THE FINAL HAPTER
I felt like a puppet, a marionette, with some invisible puppet master pulling my strings from afar. I couldn’t fathom what was happening to me. I really couldn’t even seem to think. The unseen force that had me now exiting my apartment and getting into my private elevator wouldn’t let me, as if it were blocking my own mind from functioning.
From my private elevator, I transferred to a public one, somewhere down around the fiftieth floor, though I wasn’t even sure. I seemed to be quickly falling into some sort of a daze, awake but losing awareness of just what exactly I was doing. I knew I was pushing buttons in the public elevator. I knew there was someone in the elevator with me. A young woman with red hair, sort of familiar. One of Celeste’s acquaintances. We’d met before, though I couldn’t recall her name. With my thoughts becoming increasingly muddled, I was honestly having a hard time recalling just what exactly I was even doing in the elevator.
After pressing a button, then another to close the elevator doors, the young woman smiled at me and said hi, but I found I couldn’t respond. Something was wrong with me. Something was very wrong. This thought was now bubbling up to the surface of my clouded consciousness, rising above all others. This thought made me croak out a single word to the young woman standing beside me, feeling as if it was urgent that I do so.
“Help.”
She frowned, drawing her gingery brows together. “With what?”
I couldn’t answer. Try as I might, I just couldn’t. Whatever strength that had allowed me to act independently from the force I felt controlling me had now left me.
But after a quick second, the young woman smiled. “Oh, help you with the crowd that will probably swarm to you the second you step off the elevator, right? I bet that’s getting a little bit old to you by now, and probably very old. Well, don’t worry; I’ll hold them off so you can get to wherever it is that you’re going.”
Something unseen made me curve my lips into a smile. “Thank you.”
The young woman began babbling on about something having to do with celebrity and pop culture; I couldn’t really hear her anymore. The force that was bending my will almost seemed to be speaking to me now. Leave The Arch. I could faintly hear these words whispering in my mind, hissing at me. Commanding me. And I had to obey. Not being in control of my body or my mind anymore, I couldn’t do otherwise.
Soon the elevator doors whooshed open with a ding, revealing a group of young women waiting outside.
Half-shielding me with her body, the redheaded young woman beside me addressed the group at large. “Hey, everyone! Free drinks on the house at my dad’s bar on the twenty-fourth floor! But you have to follow me and get down there right now!”
As the group of young women responded with excited murmurs and whoops, the redheaded young woman began pulling a few of them into the elevator while at the same time, giving me a gentle shove out. Feeling the urge to leave The Arch now more strongly than ever, I took my chance and dashed away, down to another nearby elevator.
With the command to leave The Arch echoing in my mind, over and over, without a break, I seemed to completely zone out for a while. Because the next thing I knew, I was out on the street, on the west side of the building, standing at the driver’s side door of Celeste’s car in the dark. Dim light from a nearby streetlamp allowed me to see what I was doing. My fingers were typing in a code to unlock the car and get in.
Then I was in the driver’s seat, turning the lights on and starting the car with its push-button ignition, making it lift several feet above the road to hover-drive. And that’s when, like earlier in the elevator, my own will seemed to break through the will of whatever, or whoever, was controlling me. I knew it wouldn’t last for long. I realized I probably had only mere seconds
Knowing Celeste kept a spare phone in the glove box for when she forgot her own, which was often, I yanked open the glove box and snatched out the phone, immediately dialing Jackson’s number. He answered after a few rings that felt like an eternity, asking who was calling, sounding confused. But I knew there was no time to explain about Celeste’s spare phone. I just started speaking.
“Something’s... controlling me. Something is... it’s like I’m under a spell. It made me leave The Arch. It’s like... maybe it’s Drago.”
The moment I’d uttered his name, it was as if the phone had become a hot potato in my hand. I had to get rid of it. Speaking on it was the wrong thing. Or so the invisible force that seemed to be controlling me made me feel.
