Page 19 of Willing (The Un #1)

Nineteen

Asher

The only heartbeat in the house is down in the basement, and I can already see the guys getting jumpy. Isaac has brought disharmony to the house, and keeping him alive is setting our teeth on edge.

Walking past Ambrose, who is silently waltzing in the hallway, I open the door to see Chloe has yet to move from the bed.

Her body still and motionless.

There’s no heartbeat coming from her chest. No breath rising and falling with her magnificent breasts.

Sitting down beside her, I move with as much care as I can, though it’s not like I could actually disturb her during the turning.

Brushing a couple more stray strands of blonde hair from her face, I tuck them behind her ears. My fingers feel the soft, smooth skin of her cheekbones, and I can’t help but want to feel her lips against my own again.

Leaning down, I kiss her delicate lips, and it pains my chest that they don’t kiss me back.

Pulling away, I run my hand around her stomach. She died with my cock spurting my cum deep inside of her…

Does she even now carry my child?

It’s been decades since I’ve heard of a vampire couple conceiving a child. Although that’s the normal amount of time between them, I suppose. But I would give anything to be the father of the next pure born.

Rubbing my hand tenderly across her stomach in small swirls, I want nothing more than to get her pregnant with my children.

We would raise them like the children I have sired. It would be a true blessing of the gods to have the chance.

Sighing loudly, I slowly still my body of all movements and close my eyes. My hearing filters out everything but her body lying on the bed.

I can hear the blood moving through her body, flowing through her veins and arteries at its own pace. No heartbeats to aid it along. This is another mystery surrounding vampires. Our hearts stop beating the moment of our death, but blood continues to circulate, lungs can still breathe, and our healing is rapid enough to rarely leave us wounded.

The sound of the blood slowly changing her body, cell by cell, reassures me that she’s physically going through the metamorphosis.

The warm tug on the bond we created the moment she tasted my blood confirms spiritually she is changing.

But the ache in me is waiting for it all to complete.

How long will this take?

How long must I suffer for her to come out of the turning?

Staying by her side, I keep my hand on her stomach. I know deep inside my own mind that sheer willpower alone will not quicken the transformation, nor will it aid her in conceiving my child, but that doesn’t stop me from trying.

My mind begins to drift along with the blood transforming her mortal coil. Following each vein it flows down, each artery it pumps through. I visit every avenue of her body, the slow rhythm lulling me into a trance.

In this state, my thoughts plan.

My coven doesn’t have much of a foothold in this city right now, and even less of a claim if we are to bring it before the Council. Having Dav’s pack here to help us will be crucial for our chances of taking the city as ours from Nikolaos. It will also give us legitimacy. If all my children were present, it would be much easier to accomplish our goals, but that will require time and patience.

Time and patience.

Something I don’t think I have much supply of right now.

Chloe’s presence though makes me feel much more grounded. With her under my protection, I don’t have that simmering rage from being disconnected from our reality together.

I feel a deep longing though. The deep-seated longing to have my children here with me to celebrate her rebirth. I miss them all now more than ever. How is that possible? Do all fathers miss their children when they go out into the world? If so, how could Ambrose’s father destroy Ambrose’s soulmarked?

To shatter a mind so fully… Would that have been my fate? Or would it have been like Ambrose said?

Either is too terrifying to comprehend.

I don’t let myself follow that path too deeply. It will do no good to dwell on the pure evil behind that action.

Taking someone’s fated, it’s an impossible thought to comprehend. To possibly doom one of my kind to never know the other half of his soul for eternity…

A delicate voice slips into my consciousness. “Peace, sire.”

Blinking my eyes slowly, I look around me. The light of day is peeking around the blackout curtains next to the bed.

“How long?” I ask, seeing Ambrose’s hand resting on my shoulder.

“You’ve been here for nearly twelve hours,” he says quietly.

My eyes widen as I look from him back to Chloe.

She’s still turning, I can feel it in her body. I can feel her soul wrapping around our bond...

But she hasn’t awakened.

“It can take time, Ash.” Andrei comes into the room with Raphael, Caden, and Maddox following behind him.

Closing my eyes, I seek out Matthias. He’s in the basement with the hunter.

“We did not wish to disturb you, but when the dancing fop here barged in…” Caden says with a grin and hooks his thumb at Ambrose.

Nodding my head, I stare at almost half my children that are currently in the country. There’s more out there that need to be rounded up, but the ones here with me now help alleviate some of the pain.

“Maddox, Caden.” I motion to my mate. “Forgive her if she doesn’t get up, but this is your mother, Chloe.”

There’s groans all around at my terrible joke, except for Maddox. He winks at me before nudging Caden hard in the ribs.

Looking back at Maddox, Caden groans. “We brought food and… something to cover your body with.”

That’s right, I’m still not wearing a shirt.

