Chapter
34
November turned to December, bringing a
flurry of snow that quickly covered the ground and clothed the
trees in gowns of white. In spite of the fireplaces and heaters in
every room, the castle was chilly. Elena spent most of her time in
the main hall, curled up on the sofa in front of the hearth,
sometimes reading, sometimes napping.
Strangely, Drake, in his cat persona,
had returned. He spent his days sitting beside her, or stretched
out along the back of the sofa, sleeping. She was glad for the
company.
She had asked Drake about the return of
the cat the first time it appeared. He had said only that he missed
her during the day and wanted to be near her. She suspected it was
more than that. Her uncle was still out there, somewhere, and even
though Drake claimed not to be worried, she knew he
was.
Drake appeared late one afternoon, when
the sky had turned dark and overcast. “This will be our first
Christmas together,” he said, helping her into a heavy winter coat.
“I thought we should have a tree.”
Excited at the idea, Elena pulled on a
pair of fur-lined boots and gloves, put on a fur-lined hat, and
followed him outside, where he picked up an ax and laid it on his
shoulder. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she said.
She followed him down a path he had
cleared earlier to the edge of the forest.
“Which one do you like?” he
asked.
She glanced from tree to tree. “That
one,” she said, pointing. “But how will you ever carry it into the
house?” she asked, and then grinned sheepishly. To a vampire,
carrying a ten-foot tree was akin to a mortal carrying one-half
that size.
It took only a few strokes of the blade
to bring the tree crashing down.
Returning home, he shook the snow from
the branches, then carried the tree into the main hall. “Where do
you want it?”
“There,” she said, pointing to the far
corner of the room.
He quickly built a stand and nailed it
to the base of the tree.
“We don’t have any ornaments,” Elena
said. “Or lights.”
“We’ll take care of that tomorrow
night,” he said. “For now, you need to get warmed up.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you are.” Even as he was
speaking, he was helping her out of her coat, boots, and hat,
settling her on the sofa, covering her with the afghan she had
made, bringing her a cup of hot tea.
Elena smiled up at him, thinking he was
the most wonderful, sweet, caring man in the whole
world.
She was about to tell him so when she
sensed a familiar ripple in the air. Moments later, Andrei
materialized in the room.
Elena’s smile of welcome faded when she
saw the expression on his face. Something was wrong. Terribly
wrong.
“The baby was born tonight,” Andrei
said, his voice flat.
He didn’t have to say anything else.
She saw the sorrow in his face, the pain in his eyes.
“He came too early, and lived only a
few minutes. Just long enough”—Andrei swallowed hard—“long enough
for me to hold him.”
“How is Katiya?” Drake
asked.
“For a time, I thought I would lose
her, too. But she will be all right.”
“Andrei, I’m so sorry,” Elena murmured.
“Is there anything we can do?”
“No.” He sank down on the edge of the
sofa beside Elena, his head cradled in his hands. “Her mother sent
me away, told me Katiya needed to rest. I wandered around outside
the Fortress and then”—he shrugged—“I found myself here. We were
happy here.”
Feeling helpless, Elena looked up at
Drake, who was standing near the hearth. What can we do?
He shook his head. He needs time.
“I should go back,” Andrei said. “I
just thought you should know.”
Biting down on her lower lip, Elena
slid her arm around Andrei’s shoulders. To her surprise, he turned
into her embrace, his arms going around her waist. He held on
tight, his body shaking uncontrollably as sobs racked his
body.
“She’ll be all right,” Elena said,
patting his back. “She’s young and strong. And she loves
you.”
Andrei took a deep breath, then drew
back. “Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to
forgive.”
Andrei rose heavily to his feet. “I
must go back.”
“You may stay, if you wish,” Drake
said.
Andrei shook his head. “Katiya will be
missing me.”
“How are things at the Fortress
otherwise?” Drake asked.
“All is well. Your plan to free the
sheep was a good one. The transition has gone smoothly. I must go.”
He bowed in Elena’s direction, and then he was gone.
“Poor Andrei,” Elena
murmured.
Drake nodded. He had never fully
understood Stefan’s pain, he thought, perhaps because he, himself,
had never been in love, never lost anyone he cared for, but he
understood it clearly now. He had seen Stefan’s pain reflected in
Andrei’s eyes.
Needing to hold Elena, he sat beside
her and drew her into his arms as he faced the very real
possibility that he could lose Elena, and the baby,
too.
Later, lying in the dark in Drake’s
arms, fears about her baby, about the birth itself, rose in Elena’s
mind. Katiya had been young and healthy, in her prime for bearing a
child. If Katiya could not conceive and carry a vampire child, what
chance did a mortal woman have? Elena placed her hand over her
womb. Would her baby be born too early, as well? Take a few
breaths, then slip away, its life over before it had even begun?
And what of her own life? Andrei said they had almost lost Katiya.
If a vampire, who had the strength of twenty and was nearly
invincible, was at risk, how much more so was she?
“Elena, you must not
worry.”
He was reading her mind again, but she
didn’t care. She hadn’t wanted to worry him with her fears, but now
that they were out in the open, she needed to talk about it, needed
his reassurance.
