"What old saving?"
"Be careful what you wish for."
It took a moment before Sophia realized that Darcy was referring to her.
"Ah." A sneering smile touched her lips. "Salvatore warned me that you would be hoping for June Cleaver."
Well, what the heck was wrong with that?
Home-cooked dinners, being tucked into bed, a soft kiss on the cheek ...
Darcy grimaced. "And instead I got Mommie Dearest"
Sophia shrugged her indifference. "I suppose that is true enough. You know, I am not really such a horrible person, but I will admit I have little interest in being a mother. It's always seemed a very tedious job with few rewards."
"What about the love of your children? Surely that's worth something?"
"Not nearly enough. Perhaps when you have been a breeder for a few centuries you will understand."
Darcy gave a choked sound. She didn't know what a breeder was, but it didn't sound like a position she wanted to take on.
"A breeder?" she demanded warily.
"That's what we are, you know," Sophia drawled. "Female purebloods have one purpose among the pack, and that is to produce as many litters as physically possible."
Darcy widened her eyes. "Sheesh, do you actually have .. . litters?"
"Puppies?" She gave a sharp laugh. "No, our children are born as humans. We call them litters because we usually carry more than one child at a time, and of course, they do possess the blood of wolves."
Well, that was a quasi-relief. And it reminded Darcy of the one good thing left in this entire mess.
"Salvatore said that I have three sisters?"
"Yes."
"Will I be allowed to meet them?"
"If we can manage to capture them." The green eyes flashed with annoyance. "They are proving to be just as great a pain in the ass as you, my dear."
Darcy was torn between relief that her poor sisters had managed to avoid her own fate, and a regret that she might never meet them.
Sisters seemed like a wonderful thing to possess.
"Are there any others?" she demanded. "I mean, did you have more than one ... litter?"
There was a pause before Sophia shrugged. "I've been pregnant over a hundred times."
"Good lord."
"The pregnancies rarely last beyond the first few months. None survived to birth beyond you and your sisters."
Something that might have been sorrow briefly flashed over the beautiful face before Sophia was slipping back behind her mask of sardonic indifference.
Darcy's breath caught in unwelcome sympathy. Dang it. She didn't want to consider how painful it might be for a woman to become pregnant over and over while always knowing that death waited just a breath away.
Or to ponder the thought that any woman would learn to protect her emotions from such disappointments. And perhaps even to become cynical over the passing centuries.
She didn't want to sympathize with this woman who treated her as if she were an irritating piece of stray property that was necessary to her plans.
"I'm sorry," she muttered before she could halt the words.
"It is a fact of life for Weres."
"Why?" Darcy demanded, recalling Levet's earlier reference to the Weres' lack of children. "I mean . . . why so many miscarriages?"
Sophia made an impatient sound. "Really, darling, use that brain of yours. Can you imagine what happens to a woman's body when she shifts?"
Darcy grimaced. She wasn't entirely sure what was involved with shifting, but it didn't sound good.
"No, actually I can't imagine."
"Well let me assure you that as exhilarating as it might be, it is also extremely violent."
"Oh."
"Yes, oh." With a restless motion, her mother paced across the narrow floor. "There are legends that in the Dark Ages a pureblood female could control her shifts, even during a full moon, so that she could carry her children without fear of miscarriage. If that is true, then the talent was lost long ago."
"So you have to shift whether you want to or not?"
"During the full moon, yes." Sophia halted to regard Darcy with a meaningful gaze. "And, on occasion, when someone is stupid enough to press my temper."Darcy ignored the less than subtle threat. "So how can I possibly be your daughter? I've never... changed shape."
"And that is what makes you so very special, darling." The green gaze flicked dismissively over Darcy's slender body. "A female pureblood who doesn't shift. The perfect breeding machine."
Breeding machine? Ew. Not in this lifetime.
Now, however, didn't seem the time to argue the point.
"Why don't I shift?" she demanded instead.
"Good God, don't ask me." Sophia gave a faint shiver. "Salvatore can give you all the boring scientific details. Something to do with altering cells or DNA, I think."
Darcy didn't try to hide her shock. Holy crap. She had been prepared for the strange, the bizarre, and even the mystical. A scientific experimentation was at the very bottom of the list.
"Genetics?"
"Yes, that's it."
"I've been genetically altered?"
"Yes, my love." A taunting smile touched her lips. "You are the werewolf equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein's monster."
A low growl echoed through the room as the door was thrust open and Salvatore stepped over the threshold.
"Shut your mouth, Sophia, or I will shut it for you."
Chapter Twenty-Two
Darcy sucked in a sharp breath as the dark, fiercely handsome Salvatore stepped into the room. As always he was wearing a silk suit that was worth a small fortune, this one in a pale blue with a dark charcoal tie. His black hair had been smoothed and tied at the nape of his neck to better reveal the elegant perfection of his male features.
His elegance, however, didn't diminish the dark aggression that smoldered in the golden eyes or the air of violence that suddenly filled the room.
He wasn't pleased with Sophia and looked ready to do something about it.
Darcy instinctively stiffened. If the two Weres were about to go to battle then she didn't want to be tied in the middle.
Seemingly indifferent to the danger, Sophia strolled to stand behind Salvatore, her slender hands stroking over his shoulders with an obvious intimacy.
"All, Salvatore. You see, I have managed to accomplish what you could not," she said in a throaty tone. "Not surprising. A woman is usually more capable than a man, no matter how he likes to think himself superior."
He shrugged off her touch, his gaze remaining on Darcy's pale face.
"The only thing you've managed to accomplish is to terrify your own daughter. I hope you're pleased?"
"At least she is here and not in the clutches of the vampires," Sophia countered, moving to lean against the wall in a well-practiced pose. It was no doubt a pose that made most men foam at the mouth, but unfortunately for her, Salvatore never even bothered to glance in her direction. Her expression hardened. "If you possessed any spine at all you would have taken her the moment you arrived in Chicago. She would already be in your bed and carrying her first litter."
"Hey." Darcy gave a frustrated tug on the chains. "Wait a minute—"
"Leave us," Salvatore interrupted in a low tone.
Sophia laughed. "Tell me, Salvatore, are you man enough to take her while she's chained and helpless?"
A low growl trickled from Salvatore's throat as he slowly turned his head.
"I will not tell you again, Sophia. Leave us."
There was a tense moment before Sophia at last offered a mocking bow. "Of course, Your Majesty." Moving to the door she paused to cast a glance over at the bed. "Try not to injure her. She is my daughter, after all."
With her warning delivered, Sophia stepped into the hall and closed the door.
Alone with Salvatore, Darcy shifted uneasily on the bed. She didn't really believe that this man would actually rape her while she was chained to the bed. Not after he had taken such care over the past days to try to win her trust.
But she felt annoyingly vulnerable as he moved toward the bed and gazed down at her.
Her mother had made it painfully clear that she had been genetically engineered for one purpose: to have children for the Weres.
They were obviously desperate.
How long could Salvatore's patience possibly last?
She flinched as he reached a slender hand toward her face. "Don't..."
The dark eyes flashed with regret. "Darcy, I did not want it to be this way. Are you hurt?"
"Don't touch me."
His hand dropped and his expression became one of wounded arrogance.
"Despite my heritage, I'm not an animal, Darcy. I won't harm you."
"No. You seem to have an unending supply of women to do that for you," she muttered, still smarting from the blow she had taken from her mother. Not to mention her run-in with the lovely Jade.
His nose flared with an anger that filled the room with a prickling heat.