A/N: This is kinda short, but I'm tired and my muse seems to have abandoned me. I think she's still mad about Lucian being dead in the movie, even if he's not dead in my fic. So it may be a bit until chapter 7, which I think will be funny, but I don't really know because I have no idea how I'm going to write it. I realize I'm rambling so I'll stop and let you read.
Disclaimer: own nothing except plot and OCs. Everything else belongs to Sony, Len Wiseman, Kevin Grivoux, blah blah blah. I hate writing these things. Don't sue. K?
Chapter 6: Staying True
"I don't get it," Erika complained as she shut the door to their rooms.
"What?" Marcus asked, looking up from the letter he was writing to the New World Coven, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Selene. No one seems to care that until last week, she was a traitor, and now she, the murderer of Viktor, is living among us. And no one gives a damn!"
"Oh. That." Marcus put down his pen. He sighed, not wanting to admit to Erika that he had lied to his subjects again, knowing what she would think. "Well, you see, there's a perfectly good reason for that. You see, well, I uh..."
"You didn't tell them." It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Why not? Haven't you lied enough? Don't you think they deserve to know the truth? What did you tell them anyway?"
"I said it was a lycan." Erika sighed, plopping down in an armchair, her feet thrown over one arm.
"Marcus, I understand you hate them. But you can't keep blaming them for everything! The war is over! Lucian is dead! Why don't you tell them the truth?"
"What do you want me to say Erika?" He stood and began to pace. "If I tell them the truth, they'll want to know why she killed him. They were like father and daughter; she wouldn't have killed him without a very good reason. So then what do I say? That we've been lying to them for nearly a century? That'll go over real well. They'll wonder what else we've been lying about and probably revolt. Or I could say Viktor's daughter was murdered, not by lycans, but by her father. Or I could tell them that the lycans have the advantage now because they have a hybrid that they don't have to keep secret from the rest of the coven! Every single one of those things would cause a panic. If we are to win this war, we must have the full support of our people behind us, even though it means lying to them about certain things."
Erika sighed. "I understand your reasoning, but I think you're wrong. They deserve to know. Promise me you'll tell them when the war is over?"
"Anything for you, my dear." He stepped closer and braced himself on the chair, leaning over for a kiss.
Only six more days, Selene told herself. She only had six more days until she got her night off and she could go talk to Kestral and Xavier. She reloaded her Berettas and began firing another round into the ceramic bust.
"You alright?" Kahn asked, making her jump. She hadn't noticed his arrival. He was leaning against a pillar, and looked as though he had been there for some time.
"Fine. Just thinking." There was a pause, then she put down her gun and turned to the older weapons master. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot," Kahn said. Then he glanced at her pale hand still on the handle of her gun. "Actually, on second thought, don't."
Selene's mouth turned up slightly in a ghost of a smile. "How many Death Dealers know the truth about me?"
"None."
"None?"
"Marcus doesn't want it known."
With a confused, "Oh," Selene picked up her weapon and resumed fire on the ceramic bust.
Selene drove out of the Ordoghaz driveway in her new Jaguar, heading towards the renegade manor. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Kestral's number.
"Hello?" an irritated Scottish voice answered.
"I'm on my way," Selene told Kestral.
"Good." Without another word, Kestral hung up.
Wonder what's put her in such a foul mood? Selene thought, putting her cell phone away.
"Look, Xavier, I don't know who the father is!"
"You must have some idea! She confides in you, doesn't she?"
"Not really!" The conversation, which had begun only a few minutes ago in normal tones, was being carried on in Xavier's office at the top of both participants lungs, causing the vampires outside the office to all be feigning oblivion to the arguing voices of their commanders, and all were hoping that nothing had gone seriously wrong.
"I didn't tell her anything about me, and she didn't tell me anything about her! We both have our secrets, Xavier." She paused, then added, much quieter, and slightly more prim, "besides, I don't think its any of your business who the father is."
