Chapter
30
Elena spent the next day much as she
had spent the previous one—reading, watching movies, listening to
music, thumbing through the daily papers, thinking how strange it
was that people lived their lives never knowing that vampires
dwelled in their midst. Time and again, she glanced at her watch,
willing the hours and minutes to pass more quickly.
Drake appeared in the living room
shortly after she finished dinner. Taking her in his arms, he
kissed her. “How was your day?”
“Lonely, without you.”
“You must know I would spend my days
with you if I could.”
“I know.”
“For now, I have business to attend to.
Do you wish to accompany me?”
“Of course!”
“Come along, then,” he said, and taking
her by the hand, he led her into the dining hall.
Elena was surprised to see the sheep
assembled there. Tables had been added to accommodate several
couples with babies and young children. She had never seen children
in the Fortress.
The tension in the hall practically
crackled when Drake walked through the door. Glancing at the faces
of the sheep, Elena noticed that they all wore the same wary
expression, like patients awaiting bad news.
Drake’s gaze swept the room, and the
tension in the hall grew thicker.
“As you know,” he said without
preamble, “there has been a change in leadership. I am now the
Master of the Coven and as such, I have instituted several changes,
most of which do not concern you. There is, however, one change
that will affect you all.”
Elena watched the sheep. Some stirred
restlessly, as if sensing danger. Several of the couples held
tighter to their children, their expressions fearful. Northa and
Marta looked at Elena. She smiled, hoping to reassure
them.
“I realize you have been born here,”
Drake went on, “and that you have known no other life but this one.
I am now offering you a choice. You may stay here, if you wish, or
you may leave.”
The sheep stared at Drake and then at
each other.
“I am sure you have questions,” he
said. “Feel free to ask them.”
And still the sheep stared at him as if
he were speaking a foreign language.
“I am offering you your freedom,” Drake
said.
Finally, one of the men spoke up. He
was young, perhaps nineteen. A little girl with pigtails sat on his
lap. “Where would we go? Who would take care of us?”
“Who would feed us?” asked another
man.
“We don’t know anything of the outside
world,” Marta said. “Who is going to teach us what we need to
know?”
“If you wish to leave, we will teach
you how to survive in the outside world,” Drake said. “If you wish
to stay, you will no longer be prisoners. You will be permitted
access to the first three floors of the Fortress and to go outside
when you wish. But you will not be permitted to pass beyond a
certain point.”
“Then aren’t we still prisoners?” one
of the men asked.
“It is for our protection,” Drake said.
“And yours. If you wish to leave, you may do so at any time, but we
must know first.”
“Will you still feed off us?” Northa
asked.
“Yes, in exchange for feeding and
housing you, but you will no longer be compelled to go with anyone
you dislike. Nor will you be punished for refusing. Think about
what I have said. You do not need to make any decisions tonight.
Until decisions have been made, you will continue to stay in your
rooms. That is all.”
“Do you think any of them will stay?”
Elena asked when they returned to Drake’s apartment.
“Who can say? What would you
do?”
Sitting on the sofa, she kicked off her
shoes. “I don’t know. If I’d never lived anywhere else, never had
the freedom to do as I pleased”—she shook her head—“I think I’d be
afraid to leave, even though I think I’d want to.”
“You were brave enough to run away from
your uncle.”
“That was different. I wasn’t a
prisoner in his house. And I wasn’t going outside for the first
time.”
Drake nodded as he took the seat beside
her.
“What do you think they’ll do?” Elena
asked. “And if they all leave . . . ?” She wasn’t quite sure how to
phrase the next question, but Drake knew what she
meant.
“I think the single men and some of the
women will go. I know several of the females have strong feelings
for some of my brothers. I think they will stay. Perhaps the
couples, as well. As for what we would do if they all left . . .”
He shrugged. “Every Coven has a Fortress like this one, but not all
of them provide nourishment for those who live within its
walls.”
“Oh.” She shuddered to think of the
unsuspecting people who were helpless prey to the hunger of the
vampires. “Have you spoken to your mother lately?”
“No. She has left the
Fortress.”
“Where did she go?”
“I have no idea. I only heard of her
departure late last night.”
Feeling suddenly queasy, Elena bit down
on her lower lip. Drake was supposed to be his mother’s favorite
son. But what if that were no longer true? Drake had destroyed
Vardin. He had annulled his marriage to Katiya, resumed his
marriage to a woman his mother did not approve of. And now he was
bringing change to the Fortress.
Elena shivered. She recalled all too
clearly the outrage in Liliana’s eyes the night before when Drake
had assumed command of the Fortress—the fury in her voice, the way
she had vanished from the Council chamber in a fit of
anger.
People made jokes about their in-laws
all the time, Elena thought, but there was nothing funny about an
angry mother-in-law, not when she was also a powerful
vampire.
As it turned out, Drake was right. The
four breeding pairs, who had five children between them ranging in
age from three months to fourteen years, decided to stay, as did
most of the single women. All but one of the men opted to
leave.
