H.T. Night's 8-Book Vampire Box Set (81 page)

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I
felt as if my heart was going to come out of my chest. “How is any
of this possible?” I asked.

“The heart of every man will be represented
in both boys. It will be up to you to maximize each of their
greatness.”

I was floored. How could this be? Now there
were twins? Are you kidding me? I don’t know what came over me, but
I just laid my head back on the floor and looked up at the ceiling,
completely dumbfounded.

“I knew this is a lot to hear, Josiah.”

The Deity took my hand and I sat up. I
looked at the Deity and asked, “Will both boys die?”

“No, just one. It will be the most amazing
act of unselfish love.”

Lena was also overwhelmed by the moment.
Tears were falling off her face like a faucet. I scooted over to
her and held her in my arms. “Are you okay?” I asked.

Lena stared straight ahead and calmly said,
“I’ve never felt more love in my heart as I do at this very
moment.”

“Josiah,” the Deity said, to me. “You will
need to keep Lena safe. Others will soon know that she is with
child. There is a lot of evil out in the world that does not want
to see this come to pass. Take her and go back to your home, and
love her. Love her with all of your being.”

“I will,” I said. “But I have one more
question.”

“Yes, my child?”

“How is it possible that she is even
pregnant? Regardless of prophecy and the supernatural overtones?
Tell me scientifically, how could she possibly be pregnant?”

The Deity looked at me and said, “It’s very
simple, Josiah; you both are not 100 percent Mani.”

I took a step back and was extremely
confused. “What does that mean?” I asked.

“Because you were Lena’s final bite that
turned her, she is forever a part of you.”

“Okay, still…” I persisted. “What does that
mean?”

“You are both still human,” the Deity
answered.

“What?” Lena and I both belted out.

The Deity smiled and said, “Both of you are
equally human as well as Mani.”

“We are half breeds?” I asked.

“Not half,” the Deity said. “You have all
the characteristics of both races. You are full breeds, as you
would say, of both races. That is why you are immortal as well as
fertile. You are the first strand of Mani that will be able to
reproduce. You’re our Adam and Eve as it were.”

Holy crap! This was a lot to take in.

I looked at Lena and she seemed to have a
peace come over her. She looked up at me and said, “I always knew,
Josiah. In my heart, I always knew this to be true. Everything that
has been said tonight, I have always known deep down in my soul. I
couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but now that it’s been
revealed I now know what it was.”

“Those are your maternal instincts, child,”
the Deity said to Lena.

“Your holiness,” I said. “Thank you. Thank
you for giving us the wisdom of ourselves that we most desperately
needed to find.”

“You have many things you need to settle,
Josiah. Go and be the leader we all know you can be.”

I took Lena’s hand and as I stepped to the
door, I stopped and turned around. “Will it be okay for her to
transition?”

“She must not change after the second month.
Josiah, the life that’s inside Lena will be human. It will grow and
have a human’s life.”

With that, we left and I took the mother of
my two future children home.

Chapter Twenty-three

I took Lena into my room and held her. We
had received a lot of very intense information tonight and we would
need time to process the new knowledge. I laid there on our bed and
closed my eyes. I was dozing off when I heard Lena say, “Jo?”

“Yes,” I said, waking up.

“Are you concerned?”

“Of course I am. I’m having a hard time
wrapping my head around everything. What I do know, sweetheart, is
that everything in my life has been turned upside down since the
very first day I protected you at that frat party. And I’ve been
able to handle anything that has come my way and this will be no
different. It does make me nervous to think about the kind of world
we’re bringing them into.” I looked at Lena and smiled. “But in my
eyes, these two lives that are inside you are a celebration. All
the things I once worried about don’t seem to be important at all
anymore.”

“I thought you didn’t worry,” Lena said,
smiling at me.

“No... I worry. I just don’t allow it to
manifest itself into full-blown fear.”

“I love you, Josiah Reign,”

“I love you, too. Forever and always.”

