“I know what you’re thinking, Sol, but get it out of your head. Vincent has no idea where Avery is. She’s safe from him so you shouldn’t go looking for trouble.” Curry knows me so well. Sometimes a little too well.

“I’m not going looking for trouble.” I won’t be the one with a problem because I won’t be the one to die. “I’m simply going to introduce that bastard to his true death.”

“Stop and think about this before acting out irrationally,” Curry says. I’m sure he’s thinking of my safety but he above anyone else should understand my reasoning.

I’ll give it the same amount of consideration he did when he made the decision to run a stake through Marsala’s chest. “There’s nothing irrational about wanting to protect my agápe. Didn’t you do the same when you killed Marsala?”

“Marsala was an imminent danger to my wife and children.”

I’m immediately pissed. I won’t allow him to play the marriage card and make my relationship with Avery seem less important because he has chosen to observe a mundane tradition. “So Avery deserves less protection because we aren’t joined in matrimony according to human law?”

He’s holding his hands up defensively. “I would never suggest that Avery deserves less. I’m only pointing out that Marsala was not going to stop until she killed Chansey so she could have me and the babies. My only choice was to kill her.”

He only had to think about this for one second to understand my predicament. “So please understand that I have no choice but to kill Vincent because he won’t stop looking for Avery until he has her back in his clutches. You have no idea the torture she suffered by his hand. I know everything she endured and trust me. The world would be a better place without him.”

“I think we all agree that he needs to die but I tend to side with Curry on the issue. She is safe from Vincent for now so you have to leave it alone. It’s too risky. He and a large number of vampires are desperate to have her back. I don’t dare to imagine what might happen if you found him and things didn’t go well.” I’m a little hurt to hear Sebastian admit he has so little faith in my abilities. “You have an agápe to consider. You can’t protect her if Vincent kills you.”

I’m left with a different feeling when I consider Avery’s fate if things didn’t end well for me.

Curry’s grinning. “And speaking of protection. I’m feeling certain you didn’t use any with Avery this morning when you completed your bond with her.”

Oh, shit. The thought of birth control couldn’t have been further from my mind but Curry’s right. His children were the living proof of what was possible between a vampire and his agápe. “It wasn’t exactly something we talked about or planned so the thought never crossed our minds.”

He’s laughing. “I have two little results of what happens when it doesn’t cross your mind and now you could as well.”

Our circumstances were different. “There wasn’t an eclipse.”

Curry shrugs. “Who says there has to be? We don’t know that for certain. That was only a guess.”

I’m throwing anything out there I can come up with. “Chansey conceived because you became more human than vampire.”

“And you think you aren’t? What about your days and nights being mixed up? That’s been happening for a while. Have you tried to walk in the sun?”

Curry’s out of his mind if he thinks I’d be so foolish to attempt that bonehead move again. “No way. I haven’t had a reason to try that again. I almost fried my hand off in Pascagoula in case you’ve forgotten.” I still can’t believe I was foolish enough to think Chansey’s friend Shelby could be my agápe.

“You didn’t have Avery in your life then,” Curry argues.

His argument isn’t supported by his experience with his agápe. “But you were able to walk in sunlight from the moment Chansey was born.”

Curry gestures for Sebastian to take the floor. “I wasn’t able to tolerate the sun until Ella became a presence in my life. I think we each have our own circumstances and limitations.”

Sebastian’s agápe didn’t become pregnant but they weren’t together long when she died. It’s very possible she could have been expecting when she fell from her horse and broke her neck. I’m sure it’s a thought that has plagued Sebastian’s mind more than once since we first learned pregnancy was a possibility.

Now I’m anxious and want to know this second–which is impossible. “How long will it be before Avery and I will know if she’s pregnant?”

“Chansey was a couple of months along when we confirmed her pregnancy but I’m certain she would have figured it out sooner had we known it was a possibility. You at least have that luxury.”

Okay. So we wait and see if her cycle is late. If it is, she takes a pregnancy test and we’ll know.

