Chapter Two

Rayvin stared at the neat stacks of oblong boxes, at the silhouettes of peacefully pregnant women on their covers, the pastel colours offering comfort to the user wanting to know the truth about her condition.

Why didn’t they ever consider the feelings of the woman who didn’t want to be pregnant?

The hushed footfalls of customers moving anxiously around her and the stringent odour of floor cleaner made her acutely self-conscious. There weren’t many people in the store at this hour of the evening, particularly after the holidays were over, but the absence of casual shoppers made it even more difficult to stand there and decide. It was easier to be anonymous in a crowd.

Rayvin missed the anonymity of the city almost as much as she missed her beautiful long, red hair. She wore what was left of it in a spiky pixie cut, with palmfuls of wax forced through its thick layers to keep it from clinging pathetically to her scalp or looking like a child’s ridiculous bedhead, but it stubbornly refused to grow any longer.

It hadn’t grown since Samhain.

Nor had she had her period.

The skin on the back of her neck crawled -- someone was looking at her. She glanced at the pharmacist, whose eyes slid away as he pretended to be filling out a form on his clipboard.

This would be her fifth—no, her sixth pregnancy test in two weeks. Probably. She felt as though she were losing count. The damn things showed negative every time, but she was still late and feeling...off. She’d last had her period at the beginning of October. And then she’d packed up her stuff, moved back to Talbot, to enter a worse hell than the one she’d run from in the first place.

Fucking vampires.

“It really shouldn’t be this hard to pick one,” she muttered under her breath. “Just grab one and go.”

Her hand hovered between the expensive digital model billed as the most advanced stick she would ever pee on, and the ultra-cheap no-frills brand she could have sworn was also on the shelves at the dollar store she’d visited not half an hour earlier. How accurate could it be, if the store had it for a buck?

After another moment’s indecision, she grabbed the mid-range box (the same brand she’d already used twice before) and headed for the register.

The cheerful plastic Christmas decorations grated on her nerves as much as the fluorescent lighting hurt her eyes. Fucking asshole, keeping her up all night with his megalomaniac plotting and planning, so that she slept through most of the day...

If she hadn’t made her doctor’s appointment for 8:30 in the morning, she’d still be in bed instead of yawning in the aisles of the one store in the area that opened before 6 am.

The days had grown shorter and shorter as winter had begun to settle in, making it easier for de Sade to keep her on his metaphorical leash. Rayvin refused to admit to herself that a part of her was growing tired of fighting and just wanted to give in. Seeing cheerful people, watching the delights of the season appear in product displays and window decor, and even the holiday-themed music piped over the store’s PA system were making her grind her teeth, but she held onto the anger. She made a split-second decision and turned toward the kitchenware section.

Anger was better than despair.

With anger, she got things done.

If she gave into the despair, she’d hole up in her house and never leave again.

She had to believe that there was still a way to stop the nightmare. Some way to kill de Sade, free the people he had under his control, and make things safe for Talbot. Otherwise, there was no point to any of this.

In the pit of her stomach, she knew that freedom probably meant death -- permanent, this time, for her almost-sister, Andrea. Her throat tightened at the thought. She hadn’t spoken with Andrea since she’d been turned by the bastard, hadn’t seen her since Andrea had helped de Sade to disrupt the ritual and take Grant from her. Could she even count on Andrea as an ally? Wouldn’t her loyalty now belong to her vampire master?

Rayvin found the knife display.

If Andrea’s heart was truly dead, then killing what passed for her body wouldn’t be murder, it would be giving her peace.

She wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but giving into the emotion might make her lose what little control she had left.

There were three sizes of butcher knife hung neatly by their handles. The largest hefted nicely in her grip. Its weight seemed equal to punching through the skin and bone of any target.

Suddenly, the lights went out.

Instinctively, Rayvin looked up, her heart hammering in her chest. The startled cries of her fellow shoppers stopped when emergency lights in the corners of the building automatically clicked on, but Rayvin knew they’d be screaming in moments.

She’d been here before.

Her fist tightened around the tough wooden handle of the blade.

A half-second later, a large and icy hand had covered hers.

“Now, what are you planning on doing with that?” De Sade’s smooth voice in her ear made her stomach lurch and her thighs tingle in a disconcerting, incongruous combination. “You know how I feel about the knives.”

“You made it clear when you stole all of mine.”

The vampire pulled her back against his chest, forcing her hand up to her neck, the blade secure in their joint grasp. The plastic rim protecting the sharp edge dug into the exposed skin between the collar of her coat and her scarf. “For your own safety, my darling, I assure you.”

Somewhere, in the back of the store, a shriek rose and died with a nauseating gurgle. There was a moment of shocked silence before the handful of shoppers who had paused in the blackout began to panic.

It was amazing how much noise ten or fifteen people could make in a big box store when they were scared to death.

Rayvin knew it was useless to struggle, but she tried anyway.

“Come now, this is your fault, you know,” the bastard chuckled into her ear. “If you’d only behaved as you were expected to, this wouldn’t be happening. My vampires would have left this place in peace. Instead, you chose to break the rules. You know the penalty for breaking the rules.”

“You sonofabitch,” Rayvin spat, trying to force her way out of his embrace. “Leave them alone!”

“Careful, now, Concubine. You’ll work this safety free, and then where will you be?” One long thumb, its nail manicured but clearly sharp, flicked casually at the blade protector. “The longer you struggle, the longer I will wait to send them away. How many do you want to die tonight?”

He hadn’t done this in days. Rayvin felt sick. “All right! Just stop them, please! I can’t let go of the damn thing unless you let go of me first!”