"You're thinking of this in terms of a woman, Kes. Try thinking of it in terms of a soldier. If the father is one of Marcus's vampires, then when we make our attack on him and his underlings, she might hesitate, maybe even switch sides. That's something we simply cannot have her do. Or she could warn him. And if he's one of ours, while it will strengthen her tie to our cause, but she'll have to find some explanation to give the Ordoghaz vampires. She's supposed to be strictly loyal to Marcus, so she, by Ordoghaz's rules, should be pregnant with an Ordoghaz vampire's child. But if he's one of ours, no one will claim the child, and someone will figure it out. So she may end up having to keep it a secret, though I don't know how you do that. I suppose you could help her."
"Me?" Kestral said, surprised. "Why me?" She had no objection to helping Selene, but was curious as to why Xavier thought she could.
"You had to keep your pregnancy a secret, didn't you?"
"Uh, no."
As Selene pulled into the drive, Kestral was waiting for her. Selene guessed by the dark clouds in her eyes that she had Xavier had been fighting when Selene had called, and the argument had not gone well.
Selene got out of her car and walked over to Kestral. The red-haired Scots woman noticed that the Death Dealer was still wearing her latex suit, despite the child growing within her, and her long black trench coat, which billowed behind her in a small wind that also brushed her raven hair from her face.
"How are you feeling?" Kestral asked when Selene was within earshot.
"Okay," Selene said as they turned towards the manor. "Other than the morning sickness. Or evening sickness, really."
"Have the cravings started yet?"
"Cravings?"
"Most people, especially vampires, get weird cravings when they're pregnant, for things like cow tongue, liver and onion, and tripe." She names a few things she had craved during her pregnancy, so many years ago.
"Tripe? Do people actually eat tripe?" Selene had found the food disgusting when she has human; it was even more disgusting now.
"I did. Once."
"Ew!" She paused, and then her voice took a more serious note. "What did you tell Xavier?"
"Just that you were pregnant. He's in a bit of a bad mood right now, so be careful. Oh, and that reminds me, if he asks you how it happened..." She leaned over to whisper something in Selene's ear, and Selene bent her head to listen, and when Kestral finished, the two were wearing twin grins.
"Xavier, she's here," Kestral said, knocking on the doorframe as she entered his office. Xavier looked up, glanced at his solitaire game, then closed it.
"So," he said, standing and looking Selene straight in the eye. "You want to tell me how this happened?"
Struggling to keep a straight face, Selene said, "Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much—"
"Kestral!" Xavier exclaimed, glaring at his lieutenant, who was laughing hysterically, then back at Selene, who was also laughing.
"Just trying to lighten the air a bit," Kestral said, getting her laughter under control. Xavier looked at the ceiling, mouthed something that looked like "Why me?" and then turned his attention back to Selene.
Selene, whose hormones were a bit out of control as a result of the pregnancy, was having supreme difficulty keeping a straight face as Xavier looked at her. He gestured for her to sit in the chair facing his desk, and sat down in his own chair.
"Let me rephrase that: how could you let this happen?"
Selene's good mood evaporated in an instant. One of those mood swings pregnant women are famous for, going back to the hormone thing, took over, and she was suddenly very mad.
"I didn't do this on purpose Xavier!" she almost shouted. "It's not like I thought to myself, oh I'll go get pregnant, just to piss Xavier off! I was not planning on this pregnancy. The thought never even crossed my mind. But I am pregnant and now we have to deal with it."
Xavier sighed and rubbed his temples as if he had a headache.
"Whose is it?" he asked resignedly.
Selene stiffened.
"I don't see what business it is of yours," she said tartly. Xavier sighed.
"I already explained this to Kes. How about you go with her and talk about whatever it is women talk about and you tell me before you leave." Selene nodded and followed Kestral out of the office.
Inside Kestral's room, Selene paced incessantly, causing her coat to flap behind her with the wind of her passage.
"What's got you so agitated?" Kestral asked from her position draped across a chair, legs flung over on side, head hanging down over the other.
"What will I tell the Ordoghaz vampires? There's no way I can tell them whose baby it is. It'll get me killed for sure. And him as well."
