Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
C ass tightened his fist over the Celtic cross at his neck to repress the disturbing feelings mounting at his chest as he watched the one who had stolen his heart climb into the tour bus behind his bassist’s latest squeeze, a young girl in a tight hot-pink dress. Noémie, he recalled.
Tilly’s steady steps in her black leggings and crisp sneakers displayed a no-nonsense contrast against the polished tan skin and delicate silver heels of the new girl who had joined them in Québec City a few nights before.
Tilly . He gave a small shake of his head. Mathilda Davenport. The best sound engineer this side of America. The person who had seen the depth of his soul as they worked together on his newest album. Days where they’d immersed themselves in making music.
She got him.
Falling into each other’s arms on the evening of their last workday together—when it had been just the two of them finessing the latest touches of the Resurgence album before dropping his first song—had been the most natural thing to do.
And her pushing him away at the end of the weekend had been the most painful thing he’d experience in over a century.
And now she was back to him.
He admired the silky black hair falling in waves to the middle of her back, the single vivid white curl reminding him how she was just like him. Not quite human. He, a Mount-Royal Immortal, born in the seventeenth century to an ancient French sorceress impregnated by a mysterious immortal vampire. And she was a parentless banshee, recently found and adopted into the New England Davenport clan, and, as such, very much part of the Order of the Black Oak—an alliance of supernatural beings who fought mystical evil wherever they found it.
As she had started telling him about her childhood and mentioned her godmothers living on a small island off Seattle, Cass had recognized the name and made the connection. His brother Val had been down there on a mission earlier and had made the acquaintance of the three elder banshees.
Tilly hesitated as she reached the landing, and Cass brushed her elbow to motion her forward.
“Hey dudes,” Cass called to the small crowd of his band and entourage, “make some space for Tilly.”
Osh Miller, his newest bassist, had already claimed the comfortable double bench at the back of the bus’s lounge space. He propped his feet up on the table, a beer in one hand, the other dragging down the near-underaged Noémie against his chest as she plopped herself beside him.
“Is this who I think it is?” Karim Lauzon—their manager, tablet computer in hand and sitting at his usual spot at the very front of the long bench by the bus’s entrance—wasn’t missing anything,
“Tilly!” Kit Stone, Cass’s drummer, cheered her on as he raked his spiky blond hair. “Hey cutie, what are you doing here?”
Kit was well in his forties now and in a solid relationship with their stage manager Maya, who was currently busy at the galley making drinks. He too had enjoyed mixing their album with Tilly in New England.
“You’re Tilly Davenport?” Manu Robinson, the tech guy for the tour, asked. With his short crop of hair and serious glasses, he was sitting on the other bench right behind the driver and looking up at Tilly with respect.
Karim had offered her the job first, but Cass had heard she’d declined, citing too many artists on her roster.
He’d wanted to text her several times but with death in his heart, had honored her plea to never contact her directly again.
His breath slowed with longing at recalling their passionate time together. How her long silky strands had felt along his bare skin, how her heat had felt under his palm. Letting her go had to be one of the hardest things he had done. He wondered why fate had put her in his path again.
He studied her expression as she nodded at Manu before turning to his drummer. “How’s your mother, Kit? She was in the hospital last time I saw you.”
“Oh, much better. It wasn’t as serious as we thought.” Kit peered at Maya with a warm look. “She’s pestering me for grandchildren, now.”
“Nope!” the petite pink-haired gal shouted with a laugh from the back, pouring vodka in a large cocktail shaker. “That ship has sailed. Are you joining the tour, girl?”
Still standing in the middle of the bus, Cass turned to a random fresh-faced guy in a silk bomber jacket over skinny jeans and the band’s Resurgence Tour T-shirt—VIP winner maybe? Following Karim for a more personal meet-and-greet with the band on the bus tour? The kid had somehow managed to follow everyone on the bus and commandeer a comfortable corner spot at the far edge of the sofa.
“Come on, bro,” he urged his fan, a palm opened toward Tilly, wanting to make sure she felt at ease. “Make some space for the lady.”
“I’m fine, Cass. Really,” Tilly protested, wearily unzipping her sweatshirt in the overheated bus.
The kid shot him a reverent expression before sliding along on the bench next to Karim.
“Do you want a drink,” Cass guided her to the leather couch, filled with attentiveness as she slowly sat down, setting her black canvas backpack at her feet. “Maya? Do we have any white wine?”
