“Yeah, I guess she did,” I finally replied.
We spent another few minutes watching the builders work on Rita’s house before my stomach started to rumble. Ethan chuckled affectionately. “Sounds like somebody’s hungry.”
“I’m starving,” I admitted. “And do you know what I’d love right now?”
“Tell me, and your wish is my command.”
“The biggest, greasiest, unhealthiest cheeseburger we can find,” I said.
“Oh, I could definitely go for a burger, too,” Rita agreed.
“So, it’s settled then,” Ethan said before he started the engine and pulled away from the side of the road.
***
I broke my personal record when I managed to stuff my face with three huge burgers. Rita and Ethan watched me eat in amazement. The funny thing about being pregnant with a dhampir baby was that you could eat and eat and you hardly ever felt full. The energy was burned up too quickly.
We arrived back at the house just after lunchtime and found Alora and Finn waiting for us in the living room. Everybody moved out of Ethan’s yesterday and went back to their own homes now that the danger was gone, so I wasn’t sure what they were doing here.
“Alora had a vision about you,” Finn said as I took a seat. Ethan perched himself on the armrest beside me, rubbing soothing circles into my back.
I looked at Alora expectantly, and she began to speak. “It wasn’t actually about her, Finn,” she corrected him before focusing on me. “It was about your baby.”
Instinctively, my hand went to my stomach, where a round bump had started to grow.
“Remember when I said I saw you in the future with a little blonde girl who would one day rule Tribane?”
“Yes,” I replied, my heartbeat speeding up.
“Well, it was your daughter. She’s the one from my vision. I was right when I felt like she hadn’t been born yet.”
My eyes flicked to Ethan’s and then back to Alora. “So, you saw me with her, does that mean we’re both going to survive?”
“If my vision was correct, yes.”
“What do you mean ‘if’?” Ethan questioned.
She coughed to clear her throat. “Sometimes I see things in the form of warnings. So, if a certain sequence of events comes to pass that’s what will happen. I had a vision a couple of days ago where Theodore released his chaos on the city and the humans died as he’d planned. But in reality, Roman intervened and that didn’t happen. In your case, I’m guessing that if the both of you survive, your baby will become a ruler one day. If you don’t, then something else will happen instead.”
“But it’s highly likely your vision is correct, right?”
“Yes. My visions have come to pass as I see them more often than not,” she said reassuringly.
Somehow though, I wasn’t as reassured as I wanted to be. Ever since I found out I was pregnant, there’d been a sense of dread at the back of my mind, a feeling that this was the beginning of the end for me.
But maybe that was just me, always looking for the negative as opposed to the positive.
“You’re tired,” Ethan said, cutting through my morbid thoughts. “Let me bring you upstairs for a nap.”
I nodded and let him lead me from the room after I thanked Alora for being truthful with me on what she saw. I wanted to be realistic about this. I didn’t want anybody giving me false hope.
When we reached our room, Ethan pulled back the sheets, ordering me to strip off.
“I thought I was taking a nap,” I replied flirtatiously.
He smirked. “That was the plan, but if you have something else in mind, I’m all for it.”
All of a sudden, I had just the remedy to take my mind off my troubles. I pulled my T-shirt over my head, but what I intended to look suave and sexy just ended up being awkward, since I was wearing a splint on my broken finger. Ethan had a human doctor come to the house and fix it up for me, seeing as how I was cut in a few places and he couldn’t trust a vampire not to get all lusty at the scent of my blood.
Deep chuckling rumbled out of Ethan’s chest, and I scowled at him when I finally got my top off. His chuckling ceased when he got a load of my lacey bra, which quickly became my lack of a bra when I reached around with my good hand and unclipped it.
Less than a second later, his face was in my breasts, nuzzling tenderly. He scooped me off my feet and laid me carefully on the bed. Before he would have thrown me down roughly, but not now. Now he handled me as gently as he would a snowflake he didn’t want to crumble.
When we finally got all our clothes off and he sank himself into me deep, I threw my head back and closed my eyes. His lips traced a path along my neck, sending tingles shooting down my spine.
“I love you, Ethan,” I whispered almost incoherently.
His hips move in and out, his body like a solid work of art.
“I love you, too, lumina mea,” he answered fiercely, cradling my face in his hands, his eyes tracing my every feature as he made love to me tender and slow.
20.
Tegan
I woke up hours later in Ethan’s arms, his fingers running affectionately through strands of my hair.
“When you’re up to it, could you tell Rita I want to talk to her privately in my study?” Ethan asked, sensing I was awake.
“Sure. What’s it about?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Cryptic much?”
He only smiled in answer, knowing I hated being left in the dark about things. I stretched my body out and rose from the bed, rummaging for some clothes from the wardrobe and throwing them on haphazardly. I found Rita in the living room, flicking through the stations on Ethan’s flatscreen television.
“His lordship would like a private word with you in his study,” I told her, leaning against the doorframe.
Her eyes widened as she clicked a button on the remote and the screen went blank. “Oh, yeah? Do you know why?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. He’s being all Johnny Tight Lips about it,” I replied sulkily.
Rita laughed and stood up. “Well, I’d better go and see what it is then. Promise to tell you all the deets when we’re done.” She winked and disappeared from the room. And I mean she actually disappeared. Show-off.
That was definitely going to take some getting used to.
In the kitchen, I find a box of Turkish Delight, the fancy kind that was dusted in powdered sugar. I sat up on the countertop and popped one into my mouth. The house felt way too empty now that everyone but Rebecca had gone. Ethan grudgingly accepted that Delilah would live in the old house across the street from Finn’s place, and I was glad for her because I knew she’d been dying to have some independence.
Ethan also released Marcel from the basement, but only to exile him from the city. He told him that if he ever stepped foot in Tribane again, he’d be killed on the spot. Marcel just seemed grateful to be let out of the basement, agreeing that he would be gone before the day was through. Ethan told him he had three hours. Marcel didn’t argue.
There was a knock at the front door, so I jumped down off the counter to answer it, glad for the distraction. I couldn’t stop thinking about what Ethan might be discussing with Rita. When I opened the door, I found all my friends camped out on the step waiting to be let in.