"Whose is it?" Kestral asked quietly, sitting up and looking at Selene, who had stopped by the window. Selene didn't answer, only bit her lip and started fiddling with something around her neck.
"Is he one of ours?" Kestral persisted. Selene shook her head. Kestral frowned in confusion, then she remembered something from the night Selene had run across them in the safe house. Selene had been covered in a scent curiously similar to that of a lycan. Kestral had dismissed it as something from the battle. But now, now that she knew that the father couldn't be an Ordoghaz vampire, nor was he a renegade, she thought that maybe the father wasn't a vampire at all.
"Is he a lycan?" Selene turned sharply to look at Kestral, her face sharp and angry, but her expression softened and she looked back out the window.
"Not exactly," she said slowly. "He's a hybrid, a descendant of Corvinus. Lucian...turned him lycan. And Kraven shot him the night Viktor died. I had to bite him, turn him, to save him from the silver in the bullets. Then I killed Viktor, to save him. After that...well..." she trailed off, a smile in her eyes, though not on her lips, as she remembered what had happened after. "But Lucian died and he had to lead the lycans. They needed him and they never would have accepted him if I had come too. So I left. He's probably forgotten about me. He's probably with some pretty lycan girl, who can give him the love he wants. I wish..." she seemed to want to say something, but changed her mind before it came out. "Sometimes I wish Lucian weren't dead. I wish Sonja had never died. That this whole stupid war had never happened, my family was still alive, and I was a normal human. But then I think that if I wasn't a vampire, I never would have met Michael, and I'm glad that it did." She turned to Kestral, a sad smile on her face, and noticed Kestral had gone rigid at the mention of Sonja, and that she was now staring at the thing Selene held in her hand.
"Where did you get that?" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"What, this?" Selene said, looking at the crest-shaped pendant she was fingering. It was the same pendant Lucian had worn, the same pendant Sonja had worn, the same pendant Selene had taken the night of the battle, intending to give it to Michael, but forgetting in the excitement of their making love. "I took it from Lucian's body the after the battle. Why?"
"Can I see it?" Kestral said in a choked voice, not answering the real question. Wordlessly, Selene took it off and handed it to her. Kestral examined it closely, fighting the horrible memories that came back to her. Memories she had made herself forget until that very moment. As the images flashed through her mind, she found that she was no longer sitting in the chair, but was in Ordoghaz, reliving some of the worst and best times of her long life.
She saw Viktor as he leaned down to kiss her, his hand on her slightly swollen belly.
A scream was torn from her lips as another contraction wracked her body. Viktor held her hand and whispered encouragement into her ear as her best friend Endainme En'Dae, acting as midwife, cried, "I can see the head!"
She saw the image of Endainme En'Dae as she placed the babe in her arms, asking, "What will you name her?"
"Sonja."
She saw Viktor as he told her that now that her niece had been turned into a lycan, he couldn't allow her to raise little Sonja anymore; she might give the girl lycan sympathies.
The last image she saw was the blackened and burned body of her only daughter, her only child, the pendant she had worn everyday since her 100th birthday missing from its place around her neck. Kestral had given her that pendant on the day she had told her daughter who her mother was.
When she came back to herself, she found her cheeks streaked with tears, the pendant clutched tightly to her, and Selene kneeling beside her asking what was wrong.
"This pendant," Kestral said through her tears, looking at the pendant in her hand and fingering it lovingly, "belonged to my daughter. Sonja."
Selene sped towards Ordoghaz, thinking over everything Kestral had told her. So she was Sonja's mother. That explained why she was renegade at least. And why she had reacted so strongly to the sight of the pendant, which Selene had told her to keep, because it wasn't really hers. It had belonged to Lucian, and to Sonja, and Selene thought that Kestral had more claim to it than Selene did. Selene didn't even know why she had kept it. She had meant to give it to Michael, but she had forgotten. She glanced at her watch, increasing her speed. She had an appointment with the Death Dealer field doctor. He wanted to be sure she hadn't done any damage to the baby in the time she before she had known she was pregnant. He doubted she had, but wanted to be sure.
