“Huh,” Tybo said dryly, drawing his attention back to the subject at hand. “That would have saved him money on food. No doubt it would have got expensive feeding a large crowd of rogues. He saved himself a pretty penny with that line.”
“Yes,” Mortimer agreed, sounding weary, although Magnus suspected it wasn’t a physical exhaustion. It was hard to see the worst of mankind day in and day out and not grow weary of soul.
“What other rules did he have?” Tricia asked quietly.
Allie thought briefly and then said, “They couldn’t wear jewelry. Stella said her earrings were lying on the floor and her pierced ears had closed up when she woke. Her sire said it was because metal wounded their bodies or something, and demanded they hand over all their jewelry for him to dispose of, which really upset her. She didn’t care about the earrings but he took her engagement and wedding ring too, and a heart pendant with a picture of her and Stephen in it that she never took off.”
“We can wear jewelry,” Tybo assured her, and then suggested, “He probably wanted the jewelry to pawn it.”
“That’s what Stella thought too,” Allie said slowly. “She wanted to take her rings and the pendant when she left, but the pendant was the only thing remaining. She did wear that with no problems, and thinks it was only still there because it wasn’t very valuable, at least not monetarily.” She paused briefly and then added, “Apparently, they were ordered to remove the jewelry of their victims and give it to him too, and he had a special group of men who committed various crimes to get more money.”
“You mean aside from kidnapping, and turning or killing unsuspecting mortals?” Tybo asked dryly.
“Who’s been kidnapping and killing mortals?”
Magnus glanced over his shoulder at that question to see Mortimer’s wife, Sam, eyeing them with alarm from the open door to the garage. She was a slim woman, with dark hair and large eyes, her arms presently loaded down with grocery bags.
As he and the other men stood and hurried to help with the groceries, Magnus heard Lucian say, “We will have to finish this after we get Sam settled,” and was surprised at the man’s show of patience. Perhaps Leigh was having an effect on him, after all, Magnus thought. That or the man was hungry for something more substantial than cookies.
Six
“Well, now that I’ve satisfied your stomachs, perhaps one of you could tell me who is kidnapping and killing mortals?”
Allie had just popped the last of her bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich into her mouth when Sam said that. She glanced to the woman with amusement, unsurprised at the demand. Sam seemed a rather take-charge woman. She had certainly taken charge of the men when they’d started pulling out groceries with hungry mutterings at some of the contents.
Noting that it was close to noon—something that had shocked Allie, who hadn’t realized how late it had gotten—Sam had suggested bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches for lunch. When everyone, even Lucian, had reacted positively to the suggestion, she’d immediately moved to start making coffee while giving each of the rest of them tasks. Mortimer had cooked the bacon, Tybo made toast, Katricia had cleaned the lettuce, and Allie had sat at the island at Magnus’s insistence and sliced the tomatoes. Meanwhile Magnus and Lucian had set the table.
The first two sandwiches had gone to Teddy and Liam, who had been pulled away from their cartoons to eat at the table. By the time the boys had finished and run back to the television, the coffees were poured, three large stacks of sandwiches were ready, and everybody was drooling in anticipation. There had been a stampede to the table and silence had reigned as they ate. Now that silence was over, Allie thought as Tybo answered Sam’s question.
“The rogues we saved Allie and Liam from,” he told her, and gave her a brief rundown of what Allie had already told them as they all stood to carry their dishes to the sink for a quick rinse before setting them in the dishwasher. By the time the dishwasher was loaded and turned on and the group returned to the table, Mortimer’s wife was caught up enough to ask, “I am guessing Liam is the reason Stella left her sire and the others?”
“Yes,” Allie said solemnly. “To her, his existence seemed a miracle from God.”
“All babies are a miracle from God,” Tricia said softly, her gaze sliding to the door and the sounds coming from the television in the room across the hall.
Allie supposed that was true. Every baby seemed a miracle to those around them, but that wasn’t what she was talking about, so explained, “Yes, but it was different for Stella. You have to understand she thought she was dead. That she had died in that room and risen a vampire. By that reasoning, she couldn’t have become pregnant after the turn, but must have been pregnant when she was killed and turned. Yet her baby still lived and grew inside her dead body.”
“A baby would not have survived inside the mother during a turn,” Lucian said into the brief silence that followed.
“No, it would not have,” Magnus agreed. “Stella probably got pregnant in the first days or weeks after the worst of the turn finished.” Glancing to Allie, he explained, “Immortal females need to take in a lot of blood to prevent losing a pregnancy, and new turns need a lot of blood for the first while after they are turned. From what you said, it sounds as if Stella’s sire was ensuring she and her husband had a lot of blood after the turn. That would have allowed a fetus to grow without the nanos attacking it.”
Nanos again, Allie thought, but didn’t ask what those were. Lucian would just grump that she could ask her questions later.
“But Stella would have had to continue to consume copious amounts of blood throughout the pregnancy to ensure she kept the baby and carried it to term,” Sam pointed out now.
“Her sire told her that when he told her she was pregnant,” Allie said. “He apparently was the one who realized it first and revealed to Stella that she was with child. She had no idea until then. In fact, she didn’t really believe him when he first said it.”
“I am guessing he wanted to terminate the pregnancy and that is why she fled?” Magnus suggested.
“No. He was delighted and hoping for a boy he could mentor,” Allie said grimly, as horrified at the thought as Stella had been. Mouth tightening, she added, “Apparently, a girl baby would have been undesirable and, according to him, ‘best torn apart by the group before it could take more than a breath.’ I gather he considered females quite useless. Stella said there were very few women among the group. A handful, all members of couples that were taken. Never women who were found on their own. They were used to feed the group and never turned.”
“So, she was afraid he would kill the baby if it was a girl,” Magnus said, looking angry at the thought.
“Yes. But she was also terrified of his mentoring the baby if it was a boy. That he’d turn it into a monster like he was. She didn’t want that.”
“That would have scared me silly too,” Tricia admitted.
Allie nodded. “I think it did more than that, though. I think finding out she was carrying a child saved Stella. It brought her out of whatever madness had beset her when she was attacked and turned. Stella says until then she was wandering around in a kind of fog, doing whatever she was told without conscience, feeding on the people she was given, and even luring men to the others when ordered to. But learning she was with child snapped her out of that. She was ashamed of what she’d let herself be cowed into doing, and wanted to be better for her son or daughter. To do that, and to keep her baby safe, she had to leave.”