Chapter 2

ROSE

I shook my head, kicked our door closed, and marched past him.

“No, she’s not,” I answered stiffly, sitting down on our king-size bed and setting the baby down on a fluffy white pillow. Demetrius followed me, gazing hungrily at the baby.

“Then what’s it doing here?” he asked, arching his brows at me.

I stood up slowly and moved toward the wardrobe. It was almost the size of our room. Inside, it contained all my favorite fashion pieces since 1412.

“I’m not sure yet,” I admitted, kicking my soaking boots off and tossing them next to the fire. Demetrius watched me with a frown. He stared at the baby, then back at me.

“Rose...I don’t understand. Why is this human here?” he asked.

I tugged my trousers off, removed my blouse, and faced him.

“Because I couldn’t leave her where she was,” I explained, taking a deep breath and squaring my shoulders. “She would have died.”

Demetrius blinked at me, then tossed his head back, howling with laughter. I scowled and turned away, slipping off my twenty-first-century lingerie.

I was pulling a white slip over my head when I felt Demetrius’s arms wind around my waist. He held me against his chest, grinning. His large moss-green eyes were glowing.

“You brought it here because you were afraid it would die?” he chuckled, leaning down to nuzzle his face in the crook of my neck. I tried not to lose myself in his soft kisses and wandering hands.

“No, Demetrius.” I paused.

“I don’t know what I was thinking, but I know that I’m not going to let that child die. I don’t know how to explain it, but this baby needs me. I have time, and I want to care for it.”

I glanced at the small girl who was shivering slightly on the pillow, staring at us intently. I slowly moved my eyes up to meet Demetrius’s.

He stared back at me in utter confusion. I could read it all over his face, his eyes, his scent even.

“But you’re the hunter, Rose, and it’s the prey. You can’t care about it,” he breathed, starting to pace across the room.

Seizing my opportunity, I grabbed a long dark purple gown from a hanger and slipped it on over my head. It had long thick sleeves and a gaping neckline.

I tied the laces at my back and brushed the heavy fabric out. Demetrius was still pacing, rubbing his fingers through his thick auburn hair.

“This child is light,” I told him, tiptoeing and moving my hand across one of the many top shelves in our wardrobe. I pulled out a thick pink velvet blanket. One that I had used with the twins.

“What?” Demetrius turned to me.

“Light. I can’t explain it. She’s light.”

“That... It doesn’t make sense, Rose,” he murmured.

“If you say so,” I answered simply, moving to pick up the baby. Demetrius collapsed in our richly decorated chair and watched me, scowling.

“Can’t you smell its blood? Doesn’t it make you thirsty? Are you feeling all right?” he snapped.

I picked the girl up in my arms and wrapped the velvet blanket tight around her small body. She stopped shivering.

I could see and smell the blood rushing to her face as she warmed up. I hugged her in my arms.

“I can smell ~her~ blood. But I will not drink it,” I looked up and met my husband’s eyes, then smiled at him sweetly. “I am going to raise her!”

Before I could stop him, Demetrius was by my side, snatching the child from my arms. His eyes were bright scarlet. He bent down, ready to rip her throat out.

A jolt went through me, and I leapt on him, wrapping my legs around his waist, pressing my lips against his. His fangs sliced my lips open, and I felt my cold blood against my skin.

Right on cue, my still heart started beating, pushing my blood through my body and pouring out of my wound.

For a second, Demetrius was still, then his eyes blazed bright crimson, and his tongue lashed out, lapping the blood from my chin.

His hands moved quickly up my body, one hand cupping my breast, the other knotted in my hair, pushing my head back so he could have better access to the blood trickling down my throat.

He let out a throaty groan, and I felt his fingers tighten in my hair. As he rained kisses down my throat, I slowly pulled the baby back into my arms, locking her in an iron grasp.

Demetrius pulled back, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. My lip was already healed, and my heart stopped beating.