The doctor's name was Jake and he had been apprenticed to the Ordoghaz doctor, Jarvis, who had first told her about her pregnancy. Selene went to Jake now because it would be the perfect opportunity to start spreading the rumor that Kraven was the father of her child. Selene wasn't happy about the idea, but Xavier had insisted. It would be easy to believe, he thought. Jake did not know Selene very well, and so would easily believe her when she told him who the father was. And hopefully, he would be able to convince others.
Selene parked her car in the drive and headed inside, walking quickly up the stairs to the dojo, which was next to Jake's office, ignoring the disapproving glares the vampires in the lounge gave her as she walked through. When she reached Jake's office, she knocked loudly and entered without waiting for permission.
Jake looked up from the blood sample he was looking at under a microscope and smiled at her. He was tall, with light brown hair and blue-gray eyes. He was Nathaniel's brother, and the family resemblance was strong.
"Selene, good to see you. Have a seat." He gestured to the cold table in the center of the room and Selene sat down on it, ignoring the chill that seeped through her leathers.
"I'll need you to roll your shirt up," he said, blushing a little under his tan.
Mentally rolling her eyes a little, Selene took off her jacket, swiftly unlaced her corset, and rolled up the hem of her shirt. Jake puts on his stethoscope and put the cold metal against the skin of her still flat stomach. Selene jumped a little at the coldness of it and Jake smiled apologetically at her, and turned his attention back to her stomach. He listened, and moved the stethoscope around a few times, before smiling up at her.
"Everything seems fine to me," he told her.
"Good." Selene said.
"Mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure."
"Who's the father?"
"Kraven." Jake's eyes widened and Selene said, "It wasn't exactly my idea. I wasn't planning on getting drunk and sleeping with him, nor was I planning on getting pregnant. But now I am, and I just have to deal with it."
"I see," Jake said, standing, and looking into her eyes. His hand was on her bare stomach and he didn't move it when he stood.
He is kind of cute, Selene thought, but he's no Michael. But I do need to move on. Michael probably has.
And so, when he leaned in to kiss her, she let him. She let him ease his lips gently over hers, let his tongue flick over hers, and even responded in kind. She pushed the memories of Michael to the back of her mind and let Jake kiss her. But when his hand on her stomach began to move upward, the memories of Michael's hands on her came rushing back to her, and she pulled away.
"Jake, I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't. I—I can't." She rolled down her shirt, quickly retied her corset and slipped on her jacket. With an apologetic smile at the confused doctor, she left the office.
Michael walked through Farkas Kikötõ, searching for the coffee pot he knew was hiding somewhere. If the lycans had a phone, they had to have coffee. He saw a girl in the hall and stopped and asked her where the kitchen was. That seemed the most likely place for the coffee to hide. At least, that's where he would be if he were a pot of coffee.
"I just happen to be on my way to the kitchen myself," the girl said. "Why don't you come with me?" Michael accepted her offer, and they started walking.
"Aren't you the girl who brings me my letters every day?" Michael asked out of the blue.
"Yes. My name's Autumn. Who sends you all those letters anyway?"
"My wife. I keep telling her to leave me alone, but she keeps sending those stupid letters."
"Why? Why do you want her to leave you alone, I mean."
"She left me. For a dentist." He said the word with disgust obvious in his voice.
"I'm sorry," she said tentatively.
"Don't be." He stopped and looked around. "I've never been here before."
"This is the part where the newly turned lycans live. The older lycans never come here. It's our part of the manor." Her voice was silky as she said it. He looked at her in surprise and noticed for the first time that she was dressed in a spaghetti strapped tank top that barred both her midriff and more cleavage than Michael felt he needed to see, and low slung blue jeans.
"If you're just looking for a one-time thing, I'm your girl," Autumn said silkily, sliding her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.
