Darkened Days (26 page)

Starla felt light
headed.  Would this be possible?

“You think I could still…”  She shook her head, the implication enormous.  A smile came as she realized it may be possible to honor her destiny with Ahmose.  Those children who did not exist, that she had been grieving for,
could be born.

“Starla, it’s a big decision.  It still
won’t be easy.  Even though you and Ahmose will not have to be physical to make these children, it is still a very intimate relationship.  Jacob will have to be able to share you with another man and your children with him.  It’s something that has never happened with a vampire couple.  It may damage you and Jacob.  It may not be possible.  I wanted to speak with you first, because although you and Jacob must make the choice, ultimately, it is you who must bear the results of that choice.  All I know is Cairine and Cherise both think that you will be with child before the end of this year.  And I trust their abilities.  I am here to make that happen if I can.  If it is what you and Jacob decide to do.”

A future she had been trying to let go blossomed in front of her eyes. 
Children, special, beautiful, with her long thick hair and Ahmose’s middle eastern coloring.  Something trickled inside her, bubbled up.  In that moment a realization that it might really happen.

“I have to find Jacob.  Park, thank you.  I’ve loved being here with you, with Jacob, finding my new family here in France.  But I’ve been heartbroken since I knew that my choice would deny these children their chance to be born.  I didn’t realize until now, but I’ve thought of them as real since Cherise told me it would be a boy and two girls.  I know it isn’t possible, but I’ve been
feeling
them.”

Eillia shifted her son before she spoke.

“Don’t discount first blood magic, Starla.  It’s immeasurably powerful.  Good luck with Jacob.”

Starla nodded and headed to their underground rooms
.   For long moments she sat and considered this unexpected news.   She needed to speak with Jacob.  Now.  The delay made her gut hurt.  She reached him on her cell moments later.

“Jacob, hi.  Um, could you meet me behind the villa?  On the beach?”

“I’m supervising some final installations at the new house.  Is it important?”

“Pretty much, yeah.  I hate to disturb you, but I really need to speak with you now.”

“Sure.  I’ll be right there.  Is everything all right?”

“Better than all right.  I’ll talk with you about it when you get here.  Thanks, Jacob.”

She sat alone on the warm wet sand, barefoot, her feet buried, toes dug under and wiggling while she watched the water rise and fall.  The moon was full again like it was when Ahmose first saw her at the falls three months ago and she watched its expressive face as it glided across the charcoal sky.  Leaning back, she sighed and placed her hands on her belly.  It was where her babies would grow.  Long ago, she’d wondered what it would feel like to have a baby inside you. Now she knew that if they proceeded with Park’s idea, she would not only know what it was like, but apparently they could communicate.  Life. 

Important
, imperative, persistent. Insistent. These children would
be.
 

Jacob would understand. 
Wouldn’t he?

His hands in her hair let her know he’d arrived silently.

“Hi,” he said softly, expectantly, and dropped down beside her.

“Hi,” she responded.  “I didn’t hear you come up.  I was really distracted.”

“So, what’s the news?”

“It’s remarkable.  I don’t know how you’re going to react, but it really is wonderful news.”

Jacob knew it wasn’t going to be wonderful for him.  She was too worried about telling him.

“Okay, no suspense, just blurt it out.”

“All right.  Park thinks she can inseminate me.  Ahmose and I can have the first blood babies we were destined to have.”

He was silent.  He didn’t look at her, but watched the sea fighting the pull of the moon.  The news didn’t surprise him.  He didn’t want this.  He turned to tell her so.
  But didn’t.

“Okay.  I assume
you’ve decided you’re going to do it.”

“No.  We’re in this together, Jacob.  All the way.  If you don’t want me to do it, I won’t.  You did get the part where I don’t have to have sex with him, right?”

He smiled.  “That’s the only thing keeping me from flying to Africa and getting myself killed.  Yeah, I get it.  But…”  He paused because he couldn’t seem to say what he wanted to say.