He stared at me in wonder, his red eyes slowly dimming back to green. I watched his expression soften.

“I don’t understand, Rose,” he repeated.

“She needs me, and I feel I need her too,” I replied. Demetrius looked hurt. He looked away, behind me, at the closed door.

“If it’s children you want, we can have more,” he breathed, his eyes wide. He reached out to stroke my cheek lightly.

I bowed my head and moved away from him, cupping the girl’s head in my palm and gazing into her brilliant green eyes.

“No, how many more pregnancies do you think I’ll survive? I’ve already had three children, and all three of them almost drained me. Especially the twins.

“No, I don’t want to have any more children. It’s her I need. She is warmth and light.”

“Then she is the opposite of us,” Demetrius summed. When I looked at him, I could see he was getting annoyed.

“Demetrius, try to understand,” I pleaded.

“I’m having a hard time, Rose,” he admitted. “You go out hunting and come back with prey that you want to raise.

“How do I understand that? Can you imagine a wolf raising a rabbit? It’s absurd. It’s wrong, Rose. You must give it up.”

“I can’t, not now. It’s too late to turn back, Demetrius. I’m not asking for your permission.” Demetrius turned around and hissed at me.

“How long do you expect it to survive? Here?”

“I will protect her!”

“Even when you’re out hunting?”

“She will come with me. I will not let her die.”

“Until she dies of old age,” he uttered.

“I really don’t have time for this, Demetrius. My mind is made up, and unfortunately, you’re just making it easier. I have to find some food for her.” I moved past him, swinging the door open.

Demetrius fumed behind me. I could practically feel the steam coming off his furious body. I left him there and moved back into our living room. It was empty again.

I continued back down the hall to the staircase. Instead of going up, I went down the tunnel in front of me.

At the end was a chamber full of antiques. All the furniture, paintings, and clothing we’d stowed away for centuries.

Holding the child in one hand, I headed to the furniture, scrambling over the tables and chairs until I found the crib.

It was a little over four hundred and fifty years old. Demetrius had made it himself when I first announced to him that I was carrying his son.

It was made of thick branches of solid oak and cherry wood and covered in carvings of winding veins and roses. Its rosy color was due more to the stains of blood than the cherry wood.

I picked it up with one hand and, with one breath, cleared it of all the dust.

“Let’s see if we can find any of those pretty blankets I used with the twins.” I pressed my lips together and started pushing through the large trunks of clothes.

I discovered, with a smile, the twins’ clothes when they were in their thirties. They had been the size of the child in my arms.

I picked out all the small dresses, underwear, socks, and shoes and put them all in the crib. I set the baby in the crib and continued searching through the trunks.

“I still have to figure out how to feed you,” I told her as I discovered a trunk of blankets. With a wide grin, I pulled out six soft blankets, walked back to the crib, and leaned over.

The baby stared back at me with wide eyes. It gurgled something. I felt my heart tighten. I picked her up gently and dumped the blankets in the crib.

Carrying her with one hand and the crib with the other, I moved out into the tunnel.

I heard the hiss of voices above me. I tried to hear what they were saying, but they were all whispering. I moved up the stairs, listening as the voices grew louder.

I gripped the child closer to my chest when I heard my name being spoken.

When I made the last turn of the staircase, I was faced by the whole family. All of them, standing or sitting under the organ. They all stopped speaking when I appeared.

I scanned their expressions slowly.

Demetrius stood closest to the fire, his expression hard and furious. By his side stood his elder brother, Angus, with his thick arms crossed over his chest.

Beside him stood Aleesha, his wife, wearing her typical expression, a mixture of surprise and a smirk.

I moved my gaze away from them toward the large armchair facing the fire. I couldn’t see her face, but I knew that Elizabeth, my mother-in-law, wasn’t smiling.

I turned my head slightly to the long table where my children sat. The twins, Phoenix and Venus, were both sitting in chairs, watching my every move with obvious distaste.

