Walking through the front door with Hudson, the mood changed from
happy to something else when we had left.
Brandon and Nathaniel were sitting at the table in a sombre mood,
and looked up when we entered the room. The tension in the room was
thick and cutting a knife through it wouldn’t have done anything. It
would have made it a lot worse than it was right now. I was dreading
Brandon and Hudson leaving as I knew Nathaniel would go in for the kill
once we were alone.
I looked over at Hudson who had her eyes on Nathaniel and a
scared look on her face. She knew what he was capable of doing, just
like I knew what he could do in a blink of an eye and in a fit of rage
without even realising what he was doing. Hudson glanced down at my
hand and grabbed it, holding it tightly while we waited for someone to
speak.
“Congratulations on the pregnancy Hudson. I’m sure that you will
make a wonderful mother in about seven months’ time,” Nathaniel said,
his voice flat and bleak.
“Thank you,” she said and looked at Brandon before letting go of my
hand. “We should go and let Nathaniel and Brianna talk in private about
some things. I don’t think they will want us around while they are talk-
ing.”
Brandon nodded and got up from where he was sitting. Hudson
placed her hand on her stomach and rubbed it without even realising. I
looked at Nathaniel and saw that he had a strange look in his eyes while
he was staring at Hudson. Brandon grabbed the bag he brung and
looked at Nathaniel, making him move his stare onto him.
“I’ll see you at school on Monday,” he said.
“Yeah,” Nathaniel said his tone flat.
311
They walked out of the room, leaving us alone. Nathaniel got up
from the table and walked over to me slowly, a look of betrayal on his
face. I knew this had caused more damage than I thought it would and
now I had to face the consequences of my actions that I had helped
cause.
“I’m sorry that I lied about Hudson’s pregnancy to you. I know that I
shouldn’t have done that,” I whispered.
“I asked you if she was pregnant and you said no! Why did you do
that? Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth and say that she was preg-
nant? It might not have been as much as a shock to my system!” he
shouted, anger and fury in his voice.
I knew I had betrayed him, but I felt it was for his own good. I closed
my eyes for a split second before opening them and staring at him. Na-
thaniel’s eyes were hard with anger and I knew my silence wouldn’t be
helping this cause.
“Because I knew it would devastate you! I was trying to save you
from that pain that it has inflicted on you!” I shouted back at him.
Nathaniel shook his head and walked over to the couch. I didn’t fol-
low him as I knew better. I stood in my place and followed him with my
eyes.
“I wanted to have a baby before Brandon and Hudson did,” he
whispered, looking down at his hands.
“It isn’t a game on who gets to have a baby first Nathaniel. It is a
lifetime commitment that you can’t back out of once you realise that
you aren’t ready when the baby is born, unless you do the gutless thing
and walk out because you can’t cope with that kind of commitment.
Mum learnt that the hard way in the end,” I said, sitting next to him on
the couch.
“I know that it is a lifetime commitment and that is something that I
am willing to make to get the one thing that I want in my life,” he said,
looking over at me.
“Nate, if I was ready for that step, I would demand that you take me
to your room and try your hardest to conceive a child with me, but I’m
not,” I whispered. “I mean, I’m not even seventeen yet.”
“I’m not going to force you into doing anything that you don’t want
312
to do. There is just something inside of me that craves to become
someone’s hero when they are growing up. I want to be a person that a
child looks up to for advice and support. If I ever had a daughter, I
would want to be the one that would check for monsters in the middle
of the night when she woke up and was scared and treat her like the
princess that she is in my eyes.”
“Maybe we should wait for when Hudson has her baby and then
decide if that is something we want to do in the future,” I said.
“You mean that you would give me a baby?”
“Nate, I want to be the mother of your children. It doesn’t even
bother me that they will be more vampire than human. I want you just
to be happy.”
“If we had a girl, she would have more human in her and if we had a
boy, he will have more vampire in him.”
“Well, I think I can handle that.”
“Are you sure though? I mean, a Dhampir is much stronger than a
human and could easily do something to you while in the womb by mis-
take.”
“What would be worse? A couple of broken bones from a baby kick-
ing too hard by mistake or a vampire taking your blood?” I asked.
“A vampire talking your blood. Bones heal in time, but a vampire
might not stop with the blood sucking,” Nathaniel replied.
“I would rather take the broken bones,” I muttered.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“Broken bones are easier to explain than bite marks and after all the
time you have spent on this earth, I thought that you would have known
this by now,” I said, looking over at him.
“But I like drinking your blood,” he said, pouting like a child who
couldn’t get something they wanted.
“Nate, I need my blood to survive and not to feed a vampire.”
“I need blood to survive as well don’t forget. I’m a vampire and not
a human.”
“Then I think you need to live off your storage of blood as I won’t let
you take mine all the time. I don’t really fancy explaining to everyone I
pass in the street why I have bite marks all over me. We don’t want to
313
give it away that you are different.”
“Brianna, everyone already knows that I am different to them and
they are trying to put their fingers on it, but you are the only one that I
allowed to become close to me to figure out what is different about
me.”
“I can’t have this coming out into the open that you are a vampire
and Hudson sure as hell can’t have it coming out into the open that she
is carrying a vampire’s child. People don’t think they are real but you
people are.”
