Chapter 31 Luna
Chapter thirty-one
Luna
Paris awaited, but my body had other plans.
The morning of our departure began with me sprinting to the bathroom, barely making it before emptying what little remained in my stomach from the previous night’s dinner. I braced myself against the cool porcelain, waves of nausea rolling through me in merciless succession.
“Just stress,” I muttered to myself, running cold water to splash on my face. “Perfectly normal pre-Paris-vampire jitters.”
A knock on my upstairs apartment door interrupted my self-assessment.
“Luna? We leave in thirty minutes,” Damien said, his deep voice carrying through my front door.
“I’ll be ready,” I called back, wincing as another wave of nausea threatened to send me diving for the toilet again. “Just…finishing up.”
A pause. “Are you unwell?”
Damn vampire hearing.
“I’m fine,” I insisted, straightening and taking a deep breath. “See you downstairs.”
His hesitation was almost palpable before his retreating footsteps indicated he’d accepted my dismissal. I exhaled slowly, willing my rebellious stomach to settle. We had a plane to catch and ancient catacombs to raid. Morning sickness would need to take a number and wait its turn.
Wait.
Morning sickness?
The phrase echoed in my mind, triggering an avalanche of sudden realizations. I gripped the sink’s edge as the implications crashed over me. No. Impossible. The timing, the symptoms…but surely it wasn’t…
A swift calculation of dates made my heart race. That time three weeks ago after escaping the Wolf Queen Crypt. The adrenaline, the relief of survival, the unexpected intensity between us…
“No,” I whispered to my reflection in the mirror. “No, no, no.”
Vampires couldn’t reproduce biologically. Everyone knew this. Their undead state made conception impossible. This had to be stress, or something I caught in the jungle, or both.
Still, I couldn’t shake the suspicion now lodged in my mind. During my pregnancy with Aria, the first sign had been identical—violent morning sickness that arrived suddenly and without mercy.
“Not now,” I muttered, straightening my shoulders and forcing composure. “Deal with Paris first. Confirm or deny impossible pregnancy later.”
Yet I needed to know, right then, how far into the shit I’d stepped. I sent a quick text to Felix:
Meet me in your lab in 2?
I arrived there first and reclined on an examination bed while focusing on my breathing. When Felix arrived, he looked at me in confusion.
“I thought you were leav—“
“Do a blood test on me. Or make me pee on a stick. Whatever’s fastest and the most discreet.”
His jaw dropped comically low, and if this had been anywhere close to comical, I would have for sure laughed.
He decided on a blood test. While he pricked my arm, Damien’s deep voice drifted in through the door from the hallway.
“Well, now I don’t know where she is, but we’re on our way,” he was saying.
Curiosity—my first sin and one of my favorites—prompted me to close my eyes and focus on filtering out Felix’s mumbling and the ambient hum of medical equipment to catch fragments of Damien’s conversation in the hallway.
“Yes, I’m aware.” Damien’s voice was low, controlled, but with an undercurrent of tension. “The situation is complicated, Elliot. There are other factors to consider.”
A pause as he listened.
“Yes, I understand the stakes. Paris will proceed as planned. Vivienne has secured our access to the catacombs.”
Another pause, this one longer.
“I don’t know, all right?” Damien hissed, his voice sharper, deadlier. “All I know is that we can’t get the engagement ring off Luna’s finger and I’m scheduled to marry Vivienne in a month.”
I blinked. Blinked again. The words, like tiny glass shards, embedded themselves in my chest, one by one. The ring—his fae family’s ancient heirloom—seemed to tighten around my finger in a cruel mockery of what it represented.
“A month,” I repeated, the words hollow and distant like they were coming from someone else’s mouth.
My vision blurred. I gasped, desperately needing air that wasn’t filled with his betrayal.
Vivienne was his fiancée?
Felix turned from his perch on his stool with the vial of my blood between his fingers, his face grim and pale. “Luna…”
That right there told me everything I needed to know. I faced the ceiling, my tears streaming faster.
