“I can’t leave you, Sebastian,” I said holding on to him.
“Save yourself and our child.” He passed his hand over my hair and it was the first time I felt his hand tremble. I looked into his eyes, they were wavering about, as if he was thinking beyond this moment. When Samantha turned for a second to acknowledge a vampire guest, and give her an air kiss, Sebastian passed his cool hand over my stomach and looked at me, then dropped his eyes away from me.
His hand felt warm. It had never felt that way before. I turned to him and I thought I saw a tear. I knew what that meant. He would never see me again.
My heartbeat accelerated. I became anxious and my mind drifted. What will I do without Sebastian in my life? He had been everything to me. He was the only one that made sense to me and kept me sane. I knew he loved me and I thought he would never leave me.
Leaning my head to the side and laying it on his chest, with my hand holding on to his muscled arms, he took my hand and placed it in Ryan’s hand. “Take her,” he said his voice choked. “We can’t be together. It was a stupid idea to think I could be with a mortal. You are not good for me, Zoey, and I’m not good for you. Can’t you see it won’t work? You have to be with one of your kind.”
“I am one of you,” I said resisting.
Ryan glanced at Sebastian and looked at me and said, “We have to go.” His voice composed and determined.
“Go with him, Zoey. Be happy. My car, jet, and driver are waiting to take you and everyone back to Seattle. You won’t have any problems from her.”
“That’s what you said before, Sebastian. How will I live without you? You will forget me.” And he touched my face and closed his eyes. I will never forget him. I turned around and headed to the foyer with Ryan.
“Go with her, Lauren and Terry. Take care of Zoey and my baby,” Sebastian said as he leaned in and whispered to Lauren through the shouts and whispers of the crowd surrounding him wishing him well.
I looked back to see Samantha surrounded by her ghastly friends as she smiled and embraced them as if she was a blushing young bride waiting to be taken to her virgin bed of white sheets.
“I will,” Lauren said as he watched at Samantha. “She makes my skin crawl,” he said to Terry.”
“If she frightens you, what do you think she does to me,” Terry said taking Lauren’s hand and marching through the crowd of onlookers with Ryan waiting at the door with me still watching Sebastian.
Robbie turned to speak to Sebastian.
“Will you be alright, Sebastian?” Robbie questioned. “If you say the word, I’ll come back to get you.” Sebastian glanced at Ann who never left Robbie’s side and held on tight to his suit coat. Her eyes told Sebastian all he needed to know and that Ann feared for Robbie’s life and she too was pregnant and didn’t relish having to raise young werewolves alone.
“I’m a vampire,” Sebastian said trying to gather a smile in the midst of his heartache and mine. “What can Samantha do to me she hasn’t already done? Just take care of Zoey. Help her to forget me. Please remind Zoey I did everything for her and our baby,” I heard him say.
Then Samantha after hearing her name turned and pushed away her crowd of vampires and humans to march over to Sebastian and take his place beside him. Tears formed in my eyes and I couldn’t help but let them flow. Sebastian raised his head high when Samantha looked back at me with a smirk. Then he took her hand and she led him through the middle of the joyous vulgar room.
Ryan stood at the door and the doorman opened it, and when all of us had walked into the cold dark foggy night, the door closed behind us, leaving us standing on the stone pavement under a portico waiting for the arrival of the limo that brought us here.
Looking up, it appeared darker than usual and the moon somehow disappeared out of sight behind a once cloudy sky. Maybe there were stars up there, and maybe the tears reigning down my cheeks were causing me not to see clearly. Everywhere I looked it appeared dark but I knew it wasn’t because there had been lamps along the driveway.
It was that dead emotion that came over me that shrouded me in the darkness, and the thought that I would feel this way forever as long as I didn’t have Sebastian in my life.
The chill of the night had left my body. I felt nothing. I didn’t feel Ryan’s hand holding mine. I didn’t hear him saying something to me. There was a numbness that had taken hold of me and covered me like a blanket.
I was a wreck and now I was pregnant with a vampire’s child and no husband.
“You will be fine, Zoey, as soon as we get away from this cursed place. Give it a few days and you will be a new person. You will have forgotten all of this,” Ryan said. I turned to him and glared at him after hearing his voice for the first time since I stood outside of the mansion.
