Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
brIANNA
N o.
No. No. No.
This can’t be happening.
How am I back in my bedroom?
Why is the door locked from the outside?
Why is no one responding when I pound on it and scream?
The window is sealed shut. Throwing things into the glass with all my ability, swinging a chair at it, confirms what I already suspected. It’s shatterproof.
I’m stuck.
Without Declan.
Alone.
I don’t even remember how I got home, let alone how I managed to get locked in my room. What happened to Declan? He wouldn’t just abandon me.
I hear a key rattling in the door’s lock, and I look around for anything I could arm myself with, anything I could use to get out of here. I grab a letter opener from the desk and conceal it in my back pocket, beneath the hem of my shirt. The cool metal grazes my back as I also grasp the chair, ready to use it as a weapon if I need it.
The most logical thing I consider is my father’s locked me away because he found out I helped his shifters escape.
I keep my eyes on the door while I try and think back to what happened. I was in the hospital room with Declan and Pru… and then nothing. Why don’t I remember anything?
All I’ve had to eat or drink since that bath with the potion to wipe away spells was the tea Syrena made, and the vitamins that nurse gave me. Syrena certainly would have the magic, the ability to drug me, but what purpose would that solve? If the intention was to imprison me, wouldn’t it have been easier to just lock me in the basement with Declan? Why let us escape? Why let us think we were free?
God, is Declan back too?
“Oh good, you’re awake.” The nurse from the hospital smiles at me, looking sinister and bored at the same time. “Grey was worried you would have your mate’s tourmaline on you somewhere, but he let me try the dragon’s fire. So glad it worked. Put the chair down, have a seat, so we can talk.”
I drop the chair down to the floor and stare at her, confused as to why I would follow her orders so easily. I will myself to stay standing even though my body is demanding I sit down. I fight it hard.
“Where’s Declan?” I ask through clenched teeth.
“Sit.”
It’s like I don’t have any control over my own body. Like I’m a fucking puppet.
This is so much worse than just being followed and always monitored by my father.
“You are an asset, Brianna. I imagine we’ll be able to give you some concessions, once you’ve proved your worth.” She tugs my chair around so that I’m facing the bed before she takes a seat at the foot of the mattress. “Do let me know if you need anything specific to feel comfortable. I think we’ve done an excellent job of recreating your room at home, but if you need anything else, I’ll determine if it’s something we can get you. Of course, we’ve removed anything sharp, and made sure you wouldn’t be able to hurt yourself by breaking any of the glass. You and your baby are far too important to the cause.”
My baby? Fucking fuck. That’s why I’m here? That’s what he wants? I’m going to be held here for months? Maybe more, if they need me to raise it. I can’t be gone from Declan for months!
“Grey will expect you to join him for dinner tonight. I’ll choose a dress for you, and you’ll be ready by seven.” She gets up, walks to the closet, and comes out a moment later with a dress so similar to the one I picked out the first night my father made me meet the Lees, it feels like a dark omen.
“Peter liked you in this one, and since he’ll be the one raising your little dragon spawn, I think we should make him happy, don’t you?” She grins. “Wouldn’t want the adoptive father to get hungry one night.”
No, no, no. This can’t be happening. I need to get back to Declan. What if Declan thinks I betrayed him? I close my eyes and try to send my thoughts out to him, but before I even remotely get a message out, I stop myself from contacting him.
It's the same feeling I had when she made me sit. Like there’s something worming its way into my autonomy and keeping me from doing what I need to do to get to safety.
I’ve never felt so alone and trapped, and that’s after two decades with my father.
The nurse stands up and pulls the comforter on the bed down like she’s preparing it for me. “Now, lay down and rest until you need to get ready. You’re going to need a lot of it while your baby grows.”
Without a word, without even the ability to complain, I stand up and move to the place where she’s peeled back the covers and crawl onto the bed and lay down, closing my eyes like a nap is my idea, not some thought this monster is putting into my head.
Tears stream down my temples even as I drift off to sleep.
I wake with a start, as if an alarm is going off inside of me. It’s time to get ready for dinner with Peter. Declan was right. There was a vampire in my house.
I get up and walk to the bathroom, intent on taking a shower, on getting ready for dinner, before I fully register what I’m doing. I’m a marionette now while the puppet master controls me. I have no power.
Stripping out of my clothes feels jerky, unnatural, and I’m having a harder time moving around. My body is stiff. My hips and back ache like I’ve done a hard work out or something. Clothes drop haphazardly to the ground. I bend down to take off my socks, but I can’t seem to bend over enough. I stand erect and catch sight of myself in the mirror.
I gasp loudly, the sound echoing against the sterile while bathroom tiles.
I haven’t spent a lot of time around pregnant women or reading up on what to expect, so I don’t exactly know the major milestones and how they’re supposed to happen or look, but I’m pretty sure going from a mostly flat belly before a nap to having a fairly pronounced bump is far from normal.
I want to stare at myself, to try to make sense of this, but before I can, I’m in the shower, washing my hair, going through motions of showering like I’m on autopilot. I touch my rounded belly as often as I can manage trying to discern if it’s real or if I’m having a nightmare. How I could possibly be this far along already? How long was I asleep? I’ve only known Declan for a little while, certainly not long enough for a baby bump to be showing, but it’s not like I was with anyone before him. It’s not like this is a human pregnancy. The baby is half dragon shifter. Maybe they move faster? It didn’t sound that way from everything Pru and Declan were saying. Ash’s wife went to nearly ten months before she had their first child.
Which means there is something magical going on. They’re magically screwing with me and my baby. Fury sinks into my gut as my body keeps moving around like everything is normal.
