Page 27

S tephan stumbled out of the building that housed Healer Hyacinth’s practice. Dazed, he made his way down the sidewalk toward the underground parking deck.

How was this happening? How was it even possible? But it was happening. This wasn’t a dream, was it?

Stopping, Stephan pinched himself and winced—nope, not dreaming.

His heartbeat sped up—then it was true! It had happened! This was happening! Oh. My. Gods. It was real! Right now, this moment right now, was reality. His reality! His body had healed!

Letting out a loud squeal, Stephan jumped up and down—he was pregnant! Pregnant…he was pregnant. As in, there was a baby growing inside him. Jayden’s baby! Stephan was going to have a baby! Oh! He shouldn’t be jumping. He was pregnant. Jumping was bad, wasn’t it?!

When Stephan noticed people staring at him strangely, heat filled his face, and he hurried down the sidewalk. Stopping near the entrance of the deck, with the plan to tell Jade, he pulled out his cell phone.

His finger froze over the call button. What if Jayden didn’t want to be a father? They had never talked about kids. Well, they had…but all they really talked about was that Stephan couldn’t have any. Which apparently had been a lie. Not that Stephan had lied on purpose. He hadn’t known!

How was he supposed to know that a large influx of power could cause ‘things’ to happen? It kind of made sense. Ares—his teacher—had told him, with him holding so much back, he had stunted himself.

In essence, Stephan had cut off a limb, preventing himself from accessing the entirety of his powers. Every time the fury inside of him leaked out, it combined with the powers he used freely. During the times it had joined, it sent a surge of energy through him, and apparently, that energy had been enough to jump-start the healing process. Which explained how Stephan was pregnant right now.

It wasn’t on purpose, and if he had known, he would have told Jayden. They could have talked about it. In all honesty, Stephan wasn’t sure he was ready for a child. Not that he wouldn’t love one. It’s just, Stephan wasn’t the least bit prepared to have one.

Something he’d have plenty of time to panic about later, as he was only two months along, which meant Stephan had at least seven to ten months left, depending on who the baby took after.

As the gestation period for vampires was about nine months, while an elves’ was twelve, he could only hope that it took after Jayden.

Oh, Jade…would he be mad? If Jayden didn’t want the baby, what would Stephan do? No, dammit! He needed to st op panicking. The man loved him! It would be fine. Oh, he wished Dante hadn’t called Jayden in. Jayden had planned on coming with him today—Stephan wouldn’t be going through this if it weren’t for him!

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the call button.

Jayden picked up after the third ring. “ Hey, Sweetheart. What did the healer say?”

“Well, see, the thing is—” Stephan let out a yelp. A sharp pain in his neck stopped his next words from forming. His phone slipped from his hand, and his vision blurred, as he fell to the ground. The last thing Stephan saw was the face of a beautiful woman. At least, she would have been beautiful, if she weren’t sneering down at him.

S ighing, Jayden looked around the bar with unending boredom. He had never understood the benefits of getting drunk off your ass. Not once had Jayden ever felt the need to drink the disgusting substance.

Yet, here he was, sitting at a table next to Liam and Dante. They weren’t there to drink their woes away. Nope, they were looking for a rapist, who seemed to pick up a lot of his victims from that bar.

Jayden grabbed his phone when it started buzzing on the table. A smile slipped onto his face when ‘Hunny Bunny’ flashed across the screen. Stephan would probably destroy his phone if he ever saw it.

“I have to take this,” Jayden muttered. Not waiting for a response, he slid out of his seat and made his way to the hallway near the restrooms.

Stephan must be finished with his appointment…the appointment he had wanted to go to, as well—fucking Dante. “Hey, Sweetheart. What did the healer say?” Jayden asked the minute the call connected.

“ Well, see, the thing is ? — ”

A yelp and the sound of something clattering to the ground had his blood freezing. “Stephan? Stephan! What happened? Are you still there?”

After a few stressful moments of silence, a feminine cackle came over the phone. “ Yeah, he took a little nap. Drugs will do that, you know?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Jayden roared.

“ Me? Oh, I’m just a woman you stole from, ” she said sweetly.