With my own will now completely gone once again, I immediately chucked the phone out the window and stomped on the gas, sending the car speeding down the street, which was fairly empty, on account of most people having decided to stay indoors until the situation with the Gorgolians was resolved.
Hands gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white, I drove for I didn’t even know how long. As if I were in a trance, I was beginning to lose all sense of place and time. I really didn’t even see any of the buildings or streets flying by on either side of me. All that mattered was driving. All that mattered was obeying. All that mattered was that I do what the unseen force was compelling me to. That I turn where it wanted me to turn. That I accelerate and brake when it wanted me to accelerate and brake.
Dizzy and disoriented, and with an increasing sense of the surreal, as if I were deep within a dream, I eventually stopped the car somewhere just outside the city. Maybe somewhere to the north, though I wasn’t really sure. I got out, with a vague sense that I shouldn’t, though I couldn’t not. As if pulled by some invisible string, I walked a little ways to the left of the car. I stopped when I saw the outline of a man standing in the dark with several other men behind him. Moonlight revealed the face of the man closest to me. I saw his Roman nose, his high, pronounced cheekbones, and his green eyes that glittered like jewels. My voice came out in a whisper.
“Dan.”
Right away, he drew back a hand and cracked the back of it across the side of my face, making me stagger backward, crying out in pain.
“Oh! Dan, please! Don’t!”
The situation felt strange, surreal, yet wholly familiar at the same time.
Dan took a giant step forward, crossing the distance between us. “I told you that you could never run from me.” Sneering, he paused, looking deeply into my eyes. “Bitch.”
His hand cracked against the side of my face again, and this time I went down, seeing stars. When I hit the ground, everything went black.
***
I had no idea how long I was out for. I awoke some time later in a bed, in some small and grimy room. Cracks zigzagged through the walls that lightning bolts. Cobwebs hung from corners in the ceiling. Beside me sat a young woman on a low stool. She was small, thin to the point of being nearly emaciated. She surveyed me with flat brown eyes, seeming to be looking right through me at the same time, and when she didn’t speak after a second, I cleared my throat, trying to find my voice.
“Who are you? And where... Where am I?”
“I’m Anna. And you’re in Blackblood, just over the border.”
Head swimming and thoughts racing, I stared at her uncomprehendingly. “Where?”
“Gorgolian territory. Our capitol. You’re in the palace right now, in the prisoner’s quarters.”
With the side of my face aching, I sat up in bed, hazy bits and pieces of what had happened slowly coming back to me. “How did he... How did he get me here?”
“He flew you here, of course, on his back. And he got you to leave where you live by using remote mind control. He’s been trying to do it for days now. It’s one of his sorcery tricks. He’s not able to do it very well yet, though, so it took him a while, and he wasn’t able to do it for very long... Though he was able to do it long enough to get you where he wanted you. He was very determined, and of course, Lord Stone is very strong.”
Lord Stone. Drago. Dan. Just the thought of him, coupled with the realization of what he’d done to me, made me feel nauseated, and intensely so.
Throwing the covers off, I looked at Anna, praying she wasn’t without kindness. “I think I’m going to be sick. Where’s a bathroom, please.”
Moving her head, she gestured to a door on one side of the small, dingy room, and I flew out of bed and into the equally small and dingy bathroom, then promptly got sick into a toilet brown with rust and grime. The sight of which made me retch even harder.
Once my stomach felt completely empty, I stuck my head out the door, relieved to see that Anna hadn’t left. “Can you give me a toothbrush and toothpaste? Mouthwash, maybe?”
She got up from her low, wooden stool, looking at me but somehow still seeming to look right through me. “You’ll find paste and a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet, and those are probably the only new things you’re going to get. Go ahead and shower, because Lord Stone says he wants all traces of the UFS commander washed from your body. Then you’ll dress in used clothes. Lord Stone says you’re not to be treated like a princess here. He says you don’t deserve it.”