She felt him smile against the back of her head. “When will you finally accept the bond between us? When will you understand that I feel what you feel, that I sense your thoughts and come when your mind calls to mine? You gave yourself to me, freely. I own you. Whatever plan you had to whirl and strike at me when I ease my hold on your hand will fail. I can anticipate your every move, my dear.”

Rayvin closed her eyes. The horrified screams of innocent victims were echoing from the high ceilings. How many were dead already?

She could bide her time. There had to be a way.

With an effort, she relaxed her fingers.

“That’s my girl,” the vampire praised her. He kissed the tip of her ear, and she flinched. The butcher knife clattered to the floor. With one arm firmly around her shoulders, de Sade guided her away.

“I have to pay for the pregnancy test.” Her voice was low and flat, as lacking in emotion as she could make it. She was damned for letting him have so much power over her.

“It’s taken care of,” the bastard informed her, taking the little box and pocketing it. “They won’t be missing it tomorrow. You really don’t need that silly test. As I already told you, I can smell the changes in your body’s hormones. I am quite confident that you are breeding. I shall escort you back to your home while my family tidies this mess.”

Rayvin knew what was going to happen next. Jason, the vampire’s second in command and her would-be rapist, would do his little mind-control trick on the surviving shoppers and employees to erase all memory of the murders that he’d just committed with his girlfriend, Suzie. Maybe Andrea was part of it, too, and Matt; she didn’t know and she didn’t want to know. While Jason held everyone in thrall, Suzie would do a clean up of any blood spray and dispose of the bodies, bitching the whole time. They would have attacked the security room first, incapacitating the guard and removing the tapes so there was no other evidence that anything had happened.

Careful, planned, and tidy. De Sade’s ability to cover up the existence of vampires was meticulous, which helped to explain how he’d escaped discovery and annihilation for so long. The two or three people who had died would be added to the growing list of missing persons in Talbot, a list which had perplexed the police, alarmed the public, and led both local and national media to speculate on the mystery. It was true, the coven hadn’t fed on townspeople in a number of weeks in order to throw investigators off the track. Rayvin knew that the bastard wasn’t keeping his group in line for any altruistic reason—he simply wanted to keep their secret for as long as possible.

It royally sucked that the only two people Rayvin could have counted on for help were dead.

Andrea, first row in de Sade’s cheering squad, had attempted to drink Rayvin’s blood even after recognizing her as a friend.

And Grant... She’d had to convince him that vampires existed, and then when he’d finally believed her...the memory of those final nights made her want to curl up into a ball and weep.

But Rayvin Woods wasn’t one to curl up and cry when life got tough.

So Grant had chosen to run away, taken death by sunlight over an immortal existence of feeding from human beings. So he’d abandoned her to figure out a solution on her own. It wasn’t the first time she’d been betrayed by a man, and it likely wouldn’t be the last. She had tried to save him, and it had gone so ass-backwards that she could barely think about it without wanting to rage against the world. He hadn’t understood, idiot man, and taken the coward’s way out.

Worse things had happened to her.

The vampire had multiple holds over her. Extortion, guilt, and their apparent psychic connection were only some of his tricks. Rayvin knew she wasn’t stupid, or helpless. There had to be a way around him, somehow. It was only a matter of time before she found it.

Though, two weeks past her expected period, her time appeared to be running short.

A poster advertising a romantic movie involving sparkly, brooding vampires caught her glance as she exited the store, shepherded by her own personal undead bodyguard.

The rage and despair smouldering inside her flared suddenly with a rush of contempt for Hollywood’s trite portrayal of reality. Quite without meaning to, her energy unleashed itself, an invisible whip that uncoiled itself to lash at the poster with vicious power. The paper flew up and disintegrated in a burst of flames, leaving a faint crater-like impression in the wall behind it.

De Sade looked down at her, irritated. “Show some control, would you?”

Rayvin twisted away from his grip, marching ahead alone into the swirling snow and the darkness. “Yeah, right. Take a look in the mirror, control freak. You can’t leave me alone for five fucking minutes. Not even to go in the store.”

“You’re surprised by this? And how have you shown that you deserve my trust?” He was keeping pace with her as she approached her car. “If I knew that you weren’t going to try to run away, or try to find a way to finish me, then of course I would give you your privacy.”

She rammed the key into the door, hurting her fist on the cold metal. “Distance. Just give me thirty metres, and see if you can read my mind, then.” But you wouldn’t dare try, would you, asshole?

His body pressed against hers, sandwiching her against the vehicle door. She could feel the bulge in his crotch nestling between her buttocks. “I see no need to test the boundaries of our connection. Why should I, when our closeness is so delightful?”

Her teeth ground together as he nuzzled her neck. There was no logical reason why his cold lips should arouse her so much, but it was happening again, in the most illogical of places. If he chose to lower her pants, spread her legs, and take her right there in the parking lot, Rayvin knew she would let him. The knowledge was as nauseating as it was exciting, and she disgusted herself by wishing that he would do it.

Fight, Rayvin.

Deliberately, she bit her tongue. The pain was enough to jerk herself back to reality.

Behind her, the vampire inhaled sharply. “Why do you tempt me so, witch?” He growled, fisting his hand into her hair. “Do you really want to die so badly?”

A light coating of snow had already covered most of the car windows, but in the little space remaining, Rayvin could see bits of de Sade’s face. His features had morphed in response to the scent of her blood, though he’d managed to control his thirst while his coven had fed. His eyebrows had thickened into protruding ridges, his eyes glowed red, and his fangs glistened. She knew from experience how much tougher his skin would have become, and that his nails would have lengthened into talons.

