Chosen by Sin (25 page)

Then it was over.

He was wolf.

He raised his muzzle to look at Cy, who was staring at him in horror.

“I guess I don’t enjoy seeing you in pain as much as I would have
thought,” the male said faintly.

Dex bolted out of the mage’s shop and down the main street of the
village.

As he ran, he tried telling himself that Jes was fine. There was no
reason to think she was in danger. It was just all the talk of dark demons and
devil spirits trying to take over people through their dreams that had him
edgy.

But he wasn’t taking any chances, either.

Earlier, he’d enjoyed dining with her almost as much as he’d enjoyed
having sex with her. Nor had he imagined the tremendous respect he’d felt for
her when she’d urged him to go to the village, either. She’d wanted to give Dex
what he needed, even though she wanted to protect her baby—
their
baby.

For the first time, thinking of himself as a father didn’t seem so
wrong.

He made it to Jes’s castle in record time. Quickly, he shifted, the
transition from wolf to human form slightly less painful but enough to leave
him sweaty and breathing hard. Running to where he’d left his things, he pulled
on some clothes, then went looking for Jes.

He called out for her, but heard no answer.

He raced around Jes’s home, searching, growing tense with the sight of
each empty room. She wasn’t in the living area, library or the surgery space. Maybe
she was in one of the recovery rooms with a patient? Maybe even with the
shape-shifter?

What if the shape-shifter had been shot because one of his brethren had
found him trying to raise a dark spirit? Or trying to create a bridge for one?
What if he was doing it again? Here? Now?

Dex’s heart almost stopped. “Jes! Where are you?”

“Why are you yelling?”

Dex whirled around.

It was the female who’d been assisting Jes the day Dex had arrived. He
strode up to the werewolf, stopping right in front of her.

She sniffed, then stepped back. “You shifted,” she accused.

He frowned. She could smell that on him? “Where’s Jes?’

“What’s wrong?”

“Damn it, just tell me where she is.”

“She’s in the nursery.”

“Where is that?”

“On the third floor, but—wait!”

He headed for the stairs, but she grabbed his arm, clinging to him
despite his efforts to shake her off.

“You can’t go in there. She’s delivering a baby.”

“Let go, damn it. I need to talk to her. To make sure she’s okay.”

“I just saw her. She’s fine. You’ll have to wait.”

For some reason he needed to confirm she was okay himself. “No.”

“Yes,” a male voice suddenly boomed out. “Dex, calm down. It’s all
right.”

Dex turned to see Cy standing with the mage. Fuck, had he been arguing
with the werewolf long enough for Cy and the mage to walk back from the
village?

As if Cy had read Dex’s mind, the dragon-shifter shook his head.
“You’re not the only creature that can shift for speed. And I’ve got wings.”

“She says Jes is in the nursery,” Dex said.

“Then she’s fine. You can’t go in there now, Dex. She’ll be busy.”

What the hell was wrong with them? “I’ve seen babies being born
before,” he pointed out. “It’s not like the sight of blood will make me faint.”

“You haven’t seen anything like this before.” Cy turned to the
werewolf, who nodded her head. Cy turned back to Dex, a pained expression on
his face. “It’s a Draci birth.”

“And?” Dex asked impatiently.

“It’s just different. Let’s get the mage started on the protective
spell. By then, Jes will probably be done.”

Damn it. He didn’t want to do that, but he’d also
come to trust Cy to a degree. Cy knew Jes and her way of life in a way that Dex
couldn’t. As much as that bothered him, he had to accept Cy’s place in Jes’s
world.

“What’s your name?” he asked the werewolf.

She practically sneered at him and there was
something familiar about her expression, something that made Dex frown. He
shook off the feeling, trying to stay focused on Jes. He stared at the werewolf
until she answered.

“Amanda.”

“You were operating on a shape-shifter when I first arrived, Amanda. Is
he still here?”

Amanda hesitated, then said, “He left against our advice. Seemed in a
big hurry, too.”

Although her news seemed to confirm his fears, Dex hoped the shape-shifter
had gone for good and wouldn’t return. But he’d still have to warn Jes. “Go in
and check on her,” he ordered Amanda. “Then come out and report to me or I’m
going in there myself.”

