Vampire's Thirst (The Awakening Series) (7 page)

She moaned. Duncan responded with a moan of his own and held her tighter, his tongue twining around hers with greater force. She arched against him, rubbing her tingling breasts against his hard chest. At some point she needed to breathe, and she broke away from him.
This
was what she’d missed this last week, this closeness, the carnality behind their love.

“I love you,” she told him.

“I love you, too,” he replied with a light kiss to her mouth. He settled her more comfortably on his lap and wrapped his arms around her to clasp his hands over her hip. After a few moments of companionable silence, he asked, “Do you really think the three of you can do something?”

“I do.” Kimber sifted her fingers through the silky hair at his nape. “Except I don’t think we should risk Maggie.”

“Why not? You’re a woman and we’d be risking you.”

“She’s pregnant. Maybe seven months or so.” She didn’t follow through with what would be a logical “I’m not” because, well, she was. And she didn’t want to outright lie to Duncan. An omission wasn’t exactly a falsehood, though she knew when he found out he wouldn’t see it in quite the same way she did. “It’s Jason’s.” She frowned. “Well, I think it is. I didn’t ask.”

“I don’t suppose it matters,” Duncan replied quietly. His gaze met hers. “I won’t do anything that puts you at unnecessary risk,” he said. “You mean too much to me.”

“Even if we could stop the apocalypse?”

“Even then.” He pressed a kiss to her brow. “I love you, Kimberly Treat, and I’m not giving you up. Not to zombies, not to the Unseen. We’ll figure this out.”

She saw the inner conflict on his face. If he did encourage her and she and the others were able to end the apocalypse, it was possible when everything was said and done he might lose her, too, because of the Unseen inside her. She fought the urge to blurt out her news. If he knew she was pregnant, he’d definitely put the kibosh on this plan of hers. She didn’t want to risk her unborn child, but she needed to set things right in the world. She’d had a hand in starting this, even if it wasn’t exactly her fault. She needed to be the one to end it. She didn’t want to raise her child—any child, for that matter—in this zombieriffic world.

Just when she thought she might see if she could do something with the hard wedge of man flesh pressing against her hip, a knock on the door came. When she tried hopping off Duncan’s lap, he tightened his hold. “Come,” he barked.

The door swung open to reveal Atticus. He seemed startled, and definitely not happy, to see Kimber there.

She pushed back the hurt she felt at his attitude. Since she didn’t know what to say at this point, she didn’t say anything.

“Sorry,” Atticus said with another glance at Kimber. “We’re scheduled for a meeting with Vachon. He’s ready.”

Duncan’s arms loosened and Kimber climbed off his lap. As he stood, a tall, muscular man strolled into the office. He wore navy slacks with a crisp, long-sleeved white dress shirt. His dark hair was caught at the nape of his neck with a leather band. Blue eyes held intelligence and good humor.

Duncan shook the newcomer’s hand. “I hope your stay so far has been pleasant, Xavier.”

“Your hospitality is most gracious,” he said with a brief incline of his head. “And here is your very good friend Kimber.” His widening smile deepened the color of his eyes. “It’s good to see you again.”

Kimber shot him a glance. “You, too,” she said, but anger began heating her inside.
Here we go with the ‘very good friend’ bullshit again
. What the hell?

Duncan cleared his throat. “Shall we get started, then? Kimber, I’ll see you later.”

She forced a smile. She didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t be in this meeting—why she
shouldn’t
be in this meeting—but she wasn’t going to press the issue in front of a stranger. “Of course.” To Xavier she said, “I imagine we’ll be seeing more of you. I’ll let you get your meeting started.” She went up on tiptoe and placed a kiss against Duncan’s lips, then smiled at Atticus as she went by.

Atticus, who used to be her friend, didn’t want to be in the same room with her anymore, and her lover called her a “very good friend.” She sighed and closed the office door behind her. This had been the worst day ever.

B
y ten o’clock that night, Kimber was beat. She’d had no idea that being pregnant and stressed and worrying about what exactly her lover meant by
very good friend
could make a woman so fatigued. Tossing down the mystery novel she’d been reading, she heaved herself off the sofa and toddled toward the bedroom. Duncan was still with Xavier and Atticus and probably would be until the early hours of morning. Right now Kimber was too tired to even think about staying up to wait for Duncan. Maybe she’d take a nap with him later on. The way she was feeling right now, she thought a lot of naps might be in her future.

She took a quick shower and pulled on one of Duncan’s soft T-shirts but didn’t put on any panties. They made her uncomfortable while she slept. Crawling beneath the covers, she lay on her back and placed one hand over her abdomen. “Well, little one,” she whispered, “I guess it’s just you and me right now. I don’t think your daddy meant to imply anything by calling me a very good friend. I mean, he could hardly call me his girlfriend, right? How silly would that be, an alpha vampire calling me his girlfriend, like we’re teenagers? And it’s not like he can call me his fiancée, either, since he hasn’t asked me to marry him. And I’m not sure what I’d say if he did,” she rambled on. “I think I’d say yes. I love him, so of course I’d say yes. Probably.”