“Go on,” she dared him, her chin high. “Bite me. Kill me. Turn me into a living nightmare, so I can finally tear out your throat with my bare hands.”

De Sade gripped her upper arms so tightly that her fingers began to tingle from lack of circulation. For a moment, she wondered whether he might actually do it.

“Your time will come,” he murmured, finally. He relaxed his hands, running his palms down the length of her arms. “After you’ve served me and my kind, you will join us, as I’ve already told you. I will not turn you so long as my babe is in your womb, now or in future. But do not press me, and do not think that I won’t enjoy punishing you.”

Rayvin shivered. “Your punishment is coming, too. If I am pregnant, it won’t be for long, I guarantee you.”

His eyes glittered dangerously. “If I have to tie you to a bed and have you spoon-fed for the duration, I will. I have survived for three centuries. Your threats are nothing.”

Snatching the key from her hand, the vampire whipped the door open and forced her into the vehicle.

Rayvin prayed that the test would be negative again. “I have an eight-thirty appointment at the women’s clinic, remember? You won’t be able to follow me to that. It’s over, de Sade.” She curled up in the passenger seat, looking away as the vampire settled into the driver’s side.

“We have already discussed that matter. You go, you have your pregnancy and health confirmed, and you return to your house or your studio. Fail to return and as much as it will pain me, your dear Andrea will be the one who suffers.” De Sade reached over to caress her cheek. “I will tie her to a tree in the woods myself, and let the sun have her. It’s an agonizing death, I can assure you.”

Would he do it? Rayvin was probably going to have to destroy what was left of her best friend in the end -- it was most likely that there wasn’t enough human left to be saved. But she would do it quickly, so Andrea wouldn’t suffer. Bastard though the vampire was, he’d never lied to her, and torture appeared to be one of his special talents.

What little she could do for her best friend, she would have to do it.

“I’ve already given you my word that I will go to the doctor, and come back.” She spat the words at him, thrusting her hands under her arms to warm them. “You’ve done enough to her already.”

* * * *

The oven mitt slipped off the stirrup as Rayvin wiggled into place on the examining table. She flinched a little when she lowered her bare calf onto the exposed steel surface.

Cold seemed to be following her everywhere.

“Whoops! Sorry about that, dear,” the doctor apologized. She leaned down to pick up the piece of quilted cloth, disappearing from Rayvin's view for a moment.

Rayvin stared at the ceiling, her hands cupping her still-relatively-flat belly, listening to the slight crackle of the thin paper gown, the hum of the fluorescent lights, and the creak of the doctor's chair as she straightened and rose to slip the mitt onto the stirrup. She’d already ripped off the bandaid provided by the nurse after her blood test, and the skin felt tender where the adhesive had been. Her mouth still tasted the last of her morning coffee, but it was becoming bitter, and she wished she had brought some gum. There was a vague ache at the back of her neck, a healing bumpy scar from banging against a protruding nail at some point in the last week or so; the lump annoyed her, even with the thin hospital-issue pillow cushioning her head. The room was warm enough, comfortable even when Rayvin was no longer fully dressed, but she became acutely aware of a slight breeze to her nether regions when the doctor lifted the sheet the nurse had used to preserve her modesty. Not that Rayvin really cared; as a practicing witch, she often worked in the nude whether indoors or out. Clothing tended to restrict her energy. But in such a vulnerable position, bottom bare to anyone who cared to enter the room, acquiescing to custom and covering up seemed more appropriate.

“Let's just have a feel around, shall we?”

Impersonal, non-latex rubber glove-tipped fingers began to gently explore her body. Rayvin continued to stare at the ceiling, adjusting her neck so the bruise hurt less. Her head still missed the weight and warmth of her long hair, pain in the ass though it had been; she missed having to flick it out of the way when she lay down, and the way it cushioned behind her. The ceiling stared impassively back at her, offering little in the way of inspiration or answers. Someone, the obstetrician or her capable nurse or her office decorator, had attached to the bland removable ceiling tiles a large poster showing a fuzzy striped kitten clinging tightly with two paws to a tree branch. The poster had the timeless caption: “Hang in there, baby!”

Indeed.

It was hard to believe that so much had happened in so little time. The days of November had begun to blur together. Talbot had been her place of last resort. She’d hoped that the isolated northeastern town of her childhood would give her a base to rebuild the wreckage of her life after a failed relationship and a devastating lawsuit. If she had had any other place to go, however...

Maybe she wouldn't be in the awkward position she now found herself.

She had returned to Talbot, knowing that many people still hated her there. Most of the citizens believed she had attempted to kill someone when she was just a teenager, although the courts determined she’d simply been a witness to Jason Lucas’s accident. The community’s golden boy had been paralyzed from the waist down, only months away from graduation, and all fingers pointed at her even after she’d been acquitted. At the time, Rayvin had only told her best friend Andrea what had really happened: that Jason had attempted to rape her, and in self-defence, her magick had thrown him over the side of the bridge onto a dried-up riverbed. But as the town’s outcast, she figured no one else was going to believe her side of the story. It was that incident which had fueled her desire to leave the small town for the city, vowing never to go back. She wished that there had been another alternative to coming home, ten years after the accident. Disaster had struck almost as soon as she had crossed back over the town limits—de Sade had been accidentally freed from the prison created magickally for him by another woman, a natural witch like herself. Cruel, perverted, insane, de Sade had immediately begun a siege on the community, selecting his first victims without care or regard for basic humanity. Feeding on pets and wild animals to rebuild his strength after months of near starvation, he'd then turned his attention to building a coven.

