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Bled Dry

[Las VegasVampires 03]

Erin McCarthy

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One

“Well, it’s not the flu.”

Brittany Baldizzi watched her general practitioner tuck her hair behind her ear as she stepped back into the room. Perched on the edge of the examination table,Brittany was seriously confused. “An ulcer then?

I’ve felt this awful nausea for weeks.”

“Not an ulcer.” Dr. Hopkins smiled. “You’re pregnant.”

“Excuse me?” The room went stark white and a buzzing rang inBrittany ’s ears. “Pregnant? I can’t be pregnant!”

There was no way. It wasn’t possible.

“Have you been practicing abstinence?” Dr. Hopkins asked with a rueful shrug.

“Yes, I’ve been totally abstinent.” How in the hell could she be pregnant?

Dr. Hopkins raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

Okay, so that wasn’t completely true. “Well, mostly. I’ve only had sex once in the last six months.” But that had been with Corbin Atelier, and that didn’t count because he was a vampire.

“Once is all it takes.”

Normally. When you were having sex with regular, mortal men. “But... ”Brittany rubbed her head. “He can’t have children.” She didn’t think. Of course, he had never really said he couldn’t have children. But neither had he suggested birth control.

“I’m sorry this is such a shock,Brittany , but obviously he can have children, because you are definitely pregnant.”

“Well, I had no idea.” That vampires had sperm.

Which was a stupid assumption on her part. After all, hadn’t her brother-in-law sworn to her up, down, and sideways that her own biological father had to be a vampire? But she hadn’t put two and two together when she and Corbin had been talking that night.

Though to be totally honest, it wasn’t like she and Corbin had devoted a whole lot of time to conversation when he had climbed in her bedroom window and asked for blood. She’d given him her blood and her body, and now he had given her a baby.

Holy crap.

It really would have been nice if he had warned her his boys could still swim.

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“You’re what?” Her sister, Alexis, just stared at her.

Brittanythrew herself down on Alexis’s leather couch and groaned. That appalled look of disbelief on Alexis’s face must have been what she had looked like in the doctor’s office. “You heard me. I’m pregnant. And before you ask, I made the doctor do the test twice.”

“Well. Gee. Shit. This is unexpected.” Alexis rubbed her hands through her hair. “A baby. You’re going to be a mother. Wow. Okay. Well, that’s exciting. I think. No, I’m sure, it is, babies are always good.

But damn, for the first time since Ethan turned me, I think I actually regret being a vampire. I’m not exactly going to have a normal relationship with my niece or nephew, am I? Though you know I’m happy if you’re happy.”

Tears popped intoBrittany ’s eyes. Alexis was the closest thing to a mother she had, since their mom had overdosed whenBrittany was thirteen. It was hard sometimes to accept that Alexis was now a vampire, married to a really old vampire and living in hisLas Vegas casino. Her sister had a whole different life fromBrittany ’s mild-mannered existence as a suburban dentist.

A suburban dentist who happened to be knocked up by a French vampire. Oh, God.

“I’m happy about a baby, yes, but Alexis, I’m scared.” Alexis popped up off the easy chair and came over to her. “Oh, honey, don’t be scared.” She hugged her, which madeBrittany feel better. She may have been nearly a foot taller than Alexis, but it still felt good to be cosseted. “It will work out. We’ll help you out.”

“Help her out with what? What’s wrong?” Alexis’s husband, Ethan Carrick, current president of the Vampire Nation, strolled out of their bedroom in pajama pants and no shirt.

“Did I wake you, Ethan? I’m sorry.”Brittany hadn’t been able to wait a minute past six o’clock, which was really early for vampires to be getting up for the night, but she had desperately needed to hear Alexis tell her everything was going to be alright.

“It’s fine. What’s wrong, Brit?”

“She’s pregnant,” Alexis told him.

“Oh.” His mouth opened, closed, opened again. “So, uh, congratulations. That’s fabulous! A baby. I’m sure you’ll be a brilliant mother.”

“Absolutely,” Alexis said stoutly, patting her leg. “This is one lucky baby.” WhileBrittany had always imagined she would have several kids, and had looked forward to that time in her life, she had never once thought she’d be having a baby alone, without a man anywhere in the picture.

Not to mention she was a touch concerned about the health of two-hundred-year-old vampire sperm.

That seemed a little past the expiration date.

“I’ve always wanted to have a baby, and I’m sure once the shock wears off, I’ll be really excited. It was just a... surprise. Really unexpected.”

“I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone,” Alexis said. “Who is the father? Do you think he’ll want Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

to be involved with the baby?”

Whoopsie. She’d left that little tidbit of info out, hadn’t she?Brittany pulled away from Alexis and looked down at her jeans. She commanded her tongue to speak, but it didn’t cooperate. Alexis was going to freak when she heardBrittany ’s very embarrassing answer.

“I’m not sure if he’ll want to be involved, but I suspect the answer is no. I haven’t seen him since the one night we slept together eight weeks ago.”Brittany looked up, locking eyes with Alexis, hoping like hell her sister would put two and two together so she wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

Alexis stared back. Then suddenly she jerked on the couch like she’d been electrocuted, her jaw dropping, head shaking. “Brit... oh, no, don’t tell me. Please tell me that the baby’s father is not Corbin Atelier.”

“It is,” she said in agony, feeling like a total idiot. Why had she even slept with the charming, good-looking, arrogant idiot in the first place?

Because he was charming, good looking, and arrogant. And the sex had been hot.

“It is what? Corbin’s baby?” Alexis said, like she was trying to convince herself she’d heard wrong.

“Yes! It’s Corbin’s baby.”

“The Frenchman got you pregnant?” Ethan’s voice was outraged, his hands on his hips. “Didn’t he use birth control?”

Now that was a little personal.

“Ethan.” Alexis glared at him. “That’s not really any of your business.”

“It is,” he insisted. “Vampires aren’t supposed to sleep with mortal women without using birth control.

While the odds of pregnancy aren’t as great as copulation with a mortal man, there is still that risk. It’s irresponsible to mate with a mortal woman and impregnate her with a half-vampire, half-mortal child.” Copulate... mate ... impregnate ... could he make it sound any grosser? Next he’d toss out breeding and bitches in heat .

And she was not about to tell her by-the-book brother-in-law that Corbin had not used birth control.

That they had gone from discussing Corbin’s scientific experiment to body slapping in about a blink.

There hadn’t been time to grab a good breath for moaning, forget finding a condom. They had been there and done before you could say ovulate.

“Corbin and I may have been irresponsible, but that’s irrelevant at this point, Ethan. I’m having a baby.

Alone, apparently, since I haven’t seen Corbin since we conceived this child.” Well, she had thought she’d seen him the night she’d been so sick, but Alexis had assured her she must have dreamed that Corbin had showed up, hauled her off the bathroom floor, and put her to bed. “I have no idea how to get in touch with him.”

Brittanywould be mortified to actually have to face Corbin and tell him she was having his child, but it made her uncomfortable to realize that he wasn’t going to know. Whatever he wanted to do with the knowledge of impending fatherhood was fine withBrittany —he could be involved or not—but it only Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

seemed right that he have the opportunity to make the choice himself.

But she couldn’t tell him if she couldn’t find him.

Rubbing her mildly nauseous stomach,Brittany bit her lip and worried. It took her a second to realize that Ethan and Alexis weren’t saying anything. When she looked up, she saw them glancing at each other.

Damn them. They were doing that vampire mind-reading thing with each other, leaving her out of their conversation.

“If you guys are talking about me, quit it. That is so rude.” Alexis swore. “Ethan... ” she said in warning. “Let me handle this.”

“I don’t need to be handled,”Brittany said, feeling a little irritated. “What are you keeping from me?”

“So handle it,” Ethan said, sweeping his hand out gallantly. “I have utter confidence in you to do the right thing, Alexis.”

Did they even notice she was sitting there? “What are you both talking about?”

“Brit... ” Alexis tugged on the end of her shaggy blond hair. “Corbin is in Vegas if you want to talk to him.”

Her breath caught. “He is?” A lump the size of a grapefruit seemed to be stuck in her throat. She was having trouble swallowing, and her stomach was grinding and twisting. “How long has he been here?” And why the hell hadn’t he told her he was in town?

“Um, I’m not really sure,” Alexis said, biting her fingernail. It was a clear sign she was lying. Apparently she decided to come clean. “But well, actually, I think he’s kind of always here because he sort of has to be. I don’t think he ever left. He, um, well, lives here.” Tears popped intoBrittany ’s eyes, mortifying her. So no one had told her Corbin lived in Vegas, including Corbin himself. Big whoop. They were nothing to each other, an embarrassing little one-night stand, two minutes out of Corbin’s two hundred years of life. Of course he hadn’t put her at the top of the list of people to see when he was out and about. She wasn’t even sure why she had assumed he was from out of town, except that maybe that had been wishful thinking, her mental justification for why he hadn’t bothered to speak to her in the last eight weeks.

She was usually so much more rational about men.Brittany had always liked to live in the moment, to have fun, to meet new people, and she enjoyed sex for the pure physical pleasure. Never before had she felt this weird sort of melancholy and longing for a guy she wasn’t dating, didn’t really know, and who clearly had no interest in her. She had no problem admitting she had indulged in a one-night stand or two in her time, and she’d always walked away with a whistle, no regrets.

This was different, and she didn’t know why. Definitely didn’t like it.

And she was pregnant.

“Where is he?”Brittany blinked hard. She really needed to find Corbin, tell him the news, and retreat back to her corner to get a grip on her life.

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Ethan cleared his throat. “I believe he’s on the twenty-fourth floor at the moment.”

“He’s here? At the Ava?” Corbin was in Ethan’s casino right as they were speaking in that very same casino? Her stomach roiled.

“Yes.”

“Oh, I’m going to throw up.”Brittany lurched forward and tossed her dinner into the sink adjacent to the bar with impressive velocity.

A martini glass fell off the counter and crashed to the tile floor when she jerked back up, wiping her eyes and mouth.Brittany clutched her gut and ignored her sister and brother-in-law staring at her in horror.

Shaking her hair off her face, she took a deep breath.

She had a fertile French vampire to see.

Two

Corbin Atelier stared out the window at the Vegas cityscape, feeling restless with his confinement. He’d been living inLas Vegas for nearly four decades, and never had he felt the yoke around him so tightly as now. There was no reason for it, but he longed to be able to leave the desert, to fly to the ocean, to the mountains, to smell the crisp air ofParis in late October.

A knock sounded on the door of the suite of rooms he had been staying in for the past two weeks as he oversaw Ringo Columbia’s withdrawal from his drug blood addiction. Corbin made no movement to answer the door, staring, searching, wanting some kind of answer from the view in front of him.

“There’s someone here,” Ringo said.

Corbin turned and saw that Ringo was slumped on the divan with his eyes closed, legs stretched out in front of him. A cigarette dangled at his lips, and his cheeks were pale, skin sallow. His chest moved up and down laboriously, like ancient bellows. It was difficult to watch Ringo suffer through his withdrawal, but Corbin was confident he was through most of the physical trauma. Mentally, it was never a sure thing.

Addiction waged war on its victim, the battle was never completely won, and Corbin wasn’t entirely sure Ringo wanted to be free of his dependency.

The knocking came louder.

“Would you answer that?” Ringo asked, voice rising in irritation. “It’s probably Kelsey.” Corbin didn’t know what the relationship was between Ringo and Ethan Carrick’s secretary, but her visits usually had a positive effect on the patient. However, this wasn’t Kelsey.

“It’s a mortal. I can sense it.” Corbin moved to answer the door, suppressing a sigh. He had work to do and every day he spent stuck in Carrick’s casino, forced into the role of part prison guard, part medical doctor to Ringo, the longer his research was delayed.

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Brittany Baldizzi was standing in front of him when he pulled open the door. Corbin was so startled he said the very stupid and obvious, “Brittany! This is a surprise.”

“Hi, Corbin.” Her cheeks went pink, and her eyes didn’t quite meet his.

“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Are you recovered from the flu?” Truthfully, she still didn’t look one hundred percent healthy. Her skin tone was off, and she looked like she had lost weight. Corbin felt both worried and guilty. He should have checked up on her a second time, but he hadn’t been entirely comfortable with his own feelings towardBrittany , so he had avoided her. Yet again. He had done plenty of avoiding as well following the night he had bedded her.

“How did you know I had the flu?” she asked, looking startled.

“I saw you. I came to your apartment one night when you were sick.” The night he had heard her call him mentally, felt her suffering. Without thinking, he had gone straight to her and found her sick in her bathroom. He could have sworn at the time that she didn’t have a fever, but she must have if she didn’t even remember seeing him.

Her eyes went wide. “You were really there? I just thought... ”

“What?”

“That I was dreaming.”

This beautiful woman he had made love to thought he was in her dreams? That pleased Corbin more than it should. “No. I was there. I put you to bed.”

“Oh. Well, thanks.”

“You are welcome.” Corbin suddenly remembered that he had manners. “Would you like to come in?

Are you here to see Ringo?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve actually never even met Ringo. I wanted to talk to you for a minute.

Privately.”

He couldn’t possibly imagine what she wanted to discuss with him, but she looked so anxious Corbin didn’t hesitate. He admittedly had a rather soft spot when it came toBrittany . Not to mention he’d been attracted to her since the first night they met, when she had thought he was a serial killer.

“Certainly. We can go into the other room.” It was a bedroom, which wasn’t the best place to be escorting a woman he thought was so beautiful, a woman he’d impulsively made love to in a moment of total sexual weakness. It had been a wonderful, madly erotic five minutes, and a bed was sure to remind him of that, but the only other option was the bathroom, and he was too much a man of the nineteenth century to speak to her by the commode.

He offered her a seat in the sleek gray suede chair next to the bed, but she shook her head.

“What is the matter?” he asked, unable to resist the urge to smooth her hair back from her forehead. She really looked ill, and he felt prickles of concern.

“Corbin... I’m pregnant,” she blurted, locking eyes with him for a second, before dropping her gaze to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

the floor.

“Pardon?” She’d spoken so quickly, mostly to the carpet, that surely he had misunderstood.

Those dark eyes, which he found so innocently alluring, locked onto his. “I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.”

That was rather unpleasant news. Granted, he had not spoken to her since the night they had made love, aside from when she’d been ill, but he had foolishly thought she had felt the same way as him—knocked off his feet by their encounter. He had not so much as looked at another woman in those eight weeks, yet she had moved to another man’s bed. He was not so memorable, it seemed.

“Ah. Zat explains the vomiting,” he said, his English slipping as it always did when he was irritated.

“Morning sickness, yes? Well, I wish you happy.”

The last remaining bits of color in her cheeks leeched away. She frowned at him. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

Corbin shifted uneasily. He didn’t see how the situation called for him to say anything else. “Take care of yourself,” he said politely.

“Uh!”

Tears came out of nowhere and rolled out of her eyes, scaring Corbin senseless.

“What ez the matter? Don’t you want to have a baby?” And why was he the one standing there in complete discomfort patting her arm inanely? Where was the baby’s papa?

“I want to have a baby. And I thought that it was only the right thing to do to come and tell you that you’re having a baby, but it seems like I shouldn’t have wasted my night. You could care less!” Corbin listened to her words. Played them back in his brain. Was she saying... “I’m the father?”

“Duh. Of course you are!”Brittany swiped at the tears on her face. “Who else would be? You’re the only man I’ve slept with in six months.”

Well, that was pleasing—she hadn’t found him so lacking as a lover she’d had to find another. But that also meant... “Mon Dieu, you’re having a baby? Our baby?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Corbin needed to sit down. He needed a drink. He needed to think this through. Good God. A baby? A small, crying, helpless, mortal creature. That was half his, halfBrittany ’s biology. It didn’t seem possible.

There had only been that one night. But he had made no effort to use birth control or even withdraw at the precipitous moment. Quite the opposite. He had enjoyed exploding deep insideBrittany . Just the memory had him shifting, manhood swelling inappropriately.

“You are certain?”

She sighed. “Yes, Corbin, I’m certain.”

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“We didn’t use birth control,” he said, trying to reconcile what she was telling him with what had happened.

“No. But I didn’t think you had sperm.”

Corbin frowned at her, feeling insulted. “Of course I have sperm. I am still a man. I still function, do I not? I have everything that is manly the same as a mortal.” Brittanycouldn’t stop a small smile from crossing her face. Corbin looked so outraged and French. “Yes, you still have everything.” And then some. She would never forget how in five minutes he’d given her better sex than some guys had in six months of dating.

“Absolutely.” He nodded up and down once.

Brittanycouldn’t tell how he was taking the news. He didn’t look angry. He looked surprised, but nothing more. Damn, he was cute. She’d almost forgotten how adorable he was in person with his caramel-colored hair and rich, chocolate eyes.

Corbin rubbed his jaw. “And as such, I owe you an apology. This is my fault and I accept complete responsibility. I will marry you.”

Brittanyforgot how cute he was. “What!” Of all possible reactions, she hadn’t even considered that one.

He was smoking something if he thought she was going to just marry him because he’d gotten her pregnant. And what kind of a proposal was that anyway? A sucky one, that’s what kind.

“It is for the best.” He nodded, like everything was decided. “We will marry and hire a nurse to care for the babe.”

Someone had fallen back into the nineteenth century. “Why is getting married for the best? We barely know each other.”Brittany sucked in quick, short breaths. Her stomach was churning again. “I don’t want to marry you.”

“You would have my child be born a bastard?” He looked outraged.

“This is Vegas! No one cares.”Brittany took a step back. He was so close to her she was getting dizzy trying to talk to him. “My mother was a stripper, for God’s sake!” Corbin winced.

Brittanywas offended. He didn’t like that? Too bad. “I don’t even know who my father was. My mother cheated on her husband with Mr. Anonymous. Alexis and I don’t even have the same father.” She was blathering on in total panic, because while she was intrigued by the idea of maybe dating Corbin, or at the very least having an amicable relationship with the father of her child, she could not marry him. Jesus. What the hell did they have in common?

Just a bundle of cells that were dividing in her uterus as they were speaking.

“Brittany... ” Corbin clapped his hand on his forehead. “You and I, we have forgotten something. Your father was a vampire.”

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“So?”

“So, you are half-vampire. I am a vampire. This baby you’re carrying, it is a three-quarter vampire child.”

“So?” she asked again nervously. Why did Corbin look like he was going to drop to the ground? His eyes were actually narrowing, darkening, turning almost black, and she could tell he was thinking hard.

“So, there has never been a three-quarter vampire child to my knowledge. Ever.” That didn’t sound promising. “Why not?”

“Because vampires are not supposed to procreate. Some, of course, do anyway, when they inadvertently mate with a mortal who has the recessive gene for vampirism, which allows for conception, though fortunately their numbers are few. The resulting child is a mortal Impure. But never has a vampire mated with an Impure such as yourself, or if they have, there was no child, possibly because their mother did not inherit the gene from her mother. You clearly do have the gene, as do I, meaning the gene will most definitely be in our child. It is the most basic of biology, but there has never been such a child that I know of, one with a complete vampire gene.”

He’d already said that, and he was starting to scare the crap out of her. “And?”

“And if there has never been one, there is no scientific precedent. What is it? Mortal or vampire? Day or night dweller?”

Breast milk or blood drinker. Corbin didn’t say it, butBrittany knew he was thinking it.

“Oh, my God! You’re telling me our child is going to be some kind of... mutant, or something? Is he going to have fangs?”

“Of course not!” But he didn’t look convinced. Then he stood up straighter and his jaw locked. “Our child is not a mutant. He will be strong and intelligent, lacking mortal weakness. Yet he will not need the blood. I am almost sure of it, because it is the draining which activates the urge to feed, not the gene.

Besides, I am Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, the most premier vampire research scientist, and I will correct my mistake, that I promise you.”

Wow. How reassuring.Brittany burst into tears. Her baby was a bloodsucking demon. Instead of a Gerber baby, she was going to have an infant with fangs, pale skin, night vision, and the ability to read minds.Brittany pictured a fridge full of little bottles, prancing lambs on the outside, all filled with human blood. She would have to lock down her thoughts all the time so her baby didn’t see her sexual fantasies about George Clooney or her mean unkind thoughts about her dental hygienist’s butt and the way it looked in white pants.

This was panic time.

“Corbin, you can’t experiment on our child! God, this is horrible, I’m going to be sick.” She clutched her stomach. “We were both so stupid! I’m never having sex with you again.”