With that, she came over and shut the bathroom door, borderline slammed it, actually, shutting me inside. Fighting a rising sense of panic, I peeled off the dress I’d been wearing the night before and did as she’d told me to, brushing my teeth and then getting into the shower, which only sprayed freezing cold water, chilling me to the bone. Shivering, I washed my hair and body with a cake of gritty gray bar soap, the only cleanser provided. There wasn’t even a washcloth.
After drying my body and hair with a threadbare, grayish towel that had been left on the back of the toilet, I used the restroom, forced to make use of rough, grayish paper from a roll sitting on the floor. Then, I washed my hands at the sink, using the same gritty, gray soap I’d used in the shower. A cracked mirror above the basin showed me that my left cheek now bore a deep purple bruise where Dan had hit me.
With the sight having brought tears to my eyes, I opened the bathroom door a crack, sniffling, and asked Anna was I was supposed to dress in. If she could tell I was crying, it didn’t move her in the least. She simply handed in a folded stack of clothes and a pair of battered tennis shoes, then pulled the door shut.
I dressed quickly, drying my tears, forcing myself to be strong. I knew I was going to have to be in order to endure my captivity until I could be rescued.
When I emerged wearing the battered tennis shoes, loose-fitting jeans, and baggy, long-sleeved dark top Anna had given me, I found her pulling back the curtains of the only window in the room, allowing what appeared to be early-morning sunshine to join the light of a single dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The window was grimy and dusty, matching everything else in the room, including the wood flooring and the tiny wood-framed bed I’d slept on. Other than that, the only piece of furniture was Anna’s low, wooden stool.
She turned to me mechanically, eyes still flat, expressionless, almost like a robot’s. “Good. The clothes fit. Those will be the only ones you’ll be allowed to wear for a while. If you’re good, Lord Stone says maybe you’ll get a second outfit, though it’ll look just the same as the one you have on. You’ll only be allowed to wear loose pants and long-sleeved shirts from now on... nothing tight. Lord Stone says your body is only for him to see now.”
Suddenly my eyes began to fill with tears again, and I wiped them on the back of my hand.
With the pale light from the window making her back-lit curly blonde hair appear like some sort of a halo, Anna frowned. “Don’t cry. Lord Stone doesn’t like it. No woman who serves in his palace should ever cry. That makes women get hurt.”
Despite my best efforts to stop them, my tears kept on flowing, hot against my face, which was still chilled from my freezing shower.
I wiped them away, taking a few steps closer to Anna. “Look, Anna, Drago Stone has brainwashed you or something, but you seem really nice underneath, and if you can just snap out of it for a second, you can try to help me think of some way to contact my boyfriend and tell him exactly where we are, and then we can both be rescued, and—”
“You should never talk to me about doing anything behind Lord Stone’s back.”
In an instant, Anna’s expressionless brown eyes had changed. They now had a bit of fire in them, and she continued, glaring at me.
“You should never speak a single word about betraying him. That might make me tell Lord Stone, and that might make you get hurt.” Glaring even harder at me, she paused before speaking in a hiss. “And this is the only time I’m going to warn you about that.”
Now trembling, but not just because I was still cold from my shower, I nodded. “Okay. Okay, just relax. I won’t say anything else. I won’t ever—”
“I don’t even remember what you just said.”
Her eyes were back to dull orbs again.
“Now, are you hungry for breakfast? I’ll go get it if you are. We get crusts today. And I’ll mash ours up in some hot water if you’d like.”
Upon hearing this description of a meal, I clutched my stomach, nauseated again. “No. Please, no. No food. Not right now.”
Anna lifted her bony shoulders in a shrug. “Suit yourself. You’ll eat boiled crust when you get hungry enough, though. It’s all women in the palace are allowed besides oat porridge, and the oats are moldy a lot of the time. The bread crusts aren’t usually as moldy, just tough and hard. The bread crust is really what you’ll want.”
While I contemplated moldy food, my stomach lurched once again. And that was when something dawned on me. I’d been due to get my period the day before, but I hadn’t. And when I’d used the restroom just a short while earlier, I’d seen that I still hadn’t. I was now officially late, and feeling incredibly sick besides. And normally, even when hearing about something unappetizing, I wasn’t quite so prone to queasiness.