He called it his 'family'.

First he had attacked and transformed Rayvin's best friend and almost-sister, Andrea Renaud. His next 'recruit' had been Jason Lucas—the same man who had tried to rape Rayvin in high school. De Sade had selected an effective predator when he’d chosen Jason: Rayvin’s defensive magick had left Lucas with a spinal fracture and dead legs, but taken none of his arrogance or ruthlessness. Once he had been turned, he had regained the ability to walk, as well as his ability to torment the people around him.

After Andrea and Jason, four more individuals had quickly fallen prey to the master vampire’s appetite, and not just for the life blood that sustained him. De Sade had been quite honest about his intentions. After centuries of living in dark corners, pursued by vampire hunters, watching the world change around him, he desired an emergence of his species. He wanted power, and to gain it, he was determined to breed a race of vampire-human hybrids. Not just any human would do, however.

He wanted to mate with a woman with a specific talent, a special ability, or power.

It was magick that de Sade truly desired.

He wanted to have children with a witch.

De Sade’s experiment lacked any kind of sanity. His vision was to become a father of many hybrid children through his wife and his concubines, though the number of potential mothers depended on finding more witches, and the success of his current attempt to impregnate Rayvin. In his mind, twisted by who knew what horrors, the offspring of a witch and a vampire would have unprecedented abilities. He was adamant in his belief that if it worked, the baby would be able to live on blood alone. but would be impervious to the sun. The child would be able to perform magick, influence the minds of others, and would enjoy the longevity and resilience to disease that vampires possessed. Such a being would naturally rise to become a leader of the flawed human beings who had done such damage to the earth. If he could have many children, they would share in leading vampires and other supernatural creatures to a new hierarchy in the world.

Rayvin wondered, bitterly, whether he had considered the problem of future offspring. Would the hybrids also be fertile, or would they be sterile cross-breeds?

Knowing him as she did now, he likely didn’t care. If they lived forever, like him, what did it matter whether he became a grandfather?

In his grand vision, de Sade would be the head of the beast. No more hiding. No more being hunted. He would enjoy all of the privileges denied to him for centuries: riches, luxury, a constant supply of food, and servants to cater to his every whim.

It was an idea so fabulous that de Sade couldn’t understand how he hadn’t considered it before now. As far as he knew, no one else had done it, either.

His first target, a powerful witch named Charlotte Fanning, had managed to defeat him by collapsing the tunnel of a mine on his head. The key to the trap was a golden ankh charm, and once that key had been removed by some well-meaning workmen about twelve months later, de Sade had been freed. Charlotte was gone, away on her honeymoon, but due to return before the new year. De Sade planned to be ready for her with his undead welcoming committee. In the midst of assembling his coven and planning, he had discovered an acceptable substitute for Charlotte: Rayvin Woods. Though he preferred Charlotte for her midnight hair and tall stature—as he'd told Rayvin, time and again—gaining the short, curvy redhead as a concubine had given him a head-start on his main ambition. Once his future wife returned to Talbot, she would take her place at his side. The man she had already married was doomed to a slow and painful death.

The moment de Sade had revealed his plans to her, Rayvin had determined to resist and fight back. It had been bad enough when she realized that Andrea, her beloved foster-sister, had been taken by the vampire and made one of his own. Finding a way to stop the megalomaniac had become her main priority. She had to find a way to save Andrea by destroying de Sade. There was an old myth that Rayvin had found in her research—that by killing the vampire responsible, those he had turned would become human again. She didn’t know whether feeding on humans as Andrea had done would affect the potential cure. But she had to try.

It was that, or give Andrea her final end.

Rayvin’s life was filled with the cold, and with last resorts.

Until Charlotte returned, Rayvin was the only one who could do anything. She had sent an email to the Society for Hunters and Investigators of the Paranormal, pleading for help, but hadn’t heard back for some reason.

There was no one else to tell who might possibly believe her now. Grant had had trouble comprehending the reality, even when that bastard master vampire had attacked him outside of her house.

Grant...

As the doctor continued her exam, chatting pleasantly, Rayvin closed her eyes. She refused to allow a single tear to fall.

At first, encountering Grant Michaels when he had pulled her over on the highway had been a nightmare. He hated her, as much as any of Jason Lucas's supporters hated her. He had believed, like so many others in Talbot, that she had gotten away with trying to kill the favourite son of the town when they had all been in high school. But just as there had been no proof to hold the charges against her, there was also no proof that he had tried to assault her. Rayvin had had nothing to combat the rumours and lies. There would have been no benefit to telling the truth about her supernatural talents—the defensive magick that had protected her against Jason’s rape. She was aware that many people suspected her of possessing strange powers, but admitting it openly would simply have opened her to fresh suspicion. So when de Sade began his attacks immediately after she had returned to her hometown, Grant had automatically assumed that Rayvin was behind everything. He blamed her for the inexplicable collapse of a mine that ran under the main street, and the strange deaths of family pets. He had accused her, persecuted her, but in the course of their arguments and debates, he had come to respect her. After Andrea was attacked, he had offered sympathy. And when a few citizens of Talbot spoke against her, he had risen to the defense. Grant's revelation that he, too, had had a crush on her in high school had been a pleasant, though difficult to believe, surprise. But when de Sade attacked him, Rayvin hadn't hesitated to save him. The spark of friendship that she had accepted with so much difficulty that night had rapidly ignited into a blazing passion.