“But it is not as if you can get pregnant a second time,” he pointed out, looking a little mystified. “There would be no reason we’d need birth control if we lay together now.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Arrgh!” How did you say idiot in French? Idi-ote? She turned to the window, tears blinding her. “I want to talk to my sister.” Fumbling in her pocket, she pulled her cell phone out of her jeans and pressed number one to call Alexis.

“Alex?” she sniffled when her sister answered.

Alexis swore. “What did the bastard say to you? Where are you?”

“I’m still in the suite you told me to come to. Alexis, Corbin says our baby is going to... going to... ” She choked on the words and dissolved into a fresh round of tears.

“I’ll be right there.”

When Alex hung up,Brittany let the tears take her over. She sobbed, overwhelmed, frightened, scared for her child. Totally flipping freaked out.

Suddenly Corbin was behind her, arms wrapping around her. “Shh. It is all right now, ma chérie . I did not mean to frighten you. Everything will be just fine, and we will have the most beautiful child. After all, look at his mother.”

Corbin’s voice was soothing in her ear, his embrace confident and strong. She shouldn’t lean on him, should try to be strong, but she couldn’t. And she had no right to place all the blame on Corbin. She had been there that night. She had encouraged him, enjoyed their time together, and she had never hesitated or considered that there could be ramifications of their actions.

She tried to stop crying. “I did always want to be a mother.”

“Now you will be, and you will be fantastique . It will all work out.”

“I hope so.”Brittany relaxed a little. Corbin was pretty damn old, and he was a scientist, after all. He had said he was really close to an antidote to revert vampires to mortal. If anyone knew how to deal with the situation, it was him. She closed her eyes and leaned back against him. Maybe this would be okay.

“And we will get married, yes?”

Her eyes flew open. “No!” Why was he stuck on that?

There was a pounding on the outside door. Corbin moved away from her. “We are not finished discussing this.”

If he was talking about marriage, she was finished discussing. She was not going to bind herself to a man she barely knew. She didn’t even really know how old Corbin was, let alone what his personal likes and dislikes were, whether he was neat or a slob. She’d never even seen him naked, and how sad was that?

She checked out his butt as he left the room. It was very sad.

Ringo wondered if they knew he could hear every word they were saying.

Since his voluntary entry into rehab to quit the drug blood habit, he had gotten really damn good at Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

meditation and the other new age crap his pseudo-girlfriend, Kelsey, kept encouraging him to do. The end result was that he was way more comfortable sitting still, listening, than he had ever been in his life, and with his vampire hearing, he had caught most of Corbin and Brittany’s conversation.

He had to admit, he’d had no clue vampires could knock women up. That was good info to have, if he didn’t want to create headaches for himself along the way.

And he also wondered if anyone would be interested in hearing that an Impure was carrying a three-quarter vamp bundle of joy. Like someone willing to pay for that information.

Like maybe his old drug pusher, now inNew York awaiting his trial for treason.

Donatelli.

Brittanyheard her sister’s voice at the door and went to save Corbin. If she knew Alexis, she’d have Corbin on the ground in a karate maneuver before he could say pardon .

She got there in the knick of time. Corbin was shaking his head, protesting in French to Ethan, while Alexis was bouncing on the balls of her feet.Brittany knew that stance. It meant someone was about to be kicked.

“Alex, don’t kick him!”

“Give me one good reason why not.”

“Because he is the father of my child.”

“That’s the reason why, not why not.”

“What?”Brittany tried to follow that logic, gave up, and settled for taking Alex’s hand and giving it a squeeze to prevent a full frontal attack.

Ethan and Corbin went back and forth in French—which she had to admit was sexy, even as she resented the fact that they were excluding her.

“I didn’t know Ethan speaks French,” she told her sister.

“I didn’t either.” Alexis was glaring at her husband. “He told me he spoke a smattering of French. Does that sound like a smatter to you?”

“I have no clue what a smatter sounds like.”Brittany looked around for a seat. She was exhausted and there were no comfortable seats in the suite. It was an artful arrangement of impractical, uncomfortable art deco furniture. She wanted a nice fat sofa with squishy cushions. Instead what she saw was a hard, squared-off set of chairs and a white sofa with a man lying on it.

It must be Ringo, and he looked uncomfortable, which any human being would when sitting on such crappy furniture. He was like an infant propped up in a seat, his shoulders and head drooping to the side, and his legs falling open. His back was taking the brunt of the awkward position, andBrittany had the urge to grab a sausage pillow and tuck it behind him.

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“Can I get you a backrest or something?” she asked, feeling bad for him. “I’mBrittany , by the way.” He opened his eyes and glanced at her curiously. He had dark eyes, expressionless, and she thought maybe she’d woken him up, because he didn’t speak.

Grabbing a throw pillow from the chair, she moved toward him. “Here, lean forward for a sec.” He did, and she tucked, bending the pillow in half so it would fill the space behind his lower back.

“Thank you,” he said, his breath expelling on a sigh when he sank back. “And congratulations.”

“What?”Brittany stopped, half-standing, half-bent. Their eyes were almost level with each other, and he held her gaze without blinking.

“The baby. Congrats. You must be excited.”

It was a perfectly inane nothing for him to say, polite conversation, but a cold disturbing shiver rolled downBrittany ’s spine. Ringo must have overheard when she and Corbin had been talking. It should have embarrassed her, to know that anyone had been witness to that bumbling debacle. But she felt an edgy unease more than embarrassment, and she stood up, moved back out of Ringo’s space.

“Thank you.”

“Brittany,” Ethan said, striding into the room. “I need to speak with you, please. Back at our apartment.

Let’s go.”

“But I don’t think Corbin and I are done talking.” At least she hoped not. They hadn’t resolved anything.

All they had really established was what they already knew—that Corbin had sperm, they’d had some romping good sex, and they were having a baby. Surely the conversation needed to go beyond that.

“I don’t care. We need to leave.”

Ethan could be just as stubborn as her sister, which madeBrittany wonder how two such similar personalities managed to live together. Though she supposed it wasn’t like they could kill each other, given that they were immortal. They just had to fight it out.

But knowing how to handle Alexis’s stubbornness helpedBrittany deal with Ethan now. “Okay, I’ll be there in two minutes. You go ahead without me.”

Ethan nodded. “Good.”

But Alexis was on to her. “If you’re not back at our place in five minutes I’m coming back for you.” Damn. The conversation with Corbin would have to wait after all. Alexis wouldn’t play around. She’d be back in five minutes, karate kick at the ready. “Fine. I’ll just come with you now.” She went over to Corbin, who was standing by the front door, arms crossed, looking annoyed. “So, if you think we still have some things to talk about, maybe we could get together in the next few days.” She didn’t want to pressure him, but she wanted to know how involved he intended to be so she could mentally deal with the logistics of raising a vampire baby, either alone or with his help.

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“Of course we need to see each other. We have many, many things to discuss,” he said, French arrogance back in place. “I will come to you tonight.” See, this was what had gotten her in trouble in the first place. When he did that whole appearing out of the dark sexy thing, she couldn’t help but get a little excited. She should tell him no, but they did need to talk. “Fine. But knock on the front door instead of coming in my window this time.” He relaxed, uncrossed his arms, and cupped her cheek, stroking across her skin.Brittany stared into his pale green eyes, taking comfort in the strength and determination she saw there.

“Our baby will be fine, I am convinced of it. This child is not a mutant, or an aberration, or an accident, but a child born of passion, and I am honored that you will be his mother.” Now that was a sweet thing to say.Brittany felt some of the tension in her ease. “Thank you. And you really think everything is okay?”

“Absolutely.”

“I’ll see you later then.”Brittany left, feeling much better.

Corbin watchedBrittany leave with Carrick and her sister, and stuck his hand in his hair.

Mon Dieu, his child was going to be born a mutant.

A freak of nature, a bloodsucking baby. This was not good. And he had lied toBrittany . This was not fine, this was not okay, this was a complete and total genetic nightmare, and yet again he was to blame for such an act of total stupidity.

Nearly thirty years of mortal life, two hundred as a vampire, and he had never once gotten a woman with child. That he did now, with an Impure half-vampire/half-mortal woman, was a strange and cruel irony.

Of course, skipping birth control in a century when it was available at every turn for less than a cup of coffee, was inexcusable.

Corbin had made mistakes before. Grave and unfortunate mistakes that had left one woman dead and his work in question.

But he was so close to finding a cure for vampirism. Success was just a few tests away and now this. He was such an idiot.

Corbin called in the guard who was standing in the hallway. “I must leave for a few hours. Keep an eye on Ringo.”

The guard nodded even as Ringo said, “I don’t need a baby-sitter. I’m not going to leave.” A determined but belligerent patient, Ringo had been dealing with the withdrawal symptoms fairly well, but Corbin knew drug lust drove vampires to desperate measures. He preferred having a guard keeping an eye on Ringo. Especially since part of Corbin’s own punishment was essentially doing whatever the current government wanted him to do in exchange for being allowed to continue his research. Carrick Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

was the head of that current government and Corbin didn’t want to anger him and jeopardize his work.

Of course, getting his sister-in-law with child probably hadn’t endeared Corbin to Ethan Carrick.

He was such an idiot. He just couldn’t say it enough.

“I know you are not going anywhere. You’re technically under house arrest. He is just here to see to your comfort until I return. If you like, I can ask Kelsey to come and keep you company.” Ringo made a face. “I’m really not in the mood to listen to her babbling.”

“Fine. I will be back later this evening.” After he’d had time to gather his thoughts and mentally slap himself around a few times. After he’d had a chat withBrittany about how they were going to proceed, and how soon they could marry. He would not heap further mistakes on top of the first by allowing her to raise an illegitimate child alone. Of that he was certain.

“Take as long as you want. I get sick of you hovering over me all the time. You make me feel like a kid with a disappointed father, you know that? It’s freaking annoying.” Corbin winced as he headed out the door. A father. Good Lord, he was going to be a father. To a mutant child.

It did not bear thinking on.

Instead, he would head to his lab, and he, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, would fix this.

Eventually. Somehow. Maybe.

Three

“Okay, what was so important?”Brittany asked. She was exhausted, her stomach still hurt, and a giant pit of worry had lodged itself in her chest like indigestion that no Mylanta could cure.

Ethan had ushered her into his apartment and now he was pacing back and forth in front of the patio door. Alexis was biting her nail from her seat in a plaid easy chair.

“I want you to know that you are not the first.”

“The first what?” Woman to get knocked up from a one-night stand? Of course she wasn’t. That number could probably fill the UNLV stadium.

“The first to have a three-quarter vampire child. There was one before, that I know of. It was kept quiet, but I had personal knowledge of the situation.”

Uh-oh. This could get dicey. While her sister knew her husband had a past—a very long one—Brittanystill didn’t think it was going to thrill Alexis to hear that Ethan had had a child with a mortal woman.

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“Was the baby okay?” Regardless of Alexis’s feelings, she had to know.

“The baby was fine and was kept hidden from her father. I do not believe he has knowledge of her existence to this day.”

“You’re not the father?”Brittany asked in confusion.

Ethan looked startled. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Can we just start at the beginning, please?” Alexis asked. “Before I get pissed off that you’ve kept yet something else from me.”

“Alexis,” Ethan said with a look of forbearance. “I have nine hundred years of existence to account for.

There hasn’t been time to tell you everything that’s happened to me, let alone to other people I’ve known.”

Brittanyfelt guilty. “Don’t fight, you guys, this is all my fault. I’m causing problems for everyone.” She felt close to tears again.

“This isn’t fighting,” Alexis said. “This is our form of communication. I get ticked, Ethan gets exasperated, we gripe at each other, then have sex. It works for us.” Well, that was too much information about her sister’s marriage.

“Any way,”Brittany said. “So who was the mother and what happened?”

“The mother is my sister, Gwenna.”

Brittanyhad met Gwenna only once, at Ethan and Alexis’s wedding, and she had popped in, vampire style, said nothing to anyone, then left again. She had looked pale and fragile, and was a full vampire, not an Impure likeBrittany was.

“I don’t understand. Gwenna is a vampire, right?”

“Yes. I turned her when she bled to death after giving birth to her daughter. This was the eleventh century, you know, and childbirth was a risky, nasty business.”

“I don’t think this is the beginning,” Alexis complained. “I had no clue Gwenna was an Impure. How was that possible if you weren’t an Impure?”

Ethan’s face hardened. “My mother was raped when my father and I were away at war. Gwenna is seventeen years younger than me, and when I became a vampire and eventually came home, I realized that her biological father had been a vampire, because I could sense her vampire blood. Unfortunately, by that time my father was dead, as were all my other siblings. It was just Gwenna, who was seventeen, and my mother in our castle. I had some issues to the north I needed to resolve, and against my better judgment I left the two of them there, with several of my vampire friends to watch over them. At that time, these were friends I trusted, who had shown me the way of the vampire, and they were staying with me. They assured me they would oversee my mother and sister’s safety. By the time I returned ten months later, they were gone, one of them having betrayed me by seducing my innocent sister, who had just given birth to his child the day before. She bled to death moments before I arrived, and I found my mother with her body. My mother, who had buried everyone she had ever loved, and who assumed I Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

was dead up north, given certain erroneous reports my betrayer had fed to her.” Ethan had been a warrior,Brittany knew that. But the way he stood now, fists clenched, jaw tight, she realized it wouldn’t take much to strip away the civilized veneer of the British politician and discover that man inside him, who had fought for the safety of his family with his bare hands. It was a little intimidating at the same time it was comforting. Even if Corbin bolted, Ethan had her back because he considered her his sister now.

“So you turned Gwenna?” she asked carefully, her heart filled with compassion for him.

“Yes. I brought her back, though she was never the same as she’d been before. She was quiet, reserved, frightened. But she loved her daughter, and it was very worth it to me. My niece was born healthy and remained so.”

Brittanysensed there was more to the story, but Ethan wasn’t going to divulge it. It had obviously cost him a lot to talk about his mother and sister, andBrittany felt for him, for his pain, for his very long past and all that heartache. Squeezing his hand, she said, “Thanks for telling me, Ethan. That makes me feel better. Is there anything I should know... was the baby normal? No fangs or anything?”

“No fangs. Completely normal, and she was very strong and athletic. Tough both in body and character.

She wound up becoming a warrior.” Ethan smiled and glanced over at Alexis. “A bit like your sister, in fact.”

“So I should plan on being a soccer mom then.” It sounded so much better when she thought in normal, everyday terms. She would have an athletic, aggressive child. She could deal with that. After all, she’d lived with Alex for twenty years. “I really appreciate you telling me this, Ethan.”

“You’re welcome.” He kissed the top of her head in a brotherly fashion that pleased her. “Everything will be fine, Brit.”

“Thanks. Alright, I’m going to head home. Corbin is coming over to discuss ‘ze situation,’” she said in an attempt at his French accent.

She blew them both a kiss. “Love you. Talk to you later.” Alexis looked at Ethan with a hearty dose of suspicion after her sister had left the apartment. Swinging her legs over the arm of the chair, she narrowed her eyes. “Alright, Carrick, what did you leave out of that story?”

“Some details.” Ethan had his back to her, closing the blinds to the patio door.

“What details?” Alexis didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Tell me the truth or I will seriously kick your ass. Who was the father of Gwenna’s baby?”

Ethan’s fist tightened on the blind cord and his jaw clenched. “Donatelli.”

“What? I thought they got married like three hundred years later.” Alexis was surprised. The way Ethan had made it sound, Gwenna had been seduced and abandoned, not lived happily almost ever after with the guy.

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“They did get married in the fifteenth century, four hundred years after their original relationship. Gwenna was reclusive and I shunned Donatelli after his betrayal. He didn’t even know she had been turned, and I admit, when they crossed paths inadvertently on a trip we took toItaly , I was surprised he even remembered her. Most womanizers don’t recall all their conquests, especially not after so many years.

But not only did he remember, he claimed that he, too, had been betrayed, that he had been forced to leave her, and that he had returned to search for her the following year, only to hear that she had died.

Thank God the villagers had been told she died of a fever, because we didn’t want anyone to know about the baby, at Gwenna’s request. She was ashamed of her actions. But I blamed Donatelli, not her. I still do. He should have known better. And I blame myself for leaving in the first place. But when they met again, Donatelli fed Gwenna lie after lie, and she fell for it, sneaking around with him without my knowledge, and after a few months she up and married the bastard. It took her three hundred years to gather the courage to divorce the sorry sot.”

“Oh, yikes. It’s bad enough we all make mistakes with our first shot at love, but three hundred years?” The very thought of being stuck to her high school boyfriend, Bart Winslow, and his fart jokes, for all eternity made Alexis shudder. “Gwenna must be terrified to date.” And she felt a little guilty for not reaching out to her sister-in-law more. Stuck in that nasty old castle in England, beating herself up for picking a crappy guy—like who hasn’t?—with no one to talk to... Gwenna needed some girlfriends to hang with. Vampire girlfriends like herself and Kelsey. And Cara, if she ever came back from Seamus’s farm inIreland .

“Maybe you should invite Gwenna to visit us. Or maybe we could go visit her.”

“That’s a thoughtful idea.” Ethan looked surprised.

What? She couldn’t be thoughtful without shocking people? Asshole. “I’m not a total bitch. I would like to get to know your sister better.”

“We can’t go over there until after the election, and I doubt she would visit. Coming here for the wedding was difficult for her.”

“I can’t believe the election got bumped back to February just because Donatelli dropped out. I think they should just give it to you.” Alexis still couldn’t believe Donatelli had just agreed to resign his campaign for the presidency. Granted, Ethan and Seamus had promised to kill him if he didn’t drop out, but Alexis would have thought Donatelli would weasel around them somehow. Or at least try to. So far, he’d kept his distance, though.

“In all fairness, the other party needs time to choose another candidate and then campaign.” Alexis understood. She was all about fairness, being a prosecutor. When it worked in her favor. Or her husband’s. But she was tired of the endless banquets and cheesy speeches. Most nights when she wasn’t doing consulting work—daysleeping had killed her prosecutor’s career—Ethan expected her to paste on a smile and a dowdy suit and play Laura to his George. But the problem was, Laura Bush was a nice woman, and Alexis wasn’t. It taxed her patience to be pleasant to people she didn’t like.

“Well, I still think it sucks. And what’s up with you having to basically be nominated again?”

“In light of recent circumstances, it seemed wise to take another primary vote and ensure I am still the candidate with the most popular party vote.”

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He was so good at talking political BS. “I’m sure you are. And by the way, what happened to Gwenna’s daughter? I got the feeling you were keeping something fromBrittany .” Ethan turned away from her—one of his lie tells—and shrugged his shoulders. “It’s probably irrelevant toBrittany ’s situation.”

“What is?”

“That my niece went insane in her twenties and killed herself.”

“Do you know whoBrittany ’s father is?” Corbin asked Carrick, having cornered him in the casino several hours later. He had made sureBrittany was home, safely tucked in her apartment, and Ethan’s wife was swimming laps in the casino’s indoor pool, so they would not be interrupted.

Carrick looked at him sharply, before glancing back out over the casino floor. They were seated at a table in the casino’s five-star restaurant, on a balcony that jutted out slightly into the action of the floor, yet kept them above the noise. They had drinks in front of them, since a vampire could digest liquids but not solids, and a serving staff that knew to leave the owner of the establishment alone.

“Why?” Ethan asked.

“Because it would be beneficial to know if he has a particular recessive gene I have run across in both mortals and vampires.”

“So what if he does?”

Corbin tried not to feel frustrated. He realized Ethan was trying to protectBrittany , but Corbin didn’t think he could explain one hundred years of research in genetics to Ethan. “It’s complicated, but you know that vampires carry a virus for vampirism that is transmitted through saliva and blood, yes? Well, that virus lies dormant until a person is drained of blood. The virus is activated, the person feels the urge to replenish their damaged blood cells by drinking blood, and the change is complete. The question in my research has been if I can inhibit the virus even after a body has been drained, even after years of living as a vampire, and reverse its effects. In essence, return a vampire to mortality, with a dormant vampire virus. I believe the answer is yes.”

“Okay. This is shaky territory, Atelier. You know as well as I do this sort of knowledge could split the Nation into two camps. As it is, there are plenty of Impures clamoring for vampire population growth.”

“I know. And what none of them understand is that they are the very key to true vampire procreation because, statistically, a large number of them have the gene from their mother. Vampires can only mate and create a child if they or the mortal woman has the recessive gene I mentioned. Vampires without it who copulate with mortal women without it will never create a child. But what happens when a half-breed Impure, likeBrittany , mates with a vampire? I have the gene, andBrittany got it from her mother. I have the active virus,Brittany has the dormant virus. IfBrittany has the gene from her vampire father as well, our child gets essentially a double dose of the virus and one whole reproductive gene.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Corbin looked out at the flashing lights of the casino, thoughts troubled, self-recrimination great. He had Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

known the facts, but he hadn’t done anything about them. He had been focused on the creation of a drug to inhibit the virus, not on reproduction. “It means that our child will be born immortal, with no need to feed on blood. Essentially, a superbaby.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Bloody hell.”

