Bled Dry (4 page)

Corbin watched Brittany leave with Carrick and her sister, and stuck his hand in his hair.

Mon Dieu
, his child was going to be born a mutant.

A freak of nature, a bloodsucking baby. This was not good. And he had lied to Brittany. This was not fine, this was not okay, this was a complete and total genetic nightmare, and yet again he was to blame for such an act of total stupidity.

Nearly thirty years of mortal life, two hundred as a vampire, and he had never once gotten a woman with child. That he did now, with an Impure half-vampire/half-mortal woman, was a strange and cruel irony. Of course, skipping birth control in a century when it was available at every turn for less than a cup of coffee, was inexcusable.

Corbin had made mistakes before. Grave and unfortunate mistakes that had left one woman dead and his work in question.

But he was so close to finding a cure for vampirism. Success was just a few tests away and now this. He was such an idiot.

Corbin called in the guard who was standing in the hallway. “I must leave for a few hours. Keep an eye on Ringo.”

The guard nodded even as Ringo said, “I don’t need a baby-sitter. I’m not going to leave.”

A determined but belligerent patient, Ringo had been dealing with the withdrawal symptoms fairly well, but Corbin knew drug lust drove vampires to desperate measures. He preferred having a guard keeping an eye on Ringo. Especially since part of Corbin’s own punishment was essentially doing whatever the current government wanted him to do in exchange for being allowed to continue his research. Carrick was the head of that current government and Corbin didn’t want to anger him and jeopardize his work. Of course, getting his sister-in-law with child probably hadn’t endeared Corbin to Ethan Carrick.

He was such an idiot. He just couldn’t say it enough.

“I know you are not going anywhere. You’re technically under house arrest. He is just here to see to your comfort until I return. If you like, I can ask Kelsey to come and keep you company.”

Ringo made a face. “I’m really not in the mood to listen to her babbling.”

“Fine. I will be back later this evening.” After he’d had time to gather his thoughts and mentally slap himself around a few times. After he’d had a chat with Brittany about how they were going to proceed, and how soon they could marry. He would not heap further mistakes on top of the first by allowing her to raise an illegitimate child alone. Of that he was certain.

“Take as long as you want. I get sick of you hovering over me all the time. You make me feel like a kid with a disappointed father, you know that? It’s freaking annoying.”

Corbin winced as he headed out the door. A father. Good Lord, he was going to be a father. To a mutant child.

It did not bear thinking on.

Instead, he would head to his lab, and he, Corbin Jean Michel Atelier, would fix this.

Eventually. Somehow. Maybe.

“Okay, what was so important?” Brittany asked. She was exhausted, her stomach still hurt, and a giant pit of worry had lodged itself in her chest like indigestion that no Mylanta could cure.

Ethan had ushered her into his apartment and now he was pacing back and forth in front of the patio door. Alexis was biting her nail from her seat in a plaid easy chair.

“I want you to know that you are not the first.”

“The first what?” Woman to get knocked up from a one-night stand? Of course she wasn’t. That number could probably fill the UNLV stadium.

“The first to have a three-quarter vampire child. There was one before, that I know of. It was kept quiet, but I had personal knowledge of the situation.”

Uh-oh. This could get dicey. While her sister knew her husband had a past—a very long one—Brittany still didn’t think it was going to thrill Alexis to hear that Ethan had had a child with a mortal woman.

“Was the baby okay?” Regardless of Alexis’s feelings, she had to know.

“The baby was fine and was kept hidden from her father. I do not believe he has knowledge of her existence to this day.”

“You’re not the father?” Brittany asked in confusion.

Ethan looked startled. “No. Why would you think that?”

“Can we just start at the beginning, please?” Alexis asked. “Before I get pissed off that you’ve kept yet something else from me.”

“Alexis,” Ethan said with a look of forbearance. “I have nine hundred years of existence to account for. There hasn’t been time to tell you everything that’s happened to me, let alone to other people I’ve known.”

Brittany felt guilty. “Don’t fight, you guys, this is all my fault. I’m causing problems for everyone.” She felt close to tears again.

“This isn’t fighting,” Alexis said. “This is our form of communication. I get ticked, Ethan gets exasperated, we gripe at each other, then have sex. It works for us.”

Well, that was too much information about her sister’s marriage.

“
Any
way,” Brittany said. “So who was the mother and what happened?”

“The mother is my sister, Gwenna.”

Brittany had met Gwenna only once, at Ethan and Alexis’s wedding, and she had popped in, vampire style, said nothing to anyone, then left again. She had looked pale and fragile, and was a full vampire, not an Impure like Brittany was.

“I don’t understand. Gwenna is a vampire, right?”

“Yes. I turned her when she bled to death after giving birth to her daughter. This was the eleventh century, you know, and childbirth was a risky, nasty business.”

“I don’t think this is the beginning,” Alexis complained. “I had no clue Gwenna was an Impure. How was that possible if you weren’t an Impure?”