Though their relationship had hit a rough patch when he confessed that he didn't believe a vampire was on the loose in the area, despite his own experience, Grant had stepped up to the battle when Rayvin was lured and trapped by de Sade. If not for his timely intervention, Rayvin would have died. A man strong enough to admit when he was wrong, and to take action when needed, Grant had done his best to warn the community to be cautious, without causing anyone to doubt his sanity: he had suggested to the head of the police department that gang activity had increased, and recommended that citizens stay indoors or travel in groups. It was a warning that had little hope of effectiveness, given that it was Hallowe'en. Nevertheless, he had tried. And then, just when her hope was fading, Grant had come to her, to help her work a magick powerful enough to destroy de Sade, or at least delay him long enough for Rayvin to contact someone who could help.

And then everything had gone so horribly wrong.

Grant had been attacked again, barely surviving with his life. Badly, perhaps mortally wounded by one of the young vampires following de Sade—it had been impossible to say who—Grant had tried his best to protect her. In the end, as he lay dying, Rayvin had had to make a choice. A bargain, to save the man she loved from a fate worse than death.

She had chosen to go with de Sade, inviting the vampire into her home and sanctuary, in return for Grant’s release from the curse of becoming a vampire.

The centuries-old vampire had quickly proven to be a remarkable lover. The protective charm she had worked after his first attack on her prevented him from forcing himself, but strangely, she had responded immediately to his touch. She had thought it would be as simple as laying back and letting him use her body, but to her guilty astonishment, he had given as much as he received; she had been consumed by him and enjoyed it. He had been conscientious, and deliberate, skillful and receptive. And in the midst of the pleasure, de Sade had elicited from her words of commitment that he felt bound them forever as mates.

Their impromptu binding prevented him from hurting her, but it didn’t guard him from sensing her thoughts. It wasn’t mind-reading, directly. It was more that he could read her intentions, but she suspected that distance or proximity had something to do with it. There was a reason for de Sade to keep her close during his waking hours, exhausting her so thoroughly that she had no choice but to sleep like the dead while he was gone...feeding.

She thought, perhaps, that the binding had not been as complete as the vampire believed.

It was one of the few hopes that kept her going.

For with every affirmation she had whispered that night, with each of the vows she had gasped, unable to resist him in the sway of bodily sensations and the shocking difference between de Sade the coven leader and de Sade the lover, she had repeated the words, internally, for Grant. De Sade might believe that she had irrevocably bound herself to him, but her will remained her own. She could and did continue to fight.

If she was really pregnant, that would make it harder.

It was difficult enough to live with the memory of what she had done to him, to their budding relationship. If she was pregnant, it would be undeniable evidence of her betrayal.

She wished she had not fought with Grant the morning after they’d failed in the ritual spellwork to stop de Sade and his coven. She knew that he did not understand her reasons for cheating on him. But when faced with the choice of staying true to him while he became one of the undead, or giving herself to de Sade, who would then have Grant killed before his transformation to vampire was complete, there were no other options to consider. But she also knew de Sade to be somewhat of a trickster. Honest though he could be, he twisted words and embraced double meanings. Her only real hope of saving Grant from being turned into a vampire had been in the very act of giving herself and committing wholly to de Sade, save those final thoughts of the one with whom she was really meant to be.

De Sade didn’t know that even as she gave herself to him, she’d fought him.

In those moments of ecstasy while the vampire had control of her body, Rayvin had attempted to use the energy created by the sex to cast a spell that would give Grant enough strength to survive or to die, to do what was needed so that the vampire would not win. She had worked her will and released the energy on their combined climax, praying and appealing to the universe to help her.

But it had backfired.

Her magick hadn’t worked. Instead, Grant Michaels, a good and honest man, had become a creature of darkness, a parasite doomed to survive on the blood of others.

He hadn't forgiven her for any of it, and after their terrible fight, she knew he had given himself to the sun. Choosing a second death over what life remained, he had burned when the transformation had completed itself. Somewhere, alone on the wind, his ashes drifted. And Rayvin was left alone, the second wife or concubine or slut of a perverted beast in human form.

A beast who knew how to please her.

Was she truly carrying his child? A few more moments, and she’d know.

If so, she had to determine a plan. A way to survive. Somehow, Rayvin had to get away from him, shelter herself from de Sade so that she couldn’t produce the monster that the vampire had planned. The very idea of carrying a hybrid baby was terrifying. What if it ate her from the inside out? It had taken her days after the first negative pregnancy test to accept the truth that she might be carrying something -- that the negative might have been false. And then she’d had to wait over a week for this appointment with the doctor. What if modern mythology were to be believed, and the length of the pregnancy was abnormally quick? In another month, her body might lack the strength to fight de Sade at all. The notes her mother had left in the family Book of Shadows said nothing about human-vampire hybrid pregnancies. It was possible in her too-short life that her mom had never run into this kind of...situation. At any rate, de Sade already claimed that she was expecting. Evil, mad, disgusting though he was, Rayvin knew that he would keep his word. As soon as her pregnancy was confirmed, he would likely keep her under lock and key until she was ready to deliver. She could try to run during the day, but with the network of vampires he was building, she would be caught too quickly. Her plan for escape would have to be carefully considered.

If only she had not come back to Talbot...

Did it really matter anymore?

Andrea, Grant, all those innocent people whose lives had been irrevocably altered, they would still have suffered.

If she could, Rayvin would make sure that justice was served for them. That the balance was restored. And she would destroy the hybrid she was incubating. She would not produce a baby for that bastard. Half vampire, half human, with the powers of magick—it would be an abomination. Unnatural. She would destroy it first.

And she would find a way to destroy de Sade, even if it killed her.

