“Sending you away?” His hand moved off of my hip, but the rest of him did not move. “Is that what you think?”
“You’re angry,” I retorted.
He sighed. “I am fearful for you. But I am not angry with you.” He paused, and when I didn’t say anything, he continued, “I see now just how scared you are. And I am sorry if I added to that… again.”
I finally sat up, pushing the mess of hair that was wildly engulfing my face and shoulders back. “I don’t know if it was anything more than a nightmare, Kane. And if it is, there’s no way that the baby wouldn’t be yours, and I would never leave without you forcing me to.”
He reached out but pulled back when I flinched. “How long before you no longer fear me?” My flinch was minuscule to his reaction to it. His movements and tone were as if I’d stabbed him in the in the heart.
“I’m sorry.” My eyes pleaded with him.
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to not be so afraid of me.”
I shifted to face him better. It wasn’t that I feared him directly. I didn’t know what I feared. In all honesty, I had, more or less, thought I’d gotten past that. But something was making me jumpy.
My hand ran up and down my other arm as if I were cold. “There’s a saying on Earth… ’It’s not you. It’s me.’ Only, in this case, it’s true, and I’m not using it to break up with you. I just… I don’t know. I’m jumpy. Maybe everything is just catching up with me.”
In a blur, he scooped me up and pulled me into his lap. “I went to Dorian and Wulfgar. Dorian is gathering some men to stand guard around the castle. Wulfgar will stand guard near you, especially when I am not able to be. We will make sure that nobody… not those from your nightmare, not Mika, not anyone. Nobody will get to you… with or without child.”
“Is that necessary?” The idea of having guards to protect me was almost unfathomable.
Without hesitation, he replied, “Yes.”
“But you can protect me. Do we really need the help?”
“I will not be with you every moment, Auri. And you shouldn’t require that. You should feel like you can do as you please,” he explained, “And on days like today, when I have to go someplace, I want to know that you are safe.”
A different kind of panic shot through me. “You’re leaving? Why? Where? For how long? I can’t come with you? Is it because of me that you’re leaving?”
As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I wanted to shove them right back in. Why am I acting like a puppy dog? But something in me didn’t want to be far from him. It wasn’t a fear for my safety. After all, I wanted to refuse the security detail he was assigning. It was something else. But I didn’t know what. A part of me struggled, still questioning everything, even if so much of me knew what I wanted.
Kane’s hand caressed my shoulder as he laughed softly, amused. “You don’t want me to assign guards to you, yet you seem anxious at the thought of me being away from you. That contradicts your claim that you feel safe.”
Crap. I didn’t know how to explain my reaction to myself any more than to him.
But when his eyes went down to my hands, both on my stomach, his brow relaxed and tone was soothing. “Auri, I must go to The Hurthfeur. Khialreth to be exact. There, I can ask the Emalne that reside there if I can get some supplies that we will need if you are going to carry my child. They oversee herbs.”
“Supplies?” The image of me, pregnant, standing in front of the portal in my nightmare flashed through my mind. “You mean to give birth? Are pregnancies and deliveries that rare here?” I recalled, when I first arrived, not noticing children running around.
“Not in Everwinter. Considering that vampires are the alpha race here, there are very few births. Most humans that are brave enough to procreate usually leave and give birth in another place. Many do not return until the children are no longer children.” He leaned in and spoke lower, “Some vampires find children a delicacy.”
“Ewww…” My face wrinkled.
“Yes. I agree.” A shiver ran through me as he continued, “But the supplies we need are for your strength and comfort, not to make it happen and only some for a delivery. We cannot rely on my blood. I do not know what it would do to a child.”
His comment hit me hard. I hadn’t thought of that. What would his blood do a child? Would it change them? Kill them? Make them so strong that they’d kill me? Or nothing at all?
He must have seen me struggling with this new puzzle, because he reached out, placing his hands on my cheeks. “It is a precaution. Your pains, the fact that you’re becoming very defensively protective, the whispers of the prophecy and your nightmares all have me on guard. I want to be sure that we are prepared. That is all, little one.”
I put my hands over his. “But you don’t believe in things like prophecy.”
He smirked. “But you do. And sometimes that’s all it takes for something to happen. Not that there’s a destiny that brings it to fruition but rather at least one believer that does it on their own.” His thumb grazed over my lips.
What he said made sense. But what he said also dug a deeper hole of fear in me. What if that is all it would take… me believing it would happen and therefore setting the events into motion? If