Those who had chosen to leave were
schooled in how to survive in the outside world. Drake was elusive
when Elena asked who was teaching them, but when she pressed
harder, he told her that the vampires waited until the sheep were
sleeping, then spoke to their minds, giving them the information
they needed to live in the outside world.
“It is quicker and more effective than
trying to teach them while they are awake,” he explained. “But most
of the sheep are bright and learn quickly, since my sire selected
only the best and the brightest for breeding. They made better
companions.”
Breeding, Elena thought. With Drake as
her husband, there was no chance of having children of her own. The
thought made her stomach churn. Hurrying into the bathroom, she
leaned over the commode.
Drake followed her into the bathroom.
“Are you ill?”
“I must be catching the flu.” She
rinsed her mouth, washed and dried her face. “I’ll be all
right.”
Surprisingly, it only took a little
over three weeks to prepare the sheep who had decided to leave the
Fortress. Stefan and Liam were in charge of transporting them to
various small towns in the area. Once they arrived at their
destinations, the vampires erased all memories of their life at the
Fortress and all memory of the vampires from their
minds.
Elena was pleased with the changes
Drake had made in the Fortress. It was far less lonely for her now
that the sheep—she had to stop calling them that!—could move freely
about the first three floors of the castle.
For the first time since she had been
there, people walked the corridors during the day. The dining hall
was no longer silent. The laughter of children echoed off the
walls. Elena spent the daylight hours with Northa, Elnora, Marta,
and some of the other women. Elnora was very much in love with
Dallin, and since Drake had abolished the law forbidding vampires
and humans to marry, she had high hopes that Dallin would propose.
Marta held the same hopes for Cullin. Northa had elected to stay
because she enjoyed the sensual pleasure of the vampire’s bite, and
because she was afraid to leave the only home she had ever
known.
“There’s no reason to leave now,”
Northa said one afternoon. “Since we’re free to come and go as we
please, and to go outside. . . .” She spread her arms wide. “Living
here now is like being a princess in a castle.”
“I just wish my prince would ask me to
marry him,” Elnora said with a sigh.
“Maybe you should ask him,” Northa said
with a wink and a smile.
“Maybe I will!”
“Elena, you’re married to a vampire,”
Marta said. “Is it wonderful?”
“Drake is wonderful,” she replied,
smiling, and then she thought of Vardin. “But I don’t know if all
vampires make wonderful husbands.”
Returning to their apartment, Elena
curled up on the sofa and picked up a magazine. She thumbed through
a few pages, but she kept thinking about what Marta had said. Would
she have felt the same about Drake in the beginning if she had
known what he was? Would she have had the courage to take the time
to get to know him? Or would her fear of what he was have kept her
from trusting him?
She wanted to think she would have
loved him the same no matter what, and yet there were times, when
she let herself think about the future, that she wished he was
human, that they could share a meal, bask in the sun, return to
Wolfram. Have a child.
“You are looking very pensive this
evening,” Drake said.
“What?” She looked up, surprised to
find him in the room. Usually, she sensed his presence almost
before he appeared. “I was just thinking about . . .
things.”
“Unpleasant things, from the expression
on your face.”
She started to deny it, then realized
it was useless. He would know if she was lying. “Not unpleasant,”
she said. “Just . . . It doesn’t matter.”
Sitting beside her, he reached for her
hand. “Of course it matters. I want no secrets between
us.”
“Isn’t that impossible when you can
read my mind?”
“Yes, I suppose it is, but I have been
making an effort not to intrude on your thoughts. So, tell me, what
troubles you?”
“Nothing, really. I was just wishing
for things that can’t be.”
“What kinds of things?”
She made a vague gesture with her hand,
as if to push them away. “Nothing major, except . . .” She blew out
a breath. If he didn’t want any secrets between them, then she
would tell him the truth. “I was wishing we could have a
baby.”
“Ah.”
“It doesn’t matter, not really,” she
said quickly.
But they both knew she was
lying.
Elena met Northa in the drawing room
the following afternoon. She was relating the conversation she’d
had with Drake the previous night when she bolted for the
bathroom.
What was the matter with her? This was
the third time she had thrown up in the last few weeks. It wasn’t
the flu. She couldn’t be pregnant, and she didn’t really feel sick,
but if there was nothing wrong with her, why was she throwing
up?
“Are you all right?” Northa asked when
Elena returned to the drawing room.
“I don’t think so. Is there a doctor
here?”
“One of the drones is a
doctor.”
“Really?” Elena exclaimed. “How is that
even possible? They all look like . . . like, I don’t
know.”
“Like zombies,” Northa
said.
“Exactly.”
“All the drones have special
occupations—doctors and dentists and pediatricians. Once the
vampires release them from their spell, the drones become regular
people again and don’t remember being enthralled. Are you really
sick?”
“I hope not.” Elena didn’t care how
skilled the drones might be; she didn’t want any of them examining
her.
She said as much to Drake when she saw
him that night.
“Why do you need a doctor?” he asked,
his brow furrowed with concern.
“I’ve just been feeling kind of. . . I
don’t know . . . sick to my stomach lately. But it isn’t the flu. I
don’t have a fever or anything.”
“I will take you to Brasov tomorrow
evening.”
“Never mind. I feel fine
now.”
