Page 35

An unspoken but hung between us.

I whispered on a ragged exhale, “But our child can?”

“Our daughter.” He closed his eyes. “Without her, there will be no human race.”

A child, our daughter, could save the future.

Waves of skepticism dripped off my exhale and clung to the dark and humid air. “What about the nymphs we’ll be saving? Those women's children wouldn’t save the human race? What will all those offspring do exactly?”

Jesse glanced at the ground then back to me, his eyes shining like copper tin. “They’ll replenish mankind if they’re not wiped out by our biggest predator.”

Emotions bubbled up inside me and spilled out in a surge of tremors. Denial, anger… raw fucking fear. I teetered to remain upright, wrestling with the conviction of Jesse’s words. “You’re saying if I had this child, I wouldn’t live long enough to raise her?”

A muscle bounced in his jaw. “Which is why I won’t touch you.” So much pain in his voice. “Do you understand now?”

Would I die from childbirth or from something else related to having a child? I supposed if someone discovered I was the mother of a superbaby, they might kill me in spite. Jesse said he didn’t know the details, only that he had to have sex with me to save mankind, and in doing so guaranteed my death, which meant he would spend his life without me.

Talk about a mood killer. No wonder he was so grouchy.

Well, I refused to accept his all-or-nothing reasoning. “I can’t get pregnant from touching or kissing.”

Or anal sex. Would he freak if I said that out loud? See, this was the kind of shit I didn’t know about him.

My greedy sexuality demanded a deeper connection, and yeah, I ached for all three of the men who protected me. “There are so many other things we can—”

“No.” He sucked a seething hiss through his teeth, and his eyes flashed away. “I can’t…” He rubbed a palm on his jeans. “Christ, I only have so much control.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. He wasn’t giving himself enough credit. Roark and I fooled around without having sex. Sure, the priest had a lifetime of practiced celibacy, and he did slip up once. And what a colossal backslide that had been. The night he lost his virginity had led to an exorbitant amount of resentment.

But the likelihood of Jesse taking it too far was slim. Wasn’t it?

Arghhh. I didn’t know because he’d given me very few hints of his sexual nature. “I’m still on birth control.”

“I don’t trust it.”

Double Arghhh! My thoughts circled round and round, and my feet twitched to move. “I need to walk.”

I strode the distance to the shoreline and slogged along the edge. He matched my strides, my persistent and vigilant shadow.

Our boots squished in the marshy soil as I pondered aloud. “Keeping your…hands to yourself to prevent a…a fatal pregnancy alters my path, something you claimed we couldn’t do.” I rubbed my temples. “But I’m preventing it already with the IUD and my refusal to have children.” I pivoted, colliding with his rigid chest. “Are you sure she said your daughter?”

“Yes, dammit.”

Okay, fine, only Jesse could father a superbaby. But I was sleeping with Michio. If left to my own devices, which is what Jesse had determined to do, I'd never have another child. Except by accident. Even knowing about Jesse's visions, that could still happen. What if the IUD was failing for some godforsaken reason?

I dared to meet his eyes. “Does that mean no one else can impregnate me?”

His hands clenched. “I don’t fucking know.”

Was that jealousy? From Jesse?

I scratched at the crusted blood on my arm, unsure how far I could push before he shut down this conversation. “Why did you tell me to not fuck Michio?”

He gripped the back of his neck. “Annie said there would be two other guardians, but she never mentioned Doc’s changing DNA. That’s a huge omission.”

What did that mean? Goosebumps skated up my arms. “You believe my path has already changed? That Michio could be a danger to me?”

His gaze skirted across the pond. “I wish I knew.”

He seemed upset with himself, his voice missing its usual bite. Crazy how quickly we’d gone from awkward distance to ripping open our chests and exposing our sorry, fearful hearts. To be honest, I couldn’t have been happier with the progress, regardless of how badly this conversation fucked with my head.

All because of an irreconcilable vision. Maybe we were both losing our minds.

I bumped his bicep with my shoulder, the simple contact comforting. “The little ghost of Annie is quite the meddler. It’s strange… I mean, she was a very bright child, but how does she know so much in the afterlife?”

“Guess we won’t know that answer until we join her.” The corner of his mouth bounced, prompting the same sad smile from mine.