Lily
"I am Seve." The vampire said gently and Lily could do no more than stare unwarily at the hand leveled before her and then feeling a bravado sweep over her, she raised her chin and met those blue eyes determinedly.
He took note of her sudden courage and smirked a little, "Willful." He said.
She raised a brow and said undauntedly, "If there is something I have learned from my father who has fooled me one too many times, it's to not trust a stranger."
His blue eyes sparked with a smidge of admiration, "Wise of you." His eyes shifted to Varian who stood motionless and expressionless at her side. "What of your mate? Do you trust him?"
"Yes." She exclaimed without the slightest hesitation.
His mouth twitched with a hidden grin, "What if I were to tell you that he was sent to kill you? Would that alter your trust in him?"
Her eyes wavered with a flickering of doubt.
Seve clasped his hands before him and eyed her a little more intently, "Varian is the assassin of our people. He destroys vampires turned rogue and protects our clan. He is not meant to have a mate, for with a mate comes feelings that cannot get in the way of his purpose."
"That purpose being?" she asked, sensing Varian's tense frame beside her.
"Solely to kill, of course." he grinned, revealing his fangs, "He is Demise as some of us would call him." He tilted his head as he examined her a little more closely, "When I learned of your existence you can understand why I was against my assassin finding a mate?"
"So you sent him to kill me as a cruel twist of fate?"
Seve raised his chin, his resolve hardening some, "It was a test deemed necessary. I had to ensure that even a potential mate could not prevent him from his sole purpose as the Death Dealer of our clan." He paused, studying them immensely, "As fate would have it, he failed miserably." he smirked and stepped away from them, moving several steps aside, his eyes sweeping the now empty room. "I cannot fault him of course we vampires live a long time, why live an eternity lonely?"
Lily felt Varian shift beside her; she peered over at him and was startled to see a look of surprise etched deeply onto his face.
She turned back to Seve, "Are you going to kill me now?"
Those blue eyes hastened to her face as he stilled beneath the dim lighting of the room, "Heavens no."
She frowned, almost stunned, "Why?"
He raised a brow, his mouth pulling into that passably charming grin, "Why?" he mirrored her response, "I dare say, I've drank from many a throats and not once have I heard such a word escape them."
"What I meant was, why now, what has changed that you've decided to not kill me?"
He chuckled so loudly that it resounded sharply in the hollow, musky room. "Isn't the answer obvious, aside from your literal change from a human to a vampire-" he paused, stepping back toward her, "-you are the miracle my clan has waited centuries for."
Her brows pulled together in sheer confusion. She glanced from Varian to Seve, unsure but noting a silent understanding among the two, "What do you mean?"
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?"
He stepped toward her, reaching for her despite her eagerness to step out of his reach, "Lily, I knew before I laid eyes on you that I couldn't kill you. I lived centuries, killing, destroying mindless creatures without feeling. Do you think for a moment I want to be like them, without feeling?" he cupped her chin and gently ran his thumb over her lower lip, "I was selfish in turning you, but to live an eternity without the one woman that stirred any emotion in me was a thought most crippling. I couldn't withstand it."
His dark eyes moved lovingly over her face, stirring those feelings to the forefront of her heart to forget all her anger in that moment. She flattened her hand against his broadened chest, feeling the muscle there rise and fall with his steady breaths, "I was lonely when I was a human." She said softly, raising her eyes to meet his gently, "I'm not lonely anymore."
He grinned, one that pulled on her sensibilities, forcing a smile to her lips. He then pressed a hand to her belly, grinning all the more.
A panic swept through her at a sudden frightening thought, "What if the baby can't survive?" she asked fearfully, paling considerably.
He clasped a hand about her waist, pulling her close, "Do not wreck yourself with worry."
She felt comforted by the strength in his arm that reeled her close, "What of the others, Jackson and Ruby?"
"No harm will come to Ruby, Marguerite will ensure it."
"Marguerite?" Lily questioned that, having grown accustomed to the vampire's icy demeanor and little tolerance for others.
