Page 5 of Wedlock (Vampire Bachelor Games #3)

I pace up and down in front of the windows and shake my head at Eleanor.

For days now I’ve been recovering from the birth and getting used to my new jail. Even if I could, there’s no escape. The door is always locked, the windows don’t open, and apart from my meals being delivered by a silent maid, I see no one but Eleanor.

This room may be something akin to living in the Palace of Versailles in terms of its rich décor, but it’s still a cell.

“A nanny?” I mutter again.

“You’re only human,” Eleanor sniffs, “a nanny and a wetnurse will help bear the burden of breastfeeding a vampire. It will give you a small measure of respite. The nanny will take the boy to the wetnurse for supplementary feedings while you rest and recover between your feedings.”

“You mean she’ll make sure I don’t murder him,” I mutter, turning away from the woman’s outstretched hands and holding my baby tightly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Angelina.”

“Me?” I swing back to her, rage making my voice tight.

“Me be ridiculous? I’ve told you I love my baby.

I’ve shown nothing but devotion to him, and I’ve followed every stupid rule you’ve seen fit to decree in the days since my incarceration.

Still, you watch me like a hawk and act like I’m some kind of psychopath. ”

“If I gave that impression, I apologise,” she sniffs. “But you have to admit you’ve hardly given me any reason to trust you.”

“I won’t give my baby to a stranger.”

“I promise I’ll care for him, My Lady,” the woman in the white pinafore says as she curtsies before me. “I’m very experienced, and I’ll stay by his side as he’s fed. He won’t leave my sight.”

“No.”

“Angelina,” Eleanor signals for the woman to leave the room and waits for the door to shut before continuing her diatribe.

“Be rational. The child will be returned to you regularly for feeding, and you’ll have time to shower and rest in between his demands.

You’re still bleeding. The doctor said your body’s repairing fast, but you need to be careful. ”

“Did you have a wetnurse, or nanny, or whatever you claim she is?”

“I had a nanny. Not a wetnurse.”

I snort and hold up my hands, giving her a ‘there we go’ expression.

“Unlike you, I bore the bite,” she says wearily, “and therefore I healed more quickly than a normal human woman would. Hupotasso, while a curse, does have benefits — immortality and the ability to heal much faster than humans.”

I widen my eyes as I consider whether this might be a way of letting her know I’m under a thrall. After all, the bite marks around my nipples heal within hours. A normal woman would be scarred. My throat constricts, warning that I’m thinking dangerously forbidden thoughts, as she goes on.

“ You are merely mortal, Angelina. It’s important you get enough food, enough iron particularly, given his unique dietary requirements, and enough sleep if you’re to raise a strong heir.”

“A strong heir,” I repeat quietly. “And yet you and I both know there’s no guarantee he will ever be that, given that he’s not Falcon’s son.”

“Is he not?” She asks quietly, her eyes never leaving mine.

“If he was, he’d have a name by now,” I whisper, “yet he’s three days old and you won’t let me name him.”

“The naming is Falcon’s choice,” she sighs heavily, “but due to your constant badgering on the issue I have spoken to my son about that.”

My heart skips a beat.

‘She’s spoken to him?’

“How is he?” I squeak. “Where is he?”

‘Is he OK? Is Jag OK?’

Ever since she told me a vampire’s love was eternal, I’d ached for Falcon, but more, I’d ached for Jag. Falcon had mistreated me, spanked me, threatened me and hurt me, and although he’s heartbroken now, I know he’s strong enough to endure it.

But Jag…

He’d never been cruel to me. He’d championed me.

And he’d loved not one, but two human women, if his vow to me was true.

Somehow I’d trumped his Coquette and he’d fallen for me, and I’d encouraged it every step of the way.

I’d treated him as if he was the only man in the world for me, told him so repeatedly, as ordered, and then betrayed him.

If he was alive out there somewhere I know he must be hurting, and I can’t bear that I’m the one responsible.

“Where my son is at this time is not your concern,” Eleanor straightens her shoulders, her face a closed book. “He has given instruction for the naming.”

I swallow hard, waiting for the guillotine to fall. I know having spoken to him about this when we were in The Games, that his first-born son should be named, as is tradition, after his father, Scorpion, but that he planned to break with this and name him after his great-grandfather, Talon.

Eleanor told me that she’d informed the Queen of the birth, which meant Falcon’s title was secure.

So technically my son was the heir. Only, if I’d learned anything from being in this castle for so long, it’s that nothing is ever what it seems, and the games of nobility were more convoluted than a twisted slinky.

I also know Falcon doesn’t think the child is his, and knowing Falcon and his pride, he won’t take that lightly.

“The boy will be called Tiger,” Eleanor says tightly.

‘I knew it.’

“Tiger? But Falcon wanted his heir to be called Talon.”

“Yes.”

“So,” I shake my head, my teeth clenching at the implications of the naming. “My son isn’t going to be the Dragonspur heir.”

“He was named after Jaguar’s father,” she says in a monotone, her eyes still pinned on mine. “And Jaguar cannot claim him as his heir, even if he desired this, as the child was born out of wedlock.”

“Does he? I mean, have you spoken to Jag about the baby and his name?”

“We have not.”

‘Ah, so Falcon has named him as a way of labelling the baby, and Jag, with shame. Asshole!’

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Angelina? The only way your baby could become Falcon’s heir is if the paternity is altered.”

I stand frozen to the spot as my brain furiously does the sums. Falcon must be lying to the Queen.

He’s pretending he has an heir to retain his title, even though he believes he doesn’t have one.

But he knows the Queen has spies everywhere and might eventually learn the truth — and, no doubt Viper will be very happy to supply that information, although Falcon can’t know that.

Still, he’s a cautious man, so he’s buying time.

The only logical explanation is that he still intends to kill me and marry again as he’d once said he would.

But to do that I’d have to conveniently disappear, and he’d have to claim another child was his firstborn, not mine.

“Eleanor,” I pin her with my stare, “you said you told the Queen a baby was born. What did you tell her about me?”

Her lips turn to a thin line as she looks away from me and down to her long, pearl-pink nails.

“I told her exactly what Falcon permitted me to say.”

“Did you tell her I was alive?” I whisper.

Her silence is all I need to know.

I’m a prisoner here, potentially dead or dying, depending on whatever story has been spun for the C ourt.

He’s going to marry again and get a ‘real’ heir.

But he’s also going to make me feed the baby for the required length of time before it’s sayonara, Angelina.

Why? I don’t know. Perhaps because deep down, he won’t kill Jag’s child?

He’ll kill me though, he has to. This means I have three years to get the fuck out of here.

And I can’t count on any external help because I’d ordered Yin to make my hidden daughter her priority, not me.

I’d also impressed upon her with the utmost importance that she never, ever, take a call from me, because it wouldn’t really be me calling, it would be Viper.

I have to figure out a way to escape all by myself, preferably before Viper gets a chance to talk to me and command me to do anything else.

‘Oh, Christ.’

Eleanor clears her throat and looks back up at me.

“Will you change your assertion, Angelina? Will you admit the baby is Falcon’s?”

“Be sure the nanny looks after my little Tiger,” I whisper as I hand the baby to her and bury my face in my hands.