No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake a sense of impending doom, and she began having nightmares. Sometimes her uncle showed up in the castle, intending to do her harm in ever-changing ways that grew increasingly grotesque as time went on. Sometimes he destroyed Drake before coming after her. Sometimes he waited until her baby had been born, and then he murdered her little girl first.
She tried to hide her worry from Drake, but that was impossible. He could read the anxiety in her eyes. And in her mind. Nor was there any way to hide her nightmares from him, not when she woke up screaming or crying every night.
One night, after a particularly horrible dream, Drake suggested they return to the Fortress until Dinescu was caught. The idea held a certain appeal, except that Elena didn’t want to have her baby there, didn’t want to be anywhere near Liliana’s corrosive influence.
As the days slipped into weeks and then became a month, Elena’s fears gradually subsided. Worry over her uncle receded into the background as the reality of the baby she carried grew more real with her growing waistline. She could feel the baby moving now and thought how awesome it was that she carried a new life beneath her heart, a child born out of her love for Drake. Although the idea of being a mother was a little frightening, she could hardly wait to hold the baby in her arms. She’d had little to do with babies. Never taken care of an infant, only held them on rare occasions when she was growing up.
Sitting in front of the fire one night, with Drake’s arm around her shoulders, she gave voice to her fears. “I don’t know how to be a mother,” she said, gazing into the flames. “I’ve never even changed a diaper. How will I know what to do? Babies are so fragile and need so much care. I scarcely remember my own mother.”
“Elena, you will be a wonderful mother. You have a tender heart, a generous nature. You will love our child and that will be enough.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “You should be more worried about the kind of father your child will have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I come from a family where expressions of love and affection were rare. My father ruled the Fortress with an iron hand. He had little time for us, or for my mother. His neglect made her bitter and she took it out on us. Once we reached maturity, we saw little of our parents. I know nothing of children. You have given me the only real love I have ever known.”
“We make a fine pair, don’t we?” she asked with a rueful grin.
“We will learn as we go along,” he assured her. “People have been having babies for thousands of years. Most of them survive, one way or another. Ours will be rich in love, if nothing else.”
Rich in love, Elena thought. Perhaps that would see them through. But, to be on the safe side, she had Drake drive her to the bookstore in the city the following night.
Drake shook his head as she handed him one book after another. “Are you sure we need all of these?” he asked, perusing the titles—Your Baby from Birth to Teen, Doctor Spock’s Baby and Child Care, Your Baby’s First Year, How to Be a Successful Parent, Do’s and Don’ts of Rearing Your Child, The ABC’s of Baby Care.
“I just wish they had a few more.”
“More? Good Lord, woman, we are only having one child.”
“I want to know everything there is to know.”
Wisely, he didn’t argue, just paid the bill, and prayed that the baby would be born strong and healthy and that Elena would survive the birth of their child.
For the next two weeks, Elena immersed herself in reading. She’d known she had a lot to learn, but she had no idea how much she didn’t know.
She said as much to Drake when they were in bed one night.
He laughed softly as he stroked the curve of her cheek. “You do not have to learn all of it before the baby comes,” he said. “You only need to learn what you need right now. No point in worrying about raising a teenager until the time comes.”
“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “I know you’re right. It’s just such an awesome responsibility, raising a baby.” Taking his hand in hers, she placed it over her womb. “Feel that?”
“Quite a lusty kick for a little girl,” he remarked. Surely that was a good sign. “I hope she looks like you.”
“Drake?”
“Yes, wife?”
“What will she be?”
He knew what she was asking, knew she was wondering if their daughter would follow in her father’s footsteps when she turned twenty. “I do not know if she will become vampire, Elena. To my knowledge, there are no half-vampires in existence.”
“Does that mean they are born either human or vampire?”
He drew her closer, afraid to tell her the truth, yet certain that keeping it from her would do more harm than good. She needed to be prepared for the worst, should it happen.
“Drake?”
“As far as I know, no child conceived by a vampire and a human has ever survived.”
Elena stared at him, her hand pressed tightly, protectively, over her stomach. “No! No! That can’t be true!” Tears flooded her eyes. “I don’t believe you!” she said, sobbing. “I won’t!”
He drew her into his arms and held her close. He should have taken precautions, he thought, should have remembered what had happened to Stefan, but matings between vampires and humans were rare, and conceptions rarer still. . . . He cursed softly. If anything happened to Elena or their baby, he would never forgive himself.
Tavian Dinescu huddled under a tree in the forest behind Wolfram Castle. Clad in rags, his body gaunt from lack of food, his beard thick, he stared at the lights burning in the window on the second floor.
He had hidden here for days, leaving the cover of the trees only late at night to scavenge in the forest, or creep down the hill to the town to steal whatever food he could find.
Sitting there, shivering in the cold, he tried to make sense of his muddled thoughts, but it was hard to think, hard to concentrate. He recalled the trial, but could not remember why he had confessed. Even when they showed him the confession, written in his own hand, he could not remember writing it. Deep in the far recesses of his mind, a faint memory niggled, something to do with the lord of Wolfram Castle, but when he tried to remember, it made his head hurt.
He hated all of them, hated the whole town for their treachery. He had protected them, kept them safe, and they had all turned their backs on him.
But the worst offender was Elena. He had opened his home to her, fed and clothed her, offered her his name and what had she done in return? She had testified against him, the ungrateful brat! Sent him to that awful place for crazy people. He clapped his hands over his ears, shutting out the echo of tormented cries in the night, the moaning and groaning of the sick, the dying, the sobs of the hopeless, the helpless.