“This cannot be found out. No one can know this, or my child will be in danger, Carrick. Those who want growth, like Donatelli, they’ll want this baby. They’ll want to understand how to re-create him, how to generate a superrace, if you will, and that I cannot allow.” Corbin shifted, uneasy, angry. “You know howBrittany is, what a wonderful woman she is. This child has every chance, and every right, to have a normal life with her as his mother. That is what I want, that is whatBrittany and our baby deserve, and I cannot let anyone hurt either of them.”

“You have my complete support, Atelier. I don’t wantBrittany or the baby hurt, either. But I don’t know whoBrittany ’s father is. Only her mother knew that, and she’s been dead for fifteen years. I’m not even sure the vampire who slept with her knew there was a child. If he did, there is no evidence of it.”

“I have a DNA database of about twenty percent of known vampires. I can runBrittany through it and see if we can find a genetic match.” He would have to secure a sample from her. The night he had drawn her blood, the night they had conceived their child, he had actually left without taking the vial filled with her sample off her dresser. The whole reason for entering her apartment had been to ask her for a donation, and he had just left the blood sitting there. Utterly ridiculous.

“You have a DNA database? How the hell did you do that? Do you have my DNA?” Ethan looked outraged.

“Yes.” Corbin shrugged, feeling just a little sheepish. “It’s not difficult to collect, you know. A stray hair here or there, a glass left sitting there with saliva, skin, blood... ” He trailed off at Carrick’s expression.

“That is just wrong, Atelier. That’s stealing.”

“It is not. If you leave your DNA lying about, it becomes public property.” He wasn’t going to apologize for it. He wasn’t a criminal or an evil scientist. He was conducting his research to give vampires choices .

“The point is, I know who has the gene and who doesn’t.” Ethan shook his head, leaned forward onto the table. “But what you don’t know is that nine hundred years ago my sister gave birth to a child, just like yours will be. My sister was an Impure, though I don’t know who her father was. I do know, however, who the vampire father of her child was. And I do know that my niece gave every appearance of good health, and no sign of ever needing blood.” Corbin stared at Carrick, disbelieving him. “There was a child? Who was the father?” He knew Carrick’s sister had been married to Donatelli, who was interested in vampire population growth, and who had been Carrick’s presidential opponent until he had suddenly dropped out of the race. But their marriage had been recent, only a few hundred years ago, he thought, not nine hundred.

“It doesn’t matter who he was, because he didn’t know about the child, and I know he’s no longer active in the Nation. I told you to reassure you about the baby, but I respect my sister’s privacy.”

“I understand. Thank you for sharing what you have.” It did reassure him, though he’d been certain his baby wouldn’t need blood once he had thought through the biological repercussions.

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“What happened to your niece? Did she have a normal life span?” Ethan shook his head. “I’m sorry to say that my niece took her own life as a young woman. She did it thoroughly, through decapitation.”

Corbin immediately regretted the question. “Good God, I am sorry, Carrick.” Ethan nodded. “Yeah, me, too. So how many vampires have this gene?”

“Of the twenty percent of known vampires I have tested, only ten percent have the gene. So allowing for a margin of error, I would suggest between one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty vampires out of our population of ten thousand. Each of those men are capable of producing innumerable offspring with women who carry the gene. I am one of them. You are not.” Carrick sank back in his chair, exhaling quickly. “Well, that’s a relief. It’s good to know I didn’t scatter a bunch of kids around over the centuries and not know I was the culprit.” Corbin winced. “Reassuring for you.”

“Sorry.” Carrick made a face.

“Zat is all right. I am certain Brittany is the first woman to carry my child.” Because generally speaking, Corbin wasn’t intimate with women. He approached women, he charmed and flirted, he coaxed them into pleasure glamours and took their blood for research, but he did not seduce them wholly. Until Brittany.

“So what do you need me to do? How do we protect Brittany and the baby?” This was the hard part, the dilemma that Corbin had turned around and around in his head because he didn’t like it. But it was necessary and he knew it.

“No one can know the father of Brittany’s baby is a vampire. Everyone must be led to believe she is having a baby with a mortal man, who has no interest in her or the child. Then the child is just a quarter of diluted vampire genetics, and nothing special. No one will care. Then later on, when I marry Brittany, the assumption will be that I am the stepfather, that we have fallen in love the normal way despite her carrying another man’s child, and that I will adopt her baby. That way I am physically present in their lives to protect them both.”

The thought that no one would know that she was having his child, his flesh and blood, really bothered him, but Corbin didn’t see that he had a choice.

Carrick’s eyebrow shot up. “Atelier... what the hell makes you think Brittany will agree to marry you just for protection?”

Well, he wasn’t, but surely she would see the logic in it. “She will want what is best for the child.”

“Is it really necessary? It seems a little drastic.”

“Yes, it’s necessary.” He was certain of it. “Do you know what they will do if they get ahold of this information? There are those who would raise this baby in a lab, testing its abilities, pushing the limits to see what he or she is capable of. The logical conclusions of this scientifically are that my child can lead a Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

skilled team of scientists to the creation of a superrace, either through forced breeding or via cloning.” Carrick’s face reflected the horror Corbin felt. “Oh, my God, this makes my head spin. It’s a scientific nightmare.”

“Zat is the double-edged sword, Carrick. In discovering how to reverse vampirism, I have also unearthed the means to propagate it.” Corbin swished the liquid in his glass. “Now after tonight, I must stay away from Brittany. No one must have reason to suspect that I am the baby’s father.”

“What are you going to tell her?”

“Nothing. I don’t want to frighten her. You will watch over her, yes? Keep her safe while I keep my distance?”

“Of course.”

Corbin trusted Carrick and his crew of vampire security guards to protect Brittany, though he would have preferred to be with her himself. But he was convinced this was the best way to keep her safe and blissfully unaware of the potentially horrific consequences if anyone knew the real situation. “Then I would prefer she not know the dangers. She’ll only worry.” Carrick shook his head. “Women don’t like that, Atelier... it will turn around and bite you in the ass later. Besides, how do you know Brittany won’t run around telling everyone you’re the father?”

“She won’t.”

Because Corbin had a plan.

Ringo had a plan and it involved Kelsey cooperating with him. He pulled her onto his lap and gave her a smile.

She tried to shift away from him. “I’ll crush you! You’re still not healthy yet.” He rolled his eyes. “Kels, you weigh like ten pounds. If your bony ass can crush me, I deserve to die.” It was the wrong thing to say. Her lip quivered. “I don’t want you to die.”

“I’m not going to die.” Ever. He still had trouble adjusting to his vampire status, the knowledge that he was around for the long haul, but there was no doubt about it. It would take a lot to snuff him out.

“And is my butt really bony? Is it gross?” Perched on the couch next to him, she felt up her ass, patting and rubbing the seat of her extremely tight jeans.

Ringo felt a hard-on stir to life. “Not at all, baby. But stand up, let me check it out.” Kelsey did, sticking her very tight booty just inches from his face. She peered back over her shoulder, clearly worried, hands still gliding around down there. Damn, she was so clueless, and yet she made him so hot.

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“Very nice.” Ringo put his hands over hers and squeezed her firm flesh. Her eyes widened in sudden understanding.

“You did that on purpose,” she said, frowning at him even as she bent her knees slightly and rocked against his grip.

“Yep.” Ringo bit her ass, letting his fangs puncture the denim and nip at her skin.

“Ouch!” She swatted at him with her pale hand and tried to wiggle away. “Stop it, that hurts.”

“Then take your jeans off, let me have a real taste of you.” He tugged her back so she landed in his lap, right on his boner. “Can’t you feel that? I want you. I’m in pain.” She sighed, one of pleasure, yet regret. “I feel it. But not in here. The guard is right outside the door.”

“So?” He thrust upward, and spread her knees with his hands. It amazed even him how much he really did want her. She was annoying, unpredictable, treated him like a problem child, and really did have a bony ass. Yet she was the only person whose company he could actually stand, and when he looked at her, he felt intense, biting desire, and the urgent need to protect her. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, or what it meant, but the sexual urges he knew how to act on, if she would just let him. “Who cares if the guard is in the hallway?”

She rubbed her butt against his erection. “I would be embarrassed if he heard us.” Said the woman who had gone down on him the first night they had met. Ringo was resigned to the fact that Kelsey’s logic was never going to be clear to him. He would just use her reluctance in his favor.

“Then let’s go away somewhere together. Like a romantic weekend. No one around but you and me.”

“You’re still on house arrest. You can’t leave Vegas.” Ringo supposed an apology for trying to assassinate the vampire president wasn’t going to impress Kelsey or the tribunal. Not that he was interested in groveling, but he did resent having his freedom clipped. That’s why he had a better plan. “Oh, come on, just a little weekend away. You know me. I’m not going to do anything. I just need to get out of this casino. I don’t even need to leave Vegas. I just feel like I’m suffocating here, stuck inside all the time.” He kissed her shoulder, brushing her long dark hair out of the way. “Don’t you want to be with me? Don’t you care about my mental health? Don’t you want to make love to me somewhere private?”

Her eyes lit up as she turned to look at him over her shoulder. “I know, let’s get married, Ringo, and get one of those really sexy romantic honeymoon suites with a whirlpool.” Married? Jesus, how had she pulled that out of her bony ass? While he had interesting emotions regarding Kelsey, the thought of marriage made him want to hurl up his blood breakfast.

“Okay,” he said. Opportunity pops up, you take it. That was his philosophy.

“Really?” She spun all the way around. “You mean it?” Her arms came around his neck and she kissed him eagerly. “That’s so cool.”

“Way cool,” he said, kissing her back, indulging in a little tongue. He needed the contact to reassure himself he wasn’t going to regret this dumb-ass move. “So pack a bag, baby, and let’s figure out how Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

you can get the key to my ankle bracelet from the guard.” Four

Corbin knocked on Brittany’s apartment door an hour later, determined that he would remedy the situation. What he suspected, based on simple biology, was that their child would be born immortal, with no urge to drink blood. At first glance, that had seemed a positive outcome to the situation, at least compared to the alternative. But what had concerned him was how an immortal child would mature, both physically and emotionally. That was something he could not predict, no matter how much research on vampire genetics he had garnered, but after talking to Ethan Carrick, he felt somewhat reassured. Carrick hadn’t mentioned any complications from his niece’s unusual genetics.

That left only the need to secure secrecy about the baby, which despite his aplomb with Carrick, Corbin had his doubts about. Brittany was a bit unpredictable, he had determined. Or perhaps impulsive was a better adjective to describe her. There was no guarantee she would want to marry him, but he was going to have to convince her of the obvious merits of such an arrangement.

Brittany answered the door with a smile. “Come in.”

It struck him anew how beautiful she was, how sweet and pure of heart, honest and compassionate.

That was what had attracted him to her in the first place, had made him forget himself. “Good evening, Brittany.”

Corbin loathed the idea of lying to her. Hated that no one would know she was carrying his child, wouldn’t know that she had opened herself for him, that he had taken her, blended his body, his DNA, with hers and created a child. It brought out all manner of feral urges he hadn’t even realized he had.

Not to mention embarrassment.

“I knocked on the door,” he said inanely, not at all sure what to say to the woman he had made love to with an appalling lack of finesse. That alone was cause for awkwardness, but added to his own bad handling of that night was the memory of her huddled in her pillow, so embarrassed she had refused to look at him. He could honestly say that had been a sexual first for him, leaving a woman writhing in emotional discomfort. Now that same woman was having his immortal child. There was not a greeting card for this particular occasion.

She laughed a little. “Yes, you did. Thanks.” She led him to her living room and she sat down on a thick floral sofa.

Brittany’s apartment was very white and pink with lots of competing floral patterns, china hung to the walls, and a profusion of pillows. It had a cottage feel to it that pleased him, even if it was excessively feminine. He sat down on the sofa opposite Brittany and was immediately enveloped by lacy pillows. It didn’t feel like a position of power, to say the least, so Corbin leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees. He could do this. Had to do this.

“Aside from the morning sickness, you are feeling well?” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Yes, I’m tired, but that’s normal according to the doctor.”

“When is your due date?”

“May twelfth.”

Now what in hell did he say? Brittany was looking at him expectantly. “I am sorry if I have caused friction between you and your brother-in-law.”

She shrugged. “Ethan is worried about me, but he’s totally on my side.” And against Corbin. He heard the subtle censure. “I am also sorry for my irresponsibility. I have never before... created a situation... ” He couldn’t think of a delicate enough phrasing for what he meant.

“I’m the first girl you knocked up?”

He winced. So much for delicate.

“That does make me feel better, Corbin. I admit it would bother me if you’d had a kid every decade for the last five hundred years or something.”

The very thought offended him. “This is not a habit for me. I do not normally succumb to passion and lose sight of all common sense. This was a first, and I have already apologized. Besides, I am only two hundred and ten years old.”

Brittany looked amused. “Is that all? I’m twenty-six. And in case you were wondering, this is the first time I’ve ever gotten knocked up. So we’ll just have to bumble through this first time for both of us together.” Then her smile disappeared. “Unless you don’t want to be involved. If you don’t, I understand. I’m not expecting anything. I just need you to be honest up front and tell me so that I know what I’m dealing with. And it won’t be fair to our child for you to pop in and out of her life whenever you feel like it, so I’m just going to be clear right here and now that I won’t tolerate that ‘I’ll be a father whenever I feel like it’ kind of mentality.”

Surely her opinion of him was quite low if she thought him capable of such irresponsible selfish behavior.

It occurred to him that they had certainly done this backward. They knew nothing of each other and yet they were having a child. He no longer got headaches, but he could swear he felt one now, throbbing at his temples.

Yet this would work out. He was determined.

“I have no intention of popping in and out, as you say. My intention is to marry you as soon as possible.” After they were certain no one would suspect the truth. “We can live here if it pleases you, or we can live apart if you prefer. I will pay for the education and upbringing of the child. He can attend the same boarding school I did in France.”

Brittany was sure he had no idea how absurd he sounded. “You want to get married but live apart?” What the hell was the point in that? All that would do was screw up her taxes and prevent her from ever dating in the future.

“If that is your preference.”

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Corbin was not making this easy. Brittany still had no real sense of how he felt about the situation. “What is your preference?”

“My preference is to ensure your happiness.”

That was an artful dodge of the question. “Have you ever been married before?”

“No.”

“And you’re not going to be now. I’m not marrying you, Corbin. Just forget it. I am perfectly willing to give you visitation with the baby, though that could be dicey with the whole sleeping during the day thing, but we can work it out so you have plenty of time with the baby. I would like child support and a dialogue with you regarding major decisions. But I am not marrying you.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

And he was being ridiculous. “I am not being unreasonable. I just offered you shared custody. And sweetie, just to remind you, you are a vampire. How many women would be willing to leave their infant in the care of a bloodsucker? I think I’m being very reasonable under the circumstances.”

“That is insulting. And if you were being reasonable, you would agree to marriage and we would not need to have this argument.”

Brittany was trying really hard not to lose her patience. Normally, she almost never flew off the handle, and she was a real happy-go-lucky kind of woman. But she was tired, hungry, and nauseous, and he was pushing a bit hard against her patience. “So we should get married, live apart, each take recreational lovers whenever the mood strikes us, and send our child thousands of miles away to go to school. Why don’t we just hire a wet nurse while we’re at it.” And move into a nineteenth-century gothic novel.

Corbin tilted his head. “Can you still find such a service? We should consider that.” The sad thing was, he was actually serious. “Sure, if we want our kid to be warped. You have no idea how children are raised in the twenty-first century, do you?” He looked affronted. Corbin opened his mouth, snapped it shut, fell back into her couch cushions.

“Perhaps not,” he conceded.

The misery and horror on his face made her feel bad. It wasn’t like she was an expert, either. “That’s okay. I mean, you probably haven’t been around kids much in the last two hundred years, have you? We just need to talk these things through, like we are now. See, we’re doing so good at this already. We’re communicating and working things out, which is so important when you’re raising a child together.”

“You do not know what in hell you’re doing either, do you?” he asked.

No, but she was optimistic she could learn. “Not really. My experience with kids is kind of limited to Nanny 911 episodes and the kids I see as patients in my dental practice.” But she knew a boarding school in France wasn’t going to fly. And don’t even get her started on the whole marriage-of-convenience thing.

“Brittany, tell me about your childhood.”

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“Oh, uh.” Maybe they shouldn’t go there. Brittany crossed her legs and cleared her throat. “Well, you know, I grew up here in Vegas.”

“And your mother was a stripper?”

“Yes.” She wasn’t ashamed of that, not in the least, but it probably didn’t mesh with Corbin’s image of Mother Material. “My mom died when I was thirteen.”

“I am sorry. How did she die?”

“She overdosed on painkillers.”

“You were very young to be without a mother.”

“I had Alex. She was eighteen and she took care of me, kept me on the straight and narrow, and put me through school. I’m normal and well adjusted, Corbin, I swear. My childhood wasn’t a walk in the park, but it wasn’t hell either. We had food and a roof over our heads, and our mom loved us in her way. We even had a stepfather for a few years who was fantastic and provided a positive male role model in our lives. I can be a soccer mom, I want to be a soccer mom, even if that’s not the way I was raised.”

“Soccer mom?” Corbin looked puzzled.

He really was out of the domestic loop. Too much night dwelling. “A suburban mother who drives a minivan full of her kids and their friends back and forth to soccer practice. It’s sort of a general term for a suburban mom who spends a lot of time ferrying kids around.”

“Ah,” he said, but it didn’t look like he was getting it.

“How were you raised?”

“My parents were very wealthy French landowners who escaped to England during the Terror. I was born in London, but was sent to boarding school in France when we returned to the Continent after the defeat of Napoleon. My early years were spent learning to fence, learning to ride, and tending to my education. I did not spend much time with my parents, as it would have been unseemly for them to attend to my daily care.”

Wonderful. They could just scratch using their own experiences off their parenting skills checklist. If they did that, Brittany would be popping Vicodin and Corbin would be too busy with his opera house mistress to ever see them. They were going to have to use common sense and do this their own way.

“Okay, if we’re putting this in a nineteenth-century context, think of me as coming from a middle-class merchant family. How would a tradesman have raised his child?” It was meant to get him to look at child-rearing in a more hands-on way, but Corbin merely stared blankly at her.

“How should I know?” he asked. “I was not a tradesman.” Brittany felt the urge to smile, but squeezed her lips together tightly. “Maybe we should hit the bookstore and get some parenting books.”

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That seemed to offend him. “I do not need to read a book to learn how to raise a child. Zat is absurd.”

“I mean it as an information-gathering expedition. We should know our facts, see where we stand on the issues.”

“I know the facts. You are expecting my child. That is the only fact that is relevant.” Yeesh, he was damn cute when he was being so French.

“Thank you,” he said. “Though I am not fond of the descriptive cute .”

“What... ” Brittany felt her cheeks heat up. “Get out of my head, Corbin! Stop listening to my thoughts.”

“They were wide open to me,” he said with a twirl of his hand. “I was not fishing. They floated over to me.”

That was so annoying. Brittany attempted to do a mental door slam on her thoughts. “Anyway. How do you feel about an epidural versus a natural childbirth?”

“I think that is entirely your decision since you are the parent giving birth. I would not presume to tell you what to do.”

Score one point for Corbin. Brittany smiled at him. “Inducing labor? Cesarean sections?”

“I am not an obstetrician. We will discuss those issues with your doctor should they arise.” Geez, he was unshakable, with an answer for everything. He was looking stiff and determined, resigned to do his duty, and didn’t look like he’d be curling up with a baby-naming book anytime soon. While she was grateful he wanted to do the responsible thing, she didn’t want her child to have a father who resented his role.

“Do you think a baby can ever get too much love?” She wouldn’t be able to stand it if Corbin was going to ride her for spoiling their child with attention. She was a cuddler, and she was going to cuddle the heck out of their baby while she had the chance.

His eyes narrowed. “Am I being interviewed for the role of father?”

“No!” Not really. “Of course not. I just think it’s important we get to know each other’s parenting style.

See where the other one is coming from, so we can iron out any differences ahead of time before we’re up to our ankles in diapers and bottles.”