Aric was sitting on the table, his expression curious. He was trying to figure out my motives. Next to him sat my niece and nephew, Eloise and Jude, both wearing expressions of pure boredom.

I finished moving up the stairs and tossed my hair back as I slowly walked past them, meeting all of their hard gazes.

Feeling their stares on my back, I set the crib down in front of the fire and knelt next to it, still gripping the child in my arms. Putting her in the crib would be a death sentence right now.

As usual, Angus was the first one to explode.

“Rose, this is unbelievable! It’s preposterous!” he hissed, storming over toward me and staring at the child in my arms as he leaned over. “What are you thinking?”

He made a grab for the child, but I spun away, leaping to my feet and hugging her to my chest.

“She’s not thinking,” Elizabeth answered.

I slowly turned to face her. The two-thousand-year-old pureblood vampire gazed back at me with her fangs bared.

“Rose, you’re not stupid. Stop this game and hand the child over,” she told me calmly. Her voice didn’t betray her anger as her expression did. I leaned away from her, shaking my head.

“No. This is not a game. This is not because I’m lonely. She needs me, and I can be here for her,” I told them all, glancing down at the child in my arms.

“Ridiculous!” Angus spat.

“Unheard of,” Phoenix added. I glanced up and locked my eyes with my daughter’s until she turned her face away, scowling.

“I’m not asking for your permission,” I reminded them all coldly. “I’m not asking for help either. For all I care, you can never speak to her. But I will raise this child as my own because right now, I need her.”

“Rose.” Demetrius took a step closer to me, his eyes filled with compassion. “I will not help you.” His expression turned hard, his voice flat. “That human is no child of mine.”

He bared his fangs, meeting my eyes. I tried to ignore the pain in my heart. I bowed my head slightly.

“I will do this alone,” I breathed.

“Mother.”

My head snapped up. Aric slipped off the table and gracefully walked toward me. He faced me, staring at the child in my arms.

“She is a human, Mother—not a pureblood baby, but a human. In two years, she’ll be twice her size now. In eighteen years, she’ll be your size. Eighteen years,” he winced slightly.

“Mother, what will happen when she turns fifty and looks like she could be your mother? Or when she turns eighty and could be your grandmother?

“What about when she dies, Mother? In only one hundred years?” his gaze met mine calmly. “I think that you’re making a mistake. She is not one of us. She cannot live here. She will break your heart.”

There was a long silence in the room. I blinked at my son, then stepped back.

“How can my heart break if it’s not beating?” I asked in a flat tone. Aric flinched back.

“I’m sure you can all suck it up for twenty years while I raise her. Then I’ll send her off into the world, where she can get married, find a job, and have children of her own.”

“And be killed by a vampire,” Angus hissed. I glared at him.

“Shut up,” I snapped venomously. Aric turned away from me slowly, shrugging one shoulder.

The only sound in the room was the slight pumping of the baby’s heart. The only scent was her overwhelming sweet blood. I knelt by the crib again, facing the fire.

“She is a beacon,” I spoke calmly. “I will name her Eleanor, light.” I smiled and hugged her to my chest. “My beautiful human daughter,” I breathed, pressing my lips to her forehead.

I heard hisses, noises of disgust, and footsteps walking away, but I didn’t turn. Demetrius, Eloise, and Jude all marched past me on their way downstairs.

“Besides, uh, Eleanor, did you bring any lunch home?” Aric knelt beside me, a hint of humor in his voice.

“No, sorry. You’ll have to go hunting,” I replied. He turned his face to me, then leaned toward my daughter, Eleanor. He breathed in her thick bloody scent. I saw his eyes flash bright red.

“This is not going to be easy,” he warned me, taking a big step back. I could tell he was fighting not to pounce on Eleanor. “I have to go.” His voice was strained. I could smell his hunger.

He disappeared from in front of me, the heavy doors slamming in his wake.

“I always knew you were different, but I never even considered you being this different,” Elizabeth told me before standing up and disappearing after Aric.