What he had said to me didn’t make any sense. How does he know how I feel? I looked up at him with a blank stare. The car finally came and the driver drove around and stopped at the steps. We climbed into the limo and the rest of my family climbed in with me. I say my family because they were all I had now.
Ryan glanced at Robbie. “Just wait until I tell the press and the guys at the station house what I just experienced. The guys in my station-house thought I was crazy,” Ryan had a look of exhilaration over his face. He was smiling and talking fast, “well I thought so too, but it looks like that’s not the case,” he said his eyes full of excitement. He reached for a bottle of liquor and poured him a tall glass. His hands shook as he placed it to his mouth. We turned and looked at him.
“You can’t do that, Ryan,” Robbie said.
“What the fuck do you mean? I have to tell someone.”
“You can’t do that not just because of me, but because of Zoey.” I looked to Ryan. He had to make that decision on his own. “Zoey is pregnant,” Robbie said.
“I just thought that was a joke. I thought Sebastian wanted Zoey out of that hellish place. It can’t be. How can that be?” Ryan said his face searching around from Zoey to Ann to Terry to Lauren and back to Robbie. “You mean to tell me that it’s true?” Ryan questioned me with a smile and then his smile turned downward. His eyes narrowed and then shut for a second. He put his head down to his fist and shook his head in disbelief.
“Do you know what it will do to all of us? Once the humans realize that we exist they will find some way to destroy us,” Lauren said holding on to Terry’s hand.
“Some of your kind need destroying,” Ryan raised his voice to Lauren. All eyes turned to
Ryan. Terry glared at him and I couldn’t help but notice her incisors were longer than usual. Lauren touched her arm and she turned to him and gave him a small closed smile.
“But how do you determine which ones should live or die,” Robbie said his voice dry, his expression still and hard. “Is it Terry and Lauren, or me, and perhaps Zoey’s baby you think should meet this fate? And by whose hands, yours?”
I listened as Robbie presented Ryan a dilemma. He couldn’t answer that question. Only he knew which he would choose and for now he wouldn’t say.
Ryan watched at us and decided to pour himself another drink, and when we arrived at the airfield to depart for Seattle, Robbie had to take Ryan off over his shoulder.
As we departed the limo and Robbie was holding Ryan, he said to us, “Maybe I should kill him now and save us a lot of trouble.”
“You can do that,” Ann and I said as if a chorus. Robbie stopped and looked at Ann.
“Tell me why not. Didn’t you just hear him? He fancy himself some kind of vigilante who plans to rid the world of beings not like himself.”
“But you aren’t a killer,” Ann said.
“I used to be.”
“Don’t talk about that Robbie. It will just make you sad. You know you never killed anyone who didn’t try to kill you.” He looked at Ann and walked on to the jet and we walked in and took our seats.
“How do you know that, Ann? I had a life before I met you,” he said and his forehead furrowed and his voice cooled. Ann touched his arm and his face smoothed out.
“I know you. I couldn’t love a man like you if I thought you were a natural killer,” Ann said.
“I’m not a man,” Robbie said turning his seat to face Ann. At least I wasn’t always one. I was a werewolf foremost. I knew little of being a man until I met you.”
Robbie placed his large hand over Ann’s small one and his smile widened and grew large. I never knew he had such beautiful white teeth and when he smiled I knew then why Ann fell in love with him. His eyes grew warm and lightened and you could see the gentleness in those grey eyes.
After Robbie looked and saw that Ryan would be sleeping through the trip he said, “We have to watch him. We should monitor him for the sake of all of us here, especially since you don’t want me to do anything. I could save us a lot of trouble in the future if you just let me...”
“I don’t want it, Robbie,” I said looking at Robbie and Ann who sat across from us.
“Just how do we do that?” Terry questioned irritated and looking down at Ryan sleeping soundly unaware of the discussions concerning his life and possibly his death. “I was planning on going on my honeymoon.” Terry glanced at Lauren with a sly smile.
“I didn’t know you went on honeymoons,” Ann said. Terry shook her head and smiled, “you don’t know a lot of things. I guess you wondered how a vampire and a human could have a baby. Now that’s something for you to think about Ann, but don’t hurt your head.” And she took Lauren’s hand and headed in the back with Lauren trailing behind her like a child behind his mother.
“Well, if I can’t have a honeymoon we should start now don’t you think?” Terry said. And she and Lauren ducked into the sleeping compartment and locked the door.