Warmth spread through him at recalling how Tilly had loved to sit back with some chilled chardonnay after their day’s work, looking at the waves crashing along the Cape Cod beach. Planning the next recording day with the band.
“No alcohol, thanks.” She frowned. “Just some water, maybe?”
Her cautious tone had him take a closer look at her. He suddenly noticed the rounder cheeks, her legs positioned slightly apart, the big sweatshirt opening to a plain white T-shirt that barely covered ample curves that hadn’t been so generous when he’d last seen her.
His gaze finally settled on her belly.
Baptême! She was pregnant.
He swallowed hard, assaulted by a slew of complex feelings. She was to become a mother. Someone else had captured her heart.
No matter how he wanted to be happy for her, he couldn’t stop the surge of grief hitting him head-on. He always had a thought, that perhaps, maybe, on their next recording session, he could convince her to resume their relationship. But no, it had truly been final.
Not quite knowing what to say, and with his voice hoarse with sadness, he called out to their assistant. “Maya, can you get us two waters, fille , please?”
“Sure, boss.” Kit’s girlfriend crouched down and reached to the back of the small fridge for the bottles.
The sweet scent of burning weed suddenly made its way toward him, and he shot a dark look at his bassist, now passing a joint to his way-too-young companion, groping her half-exposed chest in the process.
A strong sense of protectiveness rose inside Cass. He yearned to shield Tilly and her child from the toxic environment.
“Dude, come on.” He stepped in front of Osh and his girl, making a cutting motion with his hand. “Wait ’til you’re in your own room at the hotel.”
Osh frowned at Cass, caught his look on Tilly’s round belly, and grumbled. “Fine!”
The bassist turned his body into Noémie, grabbed her hand and pulled it to his crotch before returning to squeeze her big breast over the stretched fabric of her snug red dress.
Cass’s jaw locked briefly with annoyance. Osh had only been with them for this tour, and he’d been a disaster. Talented all right, but too inexperienced. Too many drugs and no care in his associations. A walking lawsuit.
But he’d have to deal with him later.
Right now, Cass was facing the woman who’d touched his soul and had rattled his carefree life lazily spent between spurs of creating music and the limelight of live performances. An unending life on his own terms, where he’d finally achieved the notoriety he’d sought his entire life after being cruelly dismissed as tone-deaf as a seven-year-old by that pompous harpsichord teacher his mother had ultimately hired after he’d begged her multiple times.
Even centuries later he recalled the snarky tone of the man, the sting of humiliation running deep. It was as if every time he took the stage to thousands of fans, he was getting back at Monsieur Poisson.
“How far along are you, Tilly?” Maya was passing him the single-size water bottles, asking the very question Cass was too afraid to ask.
Tilly’s tight expression released. She arched her back slightly on the leather seat and rubbed her belly.
“About eight months,” she told Maya before turning up to him.
“Eight?” He did a fast calculation in his head. Eight months. That was end of February. The same month he’d been in Cape Cod at Hyannis Sound recording with her.
She’d had someone else very soon before or after him. His stomach clenched with an uncontrollable sense of betrayal.
He had pleaded with her to come with him that last morning in Hyannis. For a few weeks at least while he completed his media appearances to promote the tour. He couldn’t get out of those commitments. She had said no that day. That the two of them had been a mistake. That she’d never date one of her artists.
He still remembered her leaving his rented beach cottage that late Sunday afternoon, a small figure in her black winter puffer jacket, with that bright curl of white escaping the heavy hood and flowing in the New England marine wind.
“Yes, thirty-six weeks exactly,” she answered him, her voice filled with meaning.
“Dang it, fille . You’re not that big to be so far along.” Maya passed Kit his mixed drink and took her place next to him, leaning her head against her boyfriend’s shoulder. “Does the baby kick a lot?”
Tilly rested her palm on top of her belly. Her face lit with an inner glow and the love she felt for her unborn child. “Sometimes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really.” She shook her head casually.
Cass experienced a strong need to wrap his arm around her. But he felt awkward touching her now that she was to be the mother of a rival’s child.
His bodyguard Tommy Leblanc adjusted his black suit as he climbed aboard before the driver closed the door to the bus taking them to the hotel.
Cass placed one water bottle on the table beside the long bench before settling down beside her, careful to leave her space yet deeply conscious of her body heat.