Michael was surprised, but only for an instant. He jerked out of Autumn's grasp and said, "I think I can find the kitchen from here, thanks." And then he walked very quickly back the way he had come.
Disclaimer: own nothing except plot and OCs. Everything else belongs to Sony, Len Wiseman, Kevin Grivoux, blah blah blah. I hate writing these things. Don't sue. K?
Chapter 6: Staying True
"I don't get it," Erika complained as she shut the door to their rooms.
"What?" Marcus asked, looking up from the letter he was writing to the New World Coven, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Selene. No one seems to care that until last week, she was a traitor, and now she, the murderer of Viktor, is living among us. And no one gives a damn!"
"Oh. That." Marcus put down his pen. He sighed, not wanting to admit to Erika that he had lied to his subjects again, knowing what she would think. "Well, you see, there's a perfectly good reason for that. You see, well, I uh..."
"You didn't tell them." It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Why not? Haven't you lied enough? Don't you think they deserve to know the truth? What did you tell them anyway?"
"I said it was a lycan." Erika sighed, plopping down in an armchair, her feet thrown over one arm.
"Marcus, I understand you hate them. But you can't keep blaming them for everything! The war is over! Lucian is dead! Why don't you tell them the truth?"
"What do you want me to say Erika?" He stood and began to pace. "If I tell them the truth, they'll want to know why she killed him. They were like father and daughter; she wouldn't have killed him without a very good reason. So then what do I say? That we've been lying to them for nearly a century? That'll go over real well. They'll wonder what else we've been lying about and probably revolt. Or I could say Viktor's daughter was murdered, not by lycans, but by her father. Or I could tell them that the lycans have the advantage now because they have a hybrid that they don't have to keep secret from the rest of the coven! Every single one of those things would cause a panic. If we are to win this war, we must have the full support of our people behind us, even though it means lying to them about certain things."
Erika sighed. "I understand your reasoning, but I think you're wrong. They deserve to know. Promise me you'll tell them when the war is over?"
"Anything for you, my dear." He stepped closer and braced himself on the chair, leaning over for a kiss.
Only six more days, Selene told herself. She only had six more days until she got her night off and she could go talk to Kestral and Xavier. She reloaded her Berettas and began firing another round into the ceramic bust.
"You alright?" Kahn asked, making her jump. She hadn't noticed his arrival. He was leaning against a pillar, and looked as though he had been there for some time.
"Fine. Just thinking." There was a pause, then she put down her gun and turned to the older weapons master. "Can I ask you something?"
"Shoot," Kahn said. Then he glanced at her pale hand still on the handle of her gun. "Actually, on second thought, don't."
Selene's mouth turned up slightly in a ghost of a smile. "How many Death Dealers know the truth about me?"
"None."
"None?"
"Marcus doesn't want it known."
With a confused, "Oh," Selene picked up her weapon and resumed fire on the ceramic bust.
Selene drove out of the Ordoghaz driveway in her new Jaguar, heading towards the renegade manor. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Kestral's number.
"Hello?" an irritated Scottish voice answered.
"I'm on my way," Selene told Kestral.
"Good." Without another word, Kestral hung up.
Wonder what's put her in such a foul mood? Selene thought, putting her cell phone away.
"Look, Xavier, I don't know who the father is!"
"You must have some idea! She confides in you, doesn't she?"
"Not really!" The conversation, which had begun only a few minutes ago in normal tones, was being carried on in Xavier's office at the top of both participants lungs, causing the vampires outside the office to all be feigning oblivion to the arguing voices of their commanders, and all were hoping that nothing had gone seriously wrong.
"I didn't tell her anything about me, and she didn't tell me anything about her! We both have our secrets, Xavier." She paused, then added, much quieter, and slightly more prim, "besides, I don't think its any of your business who the father is."