With that, I closed my eyes, and was out
like a light. Suddenly, I was awakened by a rushing wind. I opened
my eyes and I was lying in front of a beautiful creek. There were
trees all around and even a water snake at the rim of the creek
eating a fish.

Yes, I was having another vision.

There was a rock at the back of the creek
and the hot sun was out and it didn’t appear to bother me. I sat on
the rock and stared out into the water.

This was my kind of vision. It was a little
bit of Utopia right here in my mind.

Then I heard a voice that knocked me off the
rock. “Son,” a man’s voice said.

I turned around and nearly passed out on the
spot. I was face to face with my father. I didn’t know how to
react. I knew this was a vision, but here he was… right in front of
me. It had been years since I’d seen his face.

I got up from off the ground and went to
him. “Dad!” I said, as choked up as I had ever said his name in my
life.

“Hello, Josiah,” he said, as he reached his
arms out to me and I ran into them. I hugged him tightly. He even
smelled like himself, a combination of Old Spice and soap.

“Are you real?” I asked.

“I’m real to you. That’s all that
matters.”

“I missed you so much,” I said.

“I have missed you too, son. Your mother
says hi..”

“Mom? Is she here?”

“No, son. I was the only one allowed to
come.”

“Do you know about me?” I asked. “Do you
know what I’ve become?”

“Son, you haven’t become anything you
weren’t already. Some of us gain weight, some of us go bald. But
deep in you, you are the same incredible man I raised you to
be.”

“But Dad, I’m a vampire.”

“That may be so, son. But at the end of the
day, you’re everything I raised you to be and more. You can’t be
summed up by one term. You’re loyal and forgiving. You have an
amazing sensibility to fight for what is right and what is good in
the world.” He paused, and then looked at me with a giant smile and
said, “And now, you will be a father.”

Tears dripped from my eyes. “I don’t know,
Dad. I don’t know if I can do it.”

“None of us think we can do it, but the
great thing about fatherhood is that it’s forgiving. And as long as
you’re honest with yourself, to your partner, and to your children,
you will always be able to do what is right. It may take you a
couple of times to get it done. But you will.”

“Dad…”

“Yes, son?”

“This has been so hard. Doing all of this
alone has taken a toll on me.” I sat back on the rock and stared at
the creek.

As I sat staring at the water my father
walked over to me and put his arm around me. “I know, son. You have
been asked to take on a tremendous burden. The thing is that you
don’t have to do it alone. Others have been given a similar calling
and so will your two boys.”

“I just feel like…” I continued to say.
Then, suddenly, I no longer felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. I
turned around and he was gone. Then, in an instant, I woke up.

I sat up and looked around the room. My
heart was heavy, but in many ways, I felt some of the burden had
been lifted off me. I looked over and watched Lena while she slept.
I had a new fire in my belly to get things done. I could thank my
father for that.

Chapter Twenty-four

It was time for me to have my first fight to
help erase mine and Tommy’s debt. Although, fighting in this
underground fighting club was something not in the initial plan, I
felt in my heart that I needed to do this. I wasn’t sure exactly
how this played into the bigger picture, all I knew was, I was
being very drawn to finish the task. I had been relying on my gut
feeling up to this point, so this was no different.

Romero had been in contact with me through
text messaging. I was going to be having my first fight this
upcoming Saturday night. My fight was going to be the main event
and I was fighting an undefeated werewolf named Cooper. He let me
know Cooper had a following similar to Tommy’s and to expect the
crowd to despise me. I was going to be the ‘heel’ apparently. I’d
make sure the crowd was on my side before the night was over.

I didn’t think much about the fight. I was
pretty sure I’d be able to work over any opponent. I knew I
wouldn’t be able to tell Lena what I was doing. The way I looked at
it, it served no good purpose to let her in on how I got mixed up
in trying to free Tommy from the economic clutches of Romero.