Amanda glared at him.

But she did as he said.

***

In minutes, the mage had gathered all her supplies—crystals, a
feather, and some lit incense. She strolled through the castle, quietly
chanting. Dex and Cy followed a short distance behind her.

“Tell me about Draci births,” Dex ordered Cy. “What’s so different that
I couldn’t be there to talk to Jes?”

“A Draci birth is a somber occasion. Jes would never have let you stay
as it would have been the height of disrespect for the delivering mother.”

“Why isn’t it a happy occasion?”

“It’s both happy and sad,” Cy conceded.

“The duality thing again?”

Cy nodded. “Exactly.”

“Tell me what you mean.”

“Right now, Jes probably isn’t just dealing with birth, but with death,
too. Welcoming the new arrival but also preparing to bury the mother.”

“Wait, you know her? Is the mother particularly ill or is this
pregnancy just risky?”

“Any Draci pregnancy is risky. Fatal, even. Draci are very similar to
vampires in that giving life weakens them. For vampires, miscarriages are
frequent. For Draci, maternal deaths during childbirth are most often the
result. It keeps my race’s numbers down.”

Shit. “And Jes doesn’t mind having to be there?”

“It’s part of us, just as she is. Jes was there for my birth and my
mother’s death. I imagine she’ll be there for my death, too.”

So Cy had lost his mother. And unlike Dex, he hadn’t even had those
first few years of life with her to remember her by. “Thirty years. You said
that was a Draci’s average life span.”

“Barring the unexpected illness. Or for females, the mixed blessing of
giving birth.”

“So Jes is doctor, midwife, and mortician?” Did the suffering never
stop for her? Just how strong was she expected to be for the sake of others?

“Jes is everything to the Draci. We rely on her as a stabilizing force
in our community. We probably rely on her too much, I know. But she encourages
it, too.”

“And what of her own race? Does she ever see them?”

“Jes has never associated with other vampires. She lost her parents
early on and my people adopted her. She’s pledged her allegiance to us. She
treats Otherborn who show up here, but the rest of her time she spends trying
to help her own.”

“Her own, meaning the Draci?”

“Yes. You might say that being a doctor in the Draci community is a
twenty-four/seven job.”

“And what about what you told me when we first met? How am I Jes’s life
and death?”

Cy’s expression became mulish. “That’s something you’re going to have
to figure out on your own.”

“And that’s a bullshit answer. Am I just supposed to accept that? Hope
neither of us ends up dying just like Jes is hoping the female giving birth
doesn’t die?”

Cy shrugged. This time, the gesture of acceptance seemed infinitely
sad.

“Just so I’m clear on this…bearing children is a virtual death sentence
for your females? How does your race manage to reproduce at all?”

“Draci females enter a lottery. The loser—or the winner,
depending on who you’re talking to—is chosen to produce. That female is
revered in our community in the same way saints are in the human world.”

“That’s barbaric,” Dex breathed out.

“It’s a necessity if we want our race to survive. We’re on the
endangered species list as it is.”

“Maybe that’s where you belong. Maybe that’s what nature intended.”

“I’ve told Jes the same thing.”

“And I’ve told you,” Jes’s voice suddenly reached them. “I don’t
believe that. And I won’t stop trying to find a way to undo it.”

Dex turned, ready to question what she meant by “undo it,” but he was
distracted by the sight of the infant she cradled in her arms.

“The mother?” Cy asked.

Jes shook her head. Cy bent his head and looked at the floor.

Dex couldn’t manage the gesture of respect. The baby’s smell was sweet
and milky, and its eyes had opened and attached to him like a heat-seeking
missile. It looked robust and healthy. Jes, however, did not. She looked pale.
Tired. No wonder. She’d been up all last night and this morning.

She swayed slightly and he cursed. Grabbing her arm, he nonetheless
hesitated to take the baby from her. Good thing she seemed to have a good grip
on it. “Damn it. You’re weak. Because you’re tired or because I was gone? You
didn’t call.”

“I’m a little weaker, but the baby’s fine. Both of them are. I’m
feeling better already.” She pulled away and forced a smile. “Remember. I can’t
lie.”