When I didn’t respond, Anna shrugged again, breezing by me to the door. “Fine. No breakfast, then. Lord Stone will be up to see you soon, I’m sure, and then I’ll be back up at lunch.”
With that, she left the room, shutting the heavy wooden door behind her. Immediately after, I heard several locks click into place.
Now feeling too anxious and scared to even cry, I sat down on the small, creaky bed, trying to think. It was clear to me that Drago/Dan wasn’t mind-controlling me anymore, which told me that he probably wasn’t able to do it for long stretches, or else he probably still would be. But then again, I reasoned, maybe he just didn’t have any need to at present. But no matter the reason, it was clear that he wasn’t. Which meant that I was at least free to try to think of some way to get word to Jackson about exactly where I was.
I remembered calling him and more or less telling him what was happening to me when I was being mind-controlled. So, I knew he’d have an idea that I was being held in Gorgolian territory. I felt encouraged by the fact that Celeste had told me I was in the “palace,” too. I figured maybe that would be the first place Jackson would look.
After suddenly flying up from the bed and dashing over to the window, I surveyed my surroundings, wondering how many Gorgolian guards were around, and how easy or hard it might be for Jackson and his men to break past them and rescue me. And what I saw made my heart fall like a chunk of lead. Hundreds and hundreds of dragons, thousands maybe, circled the skies above the building I was in. Looking down, I saw that I was two stories up, with some sort of a wide, concrete walkway beneath me, where additional guards in human form walked back and forth, obviously on patrol, ready to shift at a moment’s notice. If Jackson was going to rescue me, he was going to have to bring every last one of his strongest men.
Just then, the door of the room I was in whooshed open, and I turned from the window, gasping.
In strolled Dan, dressed in an olive-green military uniform, sneering. “Just as I thought I’d find you. Standing at the window, pining for your beloved Commander Wallace. It didn’t take much spying for me to find out that you were to be the mother of his heir, you know. But that’s not going to happen anymore. And that’s because you’re never going to see him again.
If he even dares try to rescue you, if he even dares cross one single wing over into my territory, I’ll bring the full weight of the Gorgolian army down on his head, and he’ll quickly be killed. He’ll die, heir-less. And then I’ll not only have you, my most prized possession, once again, I’ll have the additional territory I want. I’ll rule all of D.C. Though, of course, I’ll be renaming it Blackblood South.”
With Dan standing just a few feet away from me, smirking, suddenly I was angry. I was so angry I felt dizzy. My heartbeat hammered in my ears. I wouldn’t go back to being under his thumb again; I couldn’t. I would never be able to bear it again. But even more importantly, I knew I’d never be able to live without Jackson. And that was when my blood had begun to boil—when Dan had mentioned him, had said he’d be killed. I felt like I wanted to claw Dan’s eyes out, wanted to smash my fists over the top of his head until he fell to the floor, bloody. I wanted him to never be able to say anything about killing Jackson ever again.
But I knew that obviously, I was no match for him physically. I may have been stupid-level angry, but I wasn’t completely stupid. I knew that if I tried to attack him, I’d probably just end up getting myself beaten badly.
So, gritting my teeth, I forced myself to keep my curled fists at my side. “Even if you could kill Jackson, which you’ll never be able to, he wouldn’t die heir-less. I strongly suspect that I’m pregnant with his child right at this very second, as we speak.”
With his strong jaw clenched, Dan immediately paled, smirk fading. But then, within a second, his eyes narrowed, glittering, and I knew I’d made a mistake in saying what I had.
Breathing a bit fast, he slowly stepped over to me, only coming to a stop a few inches away. Well over six feet tall, he hovered over me, looking down at my face, scowling. When he spoke, I could feel his breath on my skin.
