“The baby?”
“How do you know… damn Ronan.”
“Wasn’t him. I overheard you telling Shay.”
“Everyone’s going to know before Faelan does.”
“Damnation.” They both looked up at Faelan standing in the door, glaring at them. “First Ronan, now you. Why’s everyone touching my wife?”
“He’s not touching me, you big oaf. I just felt weak.”
Faelan bounded over to her, wrestling her from Cody’s arms. “Blasted woman. It’s the concussion. I told you to rest,” he said, picking her up so fast that Cody figured if she wasn’t dizzy before, she was now. He carried her to the sofa and sat down, cradling her in his lap.
Cody watched them for a moment, love pouring from them so thick a person could spread it on toast. “Can you keep everyone away from the barn? I need a few minutes alone with Shay.”
Faelan nodded. “Aye.”
Cody followed the path to the barn. The door was open, and the smell of hay was strong. The tattered remains of the rope still hung from the rafters. This is where everything changed. Shay had just turned sixteen, and Cody had found out about her hidden identity. It’d been hell having to keep a secret from her. He and Shay went to the barn to get a bucket for Nina. He climbed on the rope, swung off, and dropped into the hay. Not to be outdone, Shay followed, landing on top of him. She wrestled around with him for a minute, tickling him, like they often did, but Cody didn’t laugh. It took him a few minutes before he could get out of the hay.
From that day on, he saw her as a girl, a soft feminine girl, with bumps and curves in all the right places. After that, he tried not to touch her and watched her only when she wasn’t looking. He thought he had it under control, until the night they went looking for Nina’s cat.
He started up the ladder. Up there his world had come to an end.
Each rung he climbed brought memories that would be part of him until he died. Her breasts, the feel of her legs opening for him. He hadn’t thought about her being a virgin until he saw the blood, even though he was one too. He still didn’t regret what happened, only what it had done. Five minutes in the hayloft ruined seventeen years of friendship. She refused to talk to him, wouldn’t even look at him or let him explain, even when he climbed the tree outside her window, panicked because he was leaving to track a demon the next morning and would be gone for weeks. When he finally cornered her, late that night, he got so flustered that he told her about her father, her past, and the empty grave.
He would never forget that, either, the hurt and shock, no ranting and railing, just numbness slipping over her face. His third mistake was letting her believe her father was in the CIA, not that she would have listened to him at that point. He didn’t sleep that night, but sat hunched by his window, staring across the field, long after her light went out. He woke up there, to a day as bleak as his future, not knowing that their spontaneous act of passion created a life inside Shay that would bring more loss and heartache.
Until a few days ago, that was the last time he saw her, except from a distance. Even though he’d known he couldn’t marry her until his duty was finished, several times over the years he’d parked outside her house, first in New York, then Scotland, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, sometimes to make sure she was safe, sometimes to see if he’d gotten her out of his head—which he hadn’t—and sometimes because he missed her so much he felt like he was suffocating. Occasionally, he saw her, laughing with her friends, hurrying in the rain; once or twice with a man. Cody had sat in the truck, his neck burning, wondering if she was happy, if she ever thought about him, if she remembered running in the woods, campouts, swimming in the lake. If she remembered the hayloft. Wondering if the bastard walking down the street with her, holding her hand, knew she belonged to him. Once, he got out, fists clenched, ready to throw her over his shoulder and take her home, but stopped, knowing if he told her about the mark and she accepted him, not only would he put her in danger, he would always question if it was for himself or out of duty.
Afterwards, he would go back to fighting demons, torturing himself for months, picturing her in some other man’s arms, nails biting into his shoulders, legs wrapped around his waist, knowing she’d moved on, while he couldn’t. What would he have done if he had known his baby was growing inside her?
When Cody’s head cleared the loft floor, he saw Shay sitting on a bale of hay, her knees pulled to her chest. She looked lost. She turned, and he saw one tear roll down her cheek. He sat next to her and wiped it away with his thumb. “You okay, pip-squeak?”
Another tear escaped. He put his arm around her and held her tight. She didn’t sob. She’d never been a noisy crier, but her shoulders shook, and he wished Ellis could die all over again. Shay sat up and sniffled, her face wet.
Cody pulled off his T-shirt and handed it to her. “It’ll wash.”
“Thanks.” She wiped her face and nose.
Her wrists were scraped raw, but after seeing that body buried in the leaves, scrapes didn’t have the same impact they might have had. She would heal quickly. She always had. That part of her ancestry came without a choice. Her heart would take longer. “I’m sorry about Renee,” he said.
“Do her parents know?”
He nodded. “They’re headed home. They were in Mexico.”
“I keep thinking that if I’d gone straight to the caverns, maybe she would still be alive.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Cody said softly. “She was already dead when Ellis called you. It was a trap.”
“If I’d known that, I would’ve killed Ellis slower.”
“I know, but he’ll face his judgment.” Still, he wished he’d been the one to do it, so she didn’t have to. Once the shock wore off, she would have a tough time. Taking a human life, even an evil one, was hard. Demons he had no problem with. He was born to destroy them; that was his job. If warriors didn’t stand as a barrier between humanity and the underworld, humans would be annihilated. But killing anything with human blood left a stain on the soul.
“Was he a vampire?” she asked.
