Page 109 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

“My daughter is the bastard?”

“It sounds bad, I know,” he mutters where he stands, hands in his pockets, watching the children play on the shoreline, just as he had the first time he visited us here. “But it will work.”

“How? How can this possibly work?”

“If you agree to return, Talon will take his rightful place as my heir; he was after all, firstborn, and is our legitimate child. Tiger will be revealed as the hidden twin and assume the role of second son, and Suzume will be adopted as my bastard daughter.”

“And that will keep her safe?”

“Partly,” he sighs, turning back to me, “templates must be of full royal blood. The rumour will be spread through my staff and fed back to the Court that a human mistress, nothing special, birthed her, and that I’ve agreed you can raise her since you cannot have any more children.”

“Like father, like son,” I whisper.

“Yes,” he growls. “Exactly. Jaguar and Mother came up with the plan. I’ve poked holes in it everywhere I can, but even Wolf agrees it’s watertight. Of course, Suzume will have to bear the disgrace of being a bastard, even though you and I know she’s not.”

“Jag came up with this?”

“He and Mother. He said he wanted to warrant a solution that would ensure I didn’t need to abdicate, and one that would ensure you could have everything you wanted. I have to assume that includes me.”

I shake my head.

‘Still looking to keep me happy, even at the expense of his own heart. Oh, my poor secret-keeper.’

“He called me. He said you two fought…”

“Neither of us was badly injured. It was good for us, to tell you the truth.”

“Jesus!”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen us fight before.”

“Over me,” I whisper.

“Over many things,” he says gently. “Better we fight than keep things bottled up. Perhaps you and I should fight more, maybe then you’d reveal to me what’s really going on in your head and your heart.”

“You know what’s in my heart,” I shake my head.

“Do I?”

“But Falcon,” I frown, changing the subject as my mind zips from one problem to the next, “calling Suzume a bastard is one thing, but she can fly.”

“Yes, she’s remarkable, just like her brother, and mother,” he sighs, “but she will never, ever, be able to reveal that,” he says quietly, his eyes sad. “Not to anyone.”

“My God!” I push my face into my hands and take a deep breath.

“Angie,” he pulls my hands from my face and holds them down by my side, “if you won’t take me without my title, take me with it and use it to our advantage.

Suzume will have a fuller, richer life among her own kind than she could ever have hiding among humans.

She’s a killer; she needs to eat. You must be struggling to teach the children how to survive now that they crave fresh blood; they’re the same age as Tiger and he’s already receiving instruction from my new procurer.

It’s one thing to hide wings, it’s another entirely to hide your very nature. ”

“I know,” I groan, the memory of Suzume and Talon’s very recent attack on their, now-discharged nanny, still fresh in my mind. They hadn’t meant to hurt her, not ‘ very much,’ according to Talon, she just smelled so good.

‘Nurture vs nature. It doesn’t seem to apply that much when dealing with vampires.’

The ‘unmentionable occurrence’ just a few weeks ago had been a salient wake-up call for Yin and I, and prompted many raw discussions.

“And your mother?” I ask quietly. “What makes you think we can trust her after everything she’s done? Her schemes must have taken centuries to concoct. I don’t for a second believe she’s revealed her hand.”

“I know,” he nods, his face grim. “I wanted to kill her.”

“Falcon!” I gasp. “You can’t kill your own mother, no matter what she’s done.”

“I might have, had Jag not stepped in,” he scowls. “Luckily for her, he had a better plan. She’s going to be given over to the group she identifies with so strongly that she’d risk all to support it.”

“The Free Men?” I widen my eyes. “She’ll just have more opportunity to act out her plans.”

“No,” he shakes his head, “and yes.”

“Huh?”

“Not all her plans were bad, Angie. You and I both agree there are rites and rituals we vampires have clung to for aeons that are wrong. Humans are food, yes, but they can also be so much more. You’ve shown me that.

Some of Mother’s plans with The Free Men will continue to be pursued, just not at the expense of my family.

Her joining them neutralises at least one enemy of my house. ”

“What if she just goes about doing her own thing behind the scenes? She seems pretty adept at that.”

“If she steps out of line I’ll reveal she rigged The Games and the Queen will surely execute her.”