He reluctantly released her. “We’ve brought someone back with us. A
mage who will put a protection spell on the castle. Cy knows her.”

“If Cy trusts her, then so do I.”

The statement didn’t bother him as it once might have. If she drew any
comfort from her relationship with Cy, Dex was glad. It told him just how much
he was starting to care for Jes.

She caught him looking at the infant. “Do you want to hold her?”

He stared at the little girl in Jes’s arms. He was tempted to say yes.
But then he remembered the other babies he’d held. Young ones at the were
orphanage. Babies who’d been hurt and abused. Babies that Dex hadn’t been able
to help.

Automatically, he took a step back. “Why would I want to do that?” he
asked.

Jes’s smile dimmed and she nodded. She took several steps back. “Just
let me get the baby settled and I’ll meet you and the mage in the library.”

Before meeting
Jes in the library, Dex did a sweep of the castle just to make sure the
shape-shifter wasn’t lurking around. Cy agreed to check the main living
quarters while Dex checked the lower area where the recovery rooms were
located.

Dex probably
should have asked Jes for permission first, but he hadn’t wanted to put her in
a position to say no. Or rather, he hadn’t wanted to put
himself
in a position to be told
no
. She’d feel obliged to consider her ethical duties
as a doctor—not to mention her privacy—and what was in her
patients’ best interests, but he had to consider the bigger picture—the
safety of the castle’s inhabitants as well as any global threat from the
diabol
s and the shape-shifters that were invoking them. In
Dex’s mind, the wounded shape-shifter was a potential threat simply because of
what he was.

Dex winced.

Whoa. Had he actually thought that?

Talk about racial profiling, he chided himself. For a werebeast who’d
suffered discrimination from the entire world, most of all from his
full-blooded werewolf ancestors, he’d thought himself immune to racial bigotry.
He didn’t like where his thoughts had taken him.

Still, he didn’t backtrack. It wasn’t that he was prejudiced against
shape-shifters in general, he assured himself. It was simply better to
investigate now, and if he had to, apologize to the shape-shifter or
Jes—or both—later.

Yet Dex didn’t kid himself. There was another reason he hadn’t asked
Jes’s permission to search the grounds for the shape-shifter. He’d had to get
the hell away from her as soon as he could. Not her, exactly, but the sight of
her holding that tiny, newborn baby.

The Draci baby was cute, sure, but it was the picture they’d made
together that had knocked him for a loop. He’d taken one look at that baby and
Jes, the vampire he was drawn to both because of her outward appearance and
inner strength, and immediately imagined her cradling
his
child. Then he’d taken that image and run with it.

Soon, it would be his child she held in her arms. His child nursing at
her breast.

His child being rocked to sleep while she sang to him.

His child that went to sleep only after she kissed him goodnight.

And with all those thoughts came another inescapable one—he was
going to miss all of it. Going to miss seeing all the ways Jes and his baby
bonded after he returned to the States. If he went through with his original
plan, that is…

If?

If
he went through with his
original plan, meaning his plan to get revenge on his grandfather?

Since when had there been any doubt that was what he would do?

Since he’d met Jes, he realized. Even before he’d learned she was
pregnant, he’d found himself doing things that did nothing to further his goal
for revenge, and he hadn’t cared. He’d gone to her hotel room knowing they’d
fuck, but also knowing it wasn’t just about fucking her. Afterward, instead of
leaving, he’d stayed the night, holding her in his arms, enjoying it too much
to pull himself away. And he’d even considered seeking her out in France.
Couldn’t deny that part of him had jumped at Mahone’s request to question
shape-shifters here simply because it would bring him closer to her…

So what now?

Could his original plan and his new desires be morphed into something
new, a compromise that allowed him to have his revenge, work on the team, and
also have a life with Jes and his child?

The logistics might prove difficult, especially given the fact they
lived on different continents, but he wasn’t one to turn away from a challenge.

He searched, finding no trace of the shape-shifter. Eventually, he came
to the room where he’d recovered. Finding it empty, he checked the two rooms
next to it and confirmed they, too, were still empty. He walked past the door
that led outside to that patch of grass where Ella had been doing her
cartwheels. There was one other door down the hall from it. He knocked then
opened it. Empty.