“Tomorrow evening,” he
repeated.
Drake stood at the foot of the bed,
watching Elena sleep. Lying there, with her hair spread like black
silk across the white satin pillowcase, her dark lashes like fans
against her cheeks, she looked like a fairy-tale princess waiting
for the prince to awake her with love’s first kiss.
He watched the rise and fall of her
chest, listened to the faint whisper of her breathing, the slow,
steady beating of her heart. He had rarely known fear, but the
thought that she might be ill—perhaps fatally so—filled him with
dread. He had never expected to fall in love. Before Elena came
into his life, he had resigned himself to marrying a woman of his
sire’s choosing, having children, watching them grow to maturity.
He had never thought beyond that. And then Elena had wandered into
Wolfram Castle and it was as if sunlight had taken residence in the
old place. He had basked in her glow, delighted in her innocence,
reveled in her love. Even now, it was hard to believe that she
wanted him, that she loved him. How would he live without
her?
True to his word, Drake took Elena to a
doctor in Brasov the next evening. There were several people in the
waiting room, but after Drake spoke to the receptionist, Elena was
immediately taken into an examination room and handed a white
plastic cup.
“For a urine sample,” the nurse
explained, and directed her to the nearest restroom.
When Elena returned to the room, the
nurse instructed her to undress and put on a paper
gown.
A short time later a middle-aged woman
with curly brown hair and kind blue eyes entered the room. She
introduced herself as Doctor Mary Arcos. She listened to Elena’s
heartbeat, took her temperature and her blood pressure, checked her
eyes, ears, nose, and throat, drew some blood, and, lastly, did a
pelvic exam that Elena found embarrassing and
uncomfortable.
“You can sit up now.” The doctor
removed her glove and tossed it into the wastepaper
can.
“So, is everything all
right?”
“You’re very healthy,” the doctor said,
smiling. “And very pregnant.”
Elena blinked at the physician. “Excuse
me?”
“Pregnant. About twelve
weeks.”
“But . . .” Elena shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
“Are you telling me this is a virgin
birth?” the doctor asked with a wry grin.
“No, of course not, but . . . that’s .
. . Are you sure?”
“Very sure. I hope it’s good
news.”
“Oh, yes,” Elena murmured. “The very
best news. Thank you so much.”
“You may want to thank your young man,”
the doctor said, chuckling. “You may get dressed now. Be sure to
start taking prenatal vitamins right away. Get plenty of rest. Try
not to do any heavy lifting. And come and see me again in four
weeks.”
“Yes, I will. Thank you.”
Smiling, the doctor left the room,
closing the door behind her.
Pregnant, Elena thought, removing the
paper gown. She placed her hands over her stomach. How could she be
pregnant? She recalled Katiya telling her that one of the vampires
had impregnated a human and that both the mother and child had
died. She shook the thought aside. Just because it had happened to
someone else didn’t mean it would happen to her.
She dressed quickly and stepped into
her shoes. What would Drake think when she told him?
Please, she prayed,
please let him be as happy as I
am.
Drake was pacing the floor of the
waiting room when she entered. He went to her immediately, his dark
eyes searching her face. “Are you all right?”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “I’m fine.
Let’s go.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“I’ll tell you outside.” Her cheeks
were starting to hurt from smiling so much.
Taking her by the hand, he hurried her
out the door and around the corner of the building. “All right,
what did she say?”
“She said I’m going to have a
baby.”
“This is no time for jokes,
Elena.”
“I’m not joking. I’m
pregnant.”
He stared at her.
Elena’s smile faded. “Say
something.”
But he didn’t speak. Instead, he placed
his hand over her womb, his expression intense. “It is a
girl.”
“What?”
“The baby,” he said, his voice filled
with awe. “It is a girl.” He shook his head. “If I hadn’t been so
involved with events at the Fortress, I wouldn’t have missed the
echo of your heartbeat.”
“You can hear the baby’s
heartbeat?”
He nodded.
“How do you know it’s a
girl?”
“I know.”
“You don’t look very
happy.”
He drew her into his arms. “Of course I
am.”
“But?”
“I did not think it was possible. I
know it has happened occasionally in the past, but so rarely that I
put the thought out of my mind.” His arms tightened around her. “I
love you, wife.”
Lowering his head, he kissed her,
hoping to avoid any more conversation, at least for the moment. And
all the while, in the back of his mind, he was remembering Stefan
and how devastated his brother had been when the mortal woman he
loved had died in childbirth.
When they returned to the Fortress,
Drake sent Elena to their apartment, then called a meeting of the
Council. He also bid Andrei and Katiya to attend, as well as his
brother Stefan.
“I am leaving the Fortress,” Drake
announced when those who had been summoned were seated. “Andrei
will be in charge while I am away. His word is to be obeyed as my
own. Stefan, you will be second-in-command.”
“Where are you going?” Andrei
asked.
“Back to Wolfram with Elena. She is
with child. I do not want her here.”
“She is pregnant?” Katiya exclaimed.
“Oh, but that is wonderful.”
Drake nodded, aware that Stefan was
watching him closely. “Let us hope so.”