I was stunned for a moment. I certainly didn’t expect that. “Not if both parents are vampires. Why do you ask?”
“Do you not think I need to know something like that before I make my choice?”
I felt as though all blood had rushed out of my body, except that I didn’t have any. “I thought you weren’t going to make one now.”
“Looks like I have to.”
“No, you don’t.” I couldn’t believe I’d just said that, but anything was better than the alternative. Basing her decision on procreation meant one thing. I lost before I even tried.
And if she didn’t choose me in this life, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Suddenly, no patience was left in me, and I had grown awfully tired of the waiting game.
“Either way, I need to gather enough information for that night,” she said.
A lump clogged my throat. “Is that really how you’re going to rule out options? Scientifically?”
“Do you have a better method? I’m open to any suggestions because I have no clue how to choose between three men I love to death. Three stubborn beasts that would rather tear each other than live together for a few weeks with the woman they say they love.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “If you guys can’t let me have you now, then I might as well make my choice already.”
“And children matter to you that much? Even though they are going to bebeastslike their fathers, and you wouldn’t have a lot of time with them?”
Pain etched on her face. I was sorry I had to be an asshole and remind her of all these predicaments. It was my last resort to change her mind. Perhaps my last chance to win with her.
She sat up, her long hair brushing against my forearm before taking away the warmth and cascading behind her back instead. “Do you know why and how Declan tried to kill me?”
No. I wasn’t sure I needed to know, either. My wrath was the hardest to control. If I listened in her own words the details of the terrors that piece of shit had imposed on her, I would roam this earth until I found him and sank my fangs into his throat, drinking his filthy blood to the last drop.
I would have loved to do such a thing, but if for any reason, I was tied to his pathetic demise, she would be, too. That I couldn’t chance.
“Ten days before the incident, I found out I was…” She lifted her chin, fighting her tears. “I found out I was pregnant. It was the first good news I’d received since I was forced to leave school and kept a prisoner at my own house for over a year. I shouldn’t have been that happy, knowing I was carrying a monster’s baby, tying myself forever to that horrible person. But I was.
“I kept the news to myself for a week, thinking if I should tell him ever. I should have just run away, but I was afraid he would hurt me and the baby if I did. I convinced myself that if I told him, he would be happy too and finally change.” She chuckled as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Could you believe how ridiculously silly and naive I had been?”
“Isabella…you must stop blaming yourself.”
“Never. I will always blame myself,” she fumed. “I put myself and my child in the custody of a very dangerous man. A monster who beat the crap out of me the second he knew, kicking my belly, calling me a bitch, throwing me off the stairs until I was bleeding everywhere.” Her arms circled her abdomen as she sniveled and quivered. “Then he put me into a hospital unconscious. I woke up, and it was all gone.”
“Gone?”
“My baby was gone. The hospital report was gone. Apparently, I had been such a klutz as always and fell down the stairs when Declan wasn’t home. He saved me just in time and had been waiting all night at the hospital for me to wake up. The loving husband had even brought me fucking flowers.”
“The sick bastard,” I groaned, picturing his ripped head off his neck.
“I screamed at him, yelling at the top of my lungs what he’d done, threatening I’d go to the police. He just smiled and warned me the next time it wouldn’t be a hospital where he’d put me, it would be the psych ward.” Her hands balled into fists so tight her knuckles became white. “You were never pregnant, Belle. It was all in your head,” she mocked a man’s voice.
“I got out of the hospital determined on one thing. Run.” The tears froze in the corners of her bloodshot eyes. “I beat myself for it every day. I can’t believe I had to lose a baby to snap out of his prison.”
I held her arms, rubbing them gently. “The important thing is that you did. You had the courage to leave.”
“But not enough intelligence not to get caught. He found me after one day. One pathetic day,” she mused. “Then he killed me. He tortured me for one night, said I wasn’t worth any more of his time, and he just stabbed me with a knife at a crappy motel.”
My eyes squeezed shut. My fingers curled tightly around her flesh. Just tearing his throat to drink his disgusting blood wasn’t going to cut it. I could hear my fist smashing into that Declan’s nose, shattering his bones, splattering red blood on the dirty walls of whatever hole he’d locked himself in. I could see the man’s blood dropping through the tiniest bites around his body, in a slow, agonizing death, in my mind.
“Might as well have one last fuck with youwas the last thing I heard him say before I felt myself going cold, my breathing erratic,” she continued. “I retreated into the darkness, not wanting another moment of this. Even when I was dying, I couldn’t catch a break. The last thing my bleeding out body would experience was that motherfucker rutting into it.”
I yanked my hands off her before I wounded her and jumped off the bed. “Isabella, enough. Please.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t know why I didn’t die. Come to think of it, I strongly believe it was Damien’s work that night. All of it. Having Declan go psycho on me, and the saving right before I rattled my last breath. The show couldn’t just end like that. It wasn’t entertaining enough for him. So not only have I ended up losing my baby, almost losing my life, but I had to survive, living with the scars and…a womb that had suffered greatly that miserable night.
“So to answer your question, Joshua, yes, having children matters to me that much.” Her dark gaze locked on mine. “My chances to have another child are slim to none. If turning into a beast fixes me up and lets me have a baby even for a short while, I’ll take those chances gladly. Any human could die younger than fifty anyway. That doesn’t stop them from having kids.”
