Authors: Linda Mercury

Dracula's Secret (22 page)

Epilogue

“I am not pregnant.” Valerie set down her blood and Coke and glared at Glenath Tempesta and Anthony O'Neill. It had been a very productive and pleasant working dinner at Lance's former house until Glenath had to barge in where she wasn't wanted. Valerie crossed her arms over her sore breasts. The pressure on her tender nipples made her wince.

“We are here to discuss the shelter's next move, not my personal life.”

Glenath and Anthony merely exchanged a knowing glance and continued to hold hands. How could they sit there at what was now Valerie's table and smirk at her like that? It's not like Valerie had had a personal life for the last three months.

Glenath gestured with her wineglass.
“âOnce you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth,'”
the smart-ass little bishop quoted. Her thick silver bracelets clanged together as she toasted the sky. “Thank you, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

Considering it was her fifth glass of wine, Valerie was surprised Glenath didn't slur more than she did.

Anthony snorted into his stein of lamb blood. Miraculously, no droplets splattered his face or his white T-shirt. Radu's children were always ridiculously neat.

Glenath swapped her hazy gaze to him. “Thanks for the support, honey.” The woman had the nerve to sound affronted.

Valerie wrested the conversation back to the topic at hand. “Doyle was a twit. No matter. I am
not
having a baby.”

Glenath sat back in her chair, not the least bit intimidated by Valerie's temper. She smoothed her paisley smock and shook her head. “No vampire has fed from an angel before. No one knows what you are anymore.”

Valerie internally winced. Trust Glenath to remind her of that painful fact. Lance never returned. John had to go back to Switzerland, even though he kept in constant contact. Despite her growing friendships with Glenath and Anthony, Valerie had been abandoned. She cracked her neck and finished drinking her dinner.

Pregnancy was inconceivable. Literally. “Vampires don't ovulate,” Valerie stated flatly. “I'm a vampire. And that is final.”

A wave of blood and coke rolled up her esophagus to the back of her throat. Valerie pressed a hand to her stomach as she dashed to the bathroom. Lucifer below, bile was disgusting. She sat on the cool tile floor, trying to comprehend what was going on. Nausea had plagued her for two solid weeks. Her entire body was swollen and tense.

“Vampires don't vomit, either,” Anthony said as he and Glenath crowded into the small room with her.

Obviously the boy had no sense of self-preservation. She bared her teeth. “Don't push me, kid.”

He didn't look the least bit intimated. “I'll clear the table. You two figure this one out.” He shook his head and left the bathroom. Glenath watched his ass move under his jeans as he walked away. Yes, yes, it was a very nice ass, Valerie thought, but it wasn't the ass she wanted.

“What in Lucifer's hairy nuts am I supposed to do?” Valerie demanded of Glenath. “Take a pregnancy test? I might be messed up, but at least I still don't urinate.”

Glenath shook her head, suddenly less combative. “I'll take a Look.” The bishop had the ability to See secrets. A baby would certainly be a secret, seeing as Valerie didn't know about it. She didn't
want
to know about it.

Valerie raised a lip to bare a fang. “I'm not pregnant. Nothing to look at.”

“Are you scared?” Glenath's voice revealed no anger, just compassion.

Once, Valerie would have said nothing frightened her. That was then. Now, she had grasped true love and lost it. Nothing in the world, not blood, not torture, not even garlic, hurt as much as that still-bleeding wound on her heart.

Her gaze swept what she could see of Lance's former home, now littered with paperwork and her personal items. She hadn't even taken down the Jerusalem cross, preferring its distracting pain to the endless hurt she experienced when she was alone in Lance's bed.

No lies, she had promised herself. Not even with this.

“Yes, I am afraid.” Valerie held her voice flat. She might be afraid, but she still had her pride. “But I cannot continue not being willing to face the truth.”

“You are a most unusual woman.” Glenath sat back, astonishment on her weathered but still stunning face.

“I think I'm about to get more unusual.” Valerie pushed herself away from the toilet and stood. “Look inside of me.”

Being under Glenath Tempesta's searching regard was not unlike standing inside Lance's warm, sunlit aura. Valerie shut that thought off with ruthless desperation. She was not going to linger on that wayward angel.

Glenath met Valerie's eyes. Valerie knew the answer before the words came out of her friend's lips.

“Congratulations. It's an angel.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Before becoming an author,
Linda Mercury
had varied careers, including
librarian, art model, and professional clown.
She holds advanced degrees in both
history and library/information science.
She lives in Oregon with her husband.

KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3017-3

First Electronic Edition: July 2012

Published in the United States of America

Look for these upcoming eKensington books!

Valerie and Lance's story continues
in Linda Mercury's

DRACULA'S DESIRES
.

A Kensington ebook exclusive,
on sale in September 2012.

Read on for a special preview!

What in hell was a Fallen Angel doing in Geneva, Switzerland?

That caustic brimstone stench could warn a city of half-dead humans with nose colds busily shoveling manure, let alone a solitary vampire minding her own business. She set aside the ancient manuscript she had been studying and looked out her cheap hotel room's filthy window to take stock of the newcomer. Aching from yesterday's long drive from Amsterdam to Geneva, Valerie Tate put her hands on the small of her back and stretched, counterbalancing the weight of her six-months-pregnant stomach.