"You're thinking of this in terms of a woman, Kes. Try thinking of it in terms of a soldier. If the father is one of Marcus's vampires, then when we make our attack on him and his underlings, she might hesitate, maybe even switch sides. That's something we simply cannot have her do. Or she could warn him. And if he's one of ours, while it will strengthen her tie to our cause, but she'll have to find some explanation to give the Ordoghaz vampires. She's supposed to be strictly loyal to Marcus, so she, by Ordoghaz's rules, should be pregnant with an Ordoghaz vampire's child. But if he's one of ours, no one will claim the child, and someone will figure it out. So she may end up having to keep it a secret, though I don't know how you do that. I suppose you could help her."
"Me?" Kestral said, surprised. "Why me?" She had no objection to helping Selene, but was curious as to why Xavier thought she could.
"You had to keep your pregnancy a secret, didn't you?"
"Uh, no."
As Selene pulled into the drive, Kestral was waiting for her. Selene guessed by the dark clouds in her eyes that she had Xavier had been fighting when Selene had called, and the argument had not gone well.
Selene got out of her car and walked over to Kestral. The red-haired Scots woman noticed that the Death Dealer was still wearing her latex suit, despite the child growing within her, and her long black trench coat, which billowed behind her in a small wind that also brushed her raven hair from her face.
"How are you feeling?" Kestral asked when Selene was within earshot.
"Okay," Selene said as they turned towards the manor. "Other than the morning sickness. Or evening sickness, really."
"Have the cravings started yet?"
"Cravings?"
"Most people, especially vampires, get weird cravings when they're pregnant, for things like cow tongue, liver and onion, and tripe." She names a few things she had craved during her pregnancy, so many years ago.
"Tripe? Do people actually eat tripe?" Selene had found the food disgusting when she has human; it was even more disgusting now.
"I did. Once."
"Ew!" She paused, and then her voice took a more serious note. "What did you tell Xavier?"
"Just that you were pregnant. He's in a bit of a bad mood right now, so be careful. Oh, and that reminds me, if he asks you how it happened..." She leaned over to whisper something in Selene's ear, and Selene bent her head to listen, and when Kestral finished, the two were wearing twin grins.
"Xavier, she's here," Kestral said, knocking on the doorframe as she entered his office. Xavier looked up, glanced at his solitaire game, then closed it.
"So," he said, standing and looking Selene straight in the eye. "You want to tell me how this happened?"
Struggling to keep a straight face, Selene said, "Well, when a man and a woman love each other very much—"
"Kestral!" Xavier exclaimed, glaring at his lieutenant, who was laughing hysterically, then back at Selene, who was also laughing.
"Just trying to lighten the air a bit," Kestral said, getting her laughter under control. Xavier looked at the ceiling, mouthed something that looked like "Why me?" and then turned his attention back to Selene.
Selene, whose hormones were a bit out of control as a result of the pregnancy, was having supreme difficulty keeping a straight face as Xavier looked at her. He gestured for her to sit in the chair facing his desk, and sat down in his own chair.
"Let me rephrase that: how could you let this happen?"
Selene's good mood evaporated in an instant. One of those mood swings pregnant women are famous for, going back to the hormone thing, took over, and she was suddenly very mad.
"I didn't do this on purpose Xavier!" she almost shouted. "It's not like I thought to myself, oh I'll go get pregnant, just to piss Xavier off! I was not planning on this pregnancy. The thought never even crossed my mind. But I am pregnant and now we have to deal with it."
Xavier sighed and rubbed his temples as if he had a headache.
"Whose is it?" he asked resignedly.
Selene stiffened.
"I don't see what business it is of yours," she said tartly. Xavier sighed.
"I already explained this to Kes. How about you go with her and talk about whatever it is women talk about and you tell me before you leave." Selene nodded and followed Kestral out of the office.
Inside Kestral's room, Selene paced incessantly, causing her coat to flap behind her with the wind of her passage.
"What's got you so agitated?" Kestral asked from her position draped across a chair, legs flung over on side, head hanging down over the other.
"What will I tell the Ordoghaz vampires? There's no way I can tell them whose baby it is. It'll get me killed for sure. And him as well."
"Whose is it?" Kestral asked quietly, sitting up and looking at Selene, who had stopped by the window. Selene didn't answer, only bit her lip and started fiddling with something around her neck.