“What did you do to him?”

His yelling must have been audible to those in the main room, as Dante and Liam were suddenly at his side, not to mention a few nosy people were gawking around the corner. People who Dante shooed away.

“ He’s fine, for now .”

Jayden growled. “What do you want?!”

“ I want you to pay for what you did! ” she shrieked. “ Whether or not the blond suffers for it…well, I haven’t decided that yet. ”

His fury simmered, but at the same time, he felt calm, as the outcome was certain to him. “You will die if you hurt him,” Jayden stated flatly.

“ You can try. ”

“I hate chitchat, Woman,” Jayden sneered. “You’re wasting my time. What do you want? ”

“ Hmm, you sound as if you don’t care. And here I thought the little girly man was your weakness. If he’s useless, maybe I should just kill him. ”

She was trying to rile him up, but he wouldn’t let that happen. Jayden had to remain calm. Stephan wasn’t weak. He could easily protect himself, which meant she must have snuck up on him. Not particularly difficult, as his elf easily got lost in his own thoughts.

“He’s not my weakness. He’s my strength. Stephan’s also much scarier than I am,” Jayden drawled.

“What a laugh. He couldn’t hurt a fly. Now, blondie and I are going on a little trip. I would suggest keeping your phone with you. I just may call you and invite you to the party… Oh, by the way, this stays between us. You keep your murderous coworkers and boss out of it. ”

As the call ended, the calm Jayden tried to maintain fled. His heart staggered and his breath caught in his throat as his fear and fury took over.

There was nothing he could do… She could do anything she wanted to Stephan, and Jayden was helpless to stop it.

Squeezing his phone in one hand, he punched the wall with his other. Plaster fell to the floor and dust flew. As Jayden went to punch it again, a strong hand gripped his wrist.

“Calm,” Liam ordered.

“I’ll kill her!” he bellowed.

“Calm down! Come on. We don’t need an audience for this. Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Dante snapped. They grabbed his arm and practically dragged him to the exit.

The trip back to the house took less than thirty minutes, but he felt more desolate with each minute that passed without a call .

Jayden stared blankly at his cell phone, which sat on Dante’s desk, as the man gathered people into the room.

It had to ring. It just…

“What if it doesn’t?” Bow cried in despair.

“It will ring…it has to. The woman wants us, not him,” Jayden told him.

A blow caused his head to jerk to the side. The right side of his face throbbed. Facing forward, he glared at Lily, who just glared right back at him.

“Snap the hell out of it and help!” she hissed.

“With what? We don’t know where he is.” Jayden’s voice sounded lifeless. If he lost Stephan, he would be left with nothing. Whatever was left of his soul would die. It would shrivel up along with his heart.

“Where was Stephan going this evening?” Dante asked.

“He went to see a healer. Stephan hasn’t been feeling well lately. Healer Hyacinth, I believe.”

Dante’s brow rose slightly at that. “I didn’t realize the man worked in multiple fields of medicine. Nonetheless, there should be plenty of cameras near the place. Violet, Rain, find out who is in charge of security, and get the video feed.”

The two enforcers exited quickly. “Now, Jayden, who has a grudge against you?”

Running his fingers through his hair, Jayden growled, “I don’t know!”

“Jayden…are your parents still alive?” Dante asked hesitantly.

Blinking, he admitted, “Yes.” His reply brought on a wave of fear from Bow.

“They’ll hurt us!” Bow cried .

“No, Bow, they can’t hurt us anymore. We’re stronger now,” Jayden told him gently.

“I see. Could they be behind this?”

“No, the voice was wrong. I didn’t recognize it.” Jayden’s brow wrinkled. “They called you a murderer, as well.”

“Yes, she did call us that, didn’t she?” The man rubbed his chin, looking thoughtful.

“Something we stole…” Bow mumbled.

“Something we stole?”

“What?” Dante asked.

Licking his dry lips, he peered around at the occupants of the room. Only two of them actually knew about his monster. Fuck it!

“Bow said it…”

The two enforcers still present looked confused.

Lily asked, “Who the hell is Bow?”

Shrugging, Jayden admitted, “My monster.”

