Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Emery
We didn’t even get the chance to get more than the first few elders down to safety. One second, I was being hustled along by a very stubborn Simeon who wouldn’t listen to a word I said about helping, and the next, the silver-skins simply overwhelmed us.
There were too many and they were too clever, using the female elders as a hostage threat to stop the gammas from fighting. The gammas didn’t stand a chance. “Stop!” I screamed as loud as I could the moment two took a shifted Simeon down, frightened they would slaughter them all.
Then everyone stilled as one walked toward me, glided almost, and judging from the way Simeon and Draven tried to fight even harder, I knew who I was looking at.
“I assume you’re Alessandro.” He had to have a good foot on me, but I was used to bullies, and he didn’t scare me. “I’m—”
“The alpha’s human pet,” he spat out. “I know who you are. I don’t need introductions. Where is he?” I ignored the insult and hid my surprise. This wasn’t a set-up. They were expecting Phoenix.
“He’s on patrol, but perhaps you’d like to come in for a coffee while we wait.” I calmly turned to go back to the pack house, but quicker than I could follow, he appeared in front of me.
“Either you tell me where my heir is, or I will kill every wolf here.”
I stopped. “Heir?” I repeated. “Wait, you mean Rhys? Your son?”
Another second, and he had his hand around my throat, cutting off my air.
Then he inhaled and let go just as Draven snarled and tried to shift, but the silver-skins were holding him by the neck, and I assumed if Draven tried to shift, they would snap it.
Two of the large silver-skins blurred, then appeared at either side of Alessandro. They both shook their heads.
“Interesting,” Alessandro drawled.
He turned and looked at Draven. Draven’s eyes glittered in fury, but Alessandro stared him down. “Tell your son he has one day and night to produce mine, or I will drain his mate.”
“Rhys isn’t here. I haven’t seen him,” I repeated.
Alessandro shrugged, then looked back at Draven. “A son for a son.” Then an arm came around my neck, and I felt a sharp sting under my ear.
I opened my eyes, blinked a few times, looked around the room, then huffed.
Really? What was this, Vampires R Us? Or maybe I’d hit my head and woken up in a certain four-book romance serial.
I was always #TeamEdward. A bedroom, no, bedchamber, was complete with four-poster bed, drapes on the stone walls, and a fireplace.
I sat up gingerly. At least I wasn’t chained, not that I was much of a threat.
I put my hand to my neck, but I couldn’t feel anything. Had they injected me with, no… well crap, had they bitten me? I looked at my hands. Skin was pink, so I hadn’t been more than a snack.
Then I remembered, and my hand flew to my belly and the slight curve I’d noticed. I’d give a lot right at this moment for a stethoscope, or, better still, an ultrasound.
“You both live.”
I nearly got whiplash with how fast my head came up and stared at Alessandro and the older vampire standing a little behind him.
“Both?” I hedged.
His smile was wicked. I wished I had a better word.
“Did you know the average human female’s blood volume increases by as much as forty-five percent, mostly during the last three months of pregnancy?
At this stage, male biology aside, you would be less, but as your pregnancy develops faster, you’re already at the twenty percent range. ”
I gaped. “How the hell do you know—”
“I can hear it.”
Which shut me up. I just stopped myself from saying eww. “Did you drug me?” I felt my neck again, worried that it might affect the baby.
“Only with a natural substance.” He opened his mouth to show me his own version of a hypodermic. “But no harm will come to your child until I choose so.”
I sighed. “I haven’t got Rhys.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I actually believe you, but the fact is, he’s still missing.”
“And how does taking me help you find him?”
His black eyes glittered, and I was struck by how different he was from his blue-eyed son. The other vampires I’d seen in the attack, plus the one who stood at his side, also had black eyes. Maybe it was because they’d lost their souls like Rhys had mentioned.
“Let’s just say it’s an added incentive.” He glanced at the vampire standing next to him. “Bring him food.” I wasn’t keen on either being presented with a glass of the red stuff—unless it was Merlot, of course, or maybe not at the moment—or anything raw enough, it was still mooing.
“If we’re going to help find Rhys, you’re going to have to give me something to work with.”
The other vamp scoffed. “The only assistance we need from you is in a prisoner transfer.”
I folded my arms and did my best teacher-glare at Alessandro. “So you don’t want to find him, then?”
“You just said you don’t have him. Did you lie?”
“No, but the thing is, neither does Phoenix. None of our pack does. The last time I saw him, I put a Band-Aid on his hand.”
Alessandro gazed at me without blinking, which was freaky as hell. Not that the bloodsuckers weren’t creepy already, but he had an extra yuck factor.
“What is a Band-Aid?”
“Like a small bandage. He was bleeding.”
Alessandro blinked. I was quite pleased with myself for getting a reaction.
“How had he injured himself?”
Or maybe not. I had a feeling saying he’d gotten it from my teeth wouldn’t go down well. “He might have scraped it on a tree. It wasn’t huge. I just didn’t want it to get infected. He was telling me he was having lessons, and well, I’m a teacher, so we had a shared bonding moment over homework.”
“You didn’t want it to get infected,” Alessandro repeated slowly, as if he was talking to an idiot.
And yes, maybe the jury’s still out on my mental reasoning…
“I work with kids all the time, and yes, I know there’s a valid argument for building up their natural immunity, but his hands weren’t too clean, and running through the forest at the speeds you guys do, I wasn’t sure what he’d touched.”