Varian laughed, understanding, "Ruby is sired to Marguerite and whether Marguerite likes it or not, she is compelled to protect her protégé." He paused, the corners of his beautifully sculpted mouth lifting ever more, "Besides, I think Margie has met her match in one Ruby Carmichael."
Lily grinned, "I think she has." And then her grin faded, "What about Jackson?"
All humor aside, Varian's expression turned hard, "I can try and convince Seve otherwise but to keep a human alive that knows of our kind is a risk Seve is not willing to take, nor am I." he added, his eyes settling firmly on her belly.
She flattened her hands against her stomach, feeling nothing, but sensing a baby nestled comfortably within, "I understand, Varian, but Jackson saved my life and the baby's for that matter when I was in that cell. I can't let him die."
Varian inhaled a deep breath, peering around the room empty of everything but a bed. How accommodating indeed.
"I have no intention of us staying here." He said, drawing her attention more intently, "Once Seve learns of our correspondence with the wolves he'll not take kindly to it."
A fear rushed through her, "What is the feud that severs us from them?" she asked.
Varian shrugged a shoulder, "What other reason than two species very unlike one another trying to live amongst humans without the risk of being discovered. You cannot undo centuries of hatred."
"But Lucan helped us." She recalled the wolf that had dared to fight alongside them.
"He did so for his own reasons and a risk that he takes, one I am certain his pack will disagree with and surely shun or kill him for."
She gasped, "They wouldn't kill there own kind?"
He nodded, "You would do anything to protect your clan, or in his case, pack. The wolves are very much like us when maintaining secrecy and assurance." He paused, "Though I suspect the wolf has feelings for Blanch."
Lily straightened at this, "But she's a vampire."
"And Seve's daughter."
Her mouth fell open on a sharpened breath, "She is Seve's daughter. Why does she not live here then?"
"Blanch has no desire to live underground." He paused, "Nor to be a vampire."
Startled by this and ever more intrigued, she pressed, "Why?"
"Blanch is unlike her father. She's gentle and sweet. She would seek to aid a human rather than drink from them. I imagine that's why Kirov has an interest in her."
Lily smiled slightly, remembering her first encounter with Blanch and her attempt to feed her an array of sandwiches.
"She is vampire nonetheless but far gentler than most."
"Who is Seve?" Lily asked, "Is he the oldest of vampires?"
Varian peered unto the wall, staring as if beyond ward, "His blood is the oldest and most powerful among us."
"And Pearly and Alessandro?"
"They are nearly as old."
She fell silent, trying to imagine living decades, centuries and watching the world alter completely.
And then a startling thought occurred to her, one that surprisingly hadn't before. "How is Blanch Seve's daughter when conceiving a child is impossible among vampires?"
Varian met her gaze, silent, and yet she knew the answer already.
She shook her head, confounded, "No, he said it was impossible."
"He said nearly impossible."
"So it's happened before?" she demanded, eager to know answers. "Blanch wasn't bitten?"
He shook his head but a wariness shrouded him, one that gave her reason to be alarmed. "She was born." He said.
Feeling perspiration dot her forehead, she asked softly, "What of her mother?"
His jaw hardened, his hands curling at his sides forming tight fists, "Her mother was human."
She gasped, "Human?" Her heart sank suddenly with a weight of grief, "She didn't survive the labor?"
He shook his head, "She was too frail and died shortly after."
Lily winced at the wrenching of it and her musings deepened. Was there a part of Blanch that longed to be human because her mother had been? Was it the reason she resided among humans and not underground as the others?
She was growing tired, feeling the full effect of the sun and the late hour. She would have laughed at the notion if she were still human, for above ground warm bodies streamed the earth in a naturalness of every day life, just as she had done before all this occurrence of bizarreness.
Feeling her tiredness as if it were his own, Varian moved forward and swept her in his arms. She didn't object, in fact she sank comfortably against his chest as he lowered them to the bed.
"What are we going to do?" she asked softly, feeling that heaviness creep forward.
She felt his hand in her hair, teasing gently through her blond tresses.
"We leave at dusk."
**********