VA 2 - Blood Jewel (31 page)

“Shit, I knew you wouldn’t do it,”
Sol announced.

“It’s not what you think,” I
laughed because I couldn’t contain my joy and Sol stared at me
waiting for an explanation.

“I’m pregnant,” Chansey squealed
and then silence took over the room. You could have heard a pin
drop.

“With who’s baby?” Sol asked.
“Because it sure can’t be Curry’s.”

“Stop! Don’t ruin this for them,”
Gia told Sol and then looked at Sebastian. “Is it
possible?”

“I’ve never known conception to
occur between a human and a vampire because they don’t share sexual
relationships, with the exception of Agápes. Curry has become very
human since he and Chansey married, so that could be a possibility.
There are so few documented Agápes that I have no references, but I
suppose that anything is possible with the gods and the
supernatural events during the eclipses.”

“There was an eclipse the night of
your wedding,” Gia announced. “I bet that’s when it happened and
that would mean you’d have to be around nine weeks.”

Lairah crossed the room to hug
Chansey. “A baby!” she squealed. “That is such wonderful news.
Congratulations.” She hugged me next and said, “Way to go, Tiger.
Grr.”

Avery slid to the edge of the
couch. “Chansey, how did you know to suspect a
pregnancy?”

We looked at one another and then
she explained, “It started with a dream.”

She spent the next ten minutes
explaining her dream/vision of Marsala and everyone looked at
Sebastian for his opinion when she finished.

“Well, it sounds like Chansey is
safe from Marsala and her Black Magic at least until the baby is
born, but you know she is going to be desperate to take this baby
because it belongs to Curry. That is one of her psychotic hang-ups.
She wants to have a baby with him.”

“She’s not getting my baby,”
Chansey vowed as she shook her head hard.

“Of course she won’t, Love. I will
protect both of you from her.”

Gia spoke up, “You and this baby
are family and we will protect both of you.”

I recognized the concerned look on
Sebastian’s face. “What are you thinking, Sebastian?” I
asked.

He turned to Chansey with a
concerned look on his face. “I think you should see a doctor to
confirm the pregnancy as soon as possible and you should have a
check up so we can monitor your health.”

Chansey looked up at me and then
back to Sebastian. “Monitor my health?” Chansey asked.

Sebastian’s face was covered with
concern. “I have to be honest with both of you. I have nothing to
compare this to and I’m not certain about the outcome.”

“The outcome?” Chansey
said.

“I have no way of knowing if this
pregnancy is viable or the dangers it could pose for Chansey. We
don’t know that your DNA is compatibility and a human doctor won’t
be able to treat you for complications resulting from a pregnancy
that is the conception between a human and a vampire.”

≈ ≈ ≈

My happiness was immediately
replaced with worry the day Sebastian proposed the potential risks
to Chansey. That was a whole week ago.

Waiting for Chansey’s appointment
with her Obstetrician was the longest week I had ever experienced
in all the days of my existence. A week was the soonest she could
be seen by any doctor in the Savannah area if she wasn’t
experiencing an imminent problem and we never quite figured out how
to tell the receptionist making the appointment that being pregnant
by a vampire posed a very significant problem.

As we sat in the waiting room of
the Obstetrician, I felt like I could throw up.

“Hey, you look a little green
around the gills. Are you having sympathy nausea?” Chansey
joked.

Chansey had become nauseated over
the past few days and we took that as a good sign since that seem
to be the norm for a human pregnancy. “If this is how you have been
feeling for the last few days, I feel sorry for you.”

We heard “Chansey Brennan,”
announced from a young blonde nurse and she led us back to an
examination room. She took vitals and a medical history from
Chansey and then told us that the doctor would be in
shortly.

She sat on the exam table while I
sat in the chair by her side, but neither of us said anything
because we were both so afraid of finding out something was wrong.
Luckily, the doctor wasn’t running behind or delivering a baby and
we didn’t have to wait on her for long.