“How is it, sire, every time anything happens, you always lose your shirt in the process?” Caden asks with a smirk.

Chuckling, I flex my chest muscles and say, “It’s because my inner-beast wants the world to see my prowess.”

Loud guffawing fills the room quickly followed by groans.

Maddox elbows Caden again.

Fucking hell, I forgot how it is with those two when they get together. Maddox isn’t a mute, but if he has Caden to talk for him he uses him. I’ve never understood it, but from what I can tell it’s as if Maddox considers Caden the bigger, older brother.

“He says it’s because you fancy yourself as Fabio.” Caden snickers.

Raising my eyebrows, I shake my head. “Fuck you too.”

Motioning for all of them to leave with a wave of my hand, I wait until the door shuts before I lean down and kiss Chloe on the lips.

It’s a long kiss, and the lack of response breaks my soul just a fraction.

“I wait for you, my love,” I whisper quietly in her ear. “Please come back to me.”

Standing up from the bed, I head out of the room and shut the door gently behind me.

Out in the living room, I see my children sitting around on the various couches or chairs. Ambrose stands in front of the window, of course, but he is alone and not dancing now. Instead, his arms are wrapped tightly around his chest, as if to keep himself closed off.

Walking up to him, I ask, “Are you okay?”

“Yes, though I must apologize for breaking you from your meditations. I felt it prudent to assist you from the thoughts you were having,” he says quietly.

“You knew what I ask thinking?” I ask, startled.

“Only vaguely. I felt the thoughts were towards me, and I could surmise that the melancholy nature was because of my past.”

“Ambrose… I promise you, we will do everything we can to find a soulmate for you.”

Shaking his head quickly, he says, “Don’t promise the impossible. Simply agree to aid me if it ever happens again.”

Sighing, I nod my head to him. “Agreed.”

His head turns to face me fully and I see a dark glint in his eyes. “If any come near my mother to harm her, I will end their existence.”

With that, he turns away from me and gracefully glides from the room, returning to his station outside my door.

* * *

Andrei finds me twelve hours later, waiting by her side. My fears are only growing. She still hasn’t gone through the turning. Her body lies on the bed as lifeless as she was the moment she died.

“Father,” Andrei says quietly.

Looking up to him, I wait for him to go on. I’ve talked to them all during this waiting period, and I have no voice left for them.

“I need to take her blood,” he says and tries to ease his way to my side to sit by me. “It might give us some hints.”

Nodding my head, I move her arm toward him and continue to hold her hand. It’s pliable but her fingers won’t grasp mine.

I know she’s there inside her body.

She’s somewhere in the light, trying to find her way to the cool darkness. The darkness where the truth is.

Where I wait for her.

I watch as the blood flows into the tubing then into a small vial.

Andrei isn’t taking much, just enough to look under the microscope that was delivered a couple of hours ago by another one of my children, Kian.

When he leaves the room, I slump back down.

None of us have heard of a turning taking more than half a day.

This day marks the beginning of the second.

* * *

Thirty-six hours later and my brain is fucking melting from the inside out.

Raphael comes into the room and shakes me from my stupor. “Asher.”

“What?” I rasp.

“Kian’s back from the city,” he says quietly. He looks to Chloe then back to me. “We need to talk.”

Ambrose glides into the room at the words and flows over to stand at the foot of the bed.

His hands lift up as he says, “Do you think Mother will know the minuet? I dearly hope so. I would dance with one of my brothers, but they don’t seem to know the rhythm of reality.”

Tilting my head, I’m not entirely sure what the fuck he just said or asked.

“I… If she doesn’t,” I shrug, “I’m sure she would love for you to teach her.”

“Hmm,” Ambrose hums to himself as he begins to dance around quietly. Dancing as if he’s a ghost dancing around a grave. “Perhaps she’ll know the more modern foxtrot.”

Raphael looks at me as we leave the room. “You just had to invite the funny farm.”

“Leave him be,” I say, and walk to the kitchen where the maps have been laid out on the table.

Looking at the maps, I ask, “What’s going on?”

“We’ve been doing a shit ton of snooping around,” Kian, my technology guru, says as he looks up from a laptop in the corner of the room.

“What kind of snooping around?” I ask.

“Mostly breaking and entering the city’s treasury offices and hacking a couple of bank files.” Kian points to Caden and Maddox. “The twins have been sneaking around some of the Order’s office buildings.”

“So?” I say with a long breath afterward. “I don’t need dramatics.”

“The Order has been buying a shit ton of property up over the last two years. Homes, apartments, and businesses. And it’s all been under Nikolaos’s nose,” Kian grumbles. “They even bought places from Nikolaos. Granted, a lot of this has been done through offshore shell accounts and dummy corporations, but still.”