“I know,” Starla cut in, helping him out.  “I know what you’re feeling.  I wouldn’t like it if you went off and had children with another woman.  I know it will be a very close, intimate relationship.  But for all three of us.  You would be in this with me just as much as Ahmose.  I
’m not in love with him, Jacob, he isn’t any kind of threat or competition.  But I have been hurting, baby.  Those children are calling to me.”

Jacob was quiet for a few more moments, then turned to her.

“I know.  I’ve felt it.  I’ve even wondered if I did the wrong thing by coming for you.  That you might have been happier with him.  With the family you two would have made together.  I was there when Cherise first did her empathic read on Park.  She was right about everything.  You are supposed to have those babies.”

“Not without you.  Jacob, I would never have been happier without you.  Even before you showed up, I had already told Ahmose I was leaving.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely.  But I think you’re right about Cherise.  Do you remember she said Ahmose and I were destined to be parents, but not lovers?  I think this is what she meant.  Would you be able to live with this?”

“I’ll have to, won’t I?  I’m not going to deny you or these children.  Starla, I love you enough to share you with your children, even if they aren’t mine.”

“Oh, baby, they will be.  I meant it.  These wonderful children will have three parents.  We can co-parent with Ahmose.  Once they are older, they can travel between our two residences.”

“That won’t work.  Ahmose probably wouldn’t allow it anyway.  They need to be raised with their kin.  You heard him.  They are the next generation of the children of the moon. Their home is Zambia.”

Now Starla was quiet.

“I don’t want to leave them, Jacob.  I think they’ll need their mother.”

“Oh, baby, that is not what I mean
. I knew when I came to Paris to search for you that my life was heading in a different direction.  I didn’t have an idea why, but I’ve been restless for a long time.  After centuries of taking care of Bas’s needs, I was ready to move forward with my own life.  Now, I know my destiny waited for me wearing a tiny skirt and tinier bra in a grocery store outside the city of love.  You were my destiny.  We’ll go to Africa.  You have to be there for your children.  I have to be there for you.”

Starla launched at him, rolling him into the sand, soaking his clothes and hair.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” she murmured as she kissed his eyes and cheeks.  She settled in to kiss him deeply afterward to make him understand what this meant to her. 

Jacob stood beside Starla as she made the call.  It seemed like forever before she heard Ahmose’s deep voice.

“Ahmose,” Starla said, relieved he answered.

He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke, it was carefully.

“I didn’t think I would ever hear from you again.  I didn’t think you would forgive me for my part in
Jacob’s abduction.”

“We both forgive you.  You brought him home.  In the end, you did the right thing.  Everyone makes mistakes. 
That’s yours, my friend.  You did have an impossible choice that drove you there.  I hate that it happened, but it’s over now.  Anyway.  Ahmose, can you get on a flight here right away?  How soon could you be here?”

He was quiet again.

“Probably by tomorrow night.”

“Well, hurry.  The moon will still be full and we have a baby to make.”

Ahmose’s blood ran cold.  He was afraid to imagine what that meant. 
What?  They had a baby to make?

“Hello, did you hear me?”

“I heard you.”

“Well, get your ass on a plane.  As soon as you get here, you’re giving us your baby makers and Koen’s daughter is going to inseminate me.  I’m going to have our
son, Ahmose.”

Dead
silence.  He had no words.  Finally he said, “I will rent a plane and be there first thing tomorrow night.”

“Good.  Bring Chione.”

She rang off and looked at Jacob.

“It’s done.”

“Then I’d better make love to my wife
while I can without a baby inside.”

Starla pushed him down on the bed and sat on top of him.

“I love you so much for this.  I’m not getting off of you until he gets here.  Better go get something to eat to keep up your strength.”

Jacob used vampire hyper speed to get to second meal buffet, loaded two trays, and had them back in their bedroom in moments.  Starla looked up as he
came through the doorway grinning.

“Let’s waste no time.”