Chapter Eight

I’m walking the hall toward Avery’s bedroom and I can feel each step closing the gap between us. Her scent becomes stronger. Her presence within me is more pronounced. She’s anxious–so much so that it’s almost overwhelming–but I don’t have to guess why. She’s dying to know the verdict–if she’s my agápe or not.

Before I’m able to knock, she opens her bedroom door. We beam at one another and don’t exchange a single word but she knows the truth simply by feeling my overwhelming happiness.

She is my agápe and I am her intended.

She steps closer and places one of her hands against my face. I close my eyes and lean into her palm. I crave her warm touch–because it soothes me–and she strokes her thumb over my cheekbone. I place my hand on top of hers and press it against my cool skin. “Hello, my agápe.”

She breathes a sigh of relief with my confirmation. I know that’s what it is because I feel her rapid decline of anxiety. But it’s not completely gone. Can she sense the fear I have about a potential pregnancy? I’m trying to push my angst aside but I don’t have the hang of these shared emotions yet.

I’m not upset about the possibility of a baby. I’m not even uneasy about the prospect of having one so soon. In fact, I’m quite happy about it but I’m afraid Avery won’t be. She’s young–even by human standards–and I’m not sure a baby is something she wants at this point in her life.

She takes my hand and pulls me into her room before shutting the door. “I want you to show me all the ways I’m yours.”

I place my index finger to her lips. “Shh.” I point to my ears and then in the direction of the others since she sometimes forgets about them when we’re behind closed doors.

She nods, understanding my meaning. I lower my mouth and whisper softly in her ear. “My office.”

She mouths the word, “Now?”

I nod and she follows me out of her bedroom toward the only soundproof quarters available to us. I know she had something more romantic in mind to celebrate our news but she and I have to discuss our relationship before we can explore the other ways we belong to each other.

Her heart is pounding when I close the door. She’s terrified. “Something’s wrong.”

I want to put her at ease. “Nothing’s wrong but we need to talk about something I don’t want the others to overhear.”

“Okay.”

There’s only one place to start. The beginning. “We unknowingly completed our agápe bond this morning.”

She’s filled with confusion. “What does that mean?”

I’ll try to explain it the way I understand it. “I’ll no longer need to drink your blood for us to maintain an unbreakable connection. We’ll feel it all the time but it’ll be at its strongest when we make love.”

She beams and slinks close to me. “Perfect … because I think I feel the need for some strong bonding right now.”

As good as that sounds, I only want to proceed after I have informed consent from her. “I need to explain some other things to you.” She steps back so she can see my face. “My DNA has been dead since the night I was turned into a vampire but because you’re my agápe, you make me more human. More alive.”

“I’ve never thought of you as dead.”

That’s good to know since I’m about to drop this bomb on her. “Only life can bring forth life and you revive my dead cells so they may live again.”

“You’ve always been very much alive to me.”

I’m able to see that she doesn’t understand where I’m going with this so I need to back up. “It’s all part of the agápe phenomenon. We don’t understand the process but we know that agápe mates cause changes in vampires. We become more human. More alive. Sebastian and Ella weren’t together long. The changes he underwent weren’t near as radical as the ones Curry has experienced. We suspect that his profound changes are how Chansey was able to conceive. We haven’t tested the waters to know the degree of the change in me yet but we must consider the possibility that you could become pregnant.”

I almost think I can hear a click in her mind when she comprehends what I’m saying. “This morning …” She clears her throat but only a whisper escapes. “I could be pregnant because of this morning?”

Her emotions are all over the place. What is she thinking? “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I’m not really sure it would have mattered if I had. I don’t think I would have been able to stop because it felt as though something else was in control of me when we completed our bond.

“I’m not sorry.” She steps closer and slides her arms around my shoulders. “Not even a little. I love you and nothing would make me happier than having your baby.”

We’ve never discussed such things. We had no reason to so I couldn’t guess where her head would be but I’m pleasantly surprised by her reaction. “I was scared you might be upset. Or angry. ”