“Do not be afraid for our little girl,”
he murmured, stroking Elena’s hair. “She will survive. I can hear
her heart beating, strong and steady.”
Elena nodded.
“She already knows your voice,” he
said. “Whenever you speak, her heartbeat speeds up a little. I know
she is eager to see your face, to be in your arms.”
His words brought tears to Elena’s
eyes. True or not, it was what she needed to hear. Content to be in
his arms, she closed her eyes. How blessed she was, to have Drake
in her life. What more could she ask than to spend the rest of her
life with this incredible man?
What more, indeed, but a life as long
as his. She stirred restlessly. She would not think of that now.
She was still young. Old age was far in the future, yet she grew
older every day. She had rarely given much thought to death. It
was, after all, a fact of life. Unless you were a vampire. Tears
stung her eyes. The day would come when her youth would be gone,
and her health with it. What would become of them
then?
“What troubles you now,
wife?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
Sitting up, he used the pads of his
thumbs to wipe the tears from her eyes. “Since when does nothing
make you weep?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said, sniffling.
“I’m always weepy these days.”
“I can feel your sadness.” His gaze
searched her face. He could see it clearly, even in the dark. “Do I
need to read your mind to find out what is bothering
you?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Then tell me.”
“What’s going to happen to us when I
start to get old and you don’t? Will you still love me then? Will
you still want me?”
With a sigh, he turned on the bedside
lamp, then drew her up beside him, his arm circling her shoulders.
Fool that he was, he had put the future out of his mind, content to
live in the present with the woman he loved.
Fighting back her tears, she eased out
of his embrace.
“Elena . . .”
She shook her head. “You don’t have to
say anything.” Did she really expect him to stay with her, be
content to be with her, when she was seventy or eighty and looked
it, and he was still a virile male with the face and body of a
thirty-year-old?
“It does not have to be like that,” he
said quietly. “There are ways . . .”
Eyes widening in horror, she scooted
backward. “I don’t want to be a vampire.”
“You cannot become what I am. As I told
you before, I was not made a vampire. It is what I am. But there
are ways to prolong your life. Your youth. You are young yet. We
have years before you need to decide.”
“What ways?” she asked, curiosity
mingling with revulsion.
“If you drink from me, it will slow the
aging process, so that with the passing of each year, your body
will only age one day.”
“How often would I have to drink your
blood?”
“Every night for the first year, then
every week, then every month, then only once a year for as long as
you wish.”
“And when I stop
drinking?”
“You will begin to age normally again.
But, as I said, you needn’t worry about it now.” Reaching out, he
took her back into his arms, aligning her body with his. “Whatever
you decide, I will never leave you. Do you understand ? Never. If
you choose to live a normal span of years, I will be at your side.
The last face you see will be mine, I swear it.”
It was a lot to expect of any man,
Elena thought, but Drake was not really a man.
“So, wife, have I set your mind at
ease?”
“Yes, I guess so.” The thought of
drinking blood was repulsive, but to age only one day for each year
she lived . . . The idea was mind-boggling. Could it be
true?
“It is a carefully guarded secret,”
Drake said. “You must never tell anyone.”
She nodded. If people knew there was a
way to live practically forever, they would be hunting vampires
relentlessly for their blood. Greedy men would make a fortune
selling it. People would kill for it.
“So, no one else—no other human I
mean—knows about it?”
“None living.”
“But others have done it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to them?”
“There have only been five that I know
of. One grew weary of living and reverted to being human. Three
died in accidents. One was killed when she decided to share her
knowledge with the world. When her vampire mate discovered her
intent, she was destroyed.”
Elena nodded. “But the blood . . .” She
shuddered in revulsion.
“It is a small price to pay for
immortality, is it not?”
Elena thought about what Drake had said
the next morning while doing the laundry. What would it be like, to
live virtually forever? She had asked Drake a similar question once
before. His reply had been that it could be challenging after a few
hundred years because, by then, one had seen everything and done
everything.
She tossed a load of damp clothes into
the dryer, piled another load into the washer, added soap and
fabric softener as she considered something else Drake had said
when she’d asked him about living so long. He had told her that
vampires sometimes buried themselves in the ground. To rest. Buried
alive, she thought with a shudder.
Still, it would be nice to be virtually
indestructible, she mused. If she was a vampire, she could do all
the things she was afraid to do, like scuba diving and skydiving
and rock climbing. But she couldn’t become a true vampire. Not that
she really wanted to be one, of course.
But living for centuries, that was
within her grasp, if she could just overcome her disgust at
drinking blood. She sighed. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it was
Drake’s blood. . . .
She shook her head. It would still be
disgusting, she thought. If she didn’t have to drink it directly
from Drake, maybe she could mix it with a little wine to make it
more palatable. But, palatable or not, it would be worth it if it
meant a longer life with the man she loved.
Going upstairs to the main hall, she
opened the door and peered outside. It was snowing
again.
She stood at the door a moment,
watching the tiny white flakes settle on the trees and the ground.
She had been cooped up inside for days. She was wondering if she
dared go outside, just for a few minutes, when a movement to her
right caught her eye. Before she could register what she was
seeing, a hand clamped a rag over her nose and mouth, stifling her
startled scream. Her nostrils filled with a sickly sweet smell, and
then everything went blank.