Chapter Thirty-Two
Devlin watched her, as she seemed to grimace.
“Yes.”
He thought he already knew what she was going to tell him. He wasn’t sure how she felt about not fulfilling her role as the next lead Chronicler. “Okay, what?”
She took a deep breath. “I don’t know how much you know about the roles of the Chroniclers. But there’s no easy way to tell you.”
He put his hand on her lips to stop her, not wanting her to be in distress. “I already know, hon. Willy told me that you are supposed to lead the next generation of Chroniclers and that you’re supposed to have seven kids with some destined bastard. I’m sorry I came along and put a dent in that. But you are mine. You carry my child and no son of a bitch is going to come along and take you away from me to breed seven brats on you.”
When she started laughing, he frowned, not understanding at all what she found so funny.
“You are the destined son of a bitch and they will be your brats.”
His mind blanked at her words.
“You are the bastard that will put me through childbirth six more times.” She touched her stomach. “You’ve already gotten the first brat in.” She snorted and continued laughing.
He understood her words but couldn’t seem to grasp a coherent enough thought to voice them.
She touched his arm. “Well? Say something.”
Still, it took him two tries opening his mouth before he could form words. “I love you.”
Her laughter stopped. “I love you too.”
He leaned forward and kissed her then pulled back. Letting his head fall back against the pillow, he covered his eyes with his arm. “But damn, babe. Seven!”
Eva chuckled again. He moved his hand and looked at her. “Are you sure? Can’t one of your other siblings or cousins do this task?”
Sadness overwhelmed her features. “I have no cousins or…sisters.”
“Wait. What? I don’t understand. I thought you were one of seven and you have six aunts so how is that possible?”
“This isn’t something any of us speak of, first because it’s painful, the second well, secrets.” Her eyes filled with tears and one rolled down her cheek then another.
He held her tightly. “Shhh, it’s okay. If it’s going to cause you hurt we don’t need to talk about this ever.” He didn’t like the way the tears were flowing now or the way her body was shaking.
“No. I want to tell you. You can know. My mother was one of the Chroniclers who was killed when one was stolen. You know that, but what you don’t know is that my sisters and father were killed that night too.”
“What? Oh, my God!”
She nodded. “They fought but it wasn’t enough. The soulless killed them all that night. The only reason I survived was because I was in New York at the time with my Aunt Wilhelmina. She’d come for a visit and I went back with her for a few days so I wasn’t home. I wasn’t there—when—when they all died.”
The sobs racked her body and all he could do was hold her as she grieved. Understanding in some ways, she had survivor’s remorse. His mother had some of it too. She’d watched her parents die but she’d survived because one of the hunters who’d attacked his grandparents realized their mistake and protected her. “It’s not your fault, Eva. If you had been there you would have died too.”
“I know that, but still a part of me always wonders, maybe I would have heard something, sensed something been able to warn them in time.”
“Maybe, maybe not. It’s those thoughts that can destroy us. But you can’t change what happened and the fact is, you were what? All of maybe ten. You weren’t fully trained yet. The soulless would have just killed you too. But I don’t understand why you don’t have cousins.” He thought it would help to get her thinking about something else and hoped his words helped as he wiped the tears off her face.
“Only one of the seven can have children. That has been fated to be me for the next generation. It was my mother for Wilhelmina’s generation. As far as I know none of my aunts are able to have children.”
“Oh, babe, I’m so very sorry.” Now, he understood a lot more about her. Instead of becoming blood thirsty and jaded, she pursued knowledge and forgiveness.
“There’s a price for everything. And this is ours. For the many gifts we as Chroniclers were given, fertility is only given to one.”
“I’m so sorry, babe. So you had sisters.”
“Yes, that’s all the first can have. The Chroniclers are always female.”
