Chapter 14 Kal #2
When it was over, there were four dead Lucians and it had taken four Vampyrenandfour humans to take them down.
Kal came to his senses and then he was shouting, “Tess!” She came running, and the other couples followed suit, finding each other on the beach. Tess came to him and he picked her up in his arms, shutting his eyes as she wrapped her legs around him.
“Good shooting,” he said.
“Why? It didn’t kill them,” Tess said, sounding quite shaken.
He squeezed her a little tighter, wishing he could protect her from even the sight of this war that never seemed to end, that his people had begun and now only seemed to regret.
“It stunned them,” Kal said, smoothing back her hair. He tipped her chin up and pecked a kiss to her lips. “It stunned the hell out of them. We didn’t know guns did that to Lucian. That’s important. You’re so brave, baby.”
“You don’t let anything happen to me,” Tess said fiercely. “I don’t let anything happen to you either. You can’t expect me to just stay in the tent, pregnant or not.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” Kal said, smiling into the soft skin of his mate’s neck, and pressing a kiss to the bite marks he’d left there, now scarred over. “I really didn’t expect you to stay in the tent.”
* * *
“Well, let’s get going then,”
Crystal said, stretching. They had bandaged each other up, packed up the tents, and eaten breakfast, all of them agreeing they needed to get to Los Angeles as quickly as possible now. There was no time to lose and every second they spent in Lucian territory was a second too long.
“Are you sure you don’t need to rest anymore?” Kal said to Tess. He took her hand and she walked beside him.
“Listen, I might be pregnant but it’s your kid,” Tess said, as they walked along the wet sand, the tide rising to meet their sneakers. “And your kid is tough.”
“ Ourkid is tough,” Kal said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about humans, it's that you have a very shared view of parenthood. The father is just as important as the mother.”
Tess raised her eyebrows at that but she didn’t ask any questions about Vampyren parenthood.
He suspected that thinking about it made her a little sad, as she took care of so many children.
It wasn’t sad to him, it was merely the way it was.
He and his brother had not been particularly close to their father, now long dead.
Their mother had been fierce and mostly silent.
They were of a generation that had been grateful just to survive and opted to conquer another planet to keep surviving.
The notion of something like fatherhood had never seemed important.
But now it seemed like something he desperately wanted; a family, a home, and the affection and warmth of a good woman. The best woman. His mate.
They walked up into town for a long time and then found an exit down to another beach where they hiked along the shore and it wasn’t so bad, except for the constant threat of the Lucian that lurked; a tension between them all that had them constantly looking over their shoulders, the couples squeezing each other’s hands as they made their way toward Los Angeles.
Eventually, Loren had said, they would find a vehicle or a ride.
There were pockets of people everywhere and they were usually willing to help.
That had been another shocking thing to the Vampyren once they’d been forced to learn something about humanity beyond brutality; they helped each other when they didn’t need to.
It was after two and overly warm, even for the beach, when Kal suggested they stop.
Tess wasn’t fooled and pursed her lips. “I’mfine,” she hissed.
“Well, I’m not,” Kal insisted. “Because you haven’t eaten since this morning and it’s driving me crazy.”
Tess relented, if only because everyone seemed relieved to be taking a rest and she let Kal dote over her, sitting her down in the sand, bringing her water and lunch from their supply in a larger portion than anyone else before he finally sat down beside her with a blood pack.
They ate in companionable silence and then because he wanted to be a good mate, Kal took Tess’s feet in his lap and removed her shoes and gave her a massage. Tess was worried they’d take too long to find their way to Los Angeles, even if Cassie seemed optimistic and insisted they weren’tveryfar.
“I feel like the clock is ticking,” she said to Kal, squinting at him.
“Like we have tofixthings, fixeverything, and we have to do it quickly. Not just because of the Lucian but because…” She rubbed her stomach and he nodded.
He felt it too; the pressure of some impending doom that would meet with the hope of the future.
He couldn’t think of anything placating to say to comfort her.
But once they were done eating, Tess stood up and took his hand.
“C’mon,” she said. “Let’s go stand in the water. ”
“We Vampyrens are not used to large bodies of water,” Kal murmured as he waded ankle-deep into the surf. She’d made him take off his shoes and socks and now they stood there in the gentle tide together, hand in hand.
“Here, stand like this…” Tess stood, facing out toward the ocean, her eyes on the horizon, and Kal followed her lead. “The waves make you feel like you’re rushing forward.”
Kal nodded and held her hand, watching the waves come rolling in and the way the sun glimmered on the rippling blue water.
There had been nothing so beautiful on Vampyr.
Now he felt that sensation too and he gasped a little, rocking back on his heels as the waves washed the sand from under his feet, the endless ocean and blue of the sky seeming to swallow him, and it did feel as if they were being propelled forward to the end of the earth and into the dangerous but still promising future, hand in hand.