He continued like she hadn’t spoken. “Because I am the father and zat is indelible. Unchangeable.” Next he’d be slapping her face with a glove and challenging her to a duel. He was so outraged in an old-fashioned way and she thought he was adorable. “I know. Chill out.”

“I will not chill, as you say. I will answer all your questions, but then I demand the right to ask some of my own.”

“Fine. Absolutely. So what do you think about the whole letting a baby cry thing?” Brittany wasn’t sure Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

about it herself. She saw both sides of the issue and figured it fell into the category of feeling her way through it.

Corbin frowned. “Babies cry. I don’t understand how that is a question.”

“Some people think you should pick them up right away, other people think you should wait five minutes and let them cry it out.”

“I have no opinion at this time,” Corbin said stiffly. “Though I would question what is the difference? If you can, you pick the babe up. If you cannot, you don’t. What is the grand debate?” Well, that certainly put things in perspective. “What about the family bed?”

“The what?” Corbin tilted his head. “I think perhaps my modern English is not very good, as I have never heard those two words put together.”

“It’s where the parents and the child sleep in the same bed every night.” Brittany wasn’t sure how she felt about it, having known friends who were happy on both ends of the spectrum. She was open-minded and willing to try whatever was going to work for her and her child.

But the look of horror on his face gave her his stance on that particular issue. “Why?”

“Um... for comfort and a sense of family, I guess. So a child doesn’t feel abandoned.” He didn’t want their baby to feel abandoned, did he?

Corbin made a snorting sound. “I can tell you right now that if you and I are sharing a bed, there will not be a child in it with us. Ever. For any reason. If you and I are not living together, and you choose to have our child in the bed with you, I will not interfere, but never could I be convinced that such a thing is either necessary or appropriate. That is my final word on that topic.” Okay then. French vampire had spoken. Feelings of abandonment were not his concern. Duly noted.

“You are putting words in my mouth,” he accused. “I would never, ever want our child to feel abandoned. As long as he is living, I will do my best to love and protect him.” His last words made her forget how annoying it was that he seemed to have no problem reading her mind. “Corbin... I just realized that you won’t die. This baby and I, we’ll get old, we’ll die, and you and my sister and Ethan and Seamus and Cara, you’ll all just go on and on and on.” The thought made her unaccountably sad. They would all know entire centuries of living without her. “You’ll be like that old lady from Titanic and I’ll be Jack, a faded distant memory. You’ll be young and sexy and dating some exotic South American woman or something and I’ll be fertilizer.” Brittany started to sniffle. Damn, the business about hormones really was true. She couldn’t stop tears from pooling up in her eyes.

Corbin swore, feeling guilty as hell. For getting Brittany pregnant, for making her cry, for war and poverty, for all human suffering, you name it, he felt guilty for it. A woman’s tears did horrible, cruel, vicious things to his insides, and even more so with Brittany because she was normally so cheerful, so sweet. He had reduced her to this, he had made it obvious to her that her sister would live long after she was dead and gone.

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He wasn’t sure if now was the best time to tell her that the baby wouldn’t die either, that Corbin strongly suspected this child would be born immortal—not vampire, since he wouldn’t need blood, but not mortal either. Corbin expected the only one who would die in the equation would be Brittany herself and that thought was disquieting in the extreme. He had lost many people he had cared for in his early years as a vampire until he had isolated himself, focusing on his research, avoiding relationships.

Now he was in one up to his eyeballs.

“Brittany, hush, it is not so bad as all that.” What the hell was he saying? It was a goddamn mess. And she was out and out sobbing now.

Corbin stood up, unable to sit still. “We will take things one day at a time, yes? Let’s enjoy this blessing we have been given, and live in the now.” Vampires were good at that. You had to be, or you’d go mad.

Though he was lousier at it than most, and prone to melancholy. Perhaps he should keep that flaw to himself, though.

Conviction swept over him. He pulled her to her feet and wiped her tears. “And I will not be dating a South American woman because I will be married to you.” That was the right thing to do. He knew it both intellectually and emotionally. It was the responsible, moral, and safe thing to do to ensure Brittany and the child’s protection. He knew all that, had determined it was the proper course of action.

Plus he found the idea of being married to Brittany Baldizzi appealing in the extreme. He wanted the right to make love to her whenever the urge struck him, and he wanted to be there with her and his child through all the trials and triumphs. He had been given a gift. For a brief period in his long, long vampire life, he could live as a mortal man did, with a beautiful wife and a child. He wanted that with a fierceness that surprised him.

Her shoulders slumped and she looked nervous. “Corbin... ”

“Do not protest. Let me show you how it can be between us.” Corbin brushed back her hair, certain he had found the answer, the solution to all the confusion and guilt he’d been feeling. Yes, a marriage of convenience, but one that was passionate and comfortable. “Let me court you, Brittany, and show you that together we can raise our child, enjoy each other’s company.”

“Court me?”

Brittany was easy to read. Her face hid nothing, and she always spoke the truth. At the moment, she looked intrigued and pleased by his proposal. Her cheeks were pink, and she was a bit glassy-eyed.

It seemed a very natural thing to kiss her. To just close the space between them. “Yes, court you.”

“I guess that would be okay,” she said in a whisper, his mouth cutting off any further words.

Her lips were warm, plump, open for him, and Corbin savored the taste of her. He put his arms around her, drew her tight in to him, and took the kiss deeper. Brittany was delicious, felt so good against him, and that was why he had lost control the first time he had kissed her, and turned a simple touching of the lips into impending fatherhood. He wouldn’t do that again—lose control, that is. But on the other hand, he could not get her pregnant a second time, and she felt so right, her soft sighs, her body flush against his spiking hot, eager desire. Surely he could indulge in a small taste of her charms.

She pulled her mouth back enough to murmur, “Corbin.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Yes, ma chérie ?” He buried his hand in that thick dark hair that flowed down her shoulders and back.

That sigh she gave was very pleasing and he wanted to taste more of her, deeper. He kissed her again, sliding his tongue inside to mate with hers.

She groaned, echoing his own.

“Corbin, I... ”

“Shh, I know.”

“You’re making me dizzy, it’s too much,” she said, her voice breathless.

“That is good.” Corbin was wondering if it was much too soon to make love to her fully. Surely not.

After all, she was carrying his child, would soon be his wife. It was logical that they would be intimate again. Though he imagined logic was not what was driving him.

“We shouldn’t... ” she murmured, but there was a clear lack of conviction in her voice.

Corbin moved his lips over her long, pale neck, loving the scent of her dewy flesh, the hint of rich, strong blood pumping through her juicy veins. “We shouldn’t have the first time, but we did and I do not regret it. This time there is nothing to stop us.”

“I’m not normally easy.”

“Of course not,” he reassured her, hearing the doubt in her jumbled thoughts, but feeling the compliance in her body. He brushed his hand over her breast and reveled in the shiver she gave. “It is just you and I have something different, yes? We desire each other very much, have from the first day we met.”

“That’s true... you looked so sexy in your suit. But it was terrible of you to leave me on the roof like that.”

He had left her on the roof because her cheerful acceptance of his vampirism had appalled him, but it had been uncalled-for behavior. Corbin kissed the corners of her mouth, slid his tongue along her bottom lip.

“That was the second time we met, not the first. But it was bad of me, and I most humbly apologize.

Perhaps you’ll allow me to make restitution for my earlier rudeness, as well as for my rushed lovemaking.”

Brittany gave a hearty sigh that veered into a moan when he rubbed his thumb across her nipple. “I’m definitely feeling like I could use a little restitution.” Corbin loved the way she reacted to him, the way her body leaned toward his, the way her fingers gripped the sleeves of his shirt. And he was well aware this might be his only opportunity for intimacy with her in several months. It suddenly felt akin to taking a last swallow before a long drought. “Then this is good timing, Brittany.”

Eyes half-closed, she murmured, “I’m really, really tired lately. You know, since you got me pregnant.

So I’m just warning you, you’re going to have to do all the work.” Corbin felt his body—actually, a very specific body part—greet that information enthusiastically. “Of course. I am making this up to you, remember? All you need do is tell me what you like and what you Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

don’t like and leave the rest to me.”

“Okay, then.” She pushed his hand harder against her breast. “I like this.” Corbin never had to doubt Brittany’s feelings. She never hesitated to share them, and he liked that. No guesswork.

The shirt she was wearing, a tight pink T-shirt, needed to disappear. Corbin lifted the bottom of it and dragged it off over her head. Brittany’s bra matched her T-shirt, a vibrant, energetic pink satin. Her breasts were pale luscious mounds, pushed up and together by the magic of the modern bra. It almost matched the beauty of what a good corset could do, and had the added benefit of allowing her total movement, and him free access to her waist and navel.

Brushing his lips over her warm flesh, Corbin breathed deeply, enjoying the warmth of her dewy skin, the rush of her heated blood. She felt different to him, her waist tapered, ribs more prominent, skin pale, and it was clear she’d lost a few pounds. But in contrast, her breasts had swelled, were rounder and more robust than they had been before, and her scent was different.

The bra was cutting into her flesh, and Corbin traced his tongue between the fabric and her skin, feeling the groove it had left behind. “This has gotten too small, yes?”

“I know, but I’ve been too tired to go shopping.” Brittany’s hands rested on his shoulders.

Corbin raised his head and kissed her, strange feelings of compassion, guilt, desire rushing through him, running alongside something confusing and deep and strange. “Poor Brittany. This is all my fault. You should yell at me. Punish me for taking advantage of you.” She let him nuzzle her neck, her fingers digging into his flesh in a way that enflamed his desire. A slight smile crossed her face. “No one takes advantage of me. I wanted what you gave me, Corbin. And I want it again.”

No, Brittany wasn’t shy about revealing her feelings. Corbin swallowed, his mouth dry, his body taut with anticipation. “I am delighted to give it to you.” With that, he bent over, scooped her up into his arms, and started down the hall toward her bedroom.

She kissed him on the neck, the chin, the mouth while he strode faster and faster, not really seeing where he was going. At one point, he bumped against the wall, misjudging the door-frame. Instead of apologizing, he simply used it as a prop, a way to hold some of Brittany’s weight, so he could kiss her back, fierce, hard, his fangs dropping down in his pleasure.

The swell of her breast was too close to ignore and Corbin licked her skin, suckled and kissed, before allowing his teeth to sink into her and then quickly withdraw. Just a little taste of her blood, just a tease for both of them.

Brittany groaned. “Why does that feel so good?” She swallowed hard, pushing his head back toward her breasts. “It’s like... like almost as good as when your... goes into me. It’s that same sort of... I don’t know.”

Corbin held her tighter, his erection throbbing, his control slipping, his mind going blank with desire. “It feels good because it is a joining, just the way it is when I thrust my manhood into you and you accept it Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

with your body... this is the same.”

“Manhood?” Brittany whispered. “Can you thrust something less icky-sounding into me?” Corbin was tempted to laugh, but he didn’t. He wanted Brittany to understand, to acknowledge and enjoy what was between them. “When I slide my teeth into you, we’re feeling each other’s pleasure, feeling the connection between us.”

Moving his lips over her nipple, which had popped up out of her bra, he said, “You feel it, too, don’t you? This bond between us.”

“Yes. I definitely feel it.” She stilled his movements, his casual brushing, by gripping his head. “Suck it, Corbin, please, you’re torturing me.”

This was why he could not resist her. There was no man with an ounce of testosterone who would refuse such a delicious and demanding invitation from a woman he desired. And he obviously had a reasonable amount of testosterone since he had in fact gotten her with child, which made him feel no small amount of pride and possessiveness.

So he tore off her bra with vampire speed, and covered her nipple with his mouth, drawing the taut bud fully into him and sucking hard.

She made a sound, sort of a growl low in her throat, that compelled him to set her down in the hallway so he could push his erection against her jeans as he moved from one breast to the other. The change in her body was even more apparent without the bra restraining her. Her chest was full and lush already, and clearly sensitive. Every move he made, every touch, every lick and suckle, had Brittany squirming, panting, gasping, and protesting when he so much as paused for a second.

Corbin undid the button on her jeans, slid his hand inside, and cupped her mound with his hand. She was very warm, and thrust forward to meet his touch. He pulled back, wanting all that denim gone, yet wanting to step back and slow down, so he could savor the experience, the taste of her.

“No,” she murmured. “Don’t stop.”

“I am taking you to the bed,” he murmured in her ear, nipping at the lobe.

“Oh, okay, then. Good plan.”

Just to impress her, Corbin picked her up and moved to the bed with his undead speed, laying her down and discarding her jeans before she could so much as blink.

She licked her lips. “Cutting to the chase?”

“Yes.” Corbin stood at the bottom of the bed and drank in the sight of her. She was amazing, delightful.

Her full pouty lips were swollen from his kisses and her cheeks were flushed with color, two bright pink spots on either side. Her hair was spread out around her thick and lustrous, dark and exotic. Her legs were long and slim, going on and on, and he reached out and peeled her pink panties down a mere inch.

“Just don’t cut too much to the chase, or I might miss all the action. I’m still mortal, remember? I don’t want to blink and have the good stuff over with.”

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“That is not something you need to worry about. I plan to make love to you all night.”

“Score.”

Corbin paused, lips hovering right over her panties, unsure of her English. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing, it means that’s a good thing that you’re going to make love to me all night.”

“It does?” He pondered that. He supposed it was a reference to sports and the winning of a point. “I am not well versed in modern slang.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll stop using it.” She moved her legs restlessly. “Just stop talking and cut to the chase.” Corbin grinned, rubbing his lips over her panties, knowing it would torture her. “I thought you didn’t want me to cut to the chase. And that is slang as well.” The groan of frustration she gave pleased him. “Corbin... ”

“Yes?” He peeled pink satin down in front, holding it with his thumbs, and took his time studying her sex, taking in the scent of her desire, rubbing his mouth over her softness. “What is it, my dear?”

“Nothing.” Her voice was breathy, her hips thrusting up toward him.

He pulled back. “Are you certain? I can stop if there is something you are uncomfortable with.” Eyes closed, her head went rapidly back and forth. “Don’t stop.”

“No?” Corbin moved his tongue over her sensitive flesh, closing his eyes to savor the taste of her, the triumph of her shudder, the pleasure of feeling her thighs relax, settle open farther for him.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”

Disposing of her panties, he traced her thigh, first one, then the other, with his tongue, enjoying the way she spread her legs, the way she arched to him, the way her fingers moved into his hair and gripped hard.

When she was shifting back and forth, making little sounds of impatient distress, Corbin finally brought his mouth back to her, stroking his tongue over her clitoris.

Brittany groaned, her voice rising as he moved over her, tasting her thoroughly, stroking up and down with long leisurely licks, then pulling back to tease her. When she yanked at his hair, trying to drag him back, he gave her what she wanted, moving in with increased speed and intensity, nipping and sucking at her, plunging his tongue inside her warmth, pulling it back out. He knew she was going to orgasm, felt the tightening of her legs, her inner muscles, and he maintained his rhythm, his own desire hot and thick and hard as she exploded under him. Her cries were loud and unrestrained, her fingers fisting her bedsheet, hair spread out in all directions and tumbling over her cheeks and lips.

Her passion was beautiful. He loved that she wasn’t insecure or shy about her body, about her desires.

“Oh,” she said, eyes popping open, thighs settling back onto the bed. “That was hot. Take your pants off and give me another one.”

No, Brittany wasn’t shy. Corbin went up on his knees and unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it toward a Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

wicker chair resting in the corner of her bedroom. “It would be my pleasure.” She pried at his belt buckle, obviously intending to speed up the process. “Take off your watch. It scrapes my skin,” she said as she undid the belt.

Corbin paused, knowing he needed to tell the truth, but feeling a sense of shame. “It cannot come off,” he told her bluntly, turning his wrist a little to show her the titanium-faced wristwatch. Most of the time he was not aware of it, but suddenly he felt its weight most acutely. “It is the way the Nation keeps track of my whereabouts while I am still under the terms of my punishment. To take it off would be essentially a parole violation.”

Brittany frowned and lifted her hair up over her head, revealing cheeks and a chest still flushed pink from her orgasm. “You have an actual sentence?”

“Yes. Forty-five years I must remain in Las Vegas, visible to the government. I have served forty, with five remaining.”

Her fingers still rested on his belt and he felt the sudden urge to shove them away. It was a mirage, his relationship with her. He was not entitled to happiness, as his wristwatch reminded him. Living as a normal mortal man was not his destiny, and he knew better than to think it ever could be.

“Because you killed a woman?”

Corbin flinched. “Yes. I did not realize she was emotionally unstable when I selected her to draw a blood sample from, and to bite to infect with the virus. In those days I was focusing on how the virus was transmitted. But she was unaffected by my glamour, and remembered what I had done. She followed me, offered herself up to me, and when I refused, I thought it was the end of it.” Now was not the time to discuss this, but he knew, could read on her face, that Brittany was not going to let it rest. She was carrying his child, intending to be intimate with him yet again, and he knew she was entitled to the whole truth. “I did not realize she would cut herself open to entice me to feed, did not realize she would beg for the gift of eternity. I did not give it to her. Could not give it to her. So she died.” He swallowed thickly and looked over at Brittany’s dresser, where she had framed pictures of her and her sister, Alexis. It was foolish to think he belonged here, that he could live a normal life. Not when he could still see that young woman’s face, the desperation in her eyes as she begged him to make her whole, to make her a vampire, to drink her blood, all of it, even as he smelled and sensed she was pumped full of illegal drugs and antidepressants. He had been unable to turn her, had recoiled at the very thought, but she had gone wild, stabbing and slicing herself, her lifeblood bleeding out.

“I let her bleed to death, then I collected blood samples. It was a heartless, cruel thing to do.” At the time, he had been so shocked by her behavior, that he had taken the blood almost automatically, as he had trained himself to do. But afterward, when he was in his apartment, her dead body left in the street, and he had called an ambulance anonymously, he had been appalled at how he had handled the situation.

Corbin had turned himself in to the Nation, disgusted with his useless, aimless life, knowing without a purpose he would go mad, slowly and certainly. Knowing that being vampire and watching so many mortal deaths had changed him, made him immune to the horror of suffering, the tragedy of death. He had even suspected he had grown cold to death because he himself yearned for it, had grown to despise his lonely and futile life. So he had committed himself to going beyond vampire viral transmission to actually finding a cure. The quest for mortality for the dozens of vampires tired of endless life.

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And in his new purpose he had come to a new place of peace with himself, a tacit truce with his own eternity.

“I had removed myself so entirely from society that I forgot my humanity.” The irony of his agreement with the tribunal was that he was allowed to continue his research, but he was not entitled to participate in vampire society. So he spent all his time moving among mortals, using charm and persuasion to collect blood samples from women when it was occasionally needed, never allowing himself to get emotionally involved. Until Brittany.

She wasn’t looking at him with disgust, but understanding. “So you decided to pursue the cure to vampirism, didn’t you?”

He nodded, surprised she had reached that conclusion.

Shifting her grip from his waist to his own hand, she squeezed. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine having to make that kind of decision, that choice, with no time to weigh the consequences. I think it was wrong of them to punish you. From a legal standpoint, you didn’t do anything wrong, in my opinion. But I can see how it must have devastated you... I would have felt the same way. Someone can’t possibly understand what they’re asking for when they request eternity. It’s not a decision you make lightly.” That was not the reaction he had expected. He’d thought Brittany would have argued that he wasn’t responsible, that he was brooding for nothing. He had certainly heard that from fellow vampires. Then there were those, like the Committee for Fair Feeding Practices, who had condemned him for choosing his victim poorly, for his lack of a controlling glamour, and his poor handling of the situation. They had maintained that he should have wiped her mind completely clean so as not to jeopardize vampire security.

Or if that was unsuccessful, turning her to vampire. Letting mortals die hysterical deaths was not something they could advocate without looking draconian.

He hadn’t advocated it either. But Brittany was the first to understand why he hadn’t been able to turn someone so obviously unstable to a vampire. He had felt a horror at the very thought, like the woman had no idea what it meant to walk the earth undead forever, nor had he thought she would be capable of following the rules of the Nation, given her behavior.

“It was not an easy decision, and it all happened so quickly. I just reacted. But that doesn’t mean I’m not responsible for my own actions. I am. I initiated contact with her, and I did in fact infect her with the virus, and take her blood. That was not ethical.”

“Yes, but if you had to live through the situation again, same circumstances, with forty years to reflect, what would you do?”