“Seven daughters!” He was floored by what she was telling him. They lived in a world most humans didn’t understand. Less than a year ago, he thought he understood the world that existed when the sun went down and the predators came out. But there were so many underlying factors that had come to light. The most shocking was that the soulless were fallen angels. So, it wasn’t difficult for him to accept the Chroniclers were sterile. He glanced at Eva’s stomach and the life force he sensed safely nestled there, well most of them. But still—seven kids. Seven girls? He groaned aloud at the thought and pulled her in his arms.
“Are you angry, disappointed, scared? What? Talk to me?” she asked.
“None of those things, never disappointed. Okay, scared shitless. What the hell are we going to do with seven kids? I am a hunter you know. I won’t be around much at night.”
“Yes.”
That’s when it hit him. He finally realized why she was so adamant about him not being a hunter anymore. Why she wanted him to help her protect the Chronicles. It wasn’t just the history of the war she needed him to help her protect, it was the Chroniclers themselves. She’d already lost so much and now, he also understood why she feared the danger he constantly placed himself in.
The next generation. Their children were at risk. Ah, fuck! He’d kill any sonofabitch who threatened his children.
She kissed him. “I love you,” she said.
Devlin gathered her into his arms and kissed her back. “I know and I love you too.” He sighed. “We’ll work things out. And we’ll have seven, Jesus—kids. Not all at one time, I hope.” He was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around it. He had to keep repeating it to himself but his voice had taken on a nervous edge.
Eva smiled. “No.”
“Whew, thank God for that. I can deal with one at a time.” He smiled. “And we can have fun in the making.”
She chuckled and stroked his arm.
“But right now, California looks like something out of dystopian movie. It will take a long time to rebuild and the place is going to need all the hunters it can get. Soulless are going to be attracted to the devastation here.”
“Yes, I know. We’ll both be needed.”
He ran one hand over her hip. “I’ll be there for you. I promise.” It was one he intended to keep.
“I will hold you to it.” She touched her hand to his face.
Devin turned his head and kissed her palm when there was a knock on the door. “Now what?” he grumbled. “Stay right here. Let me see what whoever is on the other side of the door wants.” he opened the door to find Marco.
“Hey man we got company.”
He frowned. “Who?”
“Ray and Allie are here.”
“Great! Okay, be right out.” He went back over to the bed and grabbed his boots to put them on.
“What’s going on?” Eva asked.
“Ray and Allie from New York are here. Samuel sent us a couple of other people and supplies. Ray is his first lieutenant and one hell of a fighter, so I’m damned glad to have them. Although, I don’t think Allie is a hunter, but I did hear they got engaged a couple of months ago.”
Eva got off the bed and headed for her dresser.
“What are you doing? Go back to bed. I can deal with them and I promise, I’m not going hunting tonight.”
“No, it’s not that. I feel fine. That was a good nap. Besides, I want to hear what they have to say and meet Jeannie. Chronicler remember?” She grinned at him as she pulled on a shirt over her cami and Capri leggings over her underwear. She stuck her flip flops on just as he opened her door.
They had to walk past the living room to get to the kitchen and saw four trunks stacked there before they saw Ray and Allie with Jeannie and Tony in the kitchen area seated at the counter. Allie sat on Ray’s lap and everyone had beers in their hands.
“Where’d the beer come from?” Devlin asked as he approached them. There’d only been a couple more in the cooler a few nights ago and not that brand.
“We brought it with us,” Ray supplied as he released Allie and stood to greet him.
“Hey, man,” Devlin said as they chest bumped and clasped hands. “Good to see you. Damn glad to have you here.” He moved a bit to give Allie a hug. He’d helped to rescue her when the soulless Abel had taken her, Thalya, and Allie’s friend prisoner back in New York. Her friend had been killed but they’d managed to get Thalya, Allie, and another prisoner out. Then she’d joined the hunters as support and he’d run into her a few times back in New York. “Good to see you too, Allie. And congratulations. Don’t take any shit from this guy,” Devlin told her laughing then slapping Ray on the back.
“Don’t worry, I won’t,” Allie replied.
“Hi Ray, Allie,” Eva said coming up behind him and giving both their new guests a hug. “It’s good to see you both.”