Kimber didn’t understand why she felt so ambivalent. Any woman would jump at the chance to marry the man she loved, right? So why was she waffling?

Her thoughts continued to natter at her as she spiraled down into sleep.

Kimber shot upright with a gasp. The sense of well-being slowly faded, as did the very real warmth coming from deep inside her womb. Wonderingly, she placed her palms flat against her belly. Had her baby helped her? Brought her to enough alertness that she’d been able to wake from that too-real nightmare?

“Thank you, little guy,” she whispered, and rubbed circles on her abdomen. A little flutter of awareness streaked through her mind, making her gasp. Did her baby have a sort of mental telepathy? If so, was it because of Kimber’s necromancer abilities or Duncan’s vampiric tendencies? Or a combination of the two? While a vampire fathering a baby was rare, it wasn’t impossible. It just took regular feeding and lots and lots of sex. So, for her and Duncan, it had been actually rather easy for her to get pregnant. She snorted a laugh and tried to ignore how close to hysteria she felt.

Her heart pitter-pattered a crazy rhythm. Could the baby’s ability be because of the Unseen within her?

Oh, dear God. If her baby was tapped into the Unseen, what would happen to him? She couldn’t quite understand it, but somehow she
knew
it was a boy. Could she protect him if she managed to drive the Unseen back to itself?

Did she actually now
need
the Unseen to be part of her? Was that what her dream was trying to tell her? But what would that mean long-term? And how would she tell Duncan?

Crap. How was she going to tell Duncan she was pregnant? She knew he’d never react the way he had in the dream, never in a million years. He might not be willing to risk his people to save her and their baby, but he’d sure risk himself.

She got up and went into the bathroom for some water. As she brought the glass to her mouth, her hand shook and she ended up sloshing water up her nostrils. She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose, then drank down the rest of the water. Feeling calmer, she settled back into bed and let herself drift into sleep once again.

A while later she felt the mattress dip. Lips pressed against the curve of her neck. Duncan must be finished for the day, which meant the sun was up. Feeling nowhere near rested, she opened her eyes, blinking sleepily.

“Hey.” He kissed her lips and stroked the hair at her temple. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right,” she murmured, her voice raspy with sleep. Still shaken by the dream and the thoughts that still hadn’t settled, she turned more fully into his embrace. “I had a bad dream, and I feel better now that you’re here.”

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “I’ll bring you up to speed after we’ve both gotten some rest.”

Feeling more alert by the second, she decided she wanted to hear about their basic plans, at the very least. “Just give me the highlights.”

“Xavier’s really intelligent and a competent civil engineer. He has some good ideas for the construction of the corridor.” He slanted his mouth over hers, getting her hot and bothered, then drew back with a grin. “Also, Atticus said he was going to talk to Natalie.” His expression sobered. “I think he’s going to release her from their agreement, now that Aodhán is back.”

Kimber frowned. “But his agreement with Nat doesn’t involve sex, so why should it matter?”

“Hmm. And how would you feel if I decided to feed from someone else, even if we weren’t having sex?” He laughed at the little growl she let out and hugged her.

She wrapped her arms around his bare back to return the hug. At least he was touching her. And her libido perked up as she realized he was naked, which was his usual state when he went to bed. Maybe she could get him to do more than hug her now that she seemed to have caught a second wind.

“You know there’s still a sexual element to feeding even if sex itself isn’t involved.”

“Okay, okay. I get it.” She blinked, her eyes getting almost too heavy to keep open. So much for her second wind. “Atticus feeding from Natalie now that Aodhán is back is bad.” She started to say more but was caught by a wide yawn.

Duncan pressed his mouth to her temple. “All right, that’s enough for now. Let’s get some sleep.”

Kimber turned onto her side and snuggled against him, her rear settling against his groin. His body perked up in interest, and she wiggled again until his hand clamped down on her hip. “Stop,” he groaned. “We can get up to speed on this, too, after we’ve rested.”

She grinned and closed her eyes. It was enough that he wanted her. After that dream, she needed all the assurance she could get.

Duncan stared down at the love of his life and felt the ache in his chest ease. Kimber was so fiercely independent and one of the strongest people, emotionally, he knew. He wasn’t sure how much of that was from what she used to do for a living and how much of it came from being on her own. She had no family, not since her parents had been killed by vampires. It made him feel a bit primitive to think she needed him…for anything, but especially to make her feel more secure.

He’d made it his mission to protect her all those months ago, and he would never regret it, nor would he give her up. She was his to love, to protect.

And he was hers, even if it meant letting her use him for the zombie cure. If it came to that, he had little hope he would survive. But if he could make the world a safer place for Kimber, his death would be a small price to pay.