So, in a frenzy of good food and incredible sex, no time was wasted at all until they fell asleep four hours later.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Covered with a sheet, Starla waited on a metal table as Park, with two of her assistants, finished the procedure.

“Please lay still
,” Park advised.

A short time later, she brushed Starla’s hair back off her moist brow.

“It’s done.  We just have to wait to see if it worked.”

When Starla came out of the lab, Ahmose sat waiting in a corner with big eyes. 
Chione was two seats away with her soft smile that Starla had missed.  Eillia showed up without Caedmon, who must be with his father.

Right outside the
lab door, Jacob waited.  He stood immediately.

“Everything go okay?” he asked immediately.  Right now, all he cared about was that she was all right.

“Very well, baby,” Starla assured him.

Cherise had flown in
, waiting with David and Jacob.  She moved over next to Starla.

“May I?”

Starla nodded.  “You can’t know anything yet, right?  It’s too soon.”

Cherise moved her hands across Starla’s belly with closed eyes.

Jacob came up behind her and gave her a “what the hell” look.  Starla shrugged her shoulders.  Ahmose stayed in the corner like a punished child, but his sharp eyes were on Cherise.

A big sigh followed a wide smile as Cherise stepped back to address everyone in the room who waited for her assessment.

“He is begun.  The boy is anxious to come into this world.  Ahmose, Jacob, Starla, you have a baby boy who will be here in about six months.  I will come back in two weeks so you will be able to meet him for the first time.  Congratulations.”

She walked out with David, leaving a stunned room full of faces behind.

Eillia laughed.

“Here, let me explain.  A first blood child is not a normal baby.  He will be conscious and able to communicate by two weeks.  Not in words, but in feelings.  It’s a magical connection that
Cherise will guide for you.  There will never be another experience in your life like it.” 

She paused.

“I believe what Cherise said a while ago about this being a special time in our history.  That there is something happening right now.  That it is a time of birth and rebirth for the born vampires.  Not just these children, suddenly so common,” she looked at Ahmose, “but that the clans have discovered each other. I think this next one-hundred years is going to be very special.”

Starla remembered the moment she realized that her vampire genes were a gift that w
ould let her live through history.  Now, she realized, all along, she was meant to be here.  Destiny had cast a much greater, grander net than any of them could possibly have known.

Her hands went to her belly as she had seen Eillia do so many times.  She looked from Ahmose to Jacob.

“We’re having a son,” she whispered.

Two weeks later, after Cherise had come and gone, it was just before d
usk on a warm early autumn day, and Starla lay awake.  Her mate slept beside her after the day of rest, and she would awaken him now.

The child ha
d spoken to Starla in a way she could not define.  She knew he was grateful he would be born and beloved by his parents.  He knew Jacob was one of them.

Jacob still slept, but she woke him with a kiss.

“Hi, baby,” he said, as he did most nights.

“Hi, baby,” she responded.  “Jacob, someone wants to speak with you.”

He got up on his elbow.

“Who?”
He looked around concerned, wondering who had contacted her before he woke for the night.

She said nothing, just guided his hand to her belly, and laid back.

Curved against the slight mound, his hand pressed softly.  Then his eyes moistened.  A few moments later, he pulled his hand away, and nestled his head against her.

“He’s going to be nothing like a normal child, is he?”

“No, he’s not.”

“He let me know we are family forever.  He made it clear I am father, too.”

Both just lay there with their arms around each other.

“What if we’d never decided to do this?  He would never have existed.  I can’t imagine that now.”

“Oh, I don’t think that was going to happen.  He was meant to be.  Exactly the way it happened.  And exactly now.”

They fell silent again.

Then Jacob whispered, “I’m going to be a father.”

Starla knew then it would all be right. The boy would have two incredible fathers.  She closed her eyes and thanked the universe for bringing her here, making her vampire, and giving her the life she’d always wanted.  She’d made her choices, and asked the universe to be kind.

Destiny and fate complied.

                   Fini, but…