Ethan’s face hardened. “My mother was raped when my father and I were away at war. Gwenna is seventeen years younger than me, and when I became a vampire and eventually came home, I realized that her biological father had been a vampire, because I could sense her vampire blood. Unfortunately, by that time my father was dead, as were all my other siblings. It was just Gwenna, who was seventeen, and my mother in our castle. I had some issues to the north I needed to resolve, and against my better judgment I left the two of them there, with several of my vampire friends to watch over them. At that time, these were friends I trusted, who had shown me the way of the vampire, and they were staying with me. They assured me they would oversee my mother and sister’s safety. By the time I returned ten months later, they were gone, one of them having betrayed me by seducing my innocent sister, who had just given birth to his child the day before. She bled to death moments before I arrived, and I found my mother with her body. My mother, who had buried everyone she had ever loved, and who assumed I was dead up north, given certain erroneous reports my betrayer had fed to her.”

Ethan had been a warrior, Brittany knew that. But the way he stood now, fists clenched, jaw tight, she realized it wouldn’t take much to strip away the civilized veneer of the British politician and discover that man inside him, who had fought for the safety of his family with his bare hands. It was a little intimidating at the same time it was comforting. Even if Corbin bolted, Ethan had her back because he considered her his sister now.

“So you turned Gwenna?” she asked carefully, her heart filled with compassion for him.

“Yes. I brought her back, though she was never the same as she’d been before. She was quiet, reserved, frightened. But she loved her daughter, and it was very worth it to me. My niece was born healthy and remained so.”

Brittany sensed there was more to the story, but Ethan wasn’t going to divulge it. It had obviously cost him a lot to talk about his mother and sister, and Brittany felt for him, for his pain, for his very long past and all that heartache. Squeezing his hand, she said, “Thanks for telling me, Ethan. That makes me feel better. Is there anything I should know... was the baby normal? No fangs or anything?”

“No fangs. Completely normal, and she was very strong and athletic. Tough both in body and character. She wound up becoming a warrior.” Ethan smiled and glanced over at Alexis. “A bit like your sister, in fact.”

“So I should plan on being a soccer mom then.” It sounded so much better when she thought in normal, everyday terms. She would have an athletic, aggressive child. She could deal with that. After all, she’d lived with Alex for twenty years. “I really appreciate you telling me this, Ethan.”

“You’re welcome.” He kissed the top of her head in a brotherly fashion that pleased her. “Everything will be fine, Brit.”

“Thanks. Alright, I’m going to head home. Corbin is coming over to discuss ‘ze situation,’” she said in an attempt at his French accent.

She blew them both a kiss. “Love you. Talk to you later.”

Alexis looked at Ethan with a hearty dose of suspicion after her sister had left the apartment. Swinging her legs over the arm of the chair, she narrowed her eyes. “Alright, Carrick, what did you leave out of that story?”

“Some details.” Ethan had his back to her, closing the blinds to the patio door.

“What details?” Alexis didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Tell me the truth or I will seriously kick your ass. Who was the father of Gwenna’s baby?”

Ethan’s fist tightened on the blind cord and his jaw clenched. “Donatelli.”

“What? I thought they got married like three hundred years later.” Alexis was surprised. The way Ethan had made it sound, Gwenna had been seduced and abandoned, not lived happily almost ever after with the guy.

“They did get married in the fifteenth century, four hundred years after their original relationship. Gwenna was reclusive and I shunned Donatelli after his betrayal. He didn’t even know she had been turned, and I admit, when they crossed paths inadvertently on a trip we took to Italy, I was surprised he even remembered her. Most womanizers don’t recall all their conquests, especially not after so many years. But not only did he remember, he claimed that he, too, had been betrayed, that he had been forced to leave her, and that he had returned to search for her the following year, only to hear that she had died. Thank God the villagers had been told she died of a fever, because we didn’t want anyone to know about the baby, at Gwenna’s request. She was ashamed of her actions. But I blamed Donatelli, not her. I still do. He should have known better. And I blame myself for leaving in the first place. But when they met again, Donatelli fed Gwenna lie after lie, and she fell for it, sneaking around with him without my knowledge, and after a few months she up and married the bastard. It took her three hundred years to gather the courage to divorce the sorry sot.”

“Oh, yikes. It’s bad enough we all make mistakes with our first shot at love, but three hundred years?” The very thought of being stuck to her high school boyfriend, Bart Winslow, and his fart jokes, for all eternity made Alexis shudder. “Gwenna must be terrified to date.” And she felt a little guilty for not reaching out to her sister-in-law more. Stuck in that nasty old castle in England, beating herself up for picking a crappy guy—like who hasn’t?—with no one to talk to... Gwenna needed some girlfriends to hang with. Vampire girlfriends like herself and Kelsey. And Cara, if she ever came back from Seamus’s farm in Ireland.

“Maybe you should invite Gwenna to visit us. Or maybe we could go visit her.”

“That’s a thoughtful idea.” Ethan looked surprised.

What? She couldn’t be thoughtful without shocking people? Asshole. “I’m not a total bitch. I would like to get to know your sister better.”

“We can’t go over there until after the election, and I doubt she would visit. Coming here for the wedding was difficult for her.”

“I can’t believe the election got bumped back to February just because Donatelli dropped out. I think they should just give it to you.” Alexis still couldn’t believe Donatelli had just agreed to resign his campaign for the presidency. Granted, Ethan and Seamus had promised to kill him if he didn’t drop out, but Alexis would have thought Donatelli would weasel around them somehow. Or at least try to. So far, he’d kept his distance, though.