I finish showering, blow dry and style my hair, and put on the dress the nurse picked out for me. Now, it makes sense why the dress looked so similar, but not quite the same. It’s made to fit my expanding belly.
It’s just seven o’clock when I hear the key unlocking the door again.
“Follow me in silence. Don’t touch anything, don’t try to veer off course, and don’t try anything funny.”
I open my mouth to protest, but predictably nothing comes out and my body does just as she ordered.
Like I’m under fucking vampire thrall. Or so I imagined what it would be like based on what Declan described to me.
My jaw feels wired shut as I try to open my mouth. The nurse glances back at me and rolls her eyes. “Oh, what is it, girl?”
“Are you a vampire?” I say in a rush, like the door opened in my mind just enough for me to speak.
The nurse doesn’t answer, and I’m beginning to come up with an even longer list of questions I want to ask. Like if she’s even a nurse at all.
What were those pills I took? Is that why I’m following along like a lost little puppy? Is this how they got the shifters into cages in the first place?
Did Declan feel like this?
I need to get back to him.
I decide to use my eyes since she didn’t tell me where to look. I take in my surroundings. It’s a lot like my father’s place. Immaculately kept. Sterile. Nothing that looks like anyone truly lives there but meant to be admired with all the expensive material items lining the halls and situated in each room. It’s like a museum display case. It looks like it could be used, but no one is to touch anything or actually sit on anything.
“I see you’ve made it safely. Please, sit.” A man I’ve never met gestures at a chair, and the nurse pulls it out for me to follow the command.
I’m feeling more and more like a dog by the second.
Sit. Stay. Lay down. What’s next? Roll over? Shake? I can only hope for a command like “attack”.
“That’s enough, Donna. You can go back to the training center until I need you.”
The nurse walks out of the room, and for the first time I wonder if he has control of her too.
The man doesn’t look familiar. He’s tall, I suppose, but compared to Declan, he doesn’t seem like it. He’s dressed well, in Armani, if I know my designers…which I don’t really, but my father wears a lot of Armani, this man’s suit looks similar. He has dark hair and dark eyes to match his possibly Italian descent complexion. “I do apologize for the methods used to bring you here. After my discussion with your dragon, I didn’t expect you would come willingly.” He smiles at me, sharp fangs glinting in the candlelight.
He is definitely a vampire.
“You must be Grey.” I’m glad to see the flicker of surprise in his dark steel gray eyes. “I don’t know why you think I’m going to be any more amenable to your bullshit than Declan.” I reach for the knife next to my plate, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t move my arms.
“There’s no use in fighting me, Brianna. And really, you are in no danger. At least not in your current condition.” He smiles as his eyes drop to my belly. “Besides, there’s nothing you could do with a steak knife to hurt me. Or has your mate not disclosed how to kill a vampire yet?”
I put my hands on my stomach to try and protect my baby from him in the only way I feel possible at the moment. Surprisingly, I’m able to do it. “What do you want from me? From my baby?”
“Exactly that. Your baby.” He grins. “I see the pills Tabitha whipped up are doing exactly as I hoped.” He points at another dose sitting on my plate. “Be a good girl and take your medicine.”
I fight it— the pull in my mind to do just as he says—but it’s useless. Even though I can see my hand struggling to follow the command, his command is stronger than my own will, in my own body. I pick up my water glass in one hand, and the pill in the other. After I swallow it, I ask bitterly, “Just one this time?”
“We can’t have you progressing too quickly. The first two were to get you past what I understand to be the hardest parts of pregnancy. Now just one month’s progress a day. I want you both to remain healthy. He’ll need his mother. At least for a little while.”
At that moment, Peter walks in from across the room. He looks even more like a snake than I remember. He’s dressed similarly to Grey, in a brown suit, his hair slicked back, and his charming smile right in place. I want to smack it off him. He takes a seat next to me like I invited him. He takes my hand, presses his slimy lips on the back of it, and smiles at me, showing his teeth like a wolf bearing theirs. “We’ll keep you around for a year or so, get him to a place where he’s able to eat more solid foods, do things on his own, and then we’ll have a tragic accident. The world will mourn, and I’ll be the stoic single father, doing everything I can for our baby.” He leans in and kisses my cheek. “I’m sure you’ll be delicious when I drain you dry.”
I’m frozen in utter terror. I can’t yank my hand away from him, I can’t smack him, I can’t take the knife and ram into his smug, glinting eyeball.
There’s a flutter in my stomach and I think I’m going to be sick, until I feel it again and again. I gasp and my hand shoots up to follow the small little kicks coming from inside of me. They’re alive in there. The sting of tears and the relief flooding me makes it difficult to keep my emotions to myself, but I suck in a deep breath and push everything down.
Grey chortles at my reaction, thinking I’m reacting in fear to Peter’s threat and not awed by my own baby kicking me for the first time. “Now, now, Peter, we don’t have to kill her. If we can convince her dragon to return to a cell, we could raise several little dragon babies. We could have a whole clan, loyal to our cause.” Grey snaps his fingers, and two people come out carrying trays.
One has a plate full of food.
The other holds two goblets of deep red, thick liquid.
I can’t do this. I can’t even pretend I’m okay with this.
“Where’s my father? My brother? What have you done with our staff?” These are the least of my worries, really, but I can’t ask real questions. And I can’t leave, I can’t move. I know I’m not really at home, but I need them to carry on around me. I need them to think I’m complying and acting like a poor, meek woman.
“They’re at your home in D.C.” Grey smirks as he picks up his goblet. “You didn’t really think I’d bring you home, did you?”
“Where are we?” I ask glancing around.
The only thing that could possibly be worse would be if Declan thinks I purposely left him.