“Your wh?—”

Dante held up his hand, cutting her off. “What is Bow thinking, Jayden?”

“Bow, what is it?”

“Something we stole. She said we stole something from her. She called the rest of them murderers! Someone—we took someone from her. We don’t take anyone now, but we did. Before…it has to be from before. But after Stephan came along.” Bow started to bounce on his feet. “We have to know her! We have to! If she’s related to one of the monsters we took, then we’ll know her!”

Jayden’s eyes widened.

“What? What did he say?” Dante asked exuberantly.

His monster beamed. “I did good, right?”

“Yes,” Jayden said out loud, smiling .

“Yes?” Dante pushed.

Blinking, he informed him, “I wasn’t talking to you. Bow says she has to be related to one of our…previous victims. As the woman called you all murderers, as well, it has to be one of the ones I didn’t kill. I must know this person, even if only through them.”

“Previous victims?” Enforcer Hunter rasped.

At the same time, Lily asked, “Are you telling me there’s a person in your head?”

Having remained mostly quiet since arriving at Dante’s, Liam snorted. “Never mind that. I have no doubt you’ll be able to figure out who, once we have the video feed. However, we’re ignoring a rather important detail.”

Everyone turned to look at him, but Jayden was the only one who spoke. “And what detail is that?”

Liam crossed his arms and shook his head. “Do you really think there’s a drug out there that will keep Stephan knocked out for long? He’s not exactly normal.”

Jayden rubbed his face. “Holy fuck, how could I forget?!”

His body rocked back as an immeasurable sense of relief filled him. Drugs didn’t affect blood elves the same way they did other immortals. Their control over the life-giving fluid meant that with most drugs, their bodies filtered them out quickly. With Stephan being a Lydus blood elf, the drug’s effects would be significantly less.

Even if the woman had prepared for a blood elf, it wouldn’t last long. And Jayden didn’t think she was stupid enough to stay close to the city. Getting to a location where she could hurt him, yet not risk detection, would take time—enough time for Stephan to wake up. It had almost been an hour. Jayden wouldn’t be surprised if the man had already started to wake .

Dante chuckled and voiced his conclusion. “Oh, she’ll be very lucky if Stephan doesn’t wake up before they get to wherever they’re going.”

“We’re dumb, aren’t we?”

“Yes…” he admitted.

Bow plopped down on the nonexistent floor of his mind. For some reason, there was a white stuffed-animal bunny in his arms. It hadn’t been there before, and Jayden was about as sure of where it came from as anything else Bow pulled out of nothing. It was odd to see an adult version of himself holding a stuffed rabbit. Well…Stephan was pretty adorable when he cuddled with his stuffed animals.

“What are you guys talking about?” Lily snapped.

She didn’t know. Jayden had assumed she’d known. Frankly, he was confused as to why Dante hadn’t told her.

“Well, I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out yet. You were on Jayden’s case, Lily. For months, I’ve been waiting in anticipation for the moment you figured it out. Months, and nothing!” Dante pouted.

Jayden shook his head in disgust. Dear Gods, his boss was childish—turning such a secret into a game for his entertainment.

Bow giggled. “She looks so angry.”

That she was. Lily seemed to be about to strangle Dante.

Jayden jerked—Bow giggled? Since when did his monster giggle? As he focused on the creature, his eyes widened—Bow was smaller. Smaller than he had ever been, and younger.

“Bow, are you all right?” Jayden asked.

His monster said nothing. He just stared back. The longer Jayden stared, the more he changed. The eyes that had always mirrored his own grew, dominating the face looking back at him in the darkness. Years were falling away.

Then suddenly, the clone of himself was gone. Jayden saw a child…a child that had his hair, but his eyes…there was a rim of cornflower blue, equal in size to the inky black surrounding it. The child was small for his age—only seven or eight—but he was beautiful. A beautiful child who’d tried so hard to survive, despite feeling so powerless.

Bow looked the same as Jayden had the day he gave in to the hatred inside him. The day the urges started—the day his eyes began to turn black.

Jayden’s vision blurred, as the tears that formed in his eyes hid the world. “Bow?” he whispered past the lump in his throat.