Desire again rose inside him at remembering just how well he had, not so long ago, explored her every curve, from the hollow just below her hairline to the swell of her shapely long thigh. The attraction was still very real.
He opened the cap of her water before passing her the cold bottle. “And the father?” He tried to sound as detached as he could. “Do I know him?”
She reached for the drink and their fingers touched. It was as if an electric shock just zapped him, and his heart skipped a beat.
She seized his gaze. “It’s you.”
He froze, his hand on the bottle, their fingers still touching.
“What?” He blinked.
“Damn, Cass! You’re a father,” Kit exclaimed, his words barely reaching Cass’s consciousness. “Wow, that’s awesome!”
Maya congratulated him, while Karim shot him a weary look.
“Wait ’til we tell Hervé,” Maya gushed, mentioning the band’s guitar co-lead who was in a bunk at the very back of the bus teleconferencing with his own brood of little ones left at home. “He’ll be thrilled!”
Tilly nodded silently, her lips tight, her expression unreadable as she seemed to wait for his reaction.
His child? Speechless, clashing thoughts assailed him. Emotions took control of his body. And he did the one thing he shouldn’t have done.
He chuckled.
He let go of her water bottle, reclined back in his seat and laughed. “Me, a father? Nah. Not possible.”
Sadness, maybe hurt, crossed her features. She clutched the water bottle in her hand and sat ramrod straight. Or at least as straight as she could with her legs apart to accommodate her heavy belly.
And right there, he wished he could take the inconsiderate comment back. He yearned to embrace her and tell her how thrilled he was for their future child.
But he just couldn’t be happy for the news. Because he knew she was lying .
He was a vampire. He couldn’t father children.
“It is yours,” she said, her tone accusatory, as if she could read his thoughts.
People were still listening in on them. His bandmates had the decency to stay quiet. The VIP kid typed furiously on his phone, likely on his social media telling the juicy news to the world. And Cass’s manager still wore a pained expression. It was the most uncomfortable moment in history.
“Yeah, man,” Kit offered, counting on his fingers. “Totally possible. You two…it was end of February.”
“Shut up, dude.” Cass took a deep breath, trying to grab at the more rational part of him.
Tilly remained stiff. She held that stern look—with her brows knitted tight—that she sported when she was mixing sound and trying to fix something that was not quite right.
He attempted to channel his serious brother Justin for a better, thoughtful response.
“Till, you know it can’t be…” he justified.
Aside from Karim, who served as his disciple of Nostredame—an ancient order of devotees who acted as assistants to the immortals—only she knew of his true vampiric nature. And once he’d recognized her as a banshee, it had been easy to share with each other. Not being quite human was one thing they did have in common.
But she was wrong about his paternity.
His brother Mag had tried everything to be a father. Attempted to conceive children with a wolf-shifter, a shaman, a selkie, and even a powerful Hungarian witch. Nothing had worked. Hells, Mag was even with an actual banshee from Rhode Island. His brother had now happily taken the role of father figure to his fiancée’s little sister. But an immortal, fathering a child? No, that was impossible. There was no way Tilly could be pregnant with his baby.
“It happened,” she said, her tone chilling. “I asked my godmothers. It’s…” She looked around the bus, not sure how much to reveal. “It is possible.”
No, she had to be wrong. Mag had been dead serious about his failures.
Tilly looked so convinced, Cass just didn’t know what else to say.
“Wow, man. A father,” Osh shouted at him from the back of the bus. “Better you than me!”
“That is so cool,” Maya said. “I think you’ll be a great dad, Cass. Look at how you take care of the band.”
Oh baptême , no. A child was an entirely different experience. He would never be able to carry on that kind of responsibility.
He was awful at being responsible for others. If he’d been good at it, Augusta James—the main stage actress of their troupe during his eighteenth-century London theater years—would have lived her full mortal life. But she had died on his watch. There was no way he could have the charge of a child.
He should have told Tilly he was thrilled and sort out the truth later but instead he grumbled under his breath, “I’ll have to ask my mother.”
His mom, being an immortal sorceress older than dirt, would know why the old Davenport sisters believed this was possible.
Tilly wasn’t impressed by his reaction, obviously hurt that he did not believe her.
“Sure,” she snarked back with a wave, “you do that.”