Corbin didn’t really need to consider. He hadn’t had a choice. The other options had been more abominable than the decision to refuse her his lifeblood. “I would do the same thing, though I would disarm her of the knife more quickly and call for medical help sooner. But even more to the point, I wouldn’t have approached her in the first place.” But that wasn’t entirely the truth and he knew it. He still sought out unwilling donors to provide him with genetic material for his research, and he used both glamours and charm to achieve that. That was in fact precisely why he had originally approached Brittany—for her blood. The work was more important than worrying about taking one little vial of blood from someone, and he had to remember that, had to focus on the big picture. But the guilt ate at him.

He also knew that the real reason he wore the wristwatch and was banished from polite vampire society was because his research scared the powers that be. They had used the woman’s death, and his clear Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

remorse, as a convenient excuse to keep him in Las Vegas, to have him visible at all times. They didn’t want him finding his cure or making any other genetic discovery, then taking it to the wrong vampire.

“You know what you believe is right, Corbin, and don’t let them tell you otherwise. I think you did the right thing.”

Looking down at her, seeing the conviction in her eyes, he believed her. Brittany and he had a lot in common, given that she was misunderstood the same way he was. Hadn’t he heard her sister telling Brittany she was too trusting, too naïve? That wasn’t the way Corbin saw it at all. What he saw was an intelligent, compassionate woman who stood behind her convictions. Convictions that were remarkably similar to his own.

He bent over, kissed her forehead. “Thank you. You are an amazing woman.” Stroking her hair, he added, “Perhaps I should leave you, let you sleep.” This may be his last chance to be inside Brittany for months, but he had ruined the moment with his confession, and she was fatigued anyway from the pregnancy.

Her eyebrow shot up. “Are you stupid? I don’t think so! Take your pants off and let’s do this thing.”

“Do this thing?” He almost laughed.

“Yes. Do me .”

Corbin felt his ardor immediately rise. He appreciated that she knew what she wanted, and just dove into it with her eyes open and heart on her sleeve. “Excellent suggestion. I will do this thing to you again and again until you are begging me to never stop.”

Her eyes darkened. “Don’t stop,” she said, raising her hips, a smile playing on her lips.

Corbin scoffed. “That’s not begging.” He disposed of his pants and pushed himself inside her without warning, sinking his teeth into her shoulders.

She enclosed him, sending ecstasy sliding through his body, while simultaneously her blood sluiced over his fangs and rolled back into his throat. It felt amazing, delicious, but he forced himself to let go, to pull back out of her entirely, on both counts.

Brittany groaned. “Don’t stop!”

“Closer,” Corbin said, his own voice sounding tight, a sweat breaking out between his shoulder blades.

“But not quite begging.”

See, this was why Brittany had slept with Corbin the first time. He was a very polite, though brooding, vampire with mysterious green eyes. And when he touched her, he managed to obliterate any signs of rational behavior whatsoever. He was dominating and skilled, and both times within five minutes he’d had her at that point of no return, where she would willingly go just about anywhere sexually with him.

Inhibitions? She had nada with Corbin.

“Please, put it back,” she said, reaching down and grabbing hold of him, stroking his hard, slick flesh.

“That’s not begging either. That’s wheedling. That’s flirting. That’s you trying to get your way with your big beautiful brown eyes and your plump pouty lips.” He bit the bottom lip she had admittedly shoved Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

out.

Brittany closed her eyes, enjoyed that tingling, that tugging sensation of him pulling on her blood, drawing it into his mouth. It didn’t hurt. It felt sexual, like having her finger sucked during passionate foreplay. She stroked him faster, trying to maneuver him between her legs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, even though she did. She was used to pouting with her sister to get her way, even though she was a grown woman. It usually worked, so she kept doing it.

But Corbin wasn’t going for it, damn him.

Without warning he rammed his cock into her again, knocking her hand away. She barely had time to gasp at the full sensation, barely had time to enjoy the eye-rolling stretching of her inner muscles, when he left again, making her groan in frustration. “Stop doing that.”

“Stop altogether?” he asked playfully, not seeming to be at the same point of desperation she was.

He was just suckling her nipple calmly, with no apparent hurry, while she was squirming and dying and tense. And she’d already come once. His control was to be admired.

Later.

Right now she wanted him to knock it off.

Locking her legs around his thighs, she tried to flip him on his back. He didn’t even budge a millimeter.

Damn undead strength.

Lifting his head, he gave her a very naughty smile. “Did you need something, my dear?” he said, sliding into her once more.

Trying to hold him inside her was futile. He was gone before she could dig her nails into his back. “Stop it.”

“I believe the phrase is don’t stop .” He kissed her neck, her shoulder, her breasts, his fingers playing between her thighs, slipping and sliding, but missing the point for the most part.

Brittany gave up to the agony, every inch of her body screaming for satisfaction. “Don’t stop, Corbin, please.” She wiggled, trying to force his fingers inside her, but he eluded her again.

“Not quite right yet, but I’m feeling generous.” He thrust deep inside her and rested there for a minute.

“Yes... ” Gripping his biceps, she moved her hips, pleasure coursing through her.

He moved fast, hard, and pushed up into her over and over while Brittany panted and tried to keep up, ultimately giving up, collapsing back and letting him pound into her with delicious ferocity.

“Don’t stop,” she said, her voice warbling. “Don’t stop.” And when she was going to come, when everything in her stilled and ripped up, when her mind was empty and pleasure painful, when she felt a breathtaking pause right before she burst over him, she said with everything inside her, “Do. Not. Stop.”

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Corbin locked eyes with her, and she watched his change to a deep forest green. “Never,” he said.

She let go, and clung to him as they exploded together.

Five

“You care about your brother-in-law, yes?”

“Ethan? Of course. Alexis loves him and he’s a good guy.” Brittany snuggled up against Corbin, not really sure what place her brother-in-law had in the room when she was naked and postorgasmic.

“Why?”

“I was just thinking that your pregnancy could have very negative repercussions on Carrick’s reelection.” Brittany stopped playing with Corbin’s chest hairs and looked up at him. What a mood kill. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Carrick has campaigned on the side of population control. I am conducting very controversial research, not to mention that I have not completely served out my sentence. For you to be having my child, again a breach in vampire rules, will reflect very badly on Carrick. After the incident with Seamus Fox turning Cara, it could well prevent him from being reelected president.”

“I thought his opponent stepped down. And I don’t understand why the election was pushed back. It seems like he should have just won automatically.”

“It is meant to give the others time to replace Donatelli as an opposing candidate. And Carrick must still receive at least fifty percent of the popular vote within his own party to even remain on the ballot. It’s democracy, doing its job.”

Brittany was trying to get a grasp on vampire politics, but she had to admit she hadn’t made a study out of it. She wasn’t the vampire here. She was just a dentist, a normal day dweller. Until she had gotten knocked up by Corbin. Now she wasn’t sure what she was, but it had honestly never occurred to her that her pregnancy could affect Ethan’s career. “I don’t want to mess things up for Ethan. But we can’t change the facts. I am pregnant.”

Corbin smiled at her, his hair still rumpled. “And delightfully so.” He ran his fingertips over her arm, kissed her forehead. “But no one knows that I am the father of your child. No one even knows we are acquainted. Perhaps it would be best to keep our relationship a secret for a few weeks until the primary election is over. If any vampire discovered you were pregnant, they would assume the father to be a mortal. That would not be any cause for alarm.”

“But this... ” Brittany stroked Corbin’s penis, loving the way his body immediately hardened at her touch. “Is cause for alarm? We’re not supposed to be together? Does anyone really give a shit, Corbin?

I think maybe you’re overreacting.”

He closed his eyes, his breathing heavier as she stroked him. Then to her disappointment, he reached down and held her hand still. “Zis es the reality, Brittany. I am a criminal. I am responsible for the death Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

of a woman, however unintentional. I am on the verge of being able to offer a combination of medications, a vaccine essentially, that will inhibit the vampire virus, causing vampires to revert to a mortal physiology. There are vampires who hate me, who would like to see me dead. There are those who would like to steal my research, either to destroy it or to mutate it to their own purposes. Your brother-in-law is fighting with everything in his political power to ensure radical vampire politics don’t overthrow the current government. Our one moment of weakness should not jeopardize the entire future of my race.”

Well, he certainly had a way of sucking the romance out of the moment.

“Okay, God, when you put it that way. I can keep my mouth shut for a few weeks. But honestly, I had no idea things were as dire as you make them sound.” Brittany felt a small bit freaked out. “We’re having a baby, Corbin. Are you telling me rogue vampires are going to be after you all the time? I don’t think bloodsuckers randomly dropping over to kill you is the best environment to be raising a child in.” She was thinking bonnets and bottles, not draining blood and decapitation.

“Of course not. Once the election is over, and I present my findings to the UMA, then I intend to retire.

We’ll get married, move to a house, and we will be soccer mom and dad, yes?” With his hand on her butt, and her breasts pressed against his chest, she could almost believe him that it would all work out, even if she had a hell of a time picturing Corbin sitting on the sidelines cheering from the bleachers. At night games. “So you’re still going to court me? Try to convince me I should marry you?” she asked flirtatiously. She couldn’t wait to see what his wooing entailed. It sounded fun and full of gifts. With any luck, it would also involve lots of sex and nights out on the town.

“Absolutely. But we will be discreet until the election is over.”

“A secret courtship? Wow, we’ll be like Romeo and Juliet. How sexy is that?” Brittany closed her eyes and yawned into his chest. A sharp stinging from the top of her head made her jerk back. “Ouch! Did you just pull one of my hairs out?”

“Sorry, it got caught on my watch.” Corbin massaged her scalp and encouraged her to lie back down.

Not wanting to remind him of what his watch represented—his punishment—Brittany kissed his chest and teased, “But I haven’t agreed to marry you, sweetie.”

“You will marry me,” he said. “That is what the courting is for... to show you how it will be between us, how we belong together.”

Brittany shivered in delight. There was something really flattering and pleasing about his determination to be with her. “Court me hard, baby.”

Apparently a certain nineteenth-century French vampire’s idea of how to court a woman was different from Brittany’s, and as far as she was concerned, his way sucked.

Eight weeks. Eight freaking weeks, and she had not seen Corbin. Not once.

Every week she got a bouquet of fresh flowers sent to her with a computer-generated note that said,

“Thinking of you. Corbin.”

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Thinking of her? Big whoop. That was the equivalent of telling someone you thought about getting her a gift for her birthday, but didn’t. The thought did not count in Brittany’s book.

So Corbin had said they needed to be discreet until the election. She had heard him, known he meant it, but she didn’t think that meant he was going to disappear into the frickin’ night, never to return. She had thought he meant stealth sex, sneaking into her apartment at odd hours and whisking her away for romantic walks in the desert. Or something fun like that. Geez. Instead, she just felt like an abandoned pregnant woman stupidly waiting for a scrap of attention. Waiting for Corbin to get a clue.

“Brit, honey, just sit down. You’re making me dizzy.” Alexis squeezed her hand and tried to lead her to a patio chair, but Brittany shook her off.

“I don’t want to sit, I’m fine.” She leaned over the edge of the balcony to Alexis and Ethan’s suite and stared out into the night like there were answers in the neon lights of Vegas’s skyline. It all felt so ridiculous. She was bad poetry brought to life. She was like some forlorn chick in a vampire movie, desperate for the mysterious man of the night to return and bite her again.

She indulged in the moment, taking a good long wallow in self-pity. Where was the man who had made love to her with such feeling, such intensity, who had sworn they were going to be together? He was off doing who knew what and she was acting like a desperate loser.

Screw that. Brittany turned around and met the gazes of her sister and Cara Fox, Seamus’s wife, and pulled her shoulders up. “I really am fine. Corbin said we should be discreet, and he’s doing that. I respect and admire that.” Even though it made her want to throw herself down on the carpet and scream.

“But I thought tonight, since Ethan won the primary all over again, and we’re having a party to celebrate, I just thought maybe he’d show up.” Even as she said it, she realized she was veering right smack into pitiful again. And it was completely lame that they were out on the balcony when nearly fifty people were crammed into the apartment raising their glasses to Ethan’s success.

Alexis should be in there, by her husband, but Brittany had felt hot and sick to her stomach in there, and she had wandered the room over and over, trying to catch a glimpse of Corbin. Finally she had needed to get out of the stifling crowd, away from the curious looks, and away from her own disappointment that Corbin hadn’t shown up.

Fortunately, neither Cara or Alexis commented on how pathetic she and her hopes were.

“He can’t come to this kind of stuff, Brit, you know that. He’s a pariah.”

“A pariah?” Brittany winced. Somehow she had thought Corbin was exaggerating when he always said he was banished from vampire society. And after hearing his story, she was further convinced he hadn’t done anything wrong. “That’s horrible!”

Cara uncrossed her legs and leaned forward in her chair. She was wearing a red cocktail dress, and her silky black hair was pulled up in a twist. Shooting a frown at Alexis, she said, “Maybe that’s not the right word for it. But he is still serving punishment for what happened, and for the research he does. He doesn’t get invitations to parties. It’s just the way it is.”

“Corbin isn’t a bad man.” Brittany was certain of that. She’d stake her life—okay, bad choice of words—on it. That was why she’d gone and indulged in sleeping with him a second time. “In fact, he only wants to help. He wants vampires to determine their own destiny, not have it decided for them.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“He’s a weirdo,” Alex said.

Trust her sister to say exactly what she was thinking. Alex didn’t believe in white lies to make people happy, not even if she insulted the father of her sister’s child.

“He’s not a weirdo! He’s just a little... out of the loop.” Brittany sighed. He was actually very sweet.

From the very first night she’d met him, when he had been drawing blood from a woman with a syringe, her face a mask of blissful pleasure, his lips on her neck, Brittany had been drawn to him.

His compassion, his desire to create a cure for vampirism, his obvious loneliness, all touched her heart, had made her seek him out several times, and when he had asked for her blood, she had given it to him despite her fear of needles. And even though he had run out on her both times they’d had sex, there were very legitimate reasons for that. The first time, she’d told him to go. This second time, Corbin had stayed away for Ethan’s sake, which only further proved he was a good guy. Who couldn’t be bothered to even call her, damn him.

Alexis stood up and tucked her blond hair behind her ears, fiddling with the diamond necklace she was wearing with her navy satin dress. “Look, I know he floats your boat, though I have no clue why. But Corbin Atelier is bad news. If you’re going to get involved with a vampire, at least let me set you up with someone better.”

That hurt Brittany’s feelings. Alexis never trusted her to make important decisions for herself. “I’m already involved with a vampire! I’m pregnant .” Though she seemed to be the only one who had a real grasp on that fact. Corbin hadn’t even mentioned the baby once in any of his cursory, lame, click this box on the website for a greeting, floral offerings. “I’m not interested in dating random vampires, thank you very much.”

Alexis gave her a sheepish look. “Okay, I’m sorry, that didn’t sound right. I know you’re pregnant, and I know you’re worried about Corbin. But I’m worried about you, and your baby. I think maybe it’s just time to concentrate on you. Maybe it’s a good thing that he’s keeping his distance and not dragging you into further complications.”

Brittany felt tears in her eyes, which embarrassed her. She was not a weepy person. But she had been fooling herself. She had convinced herself that she was in charge, that she was merely going to explore a possible relationship with Corbin, but that she was perfectly rational.

Lie. That was a total lie. She hadn’t been rational at all.

While she wasn’t a person who cried, she was an impulsive person. She saw the best in most people, and gave her love easily. Alexis didn’t understand that, but Brittany didn’t see that as a flaw in herself.

She had given herself to Corbin, and maybe that hadn’t been the smartest thing to do, but she didn’t regret it.

He had given her a baby, for which she was truly grateful.

If he did decide to pop back up out of nowhere, she would be more guarded this time, not so easily coaxed into anything. Like bed. And in the meantime, she had to buy some maternity clothes, since her pants were pinching, keep swallowing those horse-sized vitamins, and register at Babies “R” Us. That ought to keep her busy.

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“I guess it’s a moot point anyway, isn’t it? He’s not here, nor is he beating down my door. So I just need to get over that.” Brittany touched her hair. She still couldn’t believe how strange it felt. In a moment of impulse—big surprise—she’d gone and had it all hacked off. It now came only to her chin in a modified shag. It was meant to be easier to take care of when the baby was born, and she had to admit, while it was different, she liked it. It made her feel more grown up, edgier.

“Has anyone heard from Kelsey?” she asked. That was another mystery. Kelsey had vanished. Again.

And no one had heard from her in close to two months.

“No,” Alexis said. “And I’m sure she’s with Ringo, so I doubt she’ll be coming back. He knows he is basically on the run since he was under house arrest for shooting Ethan.” Cara frowned. “What I don’t understand is why he took off. I mean, I know he’s not the kind of guy to enjoy imprisonment, but you think if he was looking to escape, he’d go it alone.”

“Yeah, but he needed Kelsey to get him past the guard. You know he’s not above using her like that.” Now Alexis was the one pacing. “What I can’t figure out is why she hasn’t resurfaced. I would have thought Ringo would ditch her the first chance he got after they left.”

“Maybe he really likes her,” Brittany said, hoping that was the case. For Kelsey, and for herself. When she had first heard that Ringo and Kelsey were missing, she had remembered the look he’d given her, the fact that he knew she was having Corbin’s baby. She’d been worried about Ringo telling someone and had wanted to discuss it with Corbin, but had no way to actually get ahold of him. Cell phones were not in his vocabulary, and when she had tried to mentally call him, he hadn’t answered. No advice there. But it didn’t seem like anyone in the vampire world knew Corbin was the father of her baby, and with this first step in the election over and done with, she had enough things to worry about without caring that Ringo knew the truth.

Eventually everyone was going to know she and Corbin had procreated anyway.

Alexis rolled her eyes. “He’s using her.”

“You don’t know that.” Brittany wasn’t sure why she was arguing. It wasn’t like she knew Ringo at all, and the one time she’d met him, he had given her the heebies. But it bothered her that Alexis always had to assume the worst. “You should give Kelsey more credit than that. She wouldn’t have gone with him if he was just using her.”

“Brittany Anne, I swear, you can’t really be this nice. Or this naïve.” Brittany bristled. She was not a child, she was having a child, and she wasn’t naïve, she was optimistic.

There was a big difference. One was dangerous, the other was zen. “Just because I don’t walk around looking for the worst in people doesn’t make me stupid.”

“I never called you stupid!”

“This sounds like my cue to head back in,” Cara said, standing up and adjusting the strap on her dress.

“Seamus is probably wondering where I am.”

“Absolutely,” Brittany said, distracted from her sister’s patronizing behavior. “I’m sorry I kept you out here for so long. Here you are just back from Ireland, you probably want to visit with everyone.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Not me. I really don’t know anyone but you two since we left for Ireland so soon after I was turned, but I think Seamus is enjoying seeing everyone. He won’t admit it, but he misses the action of politics.” Alexis winced. “And don’t tell him this either, because it will spoil the mutual disdain in our relationship, but I actually miss Seamus. Ethan can’t keep his head straight from his ass without him, and if he asks me to show him how to create a spreadsheet one more time, I’ll scream.”

“Maybe you should move back,” Brittany suggested. She wasn’t sure she could live in the Irish countryside either. Where would she go to buy sexy underwear and lattes? Growing up in Vegas meant she had access to everything she could ever want, all the time. If you could afford it.

Cara leaned forward and whispered, “I think I actually like Ireland more than Seamus does. The dogs have all this freedom and everyone has been very nice to me. But Seamus just broods and he’s now addicted to Free Cell on his laptop. It’s pitiful.”

“Speaking of pitiful.” Alexis rolled her eyes and tilted her head to the left. “Brittany, I think you have company.”

Brittany turned and looked past Cara, heart suddenly racing. There he was. Corbin. Lounging on the railing of the balcony next to them in a suit, feet dangling into open air, obviously not the least concerned that he could slip off and fall. The beauty of being undead—no need to exercise caution even when you were twenty stories high.

He looked crabby. Melancholy. His expression was black, eyebrows drawn toward each other, shoulders tense.

Brittany felt her compassion stir. She started toward him as Alex and Cara went in, wondering if Corbin even realized she was there. He didn’t seem to be looking at her.

“I am well aware zat you are here,” he said, his accent more pronounced than the last time she’d been with him. She noticed it seemed to thicken in direct relation to his level of irritation.

Now her own rose to match his, stomping on the concern she’d just been feeling. “Were you going to speak to me or should I just go back in and pretend like I never saw you?” He turned and locked eyes with her. Without answering her question, he shook his head as he studied her, his expression horrified. “Mon Dieu, what the hell have you done to your hair?” Given the look on Brittany’s face and the loud gasp she gave, perhaps that wasn’t the wisest thing to say. But Corbin had missed her most painfully, spent many, many sleepless days staring at the ceiling remembering the feel of her body beneath his, her thick long hair wrapped around his fingers, and he had broken his own vow to stay away from her by coming here tonight, just to catch a simple, secret glimpse.

