The pregnant Delilah lay on the large four-poster bed, her face distorted in pain, her legs spread with her feet flat on the mattress. She breathed rhythmically.
“Maya!” Samson, his face and torso marred with burn marks yet holding his wife’s hand called out. “We need you here. The baby’s coming!”
Maya rushed into the room in the next instant and immediately headed for the bed. “I’m here.” She glanced back to the opposite side of the room, and Haven followed her look.
Amaury had scooped Nina into his lap. Her torso was littered with burn marks and slashes, and she was bleeding profusely.
“No, Maya,” Delilah said. “You have to help Nina first.”
“Amaury’s got her. Don’t worry,” Maya assured her. “Now let’s get that baby out.”
Haven glanced back to Amaury and the woman in his arms.
“I shouldn’t have left you alone, chérie.” He noticed how Amaury’s fangs lengthened and then, without warning, he pierced his own wrist with them, making blood spurt from it.
Nina gave him a weak smile. “Had to kick that witch’s ass.”
“ ‘Course you did,” he answered and led his wrist to her lips. “Now drink.” Fascinated, Haven watched, reminded of how Yvette had healed him in the same way only two days earlier.
When Samson approached him, Haven turned away from the scene and looked at him. Before the vampire said a single word, Haven already knew what was coming.
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t prevent her from taking Kimberly. She was attacking Nina. We fought her as best we could, but when she went after my wife ... I’m sorry, she was too strong for just me and Nina alone.” True regret shone in his eyes.
“Kimberly was my responsibility,” Haven pressed out, feeling the sharp edge of failure slice into him. He couldn’t blame Samson—he’d had to protect his wife and Amaury’s. Those were his first priorities, not Kimberly.
A soft hand slid into his palm, and he turned seeing Yvette step beside him. “We’ll get her back. I promise you.” Her words were little consolation to the grief that overwhelmed him once more. She must have noticed his dejected look, because she did something that he hadn’t expected her to do.
In front of all her colleagues and friends, Yvette put her arms around him and kissed him. When she pulled back to look at him, he felt choked up and couldn’t say what he wanted to, so he simply said, “Thank you” and hugged her back.
As he released her from their embrace, he caught Wesley’s look fixed on them. For once, his brother wasn’t scowling. He simply shrugged as if to convey that whatever happened wasn’t something he could change. Maybe his little brother had finally figured out that some things were fate, and you didn’t mess with fate.
“Can we have some privacy for Delilah here?” Maya asked and made shooing motions with her arms. “We’ve got a baby to deliver here, so give us some space.”
Despite the fact that Nina already looked much better after drinking her vampire husband’s blood, Amaury carried her out of the room. “I can walk, you know,” she protested.
Amaury simply grunted. “Let it go, Nina. You’re not gonna win this one.”
Only Maya and Samson remained in the bedroom with Delilah after all others trailed downstairs and assembled in the living room. A sense of déjà vu stole over Haven as he looked into the round. So much was the same, yet so much had changed since they’d been assembled in the same room not twenty-four hours earlier.
Haven tugged Yvette closer. “How did Amaury know that his wife was injured?” He kept his voice down, not wanting the others to hear him.
“They are blood-bonded. They can communicate telepathically.”
Yvette’s whispered words peaked his curiosity. “How so?”
“That’s just how it is. A blood-bonded couple has a very deep connection.”
“But Nina’s human.” That a vampire had special powers didn’t surprise him, but Samson had clearly said that Amaury’s wife was human.
“Doesn’t matter. Once she blood-bonded with Amaury, she’s connected to him. It’ll always be like that for them. They’re closer than any human couple could ever be.” There was longing in her look.
“But if she’s human, and he’s a vampire, she’ll grow old and die.” And she would have to watch her husband stay as young as he was now while she withered away. Haven shook his head. How good could that be? No, a relationship between a human and a vampire—or a witch and a vampire for that matter—had to be doomed from the start.