“Well, that can be remedied. I’ll have my staff doctors come up here, and they’ll give you a pregnancy test. And then if you are pregnant, they’ll give you a pill to take care of the situation. It won’t take but minutes.”
Right away, a trembling was quaking my entire body, making it difficult for me to stay on my feet.
Dan seemed to notice, and he curled his thin upper lip into some semblance of a smile that was more like a sneer. “Go ahead and enjoy some time alone now, Vivian. I’ll have the doctors up here in no time.”
Chuckling, he left the room, turning the locks after him, and I knew I couldn’t wait for rescue anymore, not even a second longer. If I really was pregnant with Jackson’s child, I knew I had to do whatever I could to try to save it, and myself, right then. Or die trying.
*
Shaking, I whipped the grayish sheet off the bed, then frantically looked around the room for some other length of fabric to tie it to. I needed something to make it longer. I needed to make a rope of sorts that would reach to the ground. From there, I was just going to run. I was just going to run as far as I could, hopefully past the ground guards if I was fast enough. Then, I was going to pray for some sort of divine help. Help from a sympathetic Gorgolian, maybe, whether they be dragon or human. After all, Jackson and his parents had been Gorgolians, and Jackson had told me than many Gorgolian citizens weren’t cruel.
My plan was insane, of course, and foolish, I was sure. But I didn’t have any other choice but to do what I was going to do, or at least try. I wasn’t going to let Dan’s doctors kill the baby that I suspected might be growing in my womb right then.
A quick search of the room didn’t yield anything helpful; there wasn’t even a blanket on the bed. The bathroom search was more productive. I snatched up the thin towel I’d used, and my dress, then found another towel wedged behind the toilet, half-hidden, as if it had been there to plug a water leak.
In less than a minute, I had the blanket, the two towels, and my dress all tied together. It wasn’t a long rope, but it would be long enough. It would be long enough to get me close to the ground, where I’d drop, hopefully without breaking my neck.
Fingers flying and heart hammering, I pulled the bed over to the window as quietly as I could, then tied one end of my homemade rope to the frame, praying that my weight on the rope wouldn’t flip the small frame. Praying and hoping was all I could do, because there was nowhere else to attach the rope.
I knew time had never been more of the essence in my life. I knew I had seconds or a couple of minutes, but no more than that. It was enough time. It had to be.
I did pause briefly to take a look at what the ground guards were doing, but mercifully, I saw that they’d just went by on their patrol, circling around the side of the house. I’d have a few seconds to climb down my rope and start running before they came back around.
Before tossing the rope out the window, I took a deep breath, eyes closed, realizing that I really was brave, like Celeste, Jackson, and everyone else seemed to think I was. Either that, or crazy almost beyond words. I wasn’t sure if even car-crashing Celeste would attempt a climb down a homemade rope as raggedy as the one I’d just made.
The window was unlocked, and I pulled it open, flung the rope out, and then, clutching it for dear life, I swung one leg over the windowsill, straddling it. I didn’t want to look down, but I had to in order to ensure that the guards were still gone. They were, but I couldn’t do much about the hundreds of dragons circling the skies, so thick they were blocking the sunlight, causing a dark shadow to fall over the “palace,” or, as I could now see, the dilapidated house. A crumbling two-story structure, that’s really all it was. I now understood just why Dan wanted to take over D.C. so badly. His own “palace” was a pile of junk, and a ways beyond it, I could see other similar structures, packed into dense clusters, with long stretches of what appeared to be concrete and dirt between them, as if we were in the middle of a slum.
Praying that the dragons above me were too high up to be able to clearly see that someone was scaling down the side of the house, I swung my other leg over the windowsill, still clutching my makeshift rope, and let myself drop. The bed shifted, I could definitely feel it, but the rope held fast. I immediately began climbing down it, panting with exertion. I knew it wouldn’t take me long to shimmy down the length of it, and it didn’t. Because of all the tight knots I’d had to put in it, it didn’t quite reach all the way down the two stories to the ground, but that was fine. Near the end, when my feet were maybe only three or four feet above the ground, I just let go and dropped, landing on my feet as easily as a cat.