And he found her hair gone. Chopped. Shorn. She looked like his little brother Edgar after his nurse had given him a bath.

Her cheeks turned red. “I cut it, obviously. It will be easier to take care of this way after the baby is born.”

Corbin swung his legs over, wincing inwardly at the error he had just made. Her chin was raised Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

defiantly, her eyes flashing. He hadn’t meant to give away his presence at all, or speak to her, but he had been unable to resist. He had been hovering on the rooftop so the other vampires wouldn’t sense his presence, contemplating the best strategy to get a glimpse of her. He had been intending to actually wait for her at her apartment, but had been in the hallway when he had heard her getting off the elevator.

So he had been hanging around outside like a rather pathetic lovelorn Lothario when he had heard the door open and Brittany step out with the others. He’d known it was her. He would recognize her scent anywhere, and while he hadn’t been able to understand her words, he knew that lilting compassionate voice well.

He had moved onto the balcony next to her to maybe steal a word or two, perhaps a kiss, but now he had ruined the moment.

“Your haircut is stunning.” Literally. Corbin tried not to stare and failed. It wasn’t that it looked bad, it was just so different, so much starker than what he was used to. “You look very beautiful tonight.” That was true. But she was changing, changing without him, it seemed, growing bigger still in the chest, her belly swelling slightly in the black dress she wore, her lips painted a rich brown, her hair edgy and sophisticated. She wasn’t looking at him in the way he was accustomed to—with soft eyes and pouty open lips, shoulders relaxed.

Instead she was angry and it showed in the set of her jaw, the proud tilt of her hair, and the way she kept her hands still at her side. She had diamonds in her ears and they flashed as she turned her head a little. There was a wariness and a reserve about her that was new, unsettling.

“Thank you,” was all she said.

“I have missed you,” Corbin said, feeling a little hesitant, unsure of her reaction. It seemed as if she was angry about more than his reaction to her hair. “I could not stay away, even if it is not wise.” Silent for a moment, she leaned on the railing and stared out at the city. “The primary election is over.

Ethan won so there’s no reason to be secretive.”

How did he respond to that? As far as he was concerned, there very much was still a need to keep their relationship a secret. “But just the primary, not the presidency. It still wouldn’t be prudent to advertise who the father of your child is,” he said carefully, well aware how close they were to fifty conservative vampires.

Her lips pursed and she whipped her head around. “You’re trying to ditch out on me, aren’t you? You don’t want anyone to know the baby is yours... all that stuff you said about us being together, about you wanting to be the father, it was a crock, wasn’t it?” Corbin was startled. He leaped from his balcony to hers and dropped next to her. She flinched when he touched her arm. “Brittany.”

She didn’t look at him, but stared out at the night again. “Just be honest.” While she looked strong and steady, harder, with the new blunt hairstyle, her voice trembled a little.

Corbin was baffled, uncertain. He tried to embrace her from behind, but she shrugged him off.

“I meant everything I said. Why would you suggest otherwise?” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“You never called or e-mailed me or tried to see me or anything. You never asked about the baby!” Horrified at the wail she gave at the end of her sentence, Corbin tried to turn her to face him, but she moved out of his reach. “I was keeping my distance, like we agreed. I don’t have e-mail, and I knew if I came and saw you, I would want to make love to you. Then I wouldn’t want to leave you, so I stayed away. I sent flowers,” he added, because he did want credit for something. He had thought that would suffice as a gesture of his devotion, though perhaps he should have given it more thought.

Because truthfully, he had not attempted to court a woman since the 1830s. In recent centuries he had slaked his sexual needs with women of questionable moral character, but it had probably been twenty years since he’d even done that. He’d been working, not dating. He supposed things might have changed a bit in the interim.

“Whoop-de-doo,” she said.

Corbin felt his jaw drop. “What es zat supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. It means nothing,” she said, though clearly it meant all manner of things. “So what have you been doing for the past eight weeks?”

Did she really want an answer or not? Corbin hesitated, concerned he might say the wrong thing.

Perhaps this distress from Brittany was the pregnancy hormones at work.

She glared at him. “Well?”

“I have been working nonstop.” In fact, he had been injecting himself with drugs, trying to find the correct combination to inhibit the vampire virus. Interestingly, his aversion to daylight had decreased, as had his ability to mind-read, but other than that, he had seen no alterations in his behavior. He still needed and hungered for the blood. But he was convinced he was right at the edge of the correct combination.

One or two more trials, that was all.

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. I’ve been in my lab sixteen hours a night.” He moved closer to her, starting to sense a little jealousy. “My work is very important.” He smiled. “But protecting you and our child is more important. I had a terrible time resisting the urge to come over here and make love to you every night.” She turned her face away from him, but she didn’t protest when he took her hand, when he ran his lips over her cheek and jaw. “And I do care about the baby. So much so that I have done the strangest thing.”

Her head whipped around. “What?”

He still couldn’t quite believe he’d done this, but he had spent many nights worrying about the baby, worrying about his lack of experience with children, pondering some of the questions about child-rearing Brittany had raised. “I signed up for a class.”

“What class?” she asked suspiciously.

Corbin cleared his throat and tried not to wince. “It es a class for first-time fathers. Baby Boot Camp.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Six

Ringo climbed carefully out of bed and stretched, watching Kelsey sleep. There was no sign of movement other than her naked chest rising and falling steadily. He almost regretted what he was about to do. Almost.

Traveling with Kelsey wasn’t bad. She had been brilliant in distracting the guard back at Carrick’s hotel in Vegas, and she hadn’t given much of a protest when he had suggested they extend their honeymoon, see the country, that sort of shit, even though they both knew he was breaking vampire law. She didn’t complain that he had her staying in flea-bag motels to save cash, and she gave amazing head.

It wasn’t exactly total hell being married to her. He had learned how to block her so she couldn’t get inside his head and pick through his thoughts, and she liked live feeding from humans as much as he did.

They were kind of a pair, he had to admit, and it was a damn shame that he couldn’t tell her the truth about why he had married her. But she was fucking clueless, had no idea what he was up to, and it was better that way.

Ringo got dressed in the dark and went out the door, clicking it shut behind him, the last of their cash in his pocket.

Kelsey sat up in bed and pulled on the jeans and sweatshirt she had conveniently set on the chair next to the bed. The motel room had a musty odor and the sheets were damp, so she wouldn’t be sorry to leave it. Gathering her prepacked messenger bag and slipping it over her shoulder, she stepped into her black and red gym shoes and headed toward the door.

Her husband was going to meet Donatelli and she had every intention of being with him when he did.

Brittany walked behind Corbin in the hallway and nearly slammed into him when he came to a screeching halt outside the hospital classroom.

“Maybe zis is not a good idea,” he said, turning around, panic in his green eyes. “They will know I am not a normal father to be.”

She suspected his fear had more to do with changing a diaper than the off-chance that his vampiric status would be revealed. She tried not to smile. “Do you really want to leave? That’s fine. I’ll just drive myself home after my Intro to Childbirth class.”

The panic changed to guilt. He shook his head. “No, no, of course not. It will be fine. I will go to my class, you to yours, and we will leave together as planned. But first I will escort you into your class.” Like she was that stupid. He was going to walk her in, then ditch out on his class and return only in time to pick her up. It was written all over his face. She could understand his fears—heck, she was freaked Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

out about being able to handle a baby herself, and she wasn’t a two-hundred-year-old vampire. But this had been his idea, and it was a good one. Clearly, he realized he could use a little guidance. They both could, and she wasn’t going to let him chicken out.

“Let’s go and check you into your class first. I want to meet the instructor. Then you can walk me into my class.” She smiled brightly at him. It had been an incredibly awkward week, with neither of them sure how to proceed in their relationship. It didn’t seem natural to leap back into bed again, not when she found herself unsure if she could trust him, doubting that he had meant those wonderful promises he had made when they were naked. She figured an easy seventy-five percent of what a man said needed to be dismissed if his penis was erect at the time of speaking. Hell, she had exaggerated herself when she was in flagrante delicto with a guy or two in the past, saying things like “that’s the biggest one I’ve ever seen” or “no, I never tell people what we do in bed,” both of which were total lies. She’d yet to see one so big it was worth special attention, and she had told her girlfriend Teresa all kinds of juicy details while giggling. But Teresa had moved to Portland and they talked only once a month, and that was then. This was now, and she hadn’t lied about anything with Corbin.

But she didn’t know him well enough to understand why he did the things he did. She just wasn’t sure why he had made love to her so sensually, then not spoken to her for eight weeks. It made it difficult to trust. So while they had spent the week politely circling around each other, she had concentrated on learning about Corbin, trying to gauge his moods and recognize why he acted the way he did and said the things he did. She wanted to get to know him, and they both needed to accept they had done everything ass-backward yet again and try to pick forward delicately.

Corbin hesitated for only a second before his manners kicked in. “Of course, my dear, if that is what you wish.” He held the door open for her.

Brittany walked into the room, noting three other men already sitting in chairs, two looking ill at ease, one looking eager and raring to go. The instructor was pulling a sheaf of papers out of his bag.

“Howdy,” he said as they approached, giving them both a smile. “Are you registered for the class?”

“My... ” Brittany pointed to Corbin. What the hell did she call him? Vampire lover? Sperm donor?

Favorite mistake? “He’s taking the class. I’m taking the childbirth class in the room next door, but I just wanted to introduce myself and say thank you in advance. I’m sure it will be very reassuring for Corbin to hear your thoughts and advice.”

“Well, I’m glad your husband could make the class, and I’ll try not to scare him too bad.” The instructor winked at her. He stuck his hand out to Corbin. “Sam Adams. Like the beer.”

“This is Corbin Atelier,” Brittany said, suddenly nervous about leaving Corbin alone with modern American men. Mortal men. “And I’m Brittany.”

Sam’s eyebrow went up at her as Corbin shook his hand. “Nice to meet you both. Enjoy your childbirth class, Brittany,” Sam said rather pointedly.

“Thanks.” She hovered for a second until Corbin said something to her in French. She smiled, pretending she had a clue what he was saying. “Okay, sweetie.” Her feet weren’t moving.

“Okay,” she said again, putting her purse strap back up on her shoulder, but still rooted to the floor.

Corbin stared at her. “Well, I guess I’d better go.”

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“I will see you in two hours,” Corbin said. “Unless you’d like me to walk you to your class.”

“No, no, that’s okay.” Now that she had him in the room, she didn’t want him out until the class had concluded. “Okay, then. Bye.” She gave a little wave and forced herself to leave.

She had a bad feeling about this.

Corbin watched Brittany pause yet again in the doorway and wave at him. He raised his hand back and gave a sigh.

“Driving you nuts?” Sam asked. “Women react differently to pregnancy. It’s normal for her to be a little clingy.”

There was nothing normal about their relationship, and clingy didn’t even begin to cover the problem. “It is just I do not have any experience with children, so she is worried. And this pregnancy, it arrived sooner than we expected.” Like sooner than never.

“Ahhh.” Sam nodded in understanding. He clapped Corbin on the shoulder. “But no worries. You’ll learn your way around a baby soon enough. And this class will jump-start what you need to know.”

“Excellent.”

“Come meet the other guys.” Sam moved to the front of the room. “Alright, get in closer here so I don’t have to shout. I want to hear your name, what you do for a living, and the ETD. Estimated time of delivery.” He grinned.

Corbin chose a seat to the left, not wanting to be front and center. A young man with multiple tattoos and a rather painful-looking lip piercing sat next to him.

“’Sup?” he said, giving Corbin a nod.

It appeared the evening was going to tax his English skills. Corbin nodded back. “Hello.” Sam pointed to the man in a blue button-up shirt. “Name, occupation, ETD.”

“Dave Robinson. I’m a loan officer. My wife is due January seventeenth and it’s a boy.”

“Congrats,” Sam said.

“Thanks.” Dave beamed.

Sam pointed to the next guy.

“I’m Jason Sikorski. I’m a cop. And my wife is due February thirteenth. She’s hoping for a Valentine’s baby. We don’t know the sex.”

“Hey, surprises are good.” Sam moved on to the tattoo man.

“Travis Short. I’m in landscaping. Due date December twenty-eighth.” He grinned. “The wife is ready to Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

pop.”

Sam then looked at Corbin expectantly so he cleared his throat. “I am Corbin Atelier and I am a research scientist. I am not exactly sure when Brittany is due. Sometime in April. I think.” Every face turned to him, clearly appalled.

“Dude,” Travis said, shaking his head.

Sam’s finger came out. “First things first. It’s time to get yourself informed. A hundred bucks says your wife and every female relative you both have all know exactly when the baby is due. You need to share the load with her, man, show her you’re in this together.”

“Well, zis was a surprise,” he said, feeling the need to defend himself.

“Even more reason to get on board. She’s probably worried you don’t really want this baby. You been to the doctor with her yet?”

“No.” He wasn’t even sure if she had been to the doctor. He must have asked at one point. He was almost sure he had. She had said everything was fine, he remembered that, so he must have asked her something. Crossing his arms over his chest, he added, “I work nights. It makes scheduling difficult.” Four pairs of reproachful eyes stared at him. Corbin felt the juvenile urge to flash his fangs and scare the daylights out of them. Who were they to judge him? They did not know his situation, they did not know what he and Brittany were dealing with.

“Well, you’re here. That’s a start,” Sam said. “I’m sure your wife will appreciate it if you pay attention.

And if language is a barrier, we’ve got handouts. Your wife can translate it for you.”

“I am paying attention and I do not need a translator. My English is sufficient.” Corbin was completely offended. He had spent half of his childhood in England. He did not need a translator. Not to mention as far as he knew Brittany did not know a single word in French except for oui . And that he only knew because when he had whispered a very sexual suggestion to her in bed, she had responded with a resounding oui .

“So you guys know all about the birth process, all about the physical stuff.” Not really.

“So that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about what happens after that baby comes home from the hospital. Your wife is going to be exhausted and emotional. Excited but unsure of herself. You need to be there for her, with all kinds of reassurance regarding both her mothering skills and her appearance. She’s going to leave that hospital still wearing her maternity clothes and feeling pretty lousy about that. Make sure you’re considerate of how she might be feeling.” Corbin shifted uncomfortably. The problem when you had the type of relationship he and Brittany did was that you could not follow the standard rules. He wasn’t sure it was his place to be telling Brittany she still looked attractive after giving birth, or if she would take that the wrong way.

This was why they needed to get married. He did not appreciate all these complications and uncertainties.

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“Your other main jobs are going to be shielding her from overenthusiastic friends and family, and helping her with breast-feeding.”

“Um,” Travis said. “How do we help with breastfeeding? I mean, she’s got to do it, man, she’s the one with the goods.”

Exactly what Corbin had been thinking. He could not fathom how he could assist in that endeavor.

“A lot of new moms struggle to find the right position for the baby, and if she’s had a C-section, she’s going to have discomfort at the incision. You can help by getting the baby and giving him to her, and helping the baby latch on.”

Corbin crossed and uncrossed his leg. Was this man serious? He cleared his throat, multiple questions rolling through his head. Wasn’t it instinctive for infants to feed? Didn’t they just know what to do? And how did one encourage a baby to latch on, exactly? It wasn’t like you could instruct an infant via a directional pamphlet.

Dave was bold enough to ask. “What do you mean, latch on?” Sam launched into an explanation that involved repeated use of the words nipple , areola , and lactate .

Corbin wished the floor would open up and swallow him. Never, ever, since he had been in the presence of a cheap nineteenth-century prostitute had he heard the word nipple used so many times and with such complete nonchalance.

Then Sam’s wife entered the room with their six-month-old son. To Corbin’s complete and utter horror, she sat on the edge of the desk, lifted her shirt, popped out a breast, and demonstrated exactly how little Austin ate his dinner.

Corbin wanted, quite simply, to die.

He had wished for death many times over his long lifespan, but never as fervently as he did while Beth Adams rattled off breastfeeding statistics, her baby sucking industriously, mouth fully around the entire areola, as Sam was quick to point out, finger outlining the area in question. Corbin was speechless.

Determined not to see any more of her naked flesh, Corbin glanced around for a means of escape, or perhaps a way to decapitate himself. Not finding any, he studied the pale blue carpet aggressively. How in the hell had he gotten himself into this situation?

“Sex,” Sam said.

Corbin jerked upright. Yes, that was quite true. Sex was responsible. But how in the hell could he get himself back out? He was now not having sex and that wasn’t fixing anything.

“We’re going to talk about changes in your relationship, especially sex, after we take a break.” He grinned. “And after Beth leaves.”

Beth didn’t comment, and Corbin didn’t check to see what expression might be on her face. He was still investigating the carpet and wondering if he dashed out of the room, vampire speed, if Brittany would be angry with him. Maybe not angry, but definitely disappointed. Her fat bottom lip would stick out and her big brown eyes would go wide with hurt. He sighed, resigned, though he really had no interest in Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

discussing post-partum sex with strangers. He wasn’t even having prepartum sex. He wasn’t holding out much hope for after the birth either, and at any rate, he found discussing sex in public somewhat offensive. Especially since it had been eight weeks since he’d had any.

Legs appeared in front of him. He glanced up, hoping it was nothing more than Sam with a handout.

Instead it was Beth, smiling, Austin still latched on. She sat in the chair next to Corbin, astounding him with her mobility while breastfeeding. This was a woman who knew how to solicit latching on correctly.

With a finger, she broke her son’s grip on her, and Corbin’s heightened sense of sound allowed him to hear quite clearly the lip-smacking pop sound the detachment made. He winced.

“Will you burp him for me?” Beth said.

Corbin glanced over at her in surprise. She couldn’t possibly be speaking to him, the two-hundred-year-old French vampire whose experience with children was limited to walking past issues of Parents on the magazine rack. Yet she was. She was smiling, her round cheeks pink, her hair back in a ponytail, the soft pale flesh of her breast still partially exposed. The baby was bobbing in an upright position and she was holding him out toward Corbin.

“I do not think zat is a good idea,” he said, shaking his head. “I know nothing about babies.” One-handed, she held her child, and dexterously tucked her breast away with the other, for which he was exceedingly grateful. “This is your chance to practice.”

“Perhaps one of the others,” he said, sitting up straight in alarm when she shoved the baby at him. “No, no, I don’t think... ”

Left with no choice but to take the baby or leave little Austin dangling in midair, Corbin settled his hands around the baby’s waist and swallowed vast quantities of saliva. “What do I do?” he asked in total panic, gingerly resting the baby’s flopping feet onto his knee. The infant felt warm and soft, a bubble forming on his pink lips. His chubby legs couldn’t hold him, though, and essentially collapsed, tangling the infant all up in his own appendages. Appalled, Corbin quickly used a free hand to move both limbs to either side of his own leg so the baby was sitting down on his pant leg like he was astride a horse.

They looked at each other.

The baby swung his plump arms up and down rapidly and made a humming sound, the bubble on his lip oozing down his chin, followed by a trail of milky saliva. The sour smell made Corbin’s stomach flip, but it was encouraging to see Austin wasn’t afraid of him. He was bouncing and smiling, showing off his slippery gums and two bottom teeth, rising up through the drool.

“So to burp him, you just need to pat him on the upper back firmly. You can do it the way he is, but it would be easier if you rested him against your chest and shoulder.” Beth demonstrated with her empty hands.

Corbin gingerly lifted Austin and rested him against his shirt, grateful he’d worn a casual cotton three-button shirt, navy blue besides. He had a feeling bad things could be about to happen when he encouraged air to evacuate Austin’s stomach. The baby felt intriguing, heavy and soft, fragile, yet strong enough to keep catapulting himself backward. His wispy hair smelled like shampoo, and Corbin rather liked the constant random sounds that came out of his mouth.

“You’ve never held a baby before?”

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“No.” Corbin paused and amended his answer. “Except for my little brother, who was born when I was an adolescent. But I was away at school most of the time.” And Edgar had died of consumption before he had reached his tenth birthday, sending his mother into a fatal decline.

He patted cautiously on Austin’s back.

“Harder,” Beth said. “He won’t break. You need a firm pat so he can get that air up and out.” Corbin cleared his throat and gave it a little more effort, but still exercising extreme caution. He had vampire strength and he didn’t want to collapse the child’s lungs or anything.

“Firm. Matter of fact. Close to him,” Beth ordered, putting her hand on Austin’s arm and demonstrating, tucking a cloth of some kind onto Corbin’s shoulder.

