Page 66 of Princess Redeemed

“You said the blood gene gives me more than just the need for blood to survive.You asked if my father explained it to me, and I told you he hadn’t.”

Alara looks upward for a moment.“It may be that he doesn’t fully understand it himself.Remember that he spent a good deal of his life turning his back on his heritage.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah…Youexplain it to me, then.”

She meets my gaze, her eyes serious.“It’s not my place.”

“To hell with whose place it is.I just lost the love of my life, and I’m going to be a mother.I’m supposedly fated to murder my stepfather, and I’m bound to a vampire’s life that I never wanted.Tell me, Alara.Tell me why the blood gene is such a damned gift.”

She takes a step toward me.“I can tell you only this.Your father must be the one to tell you everything.This knowledge is passed from parent to child, and you will pass it to your own child someday.”

“My child probably won’t even have the blood gene,” I say.“He’s only a quarter vampire.He’s more lycan than anything.”

“Your child will have all the gifts of his heritage.He will be meant for a very special purpose.”

I resist an eyeroll.Here it comes.My child is “the one.”Like Neo, an anagram for “one,” inThe Matrix, who was the first to get red-pilled.Like Harry Potter.Like Frodo.Like Anakin Skywalker, Paul Atreides… So many, going back to Jesus Christ himself.

There is always a “one.”

“Your father knew what he was doing,” Alara continues, “even though he didn’t realize the full extent of it.”

“No,” I say.“My father told me my baby couldn’t happen.That there was too much DNA at work, and a miscarriage was inevitable.”

“Have you miscarried?”

I touch my belly, and I can’t help smiling.“No, and I won’t if I can help it.”

“You won’t,” she says with assurance.

“How do you know?And why did my father tell me otherwise?”

“Your father was relying on science, and scientifically speaking, the chance of a human-vampire-wolf hybrid being carried to full term is improbable.It’s never happened before.But this isn’t just any child, Hannah.”

“Is my child the one?”I can’t help asking.

“The one what?”

I shake my head, chuckling lightly.“Never mind.”

“You must go to your father for the information you seek.It’s his duty to tell you of your power.It’s my duty to help you realize it.”

“With all due respect, Alara, how can I realize my power if I don’t know exactly what it is and what it can do?”

“Normally, I would agree with you, but time is of the essence here, Hannah.I will teach you how to focus, how to harness what’s inside you, how to even draw on the power of the child within you.You will learn.”

“And if I don’t?”

She doesn’t reply at first.Then, simply, “You must.”

40

I close my eyes,breathe in, try to still the churning inside my mind.I don’t understand, and Alara has no intention of telling me any more.

I know only one thing.

I must do what’s best for my child.

I open my eyes, meet her ethereal gaze.“Tell me that learning from you is the best for my child.”