“Well, the blood test confirmed it, and everything is looking good inside. It’s still really early, though—it doesn’t always happen, a woman conceiving right before she menstruates, but that’s life for you. You’re just one of the lucky ones.”

Rayvin sat up and straightened the paper gown, as Dr. Driver removed and disposed of her gloves. “I want to schedule an abortion. Right away.”

The plump woman made a mark on the chart and smiled compassionately at Rayvin. “That’s not a problem. You’re still in the first trimester, there’s plenty of time. I’ll go and check the schedule. You may have to wait a few days, is that okay?”

Rayvin tried to return the smile, and to her relief, it came easily. She tried it again. “Yes. That’s fine.”

“I’ll get you some information on the outpatient procedures here at the Women’s Clinic. You should ask for a friend to come with you on the day of your appointment, you might be a little woozy and sore afterwards.”

Rayvin frowned. “Maybe I could just take a taxi.”

Driver made another note. “Counseling is available for you as well, before and after the procedure. Not everyone needs or takes advantage of it, but it’s there for you.”

Rayvin listened closely to the rest of the doctor's description on what to expect.

It wasn’t until she was dressing alone in the examining room that the memory hit her, without warning.

A sleepover, when she and Andrea were both eleven years old.

They’d been playing a game with candles and a bowl of water, divining their futures.

For Andrea, every glob of wax that hit the water and made a shape represented a baby in some way. She’d always wanted children, as many as she could.

She’d been told that it would be impossible for her to carry a baby when she was only nineteen. Rayvin remembered the tearful phone call she’d gotten in her city apartment, and unable to afford the trip back, her only comfort to her friend had been a card in the mail.

What would Andrea say?

Was there enough human being left in the body of her friend to feel any kind of sympathy, or anger?

Rayvin fought back a catch in her throat as she finished putting on her socks. This was the kind of situation that no woman ever wanted to face alone. She needed her friend now more than ever, but if de Sade got wind of her plans, it was all moot.

Somehow, instinctively—maybe it was just hope—Rayvin thought Andrea would still understand.

The question was how to be able to talk to her without the bloodsucking boss finding out.

That sleepover came back to mind, the little details hovering just out of focus. Rayvin closed her eyes, frowning... Yes, that had been the weekend when they’d decided to form their own little club, and they’d come up with secret names for themselves... She dug her phone out of her purse, told herself she was insane, and called Andrea’s number.

“Hi! This is Andrea Renaud. Leave your message, would you puh-lease?”

The cheerful message made Rayvin smile a little.

“Hey, it’s Fish.” Rayvin’s voice, lowered and still gravelly, hopefully sounded different enough from her normal tone to throw the other vampires off the track. She crossed her fingers that de Sade, in his resting mode, couldn’t hear her or wouldn’t register her words, and that Andrea would recall the code they’d come up with. “Remember the magic ears? They work at three and a half.”

She hung up the phone.

There was the very real possibility that she’d just done something really stupid.

If Andrea could remember the rest of the code, in which basic facts were reversed—‘magic ears’ referred to their old walkie-talkies, and ‘three and a half’ meant seven o’clock—they might be able to talk quickly that night.

And that was only if the message wasn’t intercepted and erased. Andrea hated voicemail, sticking with her answering machine instead. Rayvin had to cross her fingers and hope that her friend got it first.

All of that was predicated on Andrea still being alive, too. Rayvin didn’t want to acknowledge that other fear, but it lurked just out of sight. Andrea might have chosen to kill herself, or been killed by one of the others, most likely Jason. Or it was possible that she’d crossed further into the vampire world since she’d written that letter, after Grant had disappeared.

Rayvin started regretting her phone call, but what was done was done.

She picked up her coat and prepared for another day at her studio, doing research into all the fascinating ways of killing vampires.

And making money, she reminded herself. Need to get the money, honey.

It was desperation which had forced her to pick up on starting her photography business, when her real focus should have been on eliminating the vampire and his coven. She needed money to live. If de Sade knew just how broke she was, it would be one more way for him to find a hold on her. She wouldn’t just be a vampire’s slut, she would become a kept woman.

Now she felt nauseous.

At least, after several days of intense labour, the studio was ready to open. Rayvin had kept the decor simple, in accordance with her budget and her timeline. While it had been her intention when she first arrived in Talbot to open the business, after Samhain it had become her cover story for the work she was doing against the vampire coven. She had taken all of her magickal supplies there, set up her altar in a spare room on the second floor of the building, placed fresh wards, and used the computer there in conjunction with her Book of Shadows to search for some way to free her foster-sister and kill the vampire. But a quick glance at her chequing account balance after her debit card was declined at the grocery store at the beginning of November had forced her to reexamine her priorities. She couldn’t fight a vampire if she was starving or sick. The investment she had made in equipment and materials had to show some kind of return, and quickly.

Unfortunately, that meant spending more money from her meagre savings for business cards, pens, posters, brochures, and signage. She transferred three-digit figures that nearly made her cry, in order to write cheques for newspaper and radio ads in both official languages. She understood the necessity of spending money to make money, but it still worried her.

She was walking a razor’s edge between failure and success, in all things.

But at least now everything was ready and she could begin paying her bills again. The studio was clean, painted and stained, well-lit, and welcoming. Her lighting equipment and backdrops were organized and ready. A few families new to the area had already booked her for portraits of their children as Christmas presents, mostly walk-ins who had seeing Rayvin working in her storefront.

Whether the main body of citizens in Talbot would be as welcoming and supportive of her business was another matter. And it shouldn’t have bothered her, considering what she was really focusing on, but in some small part of her, it did.

