King Cave (Forever Evermore, #2)(186)
Nice choice of wording. “The last one I remember was around eight weeks ago.”
She froze, her eyes going wide. “And you’re just now mentioning this?”
“I thought it was stress-related.”
Her nostrils flared, but she nodded once. “That is a viable reason for a missed period,” she growled, “or two.” She cracked her knuckles on her left hand. “Have you had any other symptoms?”
I nodded once. “I’ve been throwing up for the last three mornings.”
Neither said a word.
I added the kicker. “I tried to shift before you two arrived, and I couldn’t.” A pause. “In fact, that was the first time I have tried to shift since waking on the cargo ship.” I hadn’t had a need for it, fighting in my regular form since my wolf was tiny.
Antonio actually wobbled where he stood, and Bindi’s arm jerked out like it was automatic, grabbing his arm to steady him, but her attention was steadfast on me.
When neither said anything, I continued my one-sided conversation. “Is there any other possibility that explains my symptoms?”
Antonio’s gaze flew to Bindi, and she nibbled on her lip a moment, her eyebrows puckered, before she stated almost happily, “You’ve been shot a couple of times during combat with silver bullets. There may still be a fragment of the shell inside you somewhere, which fits all of these symptoms.” She nodded quickly, gesturing to my bed. “Lie down and I’ll do a scan, and if we don’t find anything, then I can do an internal exam as a last resort for pregnancy.”
I did as told, lying on the bed, not bothering to tell her I still had my powers, so the silver excuse wasn’t viable. The exam needed to be done anyway. Feeling cold and bereft, I stared at the ceiling, while Antonio hovered, as Bindi started at my head, her hands glowing. Slowly and methodically she moved her hands over me, an inch away from my skin, leaving not one area untouched as she moved down over my shoulders, each arm, breasts, rib cage, and stomach. But when she got to my lower abdomen she froze, her hand hovering and then glowing brighter. Her body trembled, before her face blanked completely. In a monotone voice, she said, “I’ll need to do that internal exam, Queen Ruckler.” She licked her lips. “It’s not a shard of silver. You are, indeed, pregnant. I can feel the baby’s pulse, beating so faintly I’m positive even a Vampire wouldn’t be able to hear it yet, but it’s strong.”
In that instant, at the verification, something splintered inside my soul. If I thought I had been cold before, this was the arctic that slipped into my veins, uncontrollable as I stared at the tent’s shimmering ceiling.
I’d had sex with someone.
I couldn’t remember him.
Even that memory stolen from me.
So now I was having a stranger’s baby, when I didn’t even like brats to begin with, having spent time in King Cave babysitting the tiny monsters. Why had I babysat? I couldn’t remember, or even begin to guess why I had every other day stepped foot in a nursery when I loathed it so much. But peculiarly I…placing a hand over my flat lower stomach…yes, I wanted this stranger’s child.
My child. I definitely wanted it, and I didn’t have to remember anything to know that was all my own current knowledge. The baby was mine.
Eyes unblinking and my brows puckered, my thoughts began to coil as I began feeling nauseous again.
Why…
It didn’t make sense.
Why the hell would those memories have been taken from me?
A crime yes, but sex with someone?
No, that didn’t make sense.
I blinked as if waking from a dream, a new snaking coldness rushing through my veins.
Unless…
I lifted my right hand, and gently slid off the ring on my thumb. The one I stared at every night, wondering what it meant. I scrutinized it in a different light. Black and red. I blinked slowly, remembering there had once been a scent on the man’s grey t-shirt I wore to bed. The one I wore right now.
Abruptly, a cold tear trickled down my icy cheek.
I now understood the symbolic nature of the ring.
Black and red. Vampire.
Air left me, my gaze flying to my stomach, as realization dawned, only to demolish like morose obscurity, ripping away any real clarity because the possibilities were endless within the Vampire faction. I was mind raped because I’d had sex with a Vampire. Law 6002, one of the newest.
Breathless, I shook my head, letting it fall back on the pillow. My breathing hiccupped repeatedly. Someone had f*cked with my mind because of who I’d had sex with. I placed the ring in front of my blurry eyes, tilting it to read the inscription as I had done a million times.
It read: The Beauty Is Found.
The Vampire must have loved me, just as I must have loved him — I wore his ring — for both of us to have risked something so dear as losing stages of time, our past. My mind. This was enough to make anyone go insane, and I sure as hell was already halfway there.
Yet we had done it anyway. Because of love. For some mysterious ‘Beauty’ that I remembered nothing of. And now, I was paying the consequences for an experience that was as much an enigma as mermaids were in fairytales, living my life alone in the glacial reality and pregnant with no knowledge of who the father was.
“Queen Ruckler!” Bindi shouted loudly. “Can you hear me?”