Lucy
The doctor is female, thankfully, because the way Dominik is behaving, I can’t imagine anyone of the male gender would have lasted long.
She has waist-length brown hair and a kind face, introducing herself as éva. I would guess she’s in her early fifties but looks younger.
“Do you wish your mate to be here with you while I complete the checks?” she asks.
“I honestly don’t think you or I have a choice if you value your doors,” I respond with a reproachful look at Dominik who is pacing around like he wants to wear out the honey-colored parquet flooring.
“Come with me,” she says in her soft, accented voice, and we follow her through a set of white double doors fitted with shining brass art deco handles and into a light, airy consultation room.
She gestures for Dominik to sit to one side of her desk, in a dark shadow, and then asks me to go behind a set of screens, remove the clothing on my lower half, and get onto the examination table.
I find I’m trembling as I do as she asks. This is the first time I’ve been seen by a medical professional since I took the test and two lines showed up. I know I should have been speaking to my GP, but it was something I kept putting off, promising myself I’d do it later, when I was less busy.
But in reality, I’d been pretending to myself if I ignored the pregnancy, perhaps it would just go away. It’s these thoughts now which intrude into my conscious thought process as I get onto the exam table and éva asks if I am ready.
I hear a low growl as she parts the screens and pulls them back again. I give her a weak smile.
“How far along are you?” she asks me.
“Two months, I think. I haven’t really been paying much attention since I did the test,” I say weakly.
“Okay, then let me have a look, and we’ll see if we can get a more accurate idea.” She gives me a supportive smile.
I find I’m holding back tears. I don’t cry at anything. It was always a sign of weakness beaten out of me by my uncle, but here and now, I feel so incredibly vulnerable, I’m holding on by a thread.
Which is when I feel a hand in mine and look up to see Dominik standing at the head of the exam table glaring down at éva.
“Is everything all right, Lucy?” he asks in his deep, rasping baritone, making the room reverberate with his accented tones.
“Yes,” I reply, even if my voice doesn’t really fill anyone with confidence, especially me.
“If you hurt, I will deal with it,” he intones.
If éva is concerned at his words, fortunately, as she’s working down the business end, she doesn’t show it.
“I am fine, Dominik,” I respond.
He squeezes my hand gently and briefly glances down at me before returning to his glare directly at éva. I probably shouldn’t be reassured by a powerful vampire holding my hand and sending a death stare at my healthcare provider.
But instead something blooms within my chest, something warm. Something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt.
Safe.
It is literally the antithesis of what this should all be.
“Okay,” éva says, moving back from me, “everything looks good.”
I’m absolutely sure I hear Dominik release a breath he actually shouldn’t have had.
“But you are not two months pregnant, Lucy.” She fixes me with the parental gaze all doctors seem to be taught in their first week at medical school. “I believe you are much further along, and I’d like to do an ultrasound.”
A wave of heat followed by a chill rolls over me.
“By how much?”
“Certainly more than three, if not four,” she says, pulling off her gloves and moving the screens to one side, pulling in the ultrasound machine to the side of the bed.
“Four?” My voice is hoarse.
“We’ll see,” she says.
“I’m hardly showing.” I look up at Dominik.
There is a hungry look on his face, a look which sends another type of heat through my body.
“The point at which any woman starts to show is different for everyone,” éva points out as she rolls up my top and applies the conductive jelly.
As she moves the probe over me, a grainy picture appears.
“There you go, there’s baby,” éva says.
I can hardly bear to look, but I do, and I see something which looks like a bean, then something which looks like a lizard.
Then I see the baby.
My baby.
And Dominik squeezes my hand again.
éva peers at the screen, moving the probe slightly against my skin.
“Yes, four months,” she says, with a slight note of triumph.
“Four,” I whisper, hardly daring to look at Dominik.
“Four,” he growls, his heated gaze raking over me. “Not what you were expecting, little dove?”
“I knew I was expecting,” I say as éva clears off the jelly and turns off the machine. “I didn’t realize how far along I was.”
I’ve clearly been kidding myself in the vain hope it would all go away…
“You need to take care of yourself,” Eva says. “Good food, plenty of rest, plenty of water.”
She turns her attention to Dominik.
“I wish to do some blood work, which means taking her blood. Have you fed from her?” she asks.
Dominik bares his fangs with a slow hiss.
“Yes, I have,” he says. “With her full consent. It will not have harmed the infant inside her.”
“It won’t, but the venom you inject will show on the tests, and I need to be aware,” she says.
Dominik growls low under his breath. “If you wish to take some of Lucy’s blood, I will not stop you.”
“Er, don’t I get a say in this?” I point out.
He turns his megawatt fangs on me.
“Of course,” he says. “If you do not wish to provide your blood, I won’t stop you either.”
I roll my eyes at éva. “Ignore him. Please take the blood.” I turn my attention to Dominik. “And if you think I’m saying that to you again, you’ll need to behave better.”
“Never,” he rasps, pulling my hand up to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the back of it. “You will always bring out the worst in me, Lucy Cushing.”