Mine, Bitten

Chapter Forty-Two

            His blue eyes grew alight with a warmth that almost startled her breathless and he said, "Though you are vampire and have completed the change, you were a hybrid before and are still so now."

            Perplexed, she shook her head, trying to understand.

            "You carry a child with you." He said this calmly, but it shattered her resolve into tiny fragments.

            "What?" she whispered sharply and then turned to Varian in a breathless demand, "Did you know?"

            She could see the tension laced along his jaw line, the muscle there ticking with the intensity streaming his frame, "I wasn't certain."

            "It's nearly impossible." Seve added mirthfully.

            She suddenly felt faint as the room began to spin uncontrollably. Why hadn't Varian told her? How could she have not known?

            She stepped away from Varian, feeling him reaching mentally for her and immediately she dismissed him, shutting him out.

            "Do you trust him still?" Seve asked almost sardonically.

            Fighting back tears, she leveled him with a hardened stare, "If you have no plans of killing me then what do you want with me?"

            Seve peered at Varian, "My word, have you been telling horror stories?" he turned back to Lily, "My dear, I only wish to offer my hospitality." He extended an arm outward, motioning to the door beyond his shoulder where the others had disappeared, "You are welcome to any room you like."

            She didn't trust him. She didn't trust anyone.

            She felt Varian's eyes on her and proceeded to avoid his heated stare.

            "My friends?" she demanded.

            Seve straightened, "They are being treated with the same courtesy."

            "What of my human friend?" she emphasized the word, narrowing her eyes shrewdly.

            Seve pondered this a moment, "He knows too much, I cannot risk that."

            Lily straightened, raising her chin, feeling the anger rise beneath the surface, "Surely you can spare him?"

            Seve inclined his head, weighing the notion. "I will give it some consideration. In the meantime I would suggest you get some rest, 'tis late for us vampires."

            He turned and sauntered into the dark, dematerializing from the room.

            "Lily?"

            She whirled on Varian once they were alone, her face flushed with anger, her fists balled at her sides, "How could you have not told me?" she demanded angrily, "A baby, Varian?"
            He straightened beneath her wrath, watching the feral heat filter in her eyes, "I had to know for certain." He said firmly and reached for her.

            She jerked away from him, feeling those tears rush up to sting her eyes bitterly, "So much as happened within a short period of time." She met his gaze, "Five months ago I would have never believed such things possible and yet here I am the very thing deemed a fictional character and pregnant!"

            She laughed nearly with hysteria and swept shaky hands through her tousled hair as a tremor passed through her, and then asked a bit reluctantly, "Were you really going to kill me?" she didn't wait for him to answer, "Why didn't you?"