“You’re still on house arrest. You can’t leave Vegas.”
Ringo supposed an apology for trying to assassinate the vampire president wasn’t going to impress Kelsey or the tribunal. Not that he was interested in groveling, but he did resent having his freedom clipped. That’s why he had a better plan. “Oh, come on, just a little weekend away. You know me. I’m not going to do anything. I just need to get out of this casino. I don’t even need to leave Vegas. I just feel like I’m suffocating here, stuck inside all the time.” He kissed her shoulder, brushing her long dark hair out of the way. “Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you care about my mental health? Don’t you want to make love to me somewhere private?”
Her eyes lit up as she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I know, let’s get married, Ringo, and get one of those really sexy romantic honeymoon suites with a whirlpool.”
Married? Jesus, how had she pulled that out of her bony ass? While he had interesting emotions regarding Kelsey, the thought of marriage made him want to hurl up his blood breakfast.
“Okay,” he said. Opportunity pops up, you take it. That was his philosophy.
“Really?” She spun all the way around. “You mean it?” Her arms came around his neck and she kissed him eagerly. “That’s so cool.”
“Way cool,” he said, kissing her back, indulging in a little tongue. He needed the contact to reassure himself he wasn’t going to regret this dumb-ass move. “So pack a bag, baby, and let’s figure out how you can get the key to my ankle bracelet from the guard.”