Chapter 5

The dream always started the same.

Aiden was sitting on a blue blanket on a brown, sandy beach holding his female, Natalie, in his arms. The lake's waves calmly lapped against the shore. She leaned back against his chest as they talked quietly, watching the setting moon's reflection on the water. It was warm, but a nice breeze kept their skin cool. She said something funny, and he laughed. Being with her made him feel happy for the first time in his life.

He brought his hands down to her swollen belly. His babe was growing in there, and he couldn't wait to meet the kid. They had spent hours upon hours talking about what the babe would look like. Whether it would be more vampire than human. They talked about names, but they were pretty much at an impasse on that one. They were going to wait and see what the babe looked like, and go from there. He was excited by life.

A coyote howled in the distance as he gently rubbed her belly. She put her hands over his, and tilted her head back for a kiss. As his hands traveled over her swollen belly and her lips meld with his, he immediately got rock hard. It seemed the bigger she got, the sexier she was. She had all sorts of names for herself—“hippo” and “beached whale” being her two favorites. To him, she was nothing short of a goddess.

She sighed softly as he kissed her. He gently removed her shirt and laid her back on the blanket. He removed his own shirt, and then kissed her full breasts, careful not to put any of his weight on her. The baby was due in a couple of weeks, and it seemed that every time he laid his eyes on her breasts, they were just a little bit bigger. He kissed her belly, and was rewarded with a kick in the kisser by the baby. They laughed, and he removed the rest of their clothing. He was in love with his female, but also completely awed, as well as in love, with the miracle she carried within her.

He then lay back next to Natalie and kissed her deeply, running his fingers through her hair. He felt her hands exploring the hard plains of his body, and he loved every second of it. His female, his Natalie, could get him cranked up with just a look of those gray eyes. Bring in her hands, and man, he was TNT.

A few minutes later, she clamored on top of him, straddling him. Making love had almost become a game of Twister, both having to contort their bodies around her belly to make lips meet, to bring skin to skin. They managed quite nicely, he thought.

He watched her white skin glow in the moonlight as she rocked back and forth on him. He loved watching her as they made love. She was beauty beyond measure.

"I love you, Aiden," she said quietly.

"You are my existence," he said back. He always felt that "I love you" was never adequate to describe his true feelings for her. It barely scratched the surface of how he felt. He was happy for the first time in his four hundred plus years. He was whole. He felt like nothing could touch them, nothing could ever come between them simply because their love was so strong.

It was a beautiful dream, up to that point.

All of a sudden she gasped in pain. She stopped moving and held her hand to her breast. She looked down in shock as crimson flowed from between her fingers. She gasped again, crying out, grabbing her side. She looked down at her hand, more blood flowing from her.

Unable to speak, pain lanced her face. He tried to reach for her, but he was paralyzed. He simply couldn't move. He lay there helpless as she cried, and holes appeared all around her chest, her sides, everywhere but her swollen belly. It was as if there was an invisible knife stabbing her. She cried out in pain as he screamed and fought his invisible bonds. His eyes stung. A moment later, blood flowed from her like a sieve. He could see that she was dying, even as she tried to stop the flow with her hands. But it was coming from too many sources.

He screamed her name, his tears flowing freely now. He jerked and twisted, feeling rage and pain flow through his veins. No matter how hard he fought, he simply couldn't move. She looked down at him one last time, her face serene and calm. He knew what was going to happen and he tried to fight harder, tried to reach up to help her. If he could just get to her, he could help her. Her hands dropped from her body, the blood flowing, and she simply disappeared.

Aiden woke in a cold sweat, tears streaming down his face, his breath coming in shallow gasps, his hands shaking. He wiped the sweat and tears from his face with his hands. The dream. That fucking dream. It always left him wrecked, as if he wasn't shattered enough.

He took deep breaths to try to calm himself, which only made his lungs hurt. He looked to see if he had woken Holly. She wasn't in the room.

The irony of the metaphoric dream wasn't lost on him. Natalie had died two weeks before she was due with their babe. She had been stabbed to death. And there wasn't a fucking thing he could do about it then because as a vampire, he had been trapped indoors by the sun, fully incapacitated.

He remembered searching for her once the sun had dipped below the horizon. He remembered the sinking feeling he had when he had finally smelled her blood in that alley. The pain that had lanced his chest as he looked at the puddle, knowing no one could survive such a blood loss. He recalled the desire to eat his gun just so he could be with Natalie, a desire that had never left him. For the time it was curtailed by their son Robert's needs. God, he loved that boy. It was his only tie to Natalie and the happiness they had shared.

As Aiden tried to get a handle on himself, he wondered how many more times his subconscious was going to cough up that dream and reinforce the pain and anger that seemed to flow through his veins, not to mention reminding him of the biggest fail of his life.

After a while, he was able to go back to sleep.