“I didn’t get the chance to inspect it. I only saw it as Jason lifted you from the ground to carry you away.”
“Well, do you want to look now?” I sat forward a bit and motioned to my lower back. “I’m curious to—”
“Not now, my dear. The Mark wasn’t what I needed to talk to you about.”
“What is it then, Arthur?” I lay back on my pillow, twisting my long hair into a knot beside my jaw. “I don’t like that worried look.”
He changed it to a soft, reassuring smile. “Nothing is wrong, but I fear I have some news that. . .” He seemed to stop and think for a second, rewording that: “That may or may not upset you.”
“But more likely will?”
He sat back, but as he went to speak, my door popped open and Jason said, “Knock-knock.”
“Jase.” I pushed my good hand into the mattress under me and sat up again. “Hi.”
“Hi. Can I come in?”
“Of course.”
“Close the door,” Arthur said, waving a hand across the air.
“Sure.” The door shut and Jason appeared on my other side, dragging a chair closer to the bed. “How’s the hands?”
I held them out. “Better. This one’s healed, but—” I showed him my left hand.
He cringed melodramatically. “Want some blood?”
“Actually, I really do. But I better order a Sacrificial.”
“Nonsense,” Arthur cussed. “Jason, feed the girl, and let’s get on with it.”
Jason shrugged as if to say, “Don’t argue with the boss,” and I drew a long breath to steady my heart. His vein was open and his wrist at my lips before I exhaled, and the sweet, mildly aphrodisiac quality of his life force ran down my throat, through my body, and made my damaged hand tingle. I didn’t want to look at Jase’s face while I drank from him—didn’t want to see those eyes, see how much he was enjoying this, because I knew it would only make me want to bite him and, after tonight, he would finally be immune. We were finally free to be together, if I decided to take that road. And that just sent a hundred hot ideas into my mind.
“Shh,” he said, one hand sweeping my hair back softly, over and over.
I hadn’t made any noise, that I knew of, so I could only figure he heard all of that. I drew my lips away from the wetness of his skin, wiping my mouth with the cup of my palm. “Thanks, Jase.”
“Don’t mention it,” he said, his eyes locked with a smile onto mine, his hand staying firmly on my head. “How’s it feel now?”
“It?”
He motioned down to my hand.
“Oh. Um.” I frayed my fingers and watched the last of the raw skin heal over like clouds passing the sun. “It’s good now.”
“Good,” Arthur cut in. “Then we need to talk.”
“Okay.” I settled down in my bed a bit. “Bad news?”
“No, Ara. Brilliant news,” Jase said, his eyes lighting up then in an almost opposite way to Arthur’s. “Sweet girl. You’re pregnant.”
“What?” I went to sit up again, but just stayed there with my hands poised to prop me up. “Since when?”
“Since June, approximately,” Arthur said dully.
“You’re about seventeen weeks,” Jase added.
“Seventeen? But—” I counted in my head. Jason and I slept together, like, eight weeks ago. It was. . .
“It’s David’s baby, Amara,” Arthur said.
“But. . .” It didn’t make sense. None of it. “I. . . the pregnancy test was negative. I don’t even have a belly. . .”
“You’re Lilithian. Those tests measure certain hormones in human pregnancies. But, immortals don’t change the way humans do. Yours won’t show up on a test. And, as for the belly, well—” Arthur smiled fondly at my waist. “You have a bit of bump.”
I laid both hands across it. It was so small it felt only as if I’d exhaled heavily and puffed it out a little. I wasn’t anywhere near as big as my mom when she had Harry. “Are you sure it’s David’s? I mean, this belly is more like a. . .”
“A first trimester belly,” Arthur nodded. “Lilith was the same, so I’m told. At thirty weeks gestation, she barely looked twenty.”
“Oh my God.” I covered my mouth. “I was pregnant when I tried to kill myself.”
“And she’s okay.” Jason pulled my hand gently down from my mouth. “She survived it, Ara. She’s strong, and—”
“You were only a few weeks pregnant when you jumped,” Arthur said. “It is my opinion that the life force in the blood of immortals kept her alive for that few minutes your heart stopped.”
“But the fall alone could’ve—”
“She is well protected inside your immortal body. And she has an immortal body of her own. Even if she did, in fact, die with you, she is clearly as restorable as her mother.”
“Arthur actually thought she was dead.” Jase pointed his thumb at his uncle, half laughing.
“And with good reason, too,” Arthur defended. “Your abdomen was torn open on one side. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that your uterus was enlarged. I wasn’t sure if it was a pregnancy or swelling, but I was bound by time, so I stitched you back up before anyone could notice, and left what I hoped was a child with a fighting chance.”
“When I came in to see you after you woke, the old man let his thoughts slip for a second,” Jase said with a grin. “He was trying to find a way to tell you the baby was dead.”
“Why’d you think it was dead?”
“I’d examined you after everyone left the room—confirmed you were pregnant, but. . .”
“He still couldn’t hear a heartbeat,” Jase said.
I looked at Arthur.
“After Jason’s initial shock about the child’s death, he looked at me as if I’d gone insane and asked why I would tell you the child was dead, when he’d just heard pulses coming from her tiny little brain.”
“Pulses?” I looked at Jase.
“Yeah. They’re the electrical signals all living things give-off. You should know, Ara. You feel it when you walk in the forest, or—”
“When I’m in a room with a vampire.” I nodded to myself.
“Yeah, or a human.”