Gwen’s POV
He is silent for a while. I study his back as I wait for his reply.
He is wearing a black long coat over his clothes. It falls off his wide shoulders nicely and reaches the middle of his legs. He is quite tall.
His hair falls past the collar of his coat and onto his back like a river of white silk. Nobody mentioned vampires also happen to have better hair.
“It’s not the time for that story,” he says finally.
From his tone, I can tell it’s not one he is looking forward to telling.
“The werewolf. He hurt you.”
I’m about to say that no, he didn’t. But I don’t think he is talking about physical injuries. I swallow down the knot forming in my throat. “How do you know that?”
He turns and walks back to the bedside. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, but I saw your memories when I fed you. I don’t understand how he could do that to you.”
I recall the things Stefan told me about vampires. About how they can read your mind and control people with their minds. Knowing he was in my head makes me feel vulnerable and exposed. “Can you not do that again?”
“Not without your consent.”
He is never getting that.
Now that we are past the introduction, my mind goes back to the reason I’m here. I’m not in any pain, and there’s no scent of blood. Did I stop bleeding?
The doctor said I was miscarrying. He must be wrong. I wasn’t fertile any of the times I was with Stefan. But then, why would I bleed so much?
“Can I have some water?” I ask Alexander. I need the water, and I also need him to leave the room. I want to check that I’m truly okay.
“Of course,” he says. “Do you need anything else?”
“Just the water,” I say.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he says and leaves the room.
The moment the door closes behind him, I throw my covers aside and drop my feet to the floor. I’m wearing a white cotton nightdress, and when I stand up to check, there are no stains. There are no signs that I was bleeding. Did he wash and dress me, or did someone else do it? Does he have household staff? Are they human or vampires?
Barefoot, I walk to the window and peer outside. Like I guessed, it’s quite high. From up here, I can only see a thick forest that stretches as far as my eyes can see.
I have to step right to the edge and lean through the opening to see the castle's grounds. There’s a well-maintained lawn and a flower garden.
I move from the window and cross to the door. It gives when I try to open it. There’s a hallway outside, with a window at one end. I go the other way and come to a staircase. As I head downstairs, I notice that the place is clean with lots of natural light.
It’s not what I would have envisioned a vampire’s home to look like.
There’s one thing though–it’s too quiet. As if there’s nobody else around.
After taking several flights of stairs, I get to the ground floor. There are huge front doors right across the staircase. If I can get past those, I’ll be outside the castle.
I’ve just taken a step towards them when Alexander appears right in front of the doors, out of thin air.
I stumble back and catch myself on the bannister to keep my legs from giving out beneath me. I clutch my chest, where my heart’s speeding like crazy. “Jesus!”
He steps towards me, carrying a carton of drinking water in his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you’d be upstairs.”
I stand firm on my feet and drop my hand. I eye the carton. “Did you just buy that?”
“Yeah, I had to get these in town.”
In town? He said Sunerria is the closest town. “How far is it?”
“About a hundred miles, give or take.”
I blink.
“It doesn’t take me long,” he adds, possibly noticing the bewilderment on my face.
But of course. He is a vampire.
When he said we are out of the way, I didn’t think he was talking about a hundred miles. We are really in the middle of nowhere, aren’t we?
“How can you walk in the sunlight?”
“This way,” he says, branching into a hallway to my left. “I’m a daywalker. The sun doesn’t hurt me.”
I follow him. Lamps fixed on the wall light up the narrow hallway. “Are there other vampires like you?”
He walks through an archway. “Not many. I haven’t met one in years.”
We come to a room with a sitting area and huge bookshelves. There are large windows on one side allowing in ample natural light.
“How old are you?”
“Eight hundred and twenty seven years.”
I turn away from studying the bookshelves and look at him. He has placed the carton on the table and is tearing through the package. “That’s…old.”
He smiles. “It is.” He comes to me with a bottle of water in hand. “Would you like anything to eat?”
I take the bottle from him and shake my head. “I’m not hungry.”
He nods. “I did give you a lot of my blood, so you might not feel like eating for a while. But you should have something soon for the baby’s sake.”
I pause with the bottle halfway to my mouth. “What?”
“The baby. It’s not good if it’s only nourished by my blood.”
“I…” My hand finds its way to my stomach. “I’m not pregnant.”
He tilts his head to the side. “You don’t have to worry. You didn’t lose it. It’s true that you bled a lot. But I was able to save both of you.”
The human doctor said I was miscarrying. And now, my vampire saviour is telling me that the baby is okay. But…
What baby?
“Are you sure?” I ask him. “That I’m pregnant?”
He nods. “Would you like me to listen for the heartbeat? I have quite good hearing. I can tell you if it’s doing well.”
I swallow hard and shake my head. “No, it’s fine.”
It’s not fine.
How am I pregnant? Stefan said he could tell when I’m fertile. He also said when it happens, I’ll be in heat and incredibly needy. Hanna said it only happens once or twice a year. So when the hell did I get pregnant? How far along am I?
“Does he know about it?” he asks.
There’s no need asking who he is referring to. “No.”
“You are not happy,” he notes.
He thinks I thought I had lost the baby when I bled. So he is expecting that I should be relieved now that I know it’s safe.
Maybe I’d be happy if I wasn’t on the run. If it was before everything went to shit. But now… I don’t know how to feel.
I only know one thing. That it changes everything. And it has twisted my head enough that I cannot think any further than acknowledging that I’m fucked.
I don’t have any money. I don’t have a home. And I know shit about werewolf pregnancies and babies. Alone, I could have made it in the human world. But now? Expecting a baby and with nothing and no one?
What am I supposed to do?
“You can stay here for as long as you want,” Alexander tells me. Is he reading my mind, or can he guess what I’m thinking? He said he wouldn’t do it without my consent. “This is your home from now on.”
“You said you wouldn’t read my mind.”
“I haven’t. But I can sense your emotions. You are confused and scared. The werewolf rejected you, and you have nowhere to go. I don’t want you to go back to a place you don’t want to because of the baby. You can stay here until you are ready to move on.”
“You’d let me leave? After waiting for so long?”
He adopts a faraway look. “I would love for you to stay with me forever. But I cannot keep you here against your will. However, I’m willing to come with you wherever you want to go, if you’ll have me.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Now that I’ve found you, my life has no other meaning. I want to make it up to you for the rest of my life.”
Make what up to me?
“I need to think about it,” I tell him.
He smiles faintly. “Of course.”
I take a drink of my water. “Do you live here alone?”
“I have staff.”
“Are they vampires?”
“Yes. But I sent them away, so you don’t have to worry about them. It’s just you and me for now.”
That’s a relief. One vampire is enough.
“Would you like a walk outside?” he asks me. “The sun is nice this time of the day, and you’ve been indoors for two days.”
That sounds like heaven.
“I’d love that,” I tell him. “But, can I have a shower and a change of clothes first?”
“Of course. I’ll get everything ready for you, and then I’ll come to get you in a minute.”
He disappears through the archway and into the hallway.
Sighing heavily, I walk to the huge windows of the library. Outside is a colourful flower garden.
I touch my belly through the nightdress. An unbidden image flashes through the mind. Of a family with Stefan. My eyes sting and a tear slips down my cheek. I wipe it away.
It’s no use thinking about that. He is not mine anymore. There’s no place for me in his life. It’s best for me to forget about him.
But how can I do that if I have his baby?
If I have it…how can I ever be free from him?