A glance up to the sky told me that the dragons above hadn’t even seen me. But when I returned my gaze forward, I saw that someone else had. Anna stood at the window of some room that seemed to be a kitchen, staring straight at me. Through the grimy glass, I could see a battered refrigerator behind her.
I didn’t wait a second longer. After turning heel as fast as lightning, I broke into a sprint, running harder than I’d ever run before in my life. I was sprinting the kind of sprinting that made my lungs burn within seconds. But I didn’t slow; I didn’t even let the thought enter my mind. I was heading south, to D.C. I was going to make it as far as I possibly could. I hoped Jackson would somehow find out that I’d tried.
As some shrill alarm siren rang out behind me in sharp, short bursts, the thought of Jackson added a pronounced ache to my chest in addition to the burning in my lungs. I just wanted to be able to see his face again, just one more time. I just wanted to feel his strong arms around me.
It was over, though. My great escape had been for nothing. The dragons were near me. Coming from the south, they were swooping low, hundreds of them.
I suddenly stopped running so fast I tripped, hurtling forward and almost falling to the broken concrete. The hundreds of dragons coming at me were coming from the south, from D.C. Beneath them, on the ground, large packs of wild animals, animals that at a distance, appeared to be lions and bears, were charging.
I screamed, a sound half of shock and half of joy, waving my arms. “Jackson! Jackson, I’m here!”
To my great surprise, he seemed to see me but soared right over me, breathing fire, massive and inky midnight blue in his dragon form. Then turning briefly, he seemed to signal something to a dragon behind him, and not a second later, that dragon descended and landed almost right next to me. A glimmering blood red, this dragon carried a rider on his broad back. It was Celeste.
Setting her crossbow down, she gestured for me to climb aboard. “Come on! Hurry up! Jason’s been instructed to carry me around for two minutes only before heading back to D.C.! And now you can be a fighter, too!”
I needed no further invitation. After dashing over, I scrambled up on Jason’s back, behind Celeste, and off we ascended into the sky, tightly surrounded by a group of at least a dozen dragons who seemed to be in charge of protecting Jason, or probably Celeste, and now me, more like. I clutched Celeste’s shoulders just as hard as I’d clutched my rope on the way out of the house, but soon I realized I really didn’t have to clutch that hard at all. Jason was flying so smoothly and level that I didn’t feel in any danger of falling.
As soon as we reached the level of height where most of the fighting was now going on, Celeste fired off an arrow, hitting a Gorgolian dragon in the tail, making him bellow. It wasn’t hard to tell Gorgolian dragons from Jackson’s, Celeste shouted, because their hides were duller and their tails shorter; and now that she’d pointed this out, I could clearly see the differences.
After firing another arrow, though this one missing its mark and rocketing off into thin air, Celeste turned to look at me. “This is going to be the trick, to fire off arrows that don’t hit our circle of guards, but that yet still meet their marks in Gorgolian hides.”
As the sounds of battle became nearly deafening, with bellowing and roaring all around us, Jason and our circle of guards soared through the sky, periodically dropping low whenever a Gorgolian breathed fire. Celeste fired off several more arrows, one of them hitting a Gorgolian square between the eyes, making him fall to the ground like a stone, though when he hit, thrashing, it was clear he was still alive. Not for long, though. A large group of lions and bears soon took care of that.
After a few more shots, Celeste passed the bow and an arrow back to me. “I can almost just feel Jason realizing that the two minutes are up, so go ahead and fire one up before he heads back.”
Carefully aiming to avoid hitting any of our guards, I soon did just that, hitting a Gorgolian in the neck, sending him hurtling to the ground, bellowing. I saw a group of lions finish him off just before Jason turned and began carrying Celeste and me back to D.C.