An attractive woman with dark
bobbed hair came into the room with a smile on her face and
introduced herself as Dr. Knight. She briefly read over the history
the nurse had taken and said, “Okay, Mrs. Brennan. Looks like
you’re due for an annual, so we’ll do that first and then we’ll
take a look with the ultrasound since you’re uncertain about your
last menstrual period.”

An annual? What was
that?

The doctor went to the hall and
called out. “We’re ready, Kayla.”

Chansey looked at me and asked, “Do
you want to step out for this part?”

“I don’t know. What are they going
to do to you?”

Before she could answer, the doctor
and nurse were putting Chansey’s feet up and telling her to slide
to the edge of the table. I couldn’t see anything over the sheet
covering her legs and I didn’t try because I had a strong suspicion
that I didn’t want to. It was over quickly and then Chansey slid
back up the exam table.

“Now for the fun part,” Dr. Knight
said as she reached for a wand on the ultrasound machine. “We’ll
try doing an abdominal ultrasound first, but don’t be scared if I
can’t see anything. Sometimes it’s hard to see the fetus with an
abdominal ultrasound if the pregnancy is early.”

I reached for Chansey’s hand and
she squeezed it tightly. Our hearts were racing one another to see
whose could beat the fastest and I felt her happiness, excitement
and fear all wrapped up in a tight ball of emotions in my gut,
mirroring my own.

Dr. Knight squeezed a glop of gel
on Chansey’s stomach and then put the ultrasound wand in the wet
goop. She watched the screen as she slid the wand over Chansey’s
belly and pushed down against it. “Tell me if I do anything that’s
uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine,” Chansey softly
answered as she watched the monitor in search of anything that
would confirm there was a baby inside of her.

Dr. Knight slid the wand downward
and said, “Yes, there it is, as she pointed to the monitor. “That’s
your baby and that flashing dot is his or her
heartbeat.”

As if my vampire vision couldn’t
see it well enough, I stood up from my chair and leaned over for a
better view. I was seeing my child for the first time and the only
other time I ever felt so fascinated with love was when I found
Chansey. I watched the flashing white dot on the screen and knew
that was the source of the lub dub I had heard when I put my ear to
Chansey’s belly.

I kissed Chansey on the forehead
and the combination of my reaction with hers was almost more than
either of us could contain. “I love you and I have never been
happier than I am right here in this moment.”

She squeezed my hand. “I love you,
too, and I couldn’t be happier.”

Dr. Knight began pushing buttons on
the ultrasound machine and said, “I’m going to do a crown-to-rump
measurement so we can see how far along you are.” I heard the
machine beep several times as she took the measurements and then
she keyed in the information. “Okay, looks like you’re about ten
weeks, so you’ve got a quarter of the pregnancy behind you. That
puts your due date on...April 12th.”

We looked at one another and
Chansey giggled because that meant this little baby was definitely
conceived on our wedding night.

“Do you have any questions or
concerns?” Dr. Knight asked.

“Everything looks alright? Chansey
and the baby are both healthy?” I asked.

“Everything looks normal for this
stage of the pregnancy. You don’t have to change your lifestyle,
but you’ll need to get plenty of rest and take your prenatal
vitamin everyday so you don’t become anemic. You can get dressed
and the nurse will be in to give you your information pack on the
dos and don’ts I recommend during your pregnancy. Congratulations
and I’ll see you back in four weeks.”

Once the doctor was out of the
room, I couldn’t resist taking Chansey in my arms and Chansey
started laughing. “Care to let me in the joke?”

“Granna is so going to say, ‘I
told you so.”

27 Here’s To Magical
Appearances

“Yes, Granna. I will call you with
an update after my appointment...I love you, too...Tell Granddaddy
I love him...Bye-bye.”

“Is she still saying that she told
us so?”

“What do you think? she
laughed.