Thus far, no rocks had been thrown through her windows. That fear came into Rayvin's mind every morning, when she made the short drive with a load of supplies to the studio, and every evening after she had locked up and gone home. She trusted that the adults who despised her still would not stoop to such a level, but their children were another matter. Already, she had overheard loud, immature voices repeating the lies that were over ten years old as they passed her on the street. It might only be a matter of time before that behavior devolved into vandalism, though it might not happen at all. Rayvin had worked some spells to protect the property already, but she had little energy to spare to protect herself from the malevolent words of ordinary people. Not while she was laboring alone during the day to find a way to finish de Sade, and setting up a livelihood to keep her in food and shelter. And definitely not as her pregnancy progressed, the little parasite within her sapping what energy she had left after the day’s obligations were met.

Staying up for most of the night with the bastard vampire, satisfying her body's inexplicable desire for him, didn't help either.

Even though it was far too early for her body to feel the fetus inside her, Rayvin felt heavier as she crossed the parking lot. The doctor hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary, so it was probably just her psyche playing tricks on her. Physically, nothing had changed since that morning. It was strange how a simple confirmation of facts could make her feel so different. It was confusing.

Sitting in her car, Rayvin started the engine, and then just stared out the windshield, examining her emotions.

There was the fear, and the self-loathing.

Sorrow. Grief.

Numbness. Yes, she had felt that in the doctor’s office as she’d come to terms with the reality of the situation. It was still there, that sense of shock. It was mixed with uncertainty. She’d never had an abortion before, and if she was going to be completely honest with herself, it scared the bejesus out of her. But she didn’t have much of a choice, it was what it was: a definitely, completely, unwanted pregnancy. Whether it would put her life in danger, she didn’t want to wait to find out.

Underneath the turmoil, deep within, there was still a bit of hope. Rayvin caught a glimpse of her reflection in the rearview mirror: eyes big, skin pale and drawn, lips pressed tightly together. Not the face she was accustomed to seeing. If she over-thought it, she might believe that that small kernel of hope was just a pretense, the remains of her psychological armour trying to protect her from a total breakdown. After all, what did she really have to go on?

De Sade had thwarted everything she’d tried so far to kill him.

Garlic—he’d laughed in her face when she’d sprayed him with a garlic and holy water mix, dumped a bowlful of shredded garlic on his head, looped a string of whole cloves around his neck, and shoved a mash of it into his mouth, using her own tongue. Her own mouth had burned for hours afterward, but on him? Not a blister.

Holy water—by itself, mixed with garlic, mixed with peppermint, sprinkled or splashed, it just made a mess. Maybe it had to be blessed by someone other than a slightly agnostic priest, in which case Rayvin would have to travel an hour to get some.

Beheading—de Sade had removed all of her stupid knives. She’d have to stop off at the store and buy more for her kitchen. There was always the chance of catching him at an opportune moment, if she could control her thoughts long enough.

Stake through the heart—yeah, okay then. If she couldn’t knife him, it was damn certain that she wouldn’t be able to stake him, either.

She shook her head disgustedly. There had to be some other way, something she hadn’t found yet that Hollywood hadn’t corrupted and was based on someone’s real experiences. The difficulty was separating the two.

If only the Society would get back to her... They had people who dealt with these beings on a regular basis, if not daily.

Behind her vehicle, someone honked their horn, clearly impatient for a spot close to the health unit’s doors.

Rayvin sighed and put her vehicle into gear. Tempting though it was to just drive out of town, there was no one else to do the job.

“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” she intoned softly.

* * * *

The aircraft accelerated, pressing Siobhan firmly into her economy-class seat. She closed her eyes to enjoy the rush, letting her grin spread across her face. It wasn’t as thrilling as flying under her power, her great stone wings carrying her as high as she could go into the clouds, but she enjoyed plane rides nonetheless. The machine was doing all the work, and she could still savour the view from the window seat.

She felt Marcy’s hand clenching on the armrest between them. Opening her eyes again, she angled her head to the left to gaze fondly at her partner, reaching down to cover the wood-nymph’s long brown fingers with her own. Treefolk preferred their feet on solid ground, although Marcy didn’t mind flying on Siobhan’s back now and then when the situation called for it, or if the weather was particularly cooperative. They’d seen more than one glorious sunset from the air when their work took them to isolated pockets of the world. Carrying her love aloft was one of her greatest joys, even if Marcy didn’t completely share in the feeling.

“It’ll be good to see your dad again, once we get there.” Siobhan prompted, trying to take her girlfriend’s mind off the departing runway. “It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it, Em?”

Marcy’s jaw worked. She slumped down a little in her seat, shifting her long legs in the narrow space so her body could turn toward Siobhan’s. “Face to face, yes. Most of the time we just email or talk on the phone. It’s just easier that way.”

“Maybe, once we get to the rendez-vous, I should just wait outside.”

“No.” Marcy brushed Siobhan’s cheek. “It’s a professional meeting. It’s not like John Richmond can’t be civil for that.”

“I make things difficult for you, don’t I?” Siobhan asked, softly. She focused her attention on Marcy’s nails, running her own manicured thumb over their uneven edges. “Maybe if you weren’t with me...”

“I wouldn’t be with anybody. And I’d be miserable.” Her lover’s dark face, the colour of coffee with cream, gently pushed into her vision. “If wood-nymphs aren’t reproducing fast enough, that’s not my fault. When and if I’m ready to have a baby, there are plenty of donors out there. It’s just that I know he and my mother wanted to be grandparents a while ago, and now it’s just him.”