Angus and Aleesha hovered behind me, then disappeared to go hunting as well.

I picked out all the clothes and the blanket from the crib and lay them on the stone floor.

“Hmm, I was given this for my thirtieth birthday,” I heard a smooth voice say next to me.

The twins knelt on either side of me, fishing through their old clothes.

“You aren’t going to give these to the human, are you?” Venus asked, staring at me with her soft moss-green eyes.

“Yes.”

“But they’re ours,” Phoenix answered harshly.

“Can you still fit into them?” I asked smoothly, poking the mattress into the side of the crib. It was still as soft as it had been four hundred years ago.

I stood up and put Eleanor inside and placed a blanket over her small body.

“How old is it?” Phoenix asked as she leaned over, her voice softer.

“I don’t know. About six months old, I’d say. Maybe less. She’s very small.”

“She could just be short,” Venus smiled, tucking her long slender legs under her. I placed my hands on their shoulders before they could pull back and squeezed them.

“I’m not asking for your support, but you can, if you want to, consider Eleanor as your sister,” I told my daughters. They snorted, drawing back at the same time.

“A sister for twenty years who’ll look twice our age,” Phoenix chuckled.

“If she’s not father’s daughter, she’s not our sister,” Venus replied.

“Aric can do what he wants, but she’ll never be part of this family, Mother,” Phoenix continued.

I stared at her then nodded my head once.

“I hope that one day—I don’t care if I have to wait a millennium—you’ll understand,” I said. I held her gaze, then slowly shifted mine to Venus. They kept quiet, watching me caress Eleanor’s soft cheek.

“I’m afraid she’s going to hurt you, Mother,” Venus said finally, running her finger through her long wavy strawberry-blonde hair. I smiled at her.

“A human couldn’t hurt me,” I answered.

“With all the love you’re giving her, this one could,” Phoenix replied curtly, tossing her rich red hair back. Then she got up slowly, brushing the pleats out of her long dress.

I watched Venus stand up on my other side. The twins stared down at the child with confused expressions.

“Mother.” Venus moved toward the fire and leaned against the marble fireplace. She faced me, digging her moss-green eyes deep into mine.

Phoenix hovered next to her, cocking her head to one side.

“You said this was not about children, but...,” Venus started.

“Were we that bad?” Phoenix finished for her, and they nodded in agreement.

A wave of compassion rushed through me, and I stood up and crossed the small space between us in a split second. I wrapped my arms around both of them and drew them against me.

“My daughters, you are wonderful, gracious creatures, and I love you so much. Eleanor may also be my daughter, but I will never feel about her as I feel for you.”

I pressed my lips to both their foreheads then drew back, keeping my hands on their upper arms. The twins both smiled and nodded.

“We need to feed,” Venus said.

“We haven’t fed in three days,” Phoenix replied. “And we were expecting to eat the human you brought home.”

“We should go before we eat ~her~.” Venus jutted her chin toward Eleanor.

“Of course,” I stepped back, then smiled at them. “You wouldn’t mind bringing me back something, would you? I, uh, wouldn’t want to hurt her either.”

When I thought of Eleanor’s blood, my throat tightened, and I was fighting the thirst away. I realized that raising her was going to take a lot of control.

The twins grinned at each other and nodded.

“We’ll be back soon,” Phoenix told me just before she and her twin disappeared through the cathedral doors.

I turned back to my human daughter. I hadn’t even noticed her fall asleep, but there she was, her breathing heavy and clear, her heart beating in rhythm.

When I touched her cheek, her skin was warm. She was warm, she was going to be fine. I just had to find a way to feed her.

I gazed at her long black lashes and warm light brown skin. My hand looked so pale next to her face. I drew back slowly, keeping my eyes on her small face.

I’d never considered a human more beautiful than a vampire, but she, even so young, was stunning. I smiled at her.

“Eleanor, my own personal sun,” I breathed.