A while later, we landed in front of The Arch, where, to my surprise, a large crowd was assembled. When Celeste and I dismounted Jason’s back, everyone cheered. Celeste grinned, holding up her crossbow in some sort of a tribute to “second chances,” she shouted, making the crowd cheer even louder. Jason ushered the two of us inside shortly after, when the crowd began growing a bit too raucous, pulling on my clothes and trying to pick up Celeste and me to carry through the streets.
In the elevator, Celeste asked if I was okay for about the hundredth time, then pulled me in for a hug. Then, to my astonishment, and seemingly his, too, she suddenly planted a kiss right on Jason’s mouth, then turned to me, smiling.
“We’re not quite sure yet, but we think we’re in love. But I’m at least sure about one thing. Jason’s the first man who has never tried to corral me or change me, and today, he helped me to be the woman I was meant to be.” Suddenly giggling, she glanced from me to Jason, then back to me. “Sorry. I think I’ve got ‘battle high.’”
With his dark brown eyes twinkling, Jason cleared his throat. “Well, maybe you’re not sure, Celeste, and I wasn’t going to say this in an elevator, but I’m sure. I’m in love with you. And there you have it.”
With all traces of amusement gone from her face, she just stared at him for a long moment before bursting into tears, eyes in hands. “I’m in love with you, too. And I think maybe I have been for only the past year.”
Mouth twitching, Jason pulled her into his arms, and I studied the elevator buttons, wanting to give them a little privacy.
After checking in with Dr. Moore, who gave me a clean bill of health other than the bruise on my cheek, Irene and Celeste took me up to my apartment and settled me in on the couch with an ice pack. They both wanted to stay with me, but I assured them I was really okay and just wanted some quiet time alone, which was the truth. Considering all that had recently happened to me, I was sure my head would be spinning for days. Waiting for Jackson in the quiet of my apartment, even if I waited all day, sounded perfect.
I ended up waiting all day and into the evening. Jackson finally arrived around midnight, and this time, I really did launch myself into his arms, and immediately.
“Are you okay? Are all your men okay? The lions and the bears, too?”
He squeezed me tight, pressing a hard kiss to my forehead. “Everyone’s just fine. Some injuries, but all will make it.”
“Good. Thank God. And… Dan. Is he—?”
“He’s dead. I killed him myself, and my men took out thousands of his own. Some, but not many, fled. All Gorgolian territory is now under temporary command of the UFS, and the people are safe. We’ll help them set up their own government with a new leader, a human man or woman, whoever the people elect, and hopefully, our two nations will be able to coexist in peace, as neighbors. Some of my advisers are urging me to claim all their land for our own nation, but that’s not the way I want to do things. Most Gorgolian people are truly good at heart, and they have their own ways, and their own customs, and they should be able to govern themselves and keep their national identity, though under a new leader who wants peace like we do.”
Nodding, I returned my head to his chest, but then soon had a thought and lifted it again. “There was a girl named Anna there at the house, a few years younger than me, maybe. She seemed to have been brainwashed or something. Blonde, curly hair, brown eyes, really thin. Do you know if she made it okay? Do you know if she was hurt during the battle?”
Jackson kissed my forehead again, pulling me even tighter to his chest. “She made it just fine and was reunited with her parents shortly afterward. They said they hadn’t seen her in seven years. They thought she was dead.”
I exhaled in a rush. “Oh, I’m so glad they were reunited with her.”
“I am, too. But right now, I want to hear more about how you’re doing. Dr. Moore says you’re fine, other than that bruise. Which devastates me to the point I can hardly look at it. Maybe we should put some more ice on it right this—”
“Don’t worry about my face. I just want to tell you something. Two things, actually. The first thing is that I love you. The second is that I might be pregnant. I got sick this morning, and I’m a day late for my period. And maybe I got sick just because of the stress of being taken captive, but... Jackson, I’m starting to get a feeling. I really think I might be pregnant. I didn’t say anything to Dr. Moore or anyone else, because I just wanted to tell you first. It might have happened the first night we spent together. And I think... I think I’m happy about it. I think I want to be pregnant with your baby right now. I love you, and I think I want to be pregnant.”
After Jackson told me he loved me, too, with a little frog in his throat, the two of us headed down to the hospital for a late-night pregnancy test. Which turned out positive.
We embraced; I cried; and Jackson got a frog in his throat that lasted for about an hour.
A few months later, he got a frog in his voice again when we found out I was carrying twins.
That evening, in his arms in bed, which was our bed now in his penthouse, I spoke near his ear just as he was dozing off. “Jackson.”
He opened his eyes, mouth curving in a sleepy grin. “What?”
“I’m so happy right now.”
His grin got a lot bigger but then faded, and in the dim light from a small nightstand lamp, his expression became one of seriousness. “This, Vivian—you carrying my heirs, us being in love—it’s all made me so incredibly, unbelievably happy. I can barely even describe it.”
With his serious, tender expression inexplicably becoming replaced by a frown, he paused. “But it’s not enough. I don’t want you to be just the mother of my heirs. I don’t want you to be just my ‘significant other.’ I want you to be my wife. I want us to make a commitment to each other that we’re going to stay together for the rest of our lives, no matter what.”
Suddenly, he sat up with a sigh, though grinning a bit, running his hands over his face. “I planned to do this at the very most top of The Arch, in our private gardens above us. There was going to be candles, and a fancy dinner, and violins, all with a view of the twinkling city lights beneath us, and I still will do that if you still want me to, but... well, here we are, and I just have to know right now.” While I sat up and watched, astonished, he rolled out of bed, took something out of the nightstand drawer, and got down on one knee beside the bed, looking deeply into my eyes. “Vivian Jane Mason, will you marry me? Will you make me the happiest man alive?”
I could only nod at first, and then cry, but eventually, I managed to say yes. At least ten different times.
Later that night, after our second round of lovemaking of the evening, I decided to tell Jackson about an idea I’d been having.
“I want to build a Detroit Tigers museum here in D.C. A place I can go to whenever I’m feeling a little nostalgic, and a place where I can show other people a few things that were so special about my home. I want to plan it, and design it, and collect all the other artifacts for it. I want to give tours myself, and I want it to be my special thing. I want to take our children there, and teach them about baseball, and the Tigers, and show them where I come from.”
Grinning, Jackson said that sounded like a wonderful plan. We broke ground on the new museum a few months later, in a spot directly across from Celeste’s new archery range, where she wanted to teach non-shifter men and women, but especially women, how to shoot a bow and arrow, so that any who might want to help defend the city against any foes in the future could do so.
In one corner of the sales building, where bows and arrows were going to be sold, Celeste had hung a framed piece of needlepoint that Irene had made, pink lettering on pale yellow cloth. Proud of you, granddaughter, it read, with tiny pink roses surrounding the words. And beneath the roses, a stitched date, and more words. The day a woman battled dragons.
After Irene had given Celeste this gift, making her bury her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, for about a solid minute, Irene had apologized to me, saying that technically, she should have stitched, The day two women battled dragons. Smiling, I said I didn’t mind at all, and of course, I didn’t. I knew this needlepoint celebrating Celeste’s years of archery practice, skill, and bravery had been a long time in coming, and I thought it was fitting and perfect that it celebrated only her.
Jackson and I were married in October, in a very private, though very lavish, ceremony in the rooftop gardens above the penthouse. After the wedding, bells rang all over the city for a solid hour. Our twins were born on New Year’s Day, a boy just a single minute before a girl, both of them healthy and perfect.
When Jackson held the babies, one in each arm, he not only got a frog in his throat, but his eyes became decidedly shiny and pink as well. After kissing the babies on the tops of their tiny heads, he leaned over the bed rail and gave me a kiss on the mouth, still shiny-eyed when he pulled away.
“I promise you this, Vivian. I’ll always make sure you and these precious children are happy, and I’ll keep the three of you safe and protected for the rest of my life, no matter what.”
Knowing that he always would, I smiled, blinking back tears of my own, unable to remember a time when I’d ever felt such complete and total joy.