The Fallen appeared as a handsome young man. His sleek swimmer's build combined with pale skin, and cornflower-blue eyes gave him an innocent, wistful air. If he'd been human, she would have contemplated the taste of his blood. Unfortunately, his aura was a sickeningly depressing shade of beige. He had no passion, no flavor. He was a follower.

Valerie preferred fiery men. A man like Lance Soleil, whose aura crackled with ardor, whose hot mouth and hotter intellect had captured her dead and frozen heart.

Her eyes stung with tears. Lance's angelic blood and her subsequent pregnancy had weakened her. Not physicallyâshe was still as strong as ever. In fact, Lance's painful gifts had increased her powers. But it had humanized her as well. Now she wept. Wept! A six-hundred-year-old vampire crying at the slightest provocation? She had executed her own wife without a single moan. Now, she whined like a puppy when she thought of Lance ascending into Heaven and leaving Valerie and his baby behind. That was nothing compared to her past.

She drew back her arm to punch the thin wall by the window, sick of her fragility. As her fist arrowed to shatter the cut-rate plaster, she regained her self-control. Her knuckles lightly tapped the faded gray of the wall.

Stop it.
Six months of her pathetically weak will letting her think of what she no longer had. That was then. This was now.

Lance wasn't worth any more of her time. There was a Fallen Angel to watch. She had to stay focused.

In addition to his dull aura, his overly neat, shiny Italian suit and highly fashionable skinny tie betrayed his vanity. The high-end narrow suit emphasized his sensual build. Honesty forced her to admit that the Angelic Host didn't exactly have what could be called fashion sense. All that gleaming white could get old.

His lack of originality told Valerie that this was not one of the Fallen who had chosen to ride the Wheel to Redemption. He had remained loyal to Lucifer. In short, Lucifer's cannon fodder. His slow ramble toward her dilapidated room did not reveal any danger. He might be insipid, but he might also be good for a laugh.

The dusty gravel cracked and rolled under his feet. His suit rubbed against itself, the expensive fabric shushing in a pleasing fashion. He was making sure she knew he was there. If he'd been coming to kill her, he would have materialized in her room and destroyed her as she lay resting.

As the Fallen neared her door, his innately chaotic nature tugged at her already sensitive nipples. Paranormal beings had been created to keep the Fallen company. Perhaps this one came to provide solace for her heartbroken state, one lost creature to another. She wouldn't love him, but at least they would understand each other.

Besides, she had heard the best way to get over someone was to get under someone else.

As he neared her door, he reached inside his suit jacket. Like a magician pulling a chainsaw from a top hat, the former angel drew a pistol the size of Valerie's forearm.

Valerie raised an eyebrow. Or he could be the universe's stupidest assassin.

She assessed her situation.

Him: Older, meaner, with the advantage of calling high-powered backup.

Her: Pregnant, tired, hungry, pissed off, and trapped in a small enclosed space.

The odds were bad.

Just the way she liked it.

She crouched in a dark corner as the former angel raised his foot and kicked the door into thin splinters.

Bright, high-altitude sunlight flooded the room. Silenced bullets thudded into her flimsy, unmade bed. From headboard to footboard, puffs of dust and feathers flew into the air as the little missiles hit. If she'd been in the bed, she would have been very dead. Shaking with fury, Valerie instinctively rested a protective hand low on her belly.

Silence fell. Gunpowder and feathers hung in the air like pristine snowflakes. In the unreal stillness, her attacker approached the now-destroyed feather mattress. He frowned, confusion all over his vapid face.

“Where is the human's body?” He prodded the ruined twin bed with the barrel of his weapon. “I must find that disgusting abomination of a child.”

Two distant emotions impinged on her battle-ready consciousness. Indignation rose first. What was he doing, striding in like a posturing movie star? This idiot actually believed she, Vlad Dracula, was helpless? As the rest of his words sunk in, wrath took over.

How
dare
he threaten her parasite? She might be less than thrilled to be pregnant, but by Lance Soleil's gleaming wings, no one hurt her child.

“
You do love me!”
the fetus crowed, making its voice known for the first time. Obviously, angel blood bred true. What other being would worry if its mother loved it?

Shut it, kid. I've got a moron to take care of.

Valerie could attack the would-be killer, disarm him, hurt him in ways not even Lucifer could imagine. She could dig her hungry fangs into his neck and feed on his immortal blood. Her claws could rip his brain out of his skull. He was stupid, slow, and careless. Even as ungainly as she was now, she would completely dominate him in hand to hand, until his limbs were scattered from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.

“Stop wasting time,”
the growth inside growled.
“Kill him and get us out of here.”

Valerie spared an approving thought toward her uterus. Perhaps this child was a Dracul as well as an angel.

Reaching into the back waistband of her pants, she drew her much more practical firearm.

Her spine tall with family pride, Valerie Tate shot the world's dimmest Fallen Angel right in the head.

Other books

Fang: A World at War Novel (World at War Online Book 3) by Mitchell T. Jacobs

Tattoo by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

The Enchanter's Forest by Alys Clare

Monarchy by Erasmus, Nicola

Seduced by the Italian Billionaire by C J Howard

Double-Back (Jake Waters Book 3) by Bob Blink

Dawn of Procyon by Mark R. Healy

Viracocha by Alberto Vázquez-Figueroa

Sound of Sirens: (Tales of Skylge #1) by Jen Minkman

Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati