Page 87 of Wedlock

“Maybe she was just thinking to prepare me for the inevitable?”

“Possibly,” Yin nods, “or she didn’t think you’d beableto run under hupotasso.”

“Falcon put a spanner in the works when he didn’t bite me,” I nod, thinking through everything Eleanor had told me and her possible motivations for doing so. “He may have inadvertently saved Suzume from a fate worse than death. Fuck. This world of vampires sucks ass so hard,” I moan. “I thought if I left Falcon an heir and he married again then maybe they’d stop chasing after a while. But if The Families find out she can fly…”

“They’d never stop hunting her,” Yin finishes my thought, “or you.”

“No one can know,” I whisper.

“No one,” she agrees.

68

“Is there nothing else that can be done?” Mother asks for the millionth time.

The court physician shakes his head and, catching my eye, backs from the room as he adds, “it’s likely hereditary.”

I reach him before he exits and haul him back before my son’s bed, my face inches from his.

“It’s not fucking hereditary, you fool. Something ails my son, has done for the past three years, and it’s culminating now in his inability to breathe. WHAT IS IT?”

The physician shrinks before me, and Mother places a hand on my shoulder.

“Falcon, stop. This one is the Queen’s special physician. Please, she’s let us see him as a courtesy and won’t take kindly if you kill him.”

Shaking him loose I spin from him to face my boy. He has, for all intents and purposes, fallen into a coma. But such a thing is unheard of in a vampire child.

Just three years old, and it seems his life is over.

Mother talks in whispers to the doctor outside the room, but I hear every word as I look down at the sleeping child, his breath laboured, lips blue.

“No,” she says quietly, “he’s had his ups and downs since infancy, but I fancied he must have suffered some kind of illness or accident while I was away for a few months, because when I returned he was almost a different child. Some days he’d just lie in his cot unmoving, struggling for breath, other days he’d be a normal baby, gurgling, reaching for things. In the last two years he’s had more bad days than good. He isn’t thriving like he should; it’s almost like he’s wasting away before our eyes, and now this.”

I hear her choke on her last words and shake my head. Mother had spent more time with the boy than I had, it’s true. But I care for him just the same.

“His diet?” The doctor asks, clearing his throat, clearly uncomfortable with a weeping woman.

“Palace wetnurse.”

“No Mother?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry,” he eventually sighs, “this is very unusual. Our children are usually so hardy. They suffer accidents, but illness is virtually unheard of. I’ve scoured the records and I can’t findanything. Given his, ah, state, I’d recommend those who love him attend to say their farewells.”

“How long does he have, Doctor?”

“Days at most.”

Mother gasps, and I walk from the room to place my arm around her shoulders as she spins to bury her face against my chest.

“What shall we do? What shall we do?” She whispers.

“You need to be calm for the child’s sake. There’s no point being dramatic,” I sigh.

But I already know what has to happen now. I’ve known it for weeks, if I’m honest, as I’ve watched the boy seemingly begin to disappear before my eyes, his own becoming dull, his smile disappearing, his interest in anything dissipating as he fought for survival.

“It’s time to find Angie,” I murmur to Mother, “she needs to say goodbye.”