“Yeah, we thought we’d come and lend you guys a hand and bring some supplies. It’s even worse than we thought.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Tony added.
“And this is Jeannie, Jason’s sister,” Devlin said indicating the young woman with the café complexion. “Jeannie, this is Evangeline but we usually call her Eva.” Devlin wrapped his arm around Eva’s shoulders.
“Hi,” Eva said holding out her hand to the younger woman. “Either is fine.”
Jeannie smiled as she shook her hand. “Nice to meet you, Eva. Thanks for letting me stay and Jason told me you needed help with filing entries into a database. I’m good with that.”
“Thank you. And yes, we’re going to be doing quite a bit of that for the next couple of weeks. So, I’m glad to have the help.” Eva turned to Ray. “What all did you guys bring?” Eva asked.
“Those trunks are all for you guys. Anything we could think of, food, water, weapons, ammo, medicines. We put another four trunks in the house next door. There’s more in the plane but that was all that could fit in the two SUVs we had. So we packed them up and came straight here. Well not exactly straight,” Ray said. “Boy, talk about driving through a maze of confusion.”
“How’d you get past any military stations?” Devlin asked. “I know they’re stopping most people from trying to enter certain evacuated areas. For that matter, how’d you manage a flight here?”
“You know Samuel can get almost anything done and what he can’t, Adam sure as shit can. We have a special pass.” He pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Devlin. “We just showed that to whatever military patrol tried to stop us. We only got stopped four times. Took us five hours to get here from the airport.”
Devlin scanned the document and his eyes widened when he spied the letterhead and the seal.
“What is it?” Eva asked.
“It’s Executive orders signed by none other than the President of the United States, ordering the National Guard and the military to allow them access to anywhere they want to go and any assistance they need.”
“Yeah, by the time we ran into the first checkpoint, we were already a couple of hours in and didn’t want to go back to the plane with one of the military trucks but I did send a truck back and gave the Sergeant the access code to the plane. Told him to take most of the trunks of supplies to any out posts or shelters that need them and to bring a dozen of the trunks here. So there are more trunks coming this way, but I brought the ones full of ammo with us. Those trunks are in the house next door.”
“How the fuck did Samuel pull this off?” Devlin wanted to know.
Ray shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m not even sure it was Samuel who did.”
“Wait. Did you say Adam is involved?” Eva asked.
“Yeah. The man himself was there to see us off.”
“Why?” Eva questioned.
Ray glanced over at Allie who just stared right back at him. “He ah, had a friend that he wanted us to get to California. LA actually, but since LA no longer exists, we got her to the airport in Bakersfield.”
“A friend?” Devlin asked.
“Well, where is this friend now?” Eva added
“We don’t know. As soon as we landed, she thanked us and left,” Ray replied.
“Left?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” Ray said. “I offered to drop her wherever she needed to go but she said it wouldn’t be necessary. As we were unloading the trunks and putting them into the car, she just took off. By the time we got to the road, we didn’t see any trace of her. It was like she just disappeared,” Ray added.
“That’s true, it was kinda weird,” Allie said.
Devlin frowned. “Was she soulless?”
Ray shook his head but it was Allie who answered, “No, her eyes were a light brown, almost green in some lights.”
“Yeah,” Ray added. “And she didn’t give off that cold vibe but she did seem kinda odd.”
“Well, that’s strange. Was she a hunter?” Eva asked.
“Not one out of New York, but like I said, she seemed to be a friend of Adam’s. She showed up at the airport with him.”
“She didn’t talk much on the flight. She mostly sat by the window and just stared out. When I tried to talk to her, she didn’t say much, her answers were kinda vague. I asked her how long she had known Adam, she said a while. When I asked her where she was from, she said all over, then she yawned like she was tired and closed her eyes. Matter of fact, she slept through most of the flight,” Allie stated.
“Hmm, that’s odd,” Eva agreed. “What’s her name?”
“Annalisse.”