"Is he one of ours?" Kestral persisted. Selene shook her head. Kestral frowned in confusion, then she remembered something from the night Selene had run across them in the safe house. Selene had been covered in a scent curiously similar to that of a lycan. Kestral had dismissed it as something from the battle. But now, now that she knew that the father couldn't be an Ordoghaz vampire, nor was he a renegade, she thought that maybe the father wasn't a vampire at all.
"Is he a lycan?" Selene turned sharply to look at Kestral, her face sharp and angry, but her expression softened and she looked back out the window.
"Not exactly," she said slowly. "He's a hybrid, a descendant of Corvinus. Lucian...turned him lycan. And Kraven shot him the night Viktor died. I had to bite him, turn him, to save him from the silver in the bullets. Then I killed Viktor, to save him. After that...well..." she trailed off, a smile in her eyes, though not on her lips, as she remembered what had happened after. "But Lucian died and he had to lead the lycans. They needed him and they never would have accepted him if I had come too. So I left. He's probably forgotten about me. He's probably with some pretty lycan girl, who can give him the love he wants. I wish..." she seemed to want to say something, but changed her mind before it came out. "Sometimes I wish Lucian weren't dead. I wish Sonja had never died. That this whole stupid war had never happened, my family was still alive, and I was a normal human. But then I think that if I wasn't a vampire, I never would have met Michael, and I'm glad that it did." She turned to Kestral, a sad smile on her face, and noticed Kestral had gone rigid at the mention of Sonja, and that she was now staring at the thing Selene held in her hand.
"Where did you get that?" she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"What, this?" Selene said, looking at the crest-shaped pendant she was fingering. It was the same pendant Lucian had worn, the same pendant Sonja had worn, the same pendant Selene had taken the night of the battle, intending to give it to Michael, but forgetting in the excitement of their making love. "I took it from Lucian's body the after the battle. Why?"
"Can I see it?" Kestral said in a choked voice, not answering the real question. Wordlessly, Selene took it off and handed it to her. Kestral examined it closely, fighting the horrible memories that came back to her. Memories she had made herself forget until that very moment. As the images flashed through her mind, she found that she was no longer sitting in the chair, but was in Ordoghaz, reliving some of the worst and best times of her long life.
She saw Viktor as he leaned down to kiss her, his hand on her slightly swollen belly.
A scream was torn from her lips as another contraction wracked her body. Viktor held her hand and whispered encouragement into her ear as her best friend Endainme En'Dae, acting as midwife, cried, "I can see the head!"
She saw the image of Endainme En'Dae as she placed the babe in her arms, asking, "What will you name her?"
"Sonja."
She saw Viktor as he told her that now that her niece had been turned into a lycan, he couldn't allow her to raise little Sonja anymore; she might give the girl lycan sympathies.
The last image she saw was the blackened and burned body of her only daughter, her only child, the pendant she had worn everyday since her 100th birthday missing from its place around her neck. Kestral had given her that pendant on the day she had told her daughter who her mother was.
When she came back to herself, she found her cheeks streaked with tears, the pendant clutched tightly to her, and Selene kneeling beside her asking what was wrong.
"This pendant," Kestral said through her tears, looking at the pendant in her hand and fingering it lovingly, "belonged to my daughter. Sonja."
Selene sped towards Ordoghaz, thinking over everything Kestral had told her. So she was Sonja's mother. That explained why she was renegade at least. And why she had reacted so strongly to the sight of the pendant, which Selene had told her to keep, because it wasn't really hers. It had belonged to Lucian, and to Sonja, and Selene thought that Kestral had more claim to it than Selene did. Selene didn't even know why she had kept it. She had meant to give it to Michael, but she had forgotten. She glanced at her watch, increasing her speed. She had an appointment with the Death Dealer field doctor. He wanted to be sure she hadn't done any damage to the baby in the time she before she had known she was pregnant. He doubted she had, but wanted to be sure.