A beat of silence went by, and I wondered if I was getting him into trouble.
“He said he’d seen you but not conversed.”
I smiled. “We didn’t really have time for a conversation. I don’t think he realized how far he’d come. He was worried about getting home. I’m afraid it was me that delayed him with the Band-Aid and the juice.”
“Juice,” Alessandro repeated.
“It was organic,” I protested, knowing I was digging myself in deeper.
Alessandro gazed at me with an expression reminiscent of my sixth-grade earth science teacher. “Then, if you speak the truth, how can you possibly think you have the ability to find my heir?”
I bit off the impulse of correcting heir to son. “I got the impression he was lonely.”
“He’s not a child seeking companionship. He is my heir,” Alessandro snapped out.
“Yes, I realize that, but sometimes teenagers want to spread their wings—”
“He isn’t a Neeja! How dare you?” the other vamp spat out, but Alessandro put out an arm to block him as he stepped out.
What the hell was a Neeja?
“It’s a common expression among humans,” Alessandro said. “It means to become independent.”
The second vamp didn’t go for my throat, which was a good thing, but it was obvious I was going to have to watch what I said. “I meant that all young men are curious.” Young man sounded much more diplomatic.
“Which is why he needs to tend to his studies,” Alessandro reiterated.
“I agree,” I replied. “Education is very important, but sometimes lessons can be learned from mistakes, as well. It’s a parent’s job to try to create a safe space for those discoveries.”
Or an overworked kindergarten teacher.
Alessandro simply stood and stared at me for a long minute, but then there was a knock at the door, and I’d guess some sort of servant appeared, pushing a cart with food on it. Then, without so much as a word, Alessandro turned and left.
“You will eat,” the second vamp said and waved at the tray. The older man who’d shuffled it in turned without looking at me and rushed out. The vamp followed him. The large door locked very ominously.
I got up cautiously, but I didn’t feel weak or dizzy, so I glanced over at the food.
It actually looked pretty good. Did I dare?
I had to eat to keep a certain little someone healthy, so I picked up a bread roll and sniffed it.
It was warm, so I broke off a little and touched it with the tip of my tongue.
I waited a second to see if I was going to succumb to arsenic poisoning—whatever—and when I didn’t seem to be about to take my last breath, I decided to eat it and look around.
The room was quite large, and I was relieved to see a bathroom that didn’t look medieval.
So vampires liked modern plumbing then. There were two shuttered windows that wouldn’t open no matter how much I tried, and when I’d done two full circuits of the space and hadn’t found so much as a book to look at, I came back to the food.
There was a bowl of something that could’ve been soup, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Something that could have been chicken, but equally, I wasn’t sure.
I tried not to think about what happened to their victims after they’d drained them and covered the possible chicken up with the napkin I’d been thoughtfully provided with.
I recognized an apple and a banana and took them both back to bed with me.
If Rhys really was missing, where would he go?
Would he try to talk to me again? Wait… was that why the vamps had come to the camp?
They’d followed him? In which case, there was no way Rhys would let himself be seen by anyone else.
I walked to the door and tried the large round handle, not surprised when it didn’t budge. So I knocked. “Hello? Alessandro?”
Silence. But then, I wasn’t surprised. I doubted His Viciousness was standing outside the door. I banged and shouted a little more, then decided to investigate more of the food and wait.
I had no idea how long it would take, and I was dozing by the time I heard the door open, and the same servant came to retrieve the tray. He was accompanied by two vamps I hadn’t seen before. I scrambled off the bed. “I need to see Alessandro.”
One snarled and bared his fangs. The other just eyed me disdainfully. “You make no demands of our great sire.”
Uh-huh. “Okay. It’s just I had an idea about Rhys, but if you don’t think he’ll want to know, I—”
Before I knew what was happening, I was flat on my back with a hand around my throat, squeezing off my air. The first vamp that had snarled had taken me to the floor.
“Rafael,” the second vamp commanded. “Alessandro said he wasn’t to be harmed.
” The first vamp blurred and moved, but I didn’t.
My hand cupped my belly protectively. That had been hard.
And it had hurt. Not that I cared about the lump probably forming on the back of my head, but how many hits could my little one take?
And for the first time, protectiveness mixed with a healthy dose of fear flooded me.
I hadn’t believed it, really. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was still waiting to wake up.
To be back in my tiny apartment getting ready for work.
Wondering if I had time to add to my lesson plan.
Wondering if my car would make it another month.
I hadn’t believed I was pregnant. Not really.
Not deep down. Sure, I’d acted as if I did, walked the walk, but in my head, I supposed I should have morning sickness and swollen ankles.
Or not. I suppose somewhere deep inside, I’d just expected this whole thing to be some higher being’s idea of a joke.
Everyone had always left me. I’d been chosen out of a catalog, not created with love or even lust. Mom and Dad had never cared about anything except appearances, and Dad had been willing to throw me under the bus the first chance he got.
And somehow, I’d always been expecting Phoenix to do the same. Waiting for it. Knowing it would come, even though I’d hoped for the opposite.
And now I was afraid I might lose the only chance of a happy ever after I was going to get, just because I’d been too careless with it.
“What’s happening?” I recognized Alessandro’s voice, but I didn’t much care. I wanted to protest the strong arms that lifted me, but the sudden sharp pain in my belly took away my breath.