I almost jumped out of my skin when he reached over and took my hand in his before bringing it to his mouth. He seemed way more relaxed now while I was a bundle of nerves.
I was strung so tight I forgot the fact that I was in his car going who knows where. The spell ring had been lifted and everything was back to normal outside the car window as he sped through the downtown area. And though I was on tenterhooks, I didn’t feel the fear that had been there in the beginning.
I searched inside myself for any remnants of it and it was just gone; it’s the oddest thing. Now I felt the way I guess any young girl would alone in a car with a guy she’d just let take liberties with her in an alley. But there was so much more going on here; way more.
Neither of us spoke a word to the other as we were both lost in thought, at least I was. He seemed to be concentrating on the road and I wanted so badly to ask him what he was thinking. I could still sense him in my head but not to the same extent as before. Maybe that’s why I’m so placid when I should be screaming bloody murder.
“A baby!” I shot bolt upright in the seat, almost pulling my hand out of his and was only saved from propelling myself through the windshield by the seatbelt that cut into me as it held me back safely. “Ouch!”
The car came to a screeching halt in less than a second flat. Car horns blared as people drove around us, some of them with their fingers out no doubt. He’d stopped dead in the middle of the road without any warning. “What did you do to yourself? Let me see!” He was serious!
I watched in near wonder as he undid his seatbelt and turned to me, pulling mine away from my body and lifting my sweater to look me over. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Are you sure?” He ran the back of his fingers along the place that the belt had dug into and all I could do was nod my head yes.
“I’ll look at it when we get to the house.” I felt like Alice and I hadn’t had so much as a whiff of a psychedelic substance. He drove slower now once he started driving again and I was at the edge of my seat, literally.
I tried remembering everything he’d told me the night before. All the stuff I hadn’t really been paying attention to because I hadn’t planned to stay. Was he really serious about that stuff about him feeling pain if I’m hurt? I pretty much thought that anything he said up until what, fifteen minutes ago, was all designed just to get me to let my guard down.
But the deed was done… hey… “A baby? Who said you could…?”
“I think there’s one thing I should warn you about now. For the rest of our lives, I’ll give you everything you desire, but when it comes to offspring, that’s my department and you’re not to interfere.”
Now my fairy self would’ve looked at what he said methodically and tried to see the origin of the thought. But to my nymph who was in full attendance, those were fighting words. The equivalence to throwing gasoline on an already five-alarm fire.
“Not…. Are you mad….? You just….” I had a few choice things to say none of which he seemed to hear or give a good damn about. Until he interrupted me in the middle of my blasting him for being a chauvinistic pig.
“Princess, there’s something I think I should share with you now, before we go any farther.” Oh here we go! I knew it was too good to be true. I braced myself for whatever words were going to come out of his mouth next.
“I’m never going to argue with you.” Huh? What does he mean? “You’re not?” He shook his head. “No! You can have an opinion, you may even disagree with me, when we’re alone of course, but once I make a decision it’s final.”
Before I could recover from that monumental level of bullshit he pulled into the long driveway of his monstrosity of a house and practically dragged me out of the car because I refused to get out. Maybe I should warn him about the nymph, since she seemed to be here to stay, at least for the night. Nope, let him learn the hard way.
The same men from that night at the restaurant were there looking anxious, as if they’d been waiting for us. One of them stepped forward as if to say something but Lucien held up his hand and rebuffed him without breaking stride. “Not now uncle. Dennis!” He called out to someone who happened to be a very posh looking middle-aged human, vampyre mix.