“So, you have that as insurance,” I murmur.

“Yes, and she has another role. She’ll be travelling with Wolf. She’ll act as his free pass into as many of the international queens’ royal circles as possible. Her job is to report back to him any information she can find about the templates and where they might be hidden.”

“Surely you can’t believe she’ll be satisfied with this?”

“She has no choice,” he growls. “She’s already lost more than she bargained for.

I’ve told her I never wish to see her again.

As far as I’m concerned, she’s out of our lives.

She’ll play no part in the upbringing of our children, or even be acknowledged as ever having existed.

You have to remember, Angie, she hasn’t been under hupotasso for a very long time.

She’s aging. I expect she won’t live beyond another thirty years, fifty at most.”

‘Of course, I forgot she was mortal now.’

“And Jag? You said he helped come up with this plan to save Suzume. Are you going to let him back into your life now that he’s proven himself so loyal a friend once more? I tried calling him, but his number is disconnected.”

His face darkens at my mention of his once-friend.

“Jag has something he has to do for me first,” he says cryptically before changing the subject and gripping both my hands in his. “We, you and I, need to concentrate on our future now. That is, if you’ll come home with me.”

“I don’t see I have much choice,” I murmur.

“You will always have a choice, Angie. I only ask you to return if you can love me as I love you.”

“Love isn’t the issue,” I whisper. “It’s love for my children that stands in my way.”

“It did, but no longer. I’ve done all I can to show you that I care for you. I’ve offered every sacrifice. You know who I am, you know what I am. If there’s anything else still acting as a wedge between us, tell me now. I want no more secrets between you and I. None.”

I raise my eyes to his and shake my head.

He’s right. I know what he is, I’ve always known.

I took him for better and for worse, and right now, I love him more than anything on earth.

Every cell in my body wants to return with him as his wife, and I can’t deny that his solution is the best of a bad situation.

I know there’ll be things in the coming weeks, months and years that will make me uncomfortable, and by accepting him, I’m accepting his world; the good, the bad and the utterly despicable.

There’s no use trying to sugar-coat any of it.

“There’s nothing,” I whisper. “You know you have my heart.”

Dropping my hands, he pulls me into his embrace. His arms are strong around me, his chest against my face is as hard and broad as I remember, and his smell, even here with the sea breeze blowing all around us, is so familiar, and so delicious.

“You won’t regret this, my angel,” he murmurs into my hair.

Raising my face to his I search his eyes and see only warmth, love, and worry.

“What is it?”

He sighs, his eyes not leaving mine.

“I said I don’t want any more secrets or matters of the past to come between us again. Although I’m loathe to raise the issue, I need to know. Can you bear to raise Tiger as your own, knowing whose child he is?”

“I already know I’ll love him,” I bury my face into his chest as I try to make sense of everything he’s telling me. “I’ve reconciled my anger over you making Sophie pregnant at the same time as me.”

“I can’t ask you to forget, and he’ll be a living reminder of that. A reminder of all my past wrongs against you.”

“I know, I don’t expect to forget, but I’ve forgiven you. And he’s not hard to love; he looks like his father. How could I not?”

“It’s a lot to take in,” he says, leaning back and tilting his head, forcing me to look back up into his eyes.

“But it means all our children will be raised with privilege and take their rightful place in the world among other vampires, and with each other as support. In the long run, they’ll be safer than trying to hide amid humans.

They’re too special, and their needs are too great for that to be effective as they grow older. ”

“I know,” I sigh, “Yin and I have come to the same conclusion. That’s initially why I offered you the chance to have Talon in your life once I die.”

“But this way I can be a part of his childhood,” he says gently, “and all the children can be together. And you and I don’t need to part.”

“But we’ll only have two human lifetimes,” I whisper. “That hasn’t changed, Falcon. I’ll never let you bite me. Can you truly accept that?”

“Yes. I’ll just have to ensure our time together will hold enough memories to satisfy me for all eternity.”

I close my eyes and lean my head once again into his chest as his arms tighten around me.

“I have to talk to Yin.”

“No need,” she says, walking up from behind us and standing to stare out to sea, her expression resigned, “Unmei no akai ito.”