What was I supposed to do now?
“There’s something else about your…condition,” Felix said.
The door blurred open, and there stood Damien, filling the doorframe with his imposing presence. His eyes narrowed as they took in the scene, assessing every detail with his usual intensity.
“What condition?” he asked, and then his gaze landed on me.
I quickly looked away, but not before I glimpsed the awful truth dawning on his face—the fact that I’d heard him. Every word.
Felix glanced between us with the alarmed expression of someone unexpectedly caught in the crossfire. “Perhaps I should give you two a moment—“
“Stay,” Damien and I commanded simultaneously, neither willing to lose our only witness and the bearer of more bad news.
“Felix, what condition?” Damien asked again, his tone clear that he wouldn’t repeat himself a third time.
Felix glanced at me. I nodded because why the fuck not? It was about time someone around here told the truth.
“Your body is exhibiting hormonal changes consistent with early pregnancy,” Felix said, watching my reaction closely. “Approximately three weeks, based on preliminary assessment.”
Hearing the confirmation spoken aloud made the room spin.
“What?” Damien went perfectly still.
“That’s impossible,” I said automatically, the denial feeling hollow even to my own ears.
“That was my initial thought as well,” Felix said.
“Then your assessment is wrong,” Damien interjected, his voice tight.
Felix shook his head. “I’ve confirmed it three different ways, with both conventional and supernatural methods. Luna is pregnant. And given the timeline and circumstances, there’s only one possible…”
His gaze shifted uncomfortably between Damien and me.
I swallowed bitterly. “You said there was something else...”
“Um, well…” Felix cleared his throat and glanced at Damien.
I finally forced myself to look at the vampire too. He stood close now, his gaze aimed out the window, a mix of emotions wrestling beneath his features.
“The same illness that affects Aria and Jade,” I said flatly, beating Felix to the gut punch. “I started showing symptoms shortly before you hired me, Damien. The evidence is literally glowing and spreading on the underside of my feet.”
Damien whirled, his expression thunderous. “And you… You didn’t think this was relevant information to tell your partner in a dangerous expedition?”
Every word carried the weight of an accusation.
“Would you have hired me if you’d known?” I hissed with equal ire, hauling myself up to glare at him.
“That’s not the point—“
“It’s exactly the point,“ I interrupted, my blood flaring hot. “Our arrangement was mutually beneficial. Whether I have mossy feet or not, it didn’t affect my performance.”
“It could have gotten you killed in that jungle! Or you could have fallen into a magical coma at the worst possible moment!” He ran a hand through his dark hair and stalked the length of the room, shaking his head. “You risked your safety. Your life.”
“Our mission succeeded,” I snapped. “We got the first piece of the Shadow Fang. Objective achieved.”
“And now what?” Damien demanded, facing me again. “You’ll deteriorate as we search for the remaining pieces? Fall into a magical coma? Risk your life again and now…” He gestured helplessly toward my stomach. “You should have told me.”
“I don’t recall requesting your opinion on my life choices, Damien.
Besides, I’m not the one with two fiancées.
” My voice came out steadier than I felt, though it cracked on the final word.
“When were you going to tell me that? Certainly not before you fucked me to put a baby in me. Was I supposed to receive a wedding invitation? Maybe I could be a bridesmaid.”
Something dangerous flickered in his eyes, like a brief crimson flash. “You accuse me of omissions while concealing a potentially fatal illness? Your hypocrisy is remarkable.”
“At least my motivation is transparent,” I fired back. “Everything I do is to save my daughter and my best friend. What’s your real agenda, Damien? Get engaged to everyone you meet and find a way to knock up a few fiancées as well?”
Tension crackled between us like static electricity. Neither of us backed down.
Felix cleared his throat awkwardly. “Perhaps we should all take a calming breath and—“
“The Vampire Court told me of the arranged the marriage right after we landed in Panama City. Vivienne is my political fiancée,” Damien said abruptly.