“So New Elysium is rife with Benedictines. That doesn’t surprise me given what I saw around Chloe’s house. Do we have any information on how Nikolaos got his hands on the second soulmarked?” I ask.

“From what I can get out of the nomads who were in the den,” Raphael says, standing up from the chair he’s been sitting in, “she was caught in the city fresh off the Greyhound bus.”

“Two marked in one city…” I say thoughtfully. “Her getting off the bus means she was running then. It’s not necessarily intentional.”

“Yeah, fucking weirdest coincidence I’ve seen in a while, but they do happen,” Raphael says.

“Where’s she at right now?” I ask.

“In the wind. Whether it’s with Nikolaos’s coven or she got away, we don’t know,” Raphael answers.

Well shit.

“I don’t give a fuck whose soulmarked she is, I want her here with us as soon as possible,” I say.

Having her here would give us a step toward a legitimate claim to the city, at least with the Council, and the evidence to show how Nikolaos has been running this shitshow so far.

“Already on it,” Raphael says. “I’m calling around to a couple people to see what I can find. But it won’t come cheap. We’re going to need to pay out for this.”

“Get it done,” I say.

Turning to Matthias, I’m ready to ask if he’s made any progress on what I assigned him.

“Don’t ask me yet.” Matthias raises his hand at me. “I’ve put feelers out. I’m waiting on calls and fucking snail mail, if you can believe it.”

“What?” I ask in confusion. “What the fuck?”

“You know some of our kind can’t get with the times. A couple of the ones I had to ask refuse to even use your basic fucking telephone. Pen in paper is their preferred method,” he snaps at me with annoyance.

“You’re keeping this on the down-low though, right?” I ask.

“Of course,” Matthias says. “I don’t want the Council getting wind of any of this right now.”

It’s good that he understands the importance of keeping any word of witches quiet. The last time there was word of one in the wind… Fuck, a lot of us died that century. Died in ways that make the Order’s methods look kind.

Witches are a nasty fucking breed of monster. They’re evil, vile, and seek the destruction of all. Their magic perverts even the darkest of hells. I’ve counted myself lucky I’ve only encountered one in my lifetime. One I barely survived killing. I’ve seen whole covens destroyed by them.

Thank the gods they are truly rare, and that they cannot reproduce like humans and vampires do.

“Alright,” I say, and repress a shudder at the thought of witches living.

“My turn,” Andrei says with a strange little smile on his face. “I have interesting news, I suppose.”

I round on him. “Which is?”

“Chloe’s blood,” Andrei says.

My voice comes out in a deep rumble from my chest. “Andrei, if you want to play games, I’ll strip you naked and drop you in the middle of Siberia.”

Raising his hands in a shield, Andrei says, “I’m not, but your reaction is what I wanted to see.”

“What?” I ask.

“Let me ask some questions. I want to see if my thoughts are right before I answer anything.”

Sighing, I nod my head. Nothing in this fucking city has been fucking simple yet. Why should this be any different?

“How much blood did you give her?” Andrei asks.

Leaning back on the table, I think back on the turning. How it felt when I was drinking from her, and how it felt when she drank from me. How even when she fought me, a large portion of my blood went into her. How when she drank deep from me it felt as if she were draining my cock as much as my body.

“What the fuck?” Matthias sounds like he’s gagging. “Can’t you keep your dick soft when you’re thinking of our dear mother?”

Smirking, I look down at the semi-hard cock in my pants. “What can I say, boys, your mom gets my engine revving.”

“I want to die now,” Raphael groans.

“You can’t die again, you already did that once,” I say then look at Andrei. “To answer your question, she drank a lot. I’m not entirely sure how much but…”

“She drank more than you ever gave us during our turnings, I’m willing to bet,” Andrei says.

“Meaning?” I ask.

“Meaning she has more of your blood inside her than there should be. I’m thinking she was low on blood, lower than we could know. As to why she was so low, it has to be because of whatever they were doing with the hunter downstairs,” Andrei says.

“They were draining her?” I ask, and can feel my own blood boiling with rage.

“Of course, Asher,” Andrei says. “How else could they give her blood to the hunter?”

Nodding my head, I try to keep myself cool and collected. Now is not the time to go on a murderous rampage.

“So, what does this all have to do with why she’s taking so long to wake up?” I ask, impatient for an answer.

“Your blood is basically replacing all of hers because there is so much of yours in her,” he says then shrugs. “I’ll know more as time goes on. I’ll probably be able to see what happened when she wakes up.”

“Are you telling me I have to sit and wait?” I growl.

“Yeah,” he says and walks over to punch me in the shoulder. “Sorry, Pops, but you’re gonna have to wait to give Mom the bone you’ve been saving.”

There’s dead silence in the room as every pair of eyes turns to look at Andrei.

Andrei gives us a smirk then darts out of the room, heading up to the one he’s claimed on the second floor.