“Look, Till.” He tried to explain himself. “This is one hell of a surprise.”
“Yeah, well. You needed to know.”
She looked down at her belly and that protective feeling rose in him again. Could it be true, his child, right there growing inside her?
His own flesh and blood.
No, he didn’t want to believe it.
And yet, why would she lie? She hadn’t wanted him at the time, so why would she make something up like this just to be with him.
“Why wait so long to tell me?” he suddenly asked. His brain had finally started to take over, noticing the odd timing of tonight’s appearance. “And why like this?”
Showing up at the end of his show, in the middle of a rowdy crowd, was risky in her condition. She could have been hurt. His pulse quickened with the fear that something could have happened to her, and he was overwhelmed by an inexplicable desire to protect her and the unborn child.
She looked down at her knuckles, now white on her belly, before raising her chin at him, her brows pinched with worry. “Anywhere more private we can talk?”
“Is anything wrong with the pregnancy? Do you need anything?” He wanted to know.
“The pregnancy is fine. But I need you. Your help.” She let out a slow breath. “Just for a short time. I came to you as a last resort.”
“You need money?” He stared at her, speechless with shock for a second. She didn’t actually want him in the child’s life.
And here he was already thinking of being by her side for the delivery. He’d never felt so dejected.
“I need you. But don’t worry, just until after the birth.” She looked up at the people around them. They were all listening, riveted by the conversation.
The despair was obvious in her voice. He didn’t ever recall her sounding so vulnerable. A ping of compassion strung at his heart. But he wouldn’t let her dismiss him from her life so quickly.
“Just for a while? Wait.” This was going way too fast. “If this is my child, like you say, we need to raise him or her together.”
“Oh, Cass, come on.” Her expression eased and she tilted her head to the side. “You told me you never wanted to settle down.”
“I did?”
“Yes, don’t you remember?” She caught his gaze in a firm, decisive look. “When you told me of your brother leaving Montreal to follow his girlfriend in New England. You said that what you love about your life is the lack of responsibilities, the constant traveling, doing exactly what you want.”
He glared at her, his teeth clenched. “I am not letting you raise our child alone.”
“I’m not giving you a choice.” Her jaw was tight, her brows furrowed. “And you don’t even believe it’s yours.”
He inhaled deeply, completely conflicted. His own family had been packed with drama over the centuries and he’d vowed to stay away from serious relationships for that very reason.
The musician life suited him perfectly, from the early days as a bard belting sea shanties with his hurdy-gurdy at the local inn to his time in the vaudeville traveling theater all over the continent, and to his life now. When he was not touring, he would retreat to his penthouse in New York where he used the energy of the buzzing city to inspire his music composition or hang out at the villa in California when he just wanted to party. He used his beach house in the Pacific Northwest to refill the creative well.
Knowing he could never have a child had made the point of raising a family moot. And being immortal, he’d never felt the need to leave a legacy. But now…
The late-seventeenth-century traditional upbringing of his adopted father, Papa Antoine, rushed right back in. He would take care of his responsibilities.
“Till, we need to buy a house.” He was adamant. “Decide where is best for this child to be raised. Sonoma, Bainbridge Island, Montreal…? Hells, we need to get married!”
“Whoa there.” She stopped him, looking around them with a panicked face.
Cass noticed Kit’s mouth gape open. Damn, had he just asked Tilly to marry him in front of his band? He was in way over his head here.
He swallowed before saying another word and caught the Montreal nightlights pass outside the bus heading downtown to their hotel. His city, which he had seen grow from a small, fortified settlement to a large metropolis.
He’d never felt the need for a permanent dwelling here, crashing with his brothers—usually Justin’s place in town or his estate on family land in Domaine-Lassalle just outside Montreal—when he needed to reconnect with his roots.
Dammit, the life he’d built for himself was easy. It was good. He had finally figured out a way to come out from his five brothers’ shadows, to follow his true calling.
But everything would be different now. His life forever changed. He couldn’t just give Tilly money and let her take this child away from him.
His legacy. Someone who looked just like him. A little dark-haired boy. Or perhaps a little girl with a serious smile and a streak of white in her hair.
Damn, he could not walk away from this.
“Come to my room with me.” He took in the eager faces of his band, staff, and the VIP fan who were all listening with rapt attention to every single word he was saying. He had to get away from them all. “We’ll figure this out. Just the two of us.”