Sucking in a deep breath, Corbin copied her movement, a firm but gentle pat, and was rewarded with a loud, lengthy, wet belch that came from the depths of Austin’s baby belly and rattled past Corbin’s ear.

A little shocked, he pulled the baby back and checked him for any injuries an eruption of that magnitude might have produced. Austin just smiled at him.

“Good, yes?” Corbin asked him, charmed by that smile. Austin gave a squeal.

“Now that he’s fed, I’m going to scoot on out of here,” Beth said. “Let you men talk about manly things and practice diapering Austin. You did great,” she told him with a smile.

“You’re taking him back, yes?” Corbin asked, panicked all over again, lifting the baby toward her.

“No, no, you keep him. Sam is going to help you change his diaper.” With that she turned to go speak to her husband and Corbin was left holding the bag. Baby.

He looked around for assistance, resting the infant back on his shoulder. Travis was still next to him.

“Would you like to hold him?” Corbin asked. “Since your wife is due first.” Travis shook his head, lip curling back. “No way. He’s spewing.”

“What?” Corbin twisted his head to try and see Austin. “What do you mean?” he asked with a sense of dread. But truthfully he already knew what Travis meant. His shoulder felt wet. Warm. Austin had missed most of the cloth.

“Sick,” Travis said. “That smells curdled, man.”

Corbin suddenly felt much closer to Austin and Beth Adams than he ever cared to be. “Take him from me.”

“No way.” Travis scooted his chair back.

Grabbing at his shoulder, Corbin took the partially damp cloth and wiped at Austin’s dribbly mouth, holding him precariously with his free hand. “Is he ill?” He studied Austin and saw no evidence of fever.

“Nah, I think babies just do that. Spew. When they eat.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Wonderful.” Corbin swiped at his own shoulder.

“I’ll take him,” Dave said, holding his hands out with a rapt expression on his face.

Corbin turned him over gratefully. “I’ll go try and wash my shirt off.”

“Hurry up.” Dave lifted Austin up and down, making the baby laugh. “We’re talking about sex next and you don’t want to miss the bad news.”

“Can’t wait,” Corbin said under his breath, pushed his chair back, and got the hell out of there.

Brittany was concentrating on the video showing a woman giving birth. Was it really necessary for the woman to be naked? She was no prude, but come on. A robe or gown would be nice. But this woman just had all her stuff flopping around as she grunted and heaved and shook her hair like a horse after a hard run. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

It was giving Brittany rather uncomfortable feelings about the birth and her ability to push a baby out of her body while Corbin Atelier and a team of hospital staff stared at her crotch. What if it altered Corbin’s perception of her permanently? They had enough to sort out without him seeing her looking so mammalian.

They were supposed to be taking notes, but Brittany didn’t know what to write beyondHELP , so she just sat with her pen lying on her notepad.

“I think someone is trying to get your attention,” the woman next to her said, pointing to the door.

Brittany turned and saw Corbin peering through the glass in the doorway, looking pained. He held up his watch and pointed to it. She shrugged. The class had just started.

She turned back around, but sighed when she heard the door open. Resolutely, she kept facing the front and the video, trying not to wince as the on-camera mother to be gave another guttural groan.

Corbin squatted down between her chair and the woman’s next to her. “Please forgive ze intrusion,” he said to the other woman, accent turned up high, charm dripping off him. “I just need a moment.” Brittany rolled her eyes when the woman smiled and said, “Sure, no problem.”

“What’s the matter?” Brittany asked in a whisper.

But Corbin had caught sight of the video and was staring, a look of horror on his face. “Mon Dieu... ”

“Don’t look!” she hissed, grabbing his chin and turning his head toward her. This was not the image she wanted him taking into the labor and delivery room. “This video is dated, very eighties, totally earth mother weird.” She hoped. “Now what did you need?”

He shook his head and refocused on her. “The baby vomited on me. I’m going home to change and I’ll be back to pick you up.”

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“They have a baby in there?”

“Yes, the instructor’s child. And he... ” Corbin gestured to his shoulder, which had a baseball-size damp spot on it.

“Just dry it off with the hand dryer in the restroom.” If he left, he’d never go back, she was sure of it.

She wanted him comfortable with the idea of a baby, not fleeing in terror at the first opportunity.

“Brittany.” He gave her a look of total exasperation. “I smell.” Her lip twitched. “That has nothing to do with the baby, honey.” It took him a second. “Very amusing. Can you not see me laughing?” he asked, face deadpan.

She giggled and gave him a reassuring pat. “No one cares. I can’t smell anything. Just go back and enjoy the rest of the class.”

“But—”

“Go!” She lost her patience and pointed to the door. “It won’t kill you, you know.” How true was that?

He shot her a dark look, the masculine equivalent of a pout. “Fine.”

“Fine.” She smiled at him. “See you in an hour or so.” Muttering in French, he slipped back out of the room.

“Sorry,” Brittany whispered to the woman next to her, who had turned to watch Corbin’s retreat.

“What was wrong?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing major.” Brittany waved her hand in the air. “But he’s French,” she added, like that explained everything.

“Oh. Right.” The woman nodded in understanding. Then she turned back to the video and made a face.

“Oh, yikes, the baby is crowning.”

Indeed it was. Brittany suddenly knew how Corbin felt. She wanted to go home and pretend their child could hatch, already ten years old.

Seven

When Austin urinated on him, Corbin figured his night was complete.

“You need to keep a boy covered up at all times,” Sam said with a grin.

It would have been nice to know that ahead of time. Corbin sighed and wiped his arm by rolling it back Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

and forth on the cloth Sam had laid on the changing pad.

“Dude, you’re not having any luck at all tonight,” Travis said, scratching the devil tattoo on his forearm.

“Maybe zat is because I am actually touching the baby,” Corbin told him, holding the clean diaper out in Travis’s direction. “Care to try?”

“No way, man, I’m just trying to, you know, sit back and take it all in. Observing. Learning from watching you.”

Either that or Travis was lily-livered. Austin kicked Corbin with his heel, regaining his attention. He undid the diaper the way Sam had shown him and, after a mere two tries, had it centered under the baby’s bottom. Rather proud of himself, he started to fold the front up and between the legs, when Austin took a roll to the left and flipped himself right onto his round belly and off the diaper. “What the... ?”

“That’s why you never leave a baby alone on the changing table,” Sam said sternly. “And why we did this on the floor. Babies roll. You can’t leave them alone for even two seconds.” Clearly. Corbin gently hauled Austin back and laid him on his back again, realizing at the last second his head was going to smack on the floor, and shoving his palm under to cradle Austin’s skull until it rested on the pad.

“Good instincts,” Sam nodded.

Corbin had to admit, he was impressing even himself. This was foreign to him, but it really required just some basic training and common sense. He grabbed the diaper again.

Austin did a repeat roll onto his belly, bare bottom facing up. It struck Corbin then how completely amusing and bizarre human infants were, both in appearance and behavior. As he lifted Austin yet again, his plump warm flesh wiggling in Corbin’s grip as he struggled to get free, Corbin couldn’t help but smile.

“You’ll be still, yes?” he said, as he laid the baby back down, and drew his finger across the softness of Austin’s round cheek, wanting to touch that pure skin. He came too close to the baby’s mouth, and Austin turned his head and engulfed Corbin’s finger with his slippery lips. Drool crawled down Corbin’s skin, but the gnawing seemed to preoccupy Austin and he stopped moving around. With his own fat baby hands, he grabbed onto Corbin’s wrist and chewed his finger industriously.

Seizing the opportunity, Corbin got the diaper on one-handed, using his elbow to hold it in place and seal the tabs. The thing was on crooked and didn’t look pretty, but it was snug and should hold.

Damnation, this business was exhausting. He was going to have to stop for a pint on the way home. But it was also... illuminating. He thought maybe he was starting to understand the devotion infants inspired in their parents. Austin was adorable and amusing and charming, and required so much care, it was no wonder parents were so vehement about their children. They had a great deal of time and emotion invested in them.

Corbin finished the job, extracted his slimy finger, and lifted Austin up. Some strange instinct compelled him to kiss the baby on the cheek, with lots of noise and eating motions, causing Austin to squeal in delight, a chuckle rising up from deep in his round belly.

If he didn’t think about that horrific video he’d witnessed when he’d walked into Brittany’s class, he actually felt a large sense of contentment. He could do this. Be a father. And a vampire. All at once.

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Brittany felt ill. She had an aversion to needles, and when they’d gone straight from the birthing video to the tests and screening video, showing a giant needle going right into a woman’s belly for an amniocentesis, she had gone hot with spots in front of her eyes.

There was no way. No way. She would have to be knocked out first if a doctor wanted to do that to her. Her stomach was churning, face hot, skin clammy, and she had excused herself for a drink of water.

But once in the hallway, she decided she just wanted to leave. She would read the manual at home.

These videos were not instructional for her, they were panic inducing.

Sneaking into the back of Corbin’s classroom, she was glad to see they weren’t in a lecture-style class.

The men were all gathered on the floor, bent over—she assumed with the baby Corbin had mentioned—so it wouldn’t be a big deal to interrupt.

Moving forward, she noticed it was Corbin who was actually diapering the baby. His brow was furrowed and he was concentrating, completely hunched over as he tried to undo the tabs one-handed.

He looked adorable, his hair falling forward into his eyes, his shirt pulling out of his pants. Despite her precarious stomach, she found herself smiling, and reaching into her purse for her cell phone. She was going to snap a picture of him.

Then he lifted the baby up in the air and Brittany nearly puddled onto the floor. He was playing with the baby. Kissing his cheek.

Everything in her inflated and swelled, and she felt breathless, entranced. A little bit in love. In love? Yes, insane as it was. In love, or something close there to it. With the man who was the father of her child.

Maybe this could actually work. This thing between them, and mutual parenting.

She felt a huge sense of relief and gratitude that Corbin Atelier was the kind of man who could see the charm in a baby. Holding her camera out, she snapped a picture.

Corbin saw the flash and glanced over, his smile disappearing, replaced by embarrassment. “Brittany.” She laughed. “Busted. I caught you on camera so you can’t deny it.” Clicking “Review,” she waved it toward him. “You like babies and I have proof.”

“Brittany, don’t.” Corbin started to stand up, the baby against his chest.

“Too late.” Amused, she glanced back at the screen, hoping the shot had turned out.

What she saw made the blood drain from her face. Oh, God, she’d forgotten. She’d just forgotten.

In the picture, Austin dangled in the air, smiling and laughing. But nothing was holding him. Corbin wasn’t there.

She glanced over at him, horrified. He was a vampire.

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No, she supposed she hadn’t forgotten, but she had been swept up in the normalcy of what they’d been doing... preparing for a baby.

But he was a vampire.

And quite possibly, so was her child.

Brittany fought the panic, but all the blood rushed to her face, and she dropped her phone.

“Brittany,” Corbin said, moving toward her, passing the baby to another man.

Eyes blurred by tears, she dragged herself back from the edge of a faint and said, “I’m fine. I’m fine. I just feel a little sick.”

And she whirled around and ran out of the room.

“Fancy meeting you here, Columbia.” Donatelli stood in front of Rockefeller Center and pulled on a pair of camel-colored leather gloves. “I was under the impression you were wearing an ankle bracelet back in Vegas.”

“Maybe I’ve been released for good behavior,” Ringo said, leaning over the railing and checking out the ice rink. A hefty teenage girl shrieked as she slipped and sat hard on her ass.

“Maybe. Or maybe you got your pretty little girlfriend to pick the key off your guard.”

“Maybe.” It wasn’t like it was a secret. Everyone back in Vegas had to have known he left with Kelsey, and he was sure the guard would have come clean about what had happened, though he might not have mentioned to the powers that be where Kelsey’s other hand had been when she lifted the key. Ringo lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

“Your better half is quite resourceful. Though it’s not as if it’s difficult to get around these little inconveniences. Carrick runs a loose ship.” Donatelli lifted the leg of his black pants. Ringo saw the metal cuff that had matched his own. “I’m sure I could dispense with my own punishment, but I am biding my time. I don’t have any reason to leave Manhattan at the moment, nor do I want to raise ire. That is why I am not entirely pleased by you seeking me out.”

Donatelli was still an asshole. Ringo blew smoke in his face and made a show of looking around.

Nothing but tourists lingering and office workers rushing home from work in the dark. “I don’t see anyone trailing you. No one gives a shit what you’re doing, as long as your ankle jewelry stays on and you stay put. So just fucking relax.”

Lifting a paper coffee cup from a four-cup carrying container on the ground, Donatelli drank through the hole in the lid. Ringo could smell it, knew it was blood. His stomach burned with hunger. He had skipped feeding last night in his hurry to find a motel and get to bed. Now he regretted it.

“I’m relaxed.”

The bastard did look completely content.

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He took another sip. “Would you care for a drink? Smith ended up heading home early with a date, and he never touched his blend.” Donatelli bent over and lifted another of the coffee cups and held it out to him.

Ringo shook his head rapidly. He knew what was in Smith’s blood drink. It would be tainted with heroin, because Smith was an addict, like Ringo had been. And Donatelli knew it.

“No, thanks,” Ringo said, heart pounding. He wanted a drink. Desperately. He wanted to sink and swim into the blood, to let it careen through his body with the force of a roller coaster, setting off prickles of pleasure everywhere, emptying his mind and soaking him in a false artificial bliss. “I came because I wanted to offer you a piece of information for a price.”

“In regards to what?” Donatelli still held the cup, and swirled the liquid in it around and around.

Sweat formed on Ringo’s forehead. This had been a mistake. Greed had driven him to take a chance, and he was suddenly afraid he’d just dicked himself over. He hadn’t realized how gnawing the temptation would still be, how hard it would be to stare down Donatelli and not be reminded of their past, where Ringo had been the consumer and Donatelli the provider. Clenching his fists in the pockets of his jacket, Ringo said, “In regards to vampire procreation.”

Donatelli looked mildly surprised. “You have my attention, since that is not your area of expertise.”

“But it is Atelier’s, who was in charge of my treatment for drug abuse.”

“How intriguing. I’ll bite. How much?”

“A hundred grand.”

Donatelli snorted and turned toward the skating rink. “That’s ridiculous. And why is that woman wearing those purple pants? That is a crime against cotton.”

Ringo had been prepared for that reaction. “What if I told you that Atelier is going to become a father?”

“I would say congratulations, especially since I was starting to suspect he doesn’t even have a prick.

He’s not known for socializing.”

“What if I told you the mother is half-vampire.”

That got a reaction. Donatelli shot him a startled look. “I’d say that is very interesting, but worth only five grand, tops.”

“Throw in twenty more and I’ll tell you who she is.”

“I don’t need you for that. I can just have someone observe who Atelier is visiting these days.”

“Except my sources tell me that Atelier isn’t seeing anyone these days. No one knows about the child.

No one knows about the mother. No one but him. Her. And me.” Ringo swallowed hard. He could smell the blood, thick and warm and laced with that extra tangy mix of alcohol and drugs. His hands were starting to shake.

“When is this bundle of joy due?”

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Ringo shrugged. “I’ve said enough.” He stuck his foot on the bottom of the railing, needing the support.

Vampires weren’t supposed to feel cold, but Ringo felt the sensation of ice water careening through his veins. He wanted that blood. “I’ll be in town tonight, then I’m leaving tomorrow. Call my cell phone if you’d like to discuss it further.”

Donatelli didn’t reach for the card Ringo gave him, so he tucked it into the pocket of the Italian’s expensive overcoat.

“You realize you have tipped your hand, don’t you?” Donatelli asked him.

Ringo pushed back. “Just the first card. I’ve got four more facedown.” Not to mention he had lifted Donatelli’s wallet out of his pocket. Ringo and Kelsey’s hotel bill would be compliments of Donatelli that night. Time to move to the Ritz.

“Ever confident. Ever foolish.” Donatelli smiled at him. “Stick to murder for hire. You’re better at that than vampire politics.”

But Ringo just smiled back. “See you around, Donatelli.” He waved and cut across the sidewalk, heading toward Forty-second Street and away from the coffee cup that was calling him.

Kelsey waited until Ringo had left, lifting his hand for a cab. She had been watching from the clothing storefront across the street, hidden among shoppers behind a table of turtleneck sweaters.

Donatelli was still staring at the ice rink, but she didn’t want to risk him walking away, so she moved quickly. He sensed her coming behind him and turned. A smile crossed his face.

“Ah, Miss Kelsey, how good to see you again. I should have known you were hanging about. Where there is Ringo, there is Kelsey.”

Her fear and revulsion fought to gain supremacy, but Kelsey stopped two feet in front of him and screwed up her courage. This man may have ordered her drained of all her blood and left for dead a few months back, but he couldn’t hurt her, not here, not with hundreds of people moving around them.

“Leave my husband alone.”

His eyebrow rose. “Husband? What a surprise. Congratulations, my dear. You are now attached for eternity to a drug-addicted killer. Should I send you a silver soup tureen? Linens, perhaps. Either way, may you have more success with your marriage than I had with mine.” Kelsey put her hands inside the pouch pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. “I’m serious. Leave Ringo alone.”

“You aren’t taking into account he contacted me . I was minding my own business, doing a little preholiday shopping and sampling the delights of the city, when he called me.” Despising the way he talked, the arrogance, the way his finger rolled around and around the rim of the coffee cup in his hand, Kelsey tensed. She knew what was in his cup, as well as the one on the ground.

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She knew this man was responsible for Ringo’s addiction. “You don’t really believe him, do you? He’s trying to bilk you because we’re broke and we’re on the run.” Ringo thought he could shut her out of his thoughts, but Kelsey could catch random bits and pieces, enough to know that he had come to Donatelli to sell information. She also knew that he loved her, even if he didn’t realize that’s what it was, and she loved him in return. Unfortunately, his sense of right and wrong wasn’t exactly well developed and he made bad choices. A lot of them. But she could fix this one.

Donatelli sipped his drink. “You know, I find that a fascinating strategy on your part. You’re willing to risk his anger in order to protect him from me. I’m flattered that you are that frightened of what I can do to him. But I don’t think he is making this story up... he couldn’t have created it on his own, or understood the importance of it. Sorry, Kelsey, you can’t make me go away. I am interested in negotiating a sale with your husband.”

People thought she was stupid, a brunette airhead, and sometimes she was. Mostly she was just strange, and she knew that. But both perceptions led people to continually underestimate her.

“I’m thirsty,” she said in a random, whiny voice. She bent down and pulled one of the cups out of the cardboard carrier at Donatelli’s feet.

“Be my guest,” he said dryly. “But one of those three cups has a little extra something added to it. I don’t think I remember which one.”

Having being a drug user herself in the late sixties, Kelsey had no intention of ever going that route again and wanted to ensure Ringo didn’t relapse either. She would be forever grateful to Mr. Carrick for getting her the help she had needed when she’d hit rock bottom, and didn’t intend to see her husband slide backward. But she wasn’t going to drink any of Donatelli’s blood cups anyway.

She just shrugged and stood back up. “I’ll sniff it.” Prying the lid off, she delicately lifted it to her nose.

“You do know that when Ringo gets desperate, he is capable of almost anything.”

“Aren’t we all.” Donatelli had dark eyes, and they narrowed, as he clearly tried to guess what game she was playing.

“Not everyone. Like, I don’t know, Gwenna, for instance. She’s not capable of evil, is she?” That got the reaction she was hoping for. “What the fuck does Gwenna have to do with anything?”

“I don’t know.” Kelsey blinked. “But she’s in Vegas again.” Donatelli opened his mouth then snapped it shut. He gave a deliberate shrug. “Why do I care if my ex-wife is visiting her brother?”

“I don’t know. But I thought it was weird that she was hanging out with the French guy that no one likes.

The one who helped Ringo. She seems so quiet. But I guess they make a good couple.” Kelsey was lying through her teeth. She doubted Gwenna even knew Atelier, but her objective was simply to get Donatelli back to Vegas, so by default she could get Ringo back to Vegas, back where there were other vampires to run interference. Back where she could keep her husband away from the drug blood.

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“A couple? That’s ridiculous.”

But he looked unconvinced and angry, grip tightening on his coffee cup. Kelsey just gave a noncommittal shrug. “Maybe they’re not a couple. I guess they could just be having sex.” Donatelli’s eyes flared with hatred, the cup in his hand collapsing, blood spilling all over his really pretty light brown coat. Kelsey jumped back, a red splash landing on her arm.

“Damn it,” he said, dropping the crushed cup right as a woman to their left started screaming.