“He thinks you robbed your mom of the chance to hold her grandchild.” Siobhan’s voice thickened and her vision blurred. “Or that I did.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re lying.” Siobhan smiled a little, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “I can always tell.”

“Well, it’s not as if he’s entirely open with his own emotions. It’s like he’s petrified wood or something.” Marcy put her arm around Siobhan, and the little blonde leaned comfortably against her partner’s shoulder. “I thought maybe retirement would mellow him out a bit, but it’s not like I’ve made time to go and see him, either. At least we do communicate.”

“What do you think the chances are that this Rayvin Woods thing is a bust?” Siobhan couldn’t help the hope in her voice. “I mean, I know it will suck if it’s another wasted trip, but it’ll be worth it if you can have a good talk with your dad.” She felt Marcy’s chest move with her sigh, and felt the woman’s lips press against the top of her head.

“I’m not sure yet how solid the lead is, but every piece of the puzzle we follow gives us another one.”

“Your body is tensing again. The files can wait for a while, can’t they?” With one smooth nail, Siobhan traced the threads in Marcy’s denim jeans. “We’re going to be on the run from the minute we touch down, this is the last bit of peace we’re going to have.”

The wood-nymph tightened her arm around her girlfriend. “Sleep, if you want. I’m not going anywhere. I just want to read through what I brought on the plane, see if I’m missing anything we need to know. There are too many holes in the reports, it’s driving me crazy. We only have half of the story. I like a cliffhanger as much as you, but at some point, I need the answers.”

In response, Siobhan moved away and tilted her seat back. “Okay. Wake me up if you need me, then.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t, Em,” Siobhan told her. “I feel guilty that I’m not as dedicated as you are. I’m just skeptical. We’ve never heard of this woman before, we haven’t got much to go on, but it’s better than nothing at all.”

She settled into her corner, watching the slender black woman unfold the table from the back of the seat in front of her, pulling from her carry-on several time-worn folders thick with sheafs of paper and sticky notes, a handful of pens and highlighters, and a half-used yellow legal pad. The wood-nymph preferred old-school note-taking over battery-powered tablets, citing the latter as unreliable and prone to breakage, but Siobhan suspected it was really the comfort of skin on pulp that her lover craved. Marcy used the computer technology that the Society provided, but given the choice, she always went back to her roots.

There had been time to kill before their flight. Time enough, at least, for a quick session of love-making in their dingy hotel room. Marcy had come to her immediately after booking their tickets, her eyes excited for the next leg of their journey, determined to catch up to their prey and end him once and for all. As much as Siobhan wouldn’t have minded joining the mile-high club, she sensed that it could wait for a celebratory trip later on, after the monster was dust in the wind and their mission was finally over. As much as the sex was urgent and tension-relieving, there had been a few lovely moments in the bed when time felt as though it was standing still for them.

Siobhan felt her body warming at the memory.

Marcy’s heated kisses tracing a path along her skin, still moist from the shower. Her long, brown fingers running through the length of Siobhan’s hair, guiding the Irishwoman’s body to lie cross-wise on the bed so her hair could hang over the edge, a golden waterfall pulling gently on her scalp as her chin lifted and her neck arched under her lover’s ministrations.

Although Siobhan and Marcy knew each others’ bodies, it seemed like each encounter was as beautiful as the first. Marcy’s lips on her collarbone, her tongue gently caressing the contours of her body, set her skin aflame. Siobhan found Marcy’s hand and matched their palms together, interweaving their fingers while she pressed up against her lover for her turn in giving pleasure. Her damp blonde hair fell around them in a curtain, a bright shield against the shadows, a secret place in which to nuzzle lips and murmur soft words.

Siobhan shifted in her aircraft seat, now acutely aroused by her recollections. Marcy had been incredible, perhaps because they hadn’t had the whole night for each other. As much as she wanted to take her time, savouring the curve of her wood-nymph’s slender calves and strong thighs under her fingers, Marcy’s pleas to hurry had swayed her into submission. But then, it never took much persuasion for Siobhan to lose herself in the love-making. The heat between her legs, and the taste of her flesh were manna to her soul. Working her tongue gently over the other woman’s folds, teasing the quivering mound with rhythmic strokes, her own need building mercilessly and her body moving in time to her lover’s cries, Siobhan felt as though a light was shining through her skin and pulling them into one boundless creature, all round and soft, arms and legs, breasts and lips. When Marcy came, shuddering and gasping, she moved softly to clasp the taller woman in her arms, until Marcy was ready to finish what she’d started. And then it was Siobhan’s turn again to be guided on the path, licked and caressed to ecstasy. She wanted to make it last. Oh, how she wanted to play with the joy, holding off on the pleasure until it was unbearable, but they’d had a deadline, so she’d allowed Marcy to drive her quickly to an orgasm that was no less shattering.

They’d seen death together, she and Marcy. They’d been able to save people, but too often, they came too late to stop the ending of a life because of a vampire. Perhaps that was part of their bonding, that awareness of mortality. Technically, neither of them were immortal. Simply long-lived. But because the end could happen so suddenly, without warning no matter how prepared the vampire hunter—or anyone—could be, they’d made an unspoken pact to express their mutual love whenever possible, knowing that every time could be the last time. It made for incredible sex, but it also felt like every embrace was a way of saying ‘good-bye’. A lengthy farewell, holding off that moment of parting that they both knew to be inevitable. It probably wasn’t entirely healthy to live that way, but it was the only way they knew.

Siobhan heard pages flipping and was tempted to open her eyes. Instead of watching Marcy work, she turned the other way and concentrated on the stars visible beyond the wing of the plane.