I arrived at the arena thirty minutes before
my fight. Romero told me I was going to be entering the arena to
some speed metal music similar to Tommy’s. I let Romero know I
would never reveal the eagle to the crowd. He agreed that it wasn’t
necessary, being that I could fly in my human form.

He told me to not knock Cooper out in the
first three minutes, but make it look like it was a battle. I told
him I couldn’t promise anything. If this werewolf was as tough as
Romero said he was, I was going to want to knock him out the first
chance I had.

I got a glimpse of Cooper before the fight.
He was an all-black werewolf and he was quite large.

I went into the holding area. I kept to
myself while all the other fighters eyeballed me. I was a sight to
behold on this particular evening. I decided to vampire up my
wardrobe for affect. I decided to go with the ‘Atticai’ look. My
hair was a little longer these days so I oiled it down to make it
look wet. I also decided to put some black mascara on my eyelashes
to give the whole rock and roll image going. I wore a long black
trench coat that didn’t restrict my movement. I had to admit the
coat made me look pretty badass. My outfit was topped off with a
black T-shirt and black slacks; I definitely had the dark Gothic
color scheme going. And no Gothic wardrobe would be complete
without a nice pair of black Doc Marten boots, which alone, were
pretty kick-ass all by themselves.

I was told I’d be introduced first because I
was the challenger. I was surprised that Romero didn’t come into
the holding area and see me off in my first fight, but then again,
he was a pretty unpredictable cat.

A bearded man came to the door and said,
“Josiah, it’s time.”

I walked out into the hallway from the
holding area. All that was separating me from the crowd were the
two black double doors I had seen many times from the flip side. I
could hear some ‘Suicidal Tendencies’ blaring in the arena. I had
to admit my adrenaline was going a hundred miles an hour. This was
going to be fun. In the end, I love to fight and that was exactly
what I was getting myself into tonight.

I stood behind the black double doors and
waited to be introduced.

Suddenly, I heard the announcer scream,
“Josiah Reign!” So much for keeping my name discreet; the world now
knew I was a vampire. Well, the very rich part of the world.

The doors opened and I heard a ton of boos.
I’d never been booed before, and to be honest, it kind of sucked. I
walked out and even had a drink hit me in the face. So much for
classy billionaires. Why did these people hate vampires so
much?

“Show us the black raven!” One guy
yelled.

I smiled. It would blow their freaking mind
if I was to transition to the great white eagle. But this jacked-up
group of people didn’t deserve to see that kind of show.

They continued to shout, “Show us the black
raven!” I ignored everyone and made my way to the caged ring. The
cage door to the ring was opened for me to walk inside and I
entered the cage. I looked around the crowd and the boos were
deafening. I began to feed off of it. At first, it kind of hurt
hearing so many people hate you when they knew nothing about you.
On this night, I was playing the role of the villain, and I was
going to embrace it. In this underground, immortal fight club,
vampires were the bad guys. If this crowd wanted a bad guy, then a
bad guy they were going to get. I turned to the audience and
double-birded them. That’s right, I straight flipped off the
richest people in the world, and you know what? I fucking loved
it.

The boos grew louder and louder. Oh, this
crowd hated me and they hadn’t even seen me fight. I circled the
ring and just let the noise consume me. Then the lights turned off
and some lame techno music started blaring over the loudspeaker. It
sounded like really bad house music that you would hear at a
wedding reception.

The black double doors opened and Cooper was
being wheeled in to me. He was introduced by the speaker.

Damn! He was big! He was at least twice my
size in weight. I was going to have my hands full. All right,
Triat. Give me one more favor.

Cooper’s cage was connected and locked into
the center ring’s cage. All that was separating us was his cage
door that could easily be lifted up by the goons outside that
wheeled him in.

Here goes nothing. They lifted Cooper’s cage
door up. And this outrageous beast came at me like I was a steak
dinner. I floated up off the ground in my Mani form so I could look
at the beast below.

I heard someone yell from the crowd, “Did
you see that? That vampire can fly.”