“An arranged marriage made to solidify an alliance between our vampire houses. It’s a tradition among old vampires.
Vivienne’s lineage combined with mine strengthens both our positions in vampire society.
It has nothing to do with personal attachment. ”
“How romantic,” I said, unable to keep the edge from my voice.
Damien met my gaze. “Vivienne controls access to the older sections of the vampire catacombs beneath Paris. Her cooperation is necessary regardless of her connection to me.”
“Convenient.”
“Political,” he corrected. “Nothing about vampire politics is convenient, Luna. Vivienne supports our quest because it serves her house’s interests as well as mine. The Shadow Fang represents power—political and supernatural—beyond mere healing properties.”
“So while I’m focused on saving my family, you and your other fiancée are calculating how to leverage an ancient artifact for vampire political advantage. Charming.”
“My priority remains saving Elliot,” Damien said firmly. “The political ramifications are secondary but unavoidable in vampire society.”
“And where do I fit into these ‘ramifications’?” I asked. “Just the convenient baby-making vessel who happens to have the same illness I’m trying to cure?”
Something darkened in Damien’s eyes, and he closed the distance between us in a single fluid movement, his hand coming to rest on the examination table beside me. Not touching me, but close enough that I could feel the chill emanating from his skin.
“You,” he said, his voice dropping to nearly a whisper, “have never been a calculation. You’re the variable that has upended every equation I’ve balanced for centuries.”
I shook my head hard as if to rattle those words loose before they settled into my mind and grew roots.
“We have two paths before us, Luna,” he said. “Continue our quest for the Shadow Fang with heightened risks but greater urgency. Or—“
“There is no or,” I said firmly. “We continue.”
“Then we can leave in five minutes.”
With that, he left, his face carefully blank. Silence, thick and cloying, fell over the room.
“He should have told you,” Felix murmured, accurately reading my thoughts.
“About Vivienne?” I laughed bitterly. “Well, I probably should have told you about the moss that started to sprout on me weeks ago. Nobody’s perfect, I guess. I’m Sorry, Felix. I just…”
Thought if I ignored it that it would go away? That if I hadn’t fallen into a magical coma yet, then I wouldn’t at all? That one more damn thing in my life going to shit would break me, and I couldn’t fucking deal with any more?
I bit down hard on my back teeth to keep the sobs that wanted to tear free at bay. I didn’t have time for crying.
“For what it’s worth,” Felix offered gently, taking a step toward me, “I believe Damien’s intentions toward you have…evolved from his original plans. The way he looks at you isn’t how someone regards a mere means to an end.”
I huffed humorlessly and thought of him carrying me through the jungle, of his tender hands on my injured ankle, of the intensity in his eyes as our bodies moved together. Then I thought of his arranged marriage to Vivienne and the rest of his secrets that likely infused his every decision.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have a job to complete. Four more pieces to find. Personal complications are a luxury we can’t afford.”
Felix studied me with knowing eyes. “Nothing I say will change your mind at this point, will it? Not even the safety of yourself and the new life growing inside you?”
“You can save it, Felix.”
“Even if there’s a chance I could learn more about the moss and why it’s affecting you so much slower than Aria and Jade?”
“If you want, I’ll upload pics of my feet to Only Fans from Paris,” I said, my voice empty of my usual sarcasm.
“Only Fans? I don’t even know what that is,” he murmured.
No matter what, I had to go. The first piece of the Shadow Fang had required a wolf shifter.
How many shifters did Damien know who were insane enough to follow through with this quest and wouldn’t stab him in the back in the process?
Zero point five. That’s how many because half of me definitely wanted to stab Damien.
Paris awaited, along with Damien’s other fiancée and whatever secrets the ancient catacombs held. Whatever personal shit existed between Damien and me would have to wait.
I had no choice but to continue this quest if I wanted to save those I loved.
Including myself and my unborn child.