Kelsey turned, saw her pointing at them, at all the blood on Donatelli’s chest, while she shrieked in terror. There was movement, people coming toward them. Reacting instinctively, Kelsey backed up, right into Donatelli, intending to run. But before she even realized he was doing it, he had his arms around her.

Then she was up and over the railing, free-falling down onto the ice rink. She heard the shouts, saw scrambling movement as skaters dashed out of the way.

When she landed, on her shoulder and back, with a crunch of nausea-inducing pain, she looked up at the railing.

Donatelli was gone.

And she hoped like hell he was headed back to Vegas.

That was worth breaking half the bones in her body.

Eight

Corbin gave a quick apology to Sam and the class, grabbed Brittany’s cell phone off the floor, and headed out after her. He deleted the picture she had taken, glancing briefly at the disturbing image of Austin in the air with nothing holding him. The lack of a reflective image for a vampire was something he had never been able to fully explain with science.

Brittany was sitting on a bench wiping at her eyes.

“Hello,” he said, sitting down next to her.

“Hi.” She sniffled, her voice wobbly, mouth turned down.

“I am sorry.” Corbin turned her cell phone around and around in his hands.

She sighed. “It’s not your fault. I just wasn’t expecting that. And I don’t feel good. My stomach is upset.

That’s why I came in the room in the first place.”

“Shall I take you home then?” He put his hand on her knee, not knowing how to fix this. He didn’t even understand fully what he felt for Brittany, and he had no comprehension of how to handle their relationship. Didn’t know what was expected of him, or what he was entitled to.

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“Actually, I think I’ll call my sister to come and get me. I want you to finish the class.” She stared out the window in front of them at the dark parking lot.

There was a distance in her voice and he didn’t like it. “I am trying to be normal,” he said, frustrated.

“I know.” She turned to him and gave him a wan smile. “And I’m trying to pretend I can be a soccer mom. I never thought I was trying to defy my childhood, but I think in some ways all I’ve ever wanted as an adult was to just be normal. I mean, I became a dentist. Can you get any more suburban than that?

But the thing is, Corbin, we can try, but we can’t change the core of who we are. You’re a vampire, and in my heart, I’m still a wild child, happy-go-lucky daughter of a stripper. We can’t change that, and I guess, ultimately, I don’t want to. But I’m not sure being parents meshes with who we are.” Corbin squeezed her knee, his heart searing at her words. He had failed her by the simple fact that he was not the man she had expected to meet and marry. He was not the man who could give her that completely innocuous bourgeois existence. Regardless of her feelings toward him, he would always represent the loss of that dream. That made him very sad, very sorry.

But he also disagreed with her.

“The ideal parent is not based on where you live, or what you can provide your child with. A good parent is simply one who loves his child and teaches them values and boundaries in a nurturing environment.” He hadn’t been watching Supernanny religiously for two months without learning a thing or two. Or how to articulate what he suspected he had known instinctually.

He turned to her, touched her chin, brought her gaze around to his. “We have that, ma chérie . If we were bad parents, we would not worry this much. But we worry, because we care. And ultimately, that is the most important thing our child needs. Two parents who would do anything for him or her.” Big fat tears spilled out of her eyes. “You’re a good man, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier,” she whispered.

He kissed her forehead. “Let me take you home.”

“No, you should stay. You’re learning a lot.”

“That is true.” He gave a rueful smile as she pleased him by dropping her head down onto his shoulder.

It was a comfortable feeling, her resting on him, and they sat in contentment. Silent, but together.

And after Alexis had picked Brittany up fifteen minutes later, Corbin strode back into the classroom. He had to do this. He had to show Brittany they could be normal parents, whatever normal might be defined as.

“Alright, men,” Sam was saying. “Down on the ground.” The guys all glanced at each other, unsure what to do.

“I mean it! Down on your stomachs. Crawl. You need to get a perspective on what the world is like for a baby down there. Then we’ll talk safety and babyproofing.” Determined to do this right, Corbin got down into an army crawl beside Travis, the floor hard and cold.

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“It’s freezing down here,” Travis complained.

“Point number one. Always bring a blanket for the baby to lie on. The ground might be cold or hard or covered with nasty germs.”

Corbin glanced around as his fellow classmates all crawled around the room, trying to get into the exercise, but all looking distinctly uncomfortable, except for Dave, whose enthusiasm had him zipping around the entire room. Travis had flopped onto his back.

“Is it time for my bottle and a bath yet?” he asked Corbin, and they both started laughing.

If this was Brittany’s idea of normal, then Corbin was damn grateful they were probably never going to fit in.

“Why couldn’t he drive you home?” Alexis demanded, peeling out of the hospital parking lot at sixty miles an hour. Brittany thought sometimes Alex forgot how strong she was post–blood drinking. With little effort, she could probably push that gas pedal through the floor, literally.

“Can you stop with the lead foot? You’re going to get me killed. Not to mention the whole reason I wanted to leave was because I have a stomachache.”

“Sorry.” Alexis eased up on the gas. “But what a shithead, I swear, Brittany, the hell with him. You don’t need to be treated like this.”

Rubbing her stomach, Brittany tried not to notice that her sister smelled tinny. Like she’d just been hitting the blood buffet. Since her pregnancy, her own sense of smell had heightened, and this was a bit gross. A lot gross, actually. But it was still Alexis, her sister, and she was going to have to get used to it. She was surrounded by bloodsuckers. Regardless of whether or not she and Corbin ever got their act together as a couple, he was still the father of her child.

“Alex, calm down. Corbin is not a shithead. He was going to drive me home, but I told him to stay. The class was helpful for him, since he knows as much about babies as I know about raising alpacas—which is nothing, by the way. The instructor had his baby there and Corbin was playing with him. He likes kids, Alex, he just doesn’t have any experience, and so his confidence isn’t all that great. This class was good for him, and I wanted him to finish it.”

Alexis was grimacing, focused on the road, hands gripping the steering wheel of her huge black SUV.

Brittany had often thought Alexis was compensating for her lack of height with her beast of a car.

“If I could change one thing in life, I would have you pregnant with a normal man’s baby. This just complicates everything.”

That stung. Brittany knew Alexis wasn’t being judgmental, she just wanted everything to be easy for her, but it still hurt, like a paper cut. Small and unintentional, but powerfully painful.

“I didn’t set out to complicate everyone’s life. And while I’m sure you, Ethan, and Corbin all wish we could go back in time and erase the fact that we had unprotected sex, we can’t. So get over it. This is reality, and I’m trying to learn how to deal with it, and I’d appreciate you helping me instead of Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

complaining.” So there.

Alexis slammed on the brakes on the side street that led to Brittany’s apartment complex. “Brit, geez, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Flicking her blond hair out of her eyes, she shook her head vigorously. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded... I just want to make things easier for you, sweetie.”

“I know. But there is no easier. This is it.” Brittany patted Alexis’s knee. Her sister looked sick, her light blue eyes clouded with anguish. “And it’s not so bad, honestly, in terms of me and Corbin. I know you don’t like him, but we get along. He treats me really well.”

“It’s not that I don’t like him, I just don’t approve of his research. He’s dabbling in scary stuff. And he killed a woman.”

“That was greatly exaggerated.” Brittany found it interesting that when her sister raised doubts about Corbin, conversely Brittany’s own doubts evaporated. “And he says once the baby is born and we get married, he’s going to retire.”

“Get married?” Alexis’s look of terror warring with extreme disgust showed Brittany her sister’s take on her getting hitched to an undead outcast. “That’s... that’s... ”

“A possibility, not a given. We’ll see how it goes.” Brittany felt remarkably clearheaded. This conversation had been good for her. It had shown her how futile worrying was. What she needed to do was just live her life. Take charge and stop waiting for everyone else to act, while she would react. “I think there’s a car behind us. You should probably start driving again.” Alexis made an incoherent sound, but she lifted her foot from the brake and started them rolling forward.

“Does Gwenna have e-mail? I was hoping I could ask her a few questions. Mother to mother.” Pulling into a visitor’s spot, Alexis shook her head. “I doubt it. According to Ethan, she lives in some moldering old castle in York. No electricity. No cell phone tower. It’s like the land before time. Ethan sends her stuff snail mail, or if it’s important, global express. But the thing is, and do not repeat this to Ethan, but... ” Alexis bit her fingernail and gave her a shrug. “I think Gwenna’s a few cards short of a deck. Not the best person to be doling out advice.”

Brittany discounted that. Alexis was such a logical, tell-it-like-it-is person that anyone who was slightly left of center struck her as weird. She saw life as black and white. But Brittany figured everyone was weird to a certain extent, and a little oddness hanging around a person didn’t mean there wasn’t a little brilliance in the mix as well. She wanted the comfort of talking to another woman who had given birth to a child with unique genetics.

“I don’t care. I want to talk to her. Can Ethan contact her? Or would it make her more comfortable if I flew over there?”

“Good gravy, don’t do that. Just sit tight and I’ll have Ethan talk to her.” Alexis gave her a stern look.

“Promise me you won’t go running off halfway around the world. I’m serious.” Brittany tucked her hand under her thigh and crossed her fingers. She wasn’t making any promises she couldn’t keep. While she had no intention of jetting off to Europe at the moment, she wanted to leave her options open. Her answer was deliberately vague. “Okay.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Okay, what?”

Damn, Alexis knew her too well. “Okay, I won’t fly to England immediately. Or without consulting you first.”

Alexis sighed and popped the locks on the car so they could get out. “You are going to be the death of me.”

“You can’t die.” Brittany pointed out the obvious with a smirk.

“Brat.”

Brittany laughed. It was nice to know that some things would never change.

“Hey, you want to grab a beer or something?” Travis asked Corbin when they finally emerged from the classroom, overloaded with info and a new understanding of the words big responsibility .

Corbin had scrubbed his arm down in the men’s room and checked his shirt to see if there was a visible spot from Austin’s spit-up. It looked presentable, and he suspected only vampire nostrils could detect the sour scent. “Sure.”

“Dave, Jason, you in?” Travis asked the others.

“I’m in,” Jason said, running his hand through his short hair and rubbing his scalp. “I need a cold one after all of that. Jesus Christ. Parenting is like police work—rules, regulations, and paperwork.”

“I need to get home,” Dave said with a regretful shrug. “My wife hates being alone.” As he waved and trotted down the hall, Travis shook his head. “That guy’s whipped.”

“Seriously,” Jason agreed. “And I figured hey, we might as well go out while we can, right? I mean, there won’t be any grabbing a beer once the baby gets here. At least not for a while.”

“You got it.” Travis hit Corbin in the chest with the back of his hand. “Alright, you guys call your old ladies, then I’ll call mine. Let them know what’s up.”

“Oh, I don’t need to call Brittany,” Corbin said, shaking his head at Travis’s offer of his cell phone. “But you two go right ahead.”

They both gaped at him. Travis looked horrified, Jason skeptical.

“Your funeral, man,” Jason said.

“She went to her sister’s,” Corbin hedged, a little embarrassed that he and Brittany were not married.

“She wasn’t feeling well, so her sister picked her up.”

“Yeah, but she’s not going to sleep there, and she’ll be pissed if she gets home and you’re not there.” Corbin made a noncommittal sound and said, “Go ahead and call your wife.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

Travis cocked an eyebrow. “Dude, did you two argue or something? If she’s trippin’, you need to deal with it. All those hormones and shit, you need to work it through, you know what I’m saying? My dad always said never go to bed wanting to kill the bitch, and that’s good advice.” Corbin almost laughed. It reminded him of a conversation he had had with his own father regarding marriage. Better to despise each other and have exceptional sex, than to get along but be bored in bed. It hadn’t made sense to Corbin at the time, and he wasn’t sure it did two hundred years later, either.

But apparently his father hadn’t been the only sire doling out questionable advice.

“We are not arguing. The truth is that we do not live together, so she is not expecting me this evening.”

“You don’t live together?” Travis said, his bellowing voice ringing in the empty hallway. “You’re married but you don’t live together? How the hell’d you manage that kind of arrangement?” Corbin shifted and stuck his hand in his pocket. “We are not married. I never said we were married.”

“Oh. Shit. Okay. Sorry. Let’s go grab that beer.”

Apparently grabbing a beer in Vegas meant doing it in a dark bar with glossy seats and women dancing around poles on a pink-lit stage.

Corbin stared at the brunette critically. She looked bored, and harbored a certain sense of entitlement.

For every little shake and slide, she seemed to expect money. There was no effort, no emotion. Corbin felt as bored as she did. There was nothing enticing or appealing about a woman just gyrating naked.

Where was the aura of sensuality? Where was the buildup, the tease, the hint at a woman’s body, the titillation? This woman was naked, yes, but she was exuding as much sensuality as a stick.

Jason was staring hard at the blonde, who had breasts that were too round to be natural. “My wife used to have a body like that. Before the pregnancy. Rock-solid thighs, flat stomach, tits high and perky.” He demonstrated by holding his hands up by his pectorals. “She wore a thong all the time. Now she wears granny underwear.”

“That’s rough,” Travis said. “But don’t worry, she’ll get the bod back.”

“We met at Hooters,” Jason said. “She was a waitress. I was a cook. She used to lean in to pick up those burger orders and smile at me. That’s all it took. I was gone. I really love her.”

“That’s beautiful, man,” Travis said.

Corbin took a small sip of his beer and frowned. He liked Brittany’s thongs. She was fond of bright colors, and he liked that little scrap of fabric on her fair skin. He would be sorry to see those disappear.

“What is granny underwear?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Jason drained his beer bottle.

“They’re underwear that cover everything. You know, like from here to here,” Travis said, his arm moving from his thighs to his ribs. White, or maybe powder blue or pale pink, cotton, nasty stuff.” Corbin made a face. “Well, I suppose it is more comfortable for the women.” Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

“Yeah, whatever.” Travis nudged him. “So how come you and the old lady ain’t living together? You break up or something?”

“We’ve never lived together. We’re sort of only partially together... it’s complicated.”

“You can tell us.”

They looked so sympathetic, that Corbin found himself divulging the situation. Leaving out the issue of his vampirism, of course. And a few other things. “We have only known each other a little over four months. We had met a few times, gone out.” They had met exactly three times, and had never gone out, unless you chose to count the night he had dragged her onto the roof of the casino. That had been outside, but not really out . All in all, they had spent approximately forty minutes total together prior to his impregnating her.

“There was an immediate attraction between us, do you know what I mean? Fireworks.” That was the whole truth.

They both nodded.

“Sure.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s how I felt when Sue used to bend over to pick up the onion rings. Like my pants were going to burn right off.”

“Exactement.” Corbin understood that feeling perfectly. “That is exactly how it was. And we both felt it. So we acted on it.”

“And... ” Travis pressed him.

“And I didn’t speak to her for eight weeks after.” Which sounded really unmannerly when he said it out loud.

“Dude.”

“Shit.”

Precisely. “She came to see me to tell me she was expecting our child. I was taken a bit by surprise, to say the least.”

“I fucking guess so.” Travis shook his head. “So you’re just trying to work it out with the kid? Good for you. It’s always good for the kid when the parents get along if they’re not together.”

“Well... the problem is I have complicated the matter. After she told me about the child, I, well, we slept together again. So I thought... but now she doesn’t seem to want to, well, anything, and I don’t know if we are together, or separate, or what exactly it is that she wants from me.” Their expressions were almost comical, both their eyes and mouths twisted and contorted in sympathetic horror. Corbin felt better, just getting the words, his fears, out in the open. Maybe these men, who certainly had more experience with modern women than he did, would have some advice.

“You’re screwed,” Jason said.

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Corbin frowned. “Well, what would you do if you were me?”

“Cry.” Travis grinned at him.

“Run,” Jason added, and they both laughed.

Not feeling too amused, Corbin took another sip of his drink, the bitter taste sliding over his tongue. “I want to work things out. It is very awkward the way it is now.”

“So talk to her,” Jason said. “But before you do that, you’ve got to know if you want to be with her or not. You do, you go in saying, ‘We should be together.’ If you don’t, you say, ‘Let’s just keep it as friends and focus on the kid.’ But you gotta be honest and you can’t play around.” He did want to be with her. But Brittany had pulled back. Way back. And it was obviously still bothering her that he was a vampire. “I want to be with her, but I am not sure that is what she wants.”

“So ask her.” Jason turned back to the dancer on stage.

Corbin looked at Travis. “What do you think?”

“Don’t look at me.” Travis shrugged. “I don’t know dick about women. My wife, she’s a good woman, and she’s having my baby and everything, but sometimes I think we should have just been friends.

There’s something missing, and I try to ignore it, but it’s there, man. That feeling like something ain’t right.

I don’t know.” He drained his bottle of beer. “It’s like she’s my mother or something. It’s weird.” That was weird. Way too weird for Corbin to even comment on. “Maybe it’s just that your relationship has changed because of the baby. She has a different focus now, other than you.” Travis shrugged, and clapped him on the back. “We’re a couple of fuck-ups, aren’t we? Got good women and we’re screwing it up.”

“That is true.” Corbin sat up straighter. “Maybe we should go to our women, yes, and show them that we appreciate them.”

“I’m in.” Jason waved his hand at the stripper, who looked like she could drop into a nap at any time.

“These chicks have nothing on my wife. Sue is beautiful.”

“Maybe you have a point.” Travis pulled some money out of his pocket and put it on the table.

“Wouldn’t kill me to think about her feelings for a change. Shit, maybe I’ll even grab her some flowers on the way home.”

“Good plan.” Jason nodded before finishing his own beer.

Corbin was going to pass on the flowers. Brittany hadn’t seemed to appreciate his previous floral offerings. But he was going to find her and talk to her. Tell her how he felt. “I am going to go talk to Brittany.”

He was standing up when he sensed another vampire in the room. Turning, he scanned the room, and was surprised as hell to see Gregor Chechikov, moving up to the bar, cigarette in hand. “Excuse-moi, I see an acquaintance.”

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“Catch you later.” Travis punched Corbin in the arm and gave him his business card.

Jason shook his hand. “We should do this again sometime.” That actually pleased Corbin. He no longer had friends. It would be nice to have other men to talk to once in a while. Carrick and others in the current administration tolerated Corbin, but most vampires were suspicious of him. It made for a lonely existence. When they had all exchanged phone numbers and made plans to get together in a few weeks, Travis and Jason left and Corbin headed over to Gregor.

Corbin was still three feet away when Gregor said, “Atelier.” He turned. “How interesting to see you here,” he said in French.

“I could say the same for you, Chechikov. It was my understanding you were in St. Petersburg.” He moved in next to Gregor and leaned against the bar counter, curious. Gregor hadn’t left the continent in centuries, as far as Corbin knew. He was a big bear of a man, intimidating in both looks and nature, and had been a political associate of Vladimir of Kiev in the tenth century, involved in dealings with the Ottoman Empire. Once powerful in the Nation, richer than God, or at least Donald Trump, he had suddenly retreated from the political arena, before Corbin had even entered the world of the undead.

Now Gregor stayed in St. Petersburg, quiet except for the money that he doled out to various causes and factions he supported, including Corbin’s own research.

Gregor gave him a slight smile. “I decided to venture out for the election.”

“The primary?” Corbin found it odd. Illogical. He did not like illogical. And he could have sworn Chechikov didn’t have a party affiliation.

“Yes, and then for the final election as well. It proves to be interesting, and I have never been to Las Vegas.”

Corbin realized that was the extent of the explanation he was going to get. “It is good to see you,” he said politely. Truthfully, he didn’t like Chechikov, and wasn’t really sure why not, but he had to play nice since it was Gregor’s rubles that funded his research. And with virtually no questions asked. Chechikov didn’t seem to care what Corbin was doing in the lab, though he had expressed mild interest in gene manipulation in one of their infrequent phone conversations.

“You, too.” Gregor raised his shot glass of clear liquid and tossed it back. He set it on the counter.

“Now I’m off. I am staying at the Bellagio, if you would like to have dinner one night.” Dinner? Corbin nodded. “Certainly.” Even though he was thinking it was utterly bizarre to receive such an invitation. He and Chechikov were not on those kinds of terms.

Apparently now they were.

As Chechikov headed for the front door, Corbin stared at him, feeling a small niggle of concern.

Something was wrong. This was not a coincidence for Gregor to be in Vegas right as Carrick had won the primary and the opposing party’s candidate was set to be announced.

The bartender asked Corbin if he wanted a drink and he shook his head absently, puzzled, staring at the shot glass Gregor had used. Old habits died hard. Glancing around to assure no one was aware of him, he picked up a cocktail napkin. Wiping the rim all the way around, he folded the napkin, and tucked it Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

into his pocket.

He might not have another opportunity to add Chechikov to his DNA database.

Nine