Chapter Twenty-One
“We could have a baby?” Jessica asked.
“Baby?” Maddie repeated.
Aurelia’s eyes filled with tears.
“Good God!” Serge stood from his chair. “In nearly four hundred years you’ve never mentioned this detail.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, love. It’s very rare. So rare, I’ve never heard of it until now.” Rafe rubbed Maddie’s back as Gabe did the same to Aurelia, all the while whispering words of consolation to his mate.
For as rare as it was for a vampire to father a child, it was almost as rare for a female vampire to exist, never mind bear a child.
“It is unlikely we would have a child,” Ricard said, turning to Jessica. The look of hopefulness on her face only served to make him hate himself.
“Why? It’s happened before. Why wouldn’t it happen again?” Tears now filled her eyes. “We could have a family.”
“You could hold the answer to so many questions.” Serge walked to the white board, grabbed a marker and circled several calculations. “This. This. This and this. Did you not think you should share? Why would you keep such a vital secret?”
“Why would I share it? My mate was dead.” Ricard rose, knocking his chair backward. “Dead at the hand of their father.”
“He ruined all our lives. Don’t you think we’ve suffered, too? He massacred our family, made us vampires,” Gabe shouted.
“You have not suffered as I have suffered. Yes, you lost your mother and your fiancée, but she was not your mate.” Ricard stomped to the white board and wrote out the calculation as he’d memorized it years ago for what he thought would lead to the actual insemination by a vampire of a human egg.
“You do not suffer. Now that you have mates, now you can understand the full power of the bond and loss,” Ricard said.
“How can you hold them responsible for their father’s behavior?” Maddie asked through sniffles.
“How can we risk that they are not cut from the same vile genes as the father?” Ricard continued writing, Serge hot on his back reading each portion of the equation with fervent excitement.
Jessica’s mumbled voice caught Ricard by surprise. He glanced over his shoulder to see her rocking and whispering to herself.
“The key, I believe, lies in this gene being slightly mutated.” He made a circle. “The female must be stronger than most in order to sustain the pregnancy.” He replaced the marker and turned toward Jessica. She sat transfixed, staring at the equation on the board as if seeing it would open the door to the possibility she could bear his child. “I would never put you in this situation. It’s far too dangerous.” He knelt before her.
Several seconds passed before she ripped her attention from the calculation. “You can’t decide for me. We are mates. Equals. I have a say in this.”
“I cannot lose another mate. You ask too much of me.” Ricard suddenly felt the weight of the situation.
In two night’s time he’d gone from a widowed vampire to a mated scientist to the one vampire who held the biological key to Raymond Tyrone’s sick experiments. He wanted nothing more than to vanish with his mate to an isolated island far away from Central City.
“You do not ask enough of me,” she said and looked back at the board as though she was memorizing the calculation. Her lips moved, but no words were spoken.
“Ricard, this could potentially present the cure to our condition,” Serge said.
“Again, I remind you, I will not experiment on humans, least of all my mate.” His vision shifted, taking on more of a reddish hue, and he suspected he had taken on the appearance of a possessed being. This phenomenon had happened one other time, the night of Genevieve’s death.
“What is going on with everyone’s eyes?” Maddie asked. “First you have the giant dilated pupils and now his eyes are literally red.” She shook her head. “I am completely confused.”
“Ricard, what is it you want from us?” Gabe hugged Aurelia to him. “I will not worry that you’re going to take revenge against my father by hurting our mates. I don’t care if you hold the key that keeps the universe alive. I will kill you first.”
Jessica turned toward Gabe. Ricard felt the silent scream escape her lips. She looked like she might vomit, as if her head was filled with too much junk to take even another thought.
“He will not hurt your mates,” she said, looking from Gabe to Ricard as though she shouldered the weight of the world. “I will not allow it.”
Ricard couldn’t understand what was happening. She turned his world upside down. She was his mate. She should understand his drive.
“You wanted vengeance when Joshua died,” he said, reminding her of the anger she felt. “You cannot begin to fathom what I’ve felt. A piece of my soul died the night my mate was killed.”
Her warm hands came to his face, and she pulled him toward her, leaning forward until she rested her head against his forehead. “I know that if anything happened to you, I would not survive. I also know if you want vengeance you need to let Rafe question me.” She pulled back and looked at Ricard. “That was our original plan when we came from your office—to let Rafe question me. We both want to avenge the ones we’ve lost. To do that we must strike Panthera. Stopping their father’s bloodline from poisoning others is your only viable revenge. I won’t allow you to kill either brother or their mates.”
Ricard could not stop his jaw from clenching. The very thought of a Barone touching her mind incensed him. The fact she announced her decision to stop his plans for vengeance was paralyzing. He stared blankly at her.
“As angry as that makes you, it is still the only way to retrieve the information I hold, and my love, I now realize I know something far more terrifying than you can imagine.”