Even humans knew that the longer you lived, the quicker time seemed to pass. If that was true for those whose lives began and ended in a single century, then how much more so for the Vampire whose life spanned millennia. The strange thing was not that the years sped by, but that a single moment could last forever. This was one such moment.
For creatures who could outlast the rise and fall of empires, they were nevertheless as limited as humans in that they could live each day only once. The same could not be said of witches, and the one standing in front of him had given him a miracle – not in carrying him as she timewalked from one century to another, but that in doing so she had procured for him the forgiveness of the father he had euthanized. For that moment he would be thankful for eternity.
And here was another moment. She was a daily marvel to him –she had so quickly come to love him. He was irrevocably bound to her, and to her alone, for the rest of his life. His Vampiric instincts had made her his mate, but no such primal imperative guided her. She chose him. She chose him every day, and for always. And she wasn't afraid of him – he knew what he was capable of, and her trust humbled him. She opened him up, and when he pushed her away, she didn't retreat. She did what she did tonight. She enfolded him in her love.
He sat, impossibly, in his attic in 1590 London, and Diana, his wife, his mate, had learned another of his secrets tonight. His failure to save Fian ate at him. He hadn't cared the first time, but now, over four centuries later he lived through the day for a second time as a very different creature. But the will to save had not given him the ability to save. Diana stood before him, and as with all of his crimes, of commission as well as omission, she responded with love. She moved towards him, and standing between his thighs, she had gathered him to herself. Her arms encircled his shoulders, and she moved her hands to his head, pulling him close to her body.
He wrapped his arms around her and breathed in the honey scent of her – and something new. And time stopped for Matthew in that moment as his preternatural senses detected that other life within her. It was impossible. He drew slowly away from her, and stared at her belly.
'Diana. You're…'
'Pregnant. I thought so.'
Matthew continued to stare at her abdomen, as though his unborn child could give him an explanation. He heard Diana's voice, and in some fashion he heard the words, but for once his phenomenal ability to process information had deserted him. His mind, his heart, had room for only one fact. He and Diana had given life to a child. His child. His actual, impossible, wonderful, miraculous child. Diana's hand reflexively moved towards her belly, and he reached for it, his fingers laced with hers. He turned his gaze to look at her, and saw her concern fade away with whatever she saw in his face. In that moment, that endless moment, with complete certainly, that this woman, this witch, this family, possessed his whole heart, for this moment, and for the whole of his life.