Bast’s mind whirled with questions and more questions. How the fuck had he sired someone? How had she survived? Transition was a miserable experience to live through without a sire’s care. Jesus Christ. This had to be the reason she’d been ordered for execution.
The insistent tugging he’d been feeling all evening. The feeling of unrest and unease, which had been with him since they’d arrived, had been trying to tell him something. His bloodborne. His. An impossibility, an unfathomable feat, stood in the same room with him, ready to be claimed.
“Sebastian?” Alice’s concern stabbed him.
“The pregnant woman,” he said between gritted teeth. “She’s mine.” He felt her hesitate, her grip on his hand slipping free. “Not like that, Alice...there’s only you like that. The woman...I don’t know how and I don’t know when, but she is my creation.”
He struggled with his next words because they made no sense. He wasn’t full-born. Turning someone was supposed to be impossible. The word kept tumbling over and over in his thoughts.
Just fucking impossible.
“She’s...I made her a vampire,” he finally forced out. There was an audible gasp beside him, echoing his sentiments almost perfectly. “This is bad, princess. Really bad. I have to find out more.”
They didn’t speak again until they’d woven through numerous bodies. Most were indulging in alcoholic beverages, while others dipped crunchy bits of fried calamari in marinara or chewed on rolled eggplant stuffed with cheese. He’d planned on allowing everyone to enjoy the restaurant’s offerings, but the night hadn’t even begun and it had swung a left down a one-way street, hurtling in the wrong damned direction.
The only thing on his mind right now was this woman. His bloodborne.
His disciplined men kept Bast and Alice in the center of a circle of protection, while still giving them some freedom to move through the others. Gray stayed the closest, and for that Bast was grateful. He’d need sound advice in this matter.
“You’re the man who was shot that night,” Jasmine Gerulaitis said when they were close enough. “You’re the reason I’m here.”
Bast studied her face, trying to recall it from memory. He’d been shot a dozen times or more, but try though he might, he couldn’t place her. What history did they share?
Her husband, a hulking brute of a man, stepped forward and put his body in between Bast and his wife’s. Corin’s arm was hidden inside his duster, the look in his eyes a mix of rage and contempt. “You have no idea what you did, and it’s the first of three reasons why you’re not dead by me right now.”
Bast kept his gaze trained on his tucked hand, looking for any sudden movement, while his instincts went on screaming alert. “I don’t give a fuck who you think are, Council executioner or not. Don’t threaten me. I promise that you’re not good enough to take me down, so I suggest you put that hand where I can see it.” He didn’t bother to mention the five men who surrounded them.
Corin tensed. “Bring it.”
* * *
Wide-eyed, Alice whipped her attention from Sebastian to the man and back again. Time out and wait a minute. What was happening here, and should she duck and cover?
“Corin, sweetheart?” Alice had almost forgotten about the woman standing just behind the man threatening Sebastian. She looked adorable dressed in a sleeveless purple dress, with some sort of drape over one shoulder. Her skin gave off the kind of glow only pregnant women could ever achieve. “Honey, I’ve gotta pee. You’re going to have to hold off on any killings until I get back, ‘kay?”
The change in Corin’s face was immediate and dramatic. Everything about his look softened, love shining from him with such loudness it almost seemed a private moment between the two. “As you wish,” he murmured. He looked to Sebastian. “If you would allow me to finish what I’d started to say... This woman and our child are the other two reasons I would never harm you. Thank you.”
“But I don’t understand. How did this happen?” Sebastian asked. “You have no idea...”