The doctor's name was Jake and he had been apprenticed to the Ordoghaz doctor, Jarvis, who had first told her about her pregnancy. Selene went to Jake now because it would be the perfect opportunity to start spreading the rumor that Kraven was the father of her child. Selene wasn't happy about the idea, but Xavier had insisted. It would be easy to believe, he thought. Jake did not know Selene very well, and so would easily believe her when she told him who the father was. And hopefully, he would be able to convince others.
Selene parked her car in the drive and headed inside, walking quickly up the stairs to the dojo, which was next to Jake's office, ignoring the disapproving glares the vampires in the lounge gave her as she walked through. When she reached Jake's office, she knocked loudly and entered without waiting for permission.
Jake looked up from the blood sample he was looking at under a microscope and smiled at her. He was tall, with light brown hair and blue-gray eyes. He was Nathaniel's brother, and the family resemblance was strong.
"Selene, good to see you. Have a seat." He gestured to the cold table in the center of the room and Selene sat down on it, ignoring the chill that seeped through her leathers.
"I'll need you to roll your shirt up," he said, blushing a little under his tan.
Mentally rolling her eyes a little, Selene took off her jacket, swiftly unlaced her corset, and rolled up the hem of her shirt. Jake puts on his stethoscope and put the cold metal against the skin of her still flat stomach. Selene jumped a little at the coldness of it and Jake smiled apologetically at her, and turned his attention back to her stomach. He listened, and moved the stethoscope around a few times, before smiling up at her.
"Everything seems fine to me," he told her.
"Good." Selene said.
"Mind if I ask you a personal question?"
"Sure."
"Who's the father?"
"Kraven." Jake's eyes widened and Selene said, "It wasn't exactly my idea. I wasn't planning on getting drunk and sleeping with him, nor was I planning on getting pregnant. But now I am, and I just have to deal with it."
"I see," Jake said, standing, and looking into her eyes. His hand was on her bare stomach and he didn't move it when he stood.
He is kind of cute, Selene thought, but he's no Michael. But I do need to move on. Michael probably has.
And so, when he leaned in to kiss her, she let him. She let him ease his lips gently over hers, let his tongue flick over hers, and even responded in kind. She pushed the memories of Michael to the back of her mind and let Jake kiss her. But when his hand on her stomach began to move upward, the memories of Michael's hands on her came rushing back to her, and she pulled away.
"Jake, I'm sorry," she said. "But I can't. I—I can't." She rolled down her shirt, quickly retied her corset and slipped on her jacket. With an apologetic smile at the confused doctor, she left the office.
Michael walked through Farkas Kikötõ, searching for the coffee pot he knew was hiding somewhere. If the lycans had a phone, they had to have coffee. He saw a girl in the hall and stopped and asked her where the kitchen was. That seemed the most likely place for the coffee to hide. At least, that's where he would be if he were a pot of coffee.
"I just happen to be on my way to the kitchen myself," the girl said. "Why don't you come with me?" Michael accepted her offer, and they started walking.
"Aren't you the girl who brings me my letters every day?" Michael asked out of the blue.
"Yes. My name's Autumn. Who sends you all those letters anyway?"
"My wife. I keep telling her to leave me alone, but she keeps sending those stupid letters."
"Why? Why do you want her to leave you alone, I mean."
"She left me. For a dentist." He said the word with disgust obvious in his voice.
"I'm sorry," she said tentatively.
"Don't be." He stopped and looked around. "I've never been here before."
"This is the part where the newly turned lycans live. The older lycans never come here. It's our part of the manor." Her voice was silky as she said it. He looked at her in surprise and noticed for the first time that she was dressed in a spaghetti strapped tank top that barred both her midriff and more cleavage than Michael felt he needed to see, and low slung blue jeans.
"If you're just looking for a one-time thing, I'm your girl," Autumn said silkily, sliding her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his.
Michael was surprised, but only for an instant. He jerked out of Autumn's grasp and said, "I think I can find the kitchen from here, thanks." And then he walked very quickly back the way he had come.