“I think she’s still saying that
she told us so.”

“You’d be right about that,”
Chansey agreed.

It had been four weeks since our
visit with Dr. Knight and Chansey was now fourteen weeks pregnant.
I loved the changes in her body and they were happening faster than
I expected. Her breasts were becoming fuller and her flat belly was
surprisingly bulging more and more with each day’s growth. I loved
touching the curve of her stomach and feeling the hard little knot
where our growing baby resided inside of her.

Because it had been a month, we had
an appointment with Dr. Knight today. I felt Chansey’s anxiety and
fear about today being the day we would discover something was
wrong and my own fear and anxiety doubled as a result.

Chansey sat on the exam table and I
reached for her hand. “I wish you wouldn’t worry so much. It isn’t
good for you and the baby.”

“My, my. Aren’t you the pot
calling the kettle black? I can feel your anxiety, too, in case you
forgot.”

“I can afford to worry enough for
both of us since the baby isn’t inside of me.”

“Okay. I’ll be sure to turn my
worry switch to the off position.”

Dr. Knight knocked and then walked
into the room. “Good morning, how are you doing since I saw you
last?”

“I’m feeling well.”

“Great. Nausea
subsided?”

“It has. I haven’t had any in a
couple of weeks.”

“How about yours, Mr. Brennan? I
seem to recall you looking a little green the last time you were
here.”

“Mine is better, as well,” I
laughed.

“Glad to hear it,” she
laughed.

Dr. Knight took a brief history of
Chansey’s pregnancy over the last month and then lowered the head
of the exam table. She measured her belly with what looked like a
flexible tape measure and had a peculiar look on her face. “You’re
fourteen weeks, right?”

“I should be based on the date you
gave me when we did the first ultrasound.”

She picked up her chart and scanned
it. “One baby, right?”

“Unless another one magically
appeared,” Chansey laughed.

Dr. Knight reached up to lower the
head of the exam table. “Fundal height is how we measure the growth
of your baby and you are measuring much further than you should be,
so I want to scan you again. It’s unlikely, but you could be
developing a condition called polyhydramnios. That means you have
extra amniotic fluid around the baby. We don’t usually see it
significantly increased this early in a pregnancy, but let’s take a
look and see if we can tell what’s going on.”

This was it. Something was wrong
and I felt our fear unite in my gut as we waited to hear what was
happening to our baby. Chansey looked at me and squeezed my hand as
I saw tears well in her eyes.

Dr. Knight repeated the same
routine with the gel and placed the wand to Chansey’s belly. She
scooted it around and shook her head as she studied the screen in
front of her. “Impossible,” she whispered.

Chansey paled and I was back to my
previously cured nausea episode. “What’s wrong, Dr. Knight.?”
Chansey asked.

She didn’t answer, but wheeled over
on her stool to retrieve Chansey’s chart. She flipped through and
looked at the print off of Chansey’s previous ultrasound. “I don’t
have an explanation for this.”

“Please, tell us what is wrong,”
Chansey sternly said.

Dr. Knight sighed. “We have two
issues. First, the growth I see from your last ultrasound is off
the charts. It’s been four weeks since I saw you, so we should see
four weeks of growth. I’m seeing about seven weeks of growth, but
the more incredible issue is that there isn’t one baby in there. I
see two and I can’t fathom how I missed it. I’m looking at your
first ultrasound and there is no sign of a second baby. I’m sorry.
I’ve never seen this happen and I don’t know how to explain
it.”

We looked at one another and I
softly said, “Two babies, instead of one?”

Most people would immediately be
overjoyed by the discovery, but I immediately thought of Emelyn and
of Ella’s twin that died. Was it possible that this magically
appearing baby was a Fylgia? Was this baby an Agápe chosen by
Anteros for a vampire? The thought of this being a daughter I’d be
forced to give over to a vampire killed me. That wasn’t the life I
wanted for my child.