“Then we won’t let this come out into the open. If she goes into la-
bour earlier than most pregnancies, we can always say she was further
along than everyone thought to cover our tracks. The hospital could
have gotten the dates mixed up or the baby could be strong enough to
go home, even though there is a high chance the baby will come with
Hudson is seven and a half months pregnant,” Nathaniel said.
I just looked at Nathaniel after he spoke. How can you cover for a
human who is going to give birth to who would be the spawn of Lucifer
in some people’s eyes? How do you cover from what could be a certain
death from a baby vampire? All these questions and no answers to
them were running through my mind. Hudson was my best friend and I
didn’t want her getting hurt or worse; dying.
“What are you thinking about?” Nathaniel asked, pulling me out of
my thoughts.
“I have all these questions and no answers to them. What happens if
Hudson dies during the birth of the baby? What will happen to Brandon
if that was the case? Would he stay strong for the baby that is half Hud-
son or will be abandon it so he can commit suicide to be with the love of
his life? What is going to happen? Will there lives be the same with a
Dhampir in their family?”
“Whoa baby, calm down. Nothing like that will happen. Hudson is a
strong girl and will get through this pregnancy in one piece. And I know
for a fact that if anything happened to her and the baby survived, Bran-
don will look after it because Hudson would have wanted him to do so.”
“But what happens if she and the baby don’t survive?” I asked, al-
ready knowing the answer to the question I just asked.
314
“We both know the answer to that one Brianna. I don’t need to tell
you what will happen in a case like that,” Nathaniel replied, looking
down at the floor before to the entrance way.
“Is someone outside?” I asked after five minutes of silence.
Nathaniel shook his head and looked back over to me, like I had bro-
ken him out of his thoughts. I stared at him, hoping he would talk to me.
He didn’t. All Nathaniel did was move from where he was sitting and
walked out of the room, leaving me alone and confused over what just
happened. It was like he had completely shut down and I didn’t even
know why it had happened.
Five minutes later, Amylia walked through the front door with her
usual million dollar smile on her face until she saw me sitting alone on
the couch with a blank and empty look on my face. She shot daggers to
the hallway and walked over to me.
“What has Nathaniel done this time?” she asked, sitting down next
to me and wrapping her arm around my shoulder. “And don’t leave out
any of the details. I need an excuse to yell at him and this could be my
perfect chance.”
“He hasn’t done anything. We were just talking and then all of a
sudden, he shut down and walked out of the room without saying a sin-
gle word to me or explaining what was wrong,” I replied, looking at her.
“Does it have anything to do with Hudson’s pregnancy that she is
hiding from everyone?” Amylia asked, submitting a massive crash from
Nathaniel’s room.
“I think we have our answer and how did you know about that? I
thought they weren’t telling anyone yet?” I asked, looking at her.
“When you are a vampire, you can see the signs of pregnancy before
the person even realises so I am shocked that Nathaniel and Brandon
didn’t realise she was pregnant before Hudson did,” Amylia replied.
I looked at Amylia before getting off the couch and slowly made my
way to Nathaniel’s bedroom, not knowing what he had broken.
I opened his bedroom door and saw a mess. Everything that was
glass was broken on the floor in little shards and everything else thrown
onto the floor, but I couldn’t see Nathaniel anywhere. His bathroom
light caught my attention from under the door so I made my way over
315
there, hoping that he was in there.
“Nate?” I called once I got to the door and placed my hand on the
handle.
“Go away Brianna. I just need to be alone right now,” he replied
from the other side of the door.
“I’m not going anywhere. Something is bothering you and I think it
will be better for you to talk about it than keeping it locked inside,” I
argued back, knowing I wasn’t going to win this fight, but I was going to
die trying.
“You don’t know how I am feeling Brianna so don’t even start try-
ing,” he hissed from the other side of the door.
“What are you going to be like if they get married? Are you going to
destroy something else or will you end up murdering someone in a fit of
rage?” I asked, watching the door open and crossing my arms when Na-
thaniel looked at me through narrowed eyes. I was in the mood for a
fight.
“You won’t win this battle Brianna so I wouldn’t even dare starting
it,” he said, looking down at me.
“Are you even happy for them or are you just going to pretend that
you are and stab them in the back once everything comes out into the
open about this?” I asked, knowing I was fighting fire with fire.
“I am not that type to stab someone in the back!”
“Then why are you acting like this? And don’t you dare say that I am
too immature to understand how you are feeling!” I retorted back.
“Can’t I keep some things to myself or do I need to tell you every-
thing?”
“I’m trying to help you here Nathaniel. I am your girlfriend so I think I
have a right to know what is going on with you. You were fine when I
left this morning and when I came back, you were upset but that is un-
derstandable but now it is like you have all this hidden anger at some-
thing and this has forced it to come up to the surface. Does this have
anything to do with Mary?” I asked, firing a shot out of the dark.
“You keep her out of this Brianna!” Nathaniel hissed, making me
take a step back from my vampire.
“So your ex fiancée from the 40’s has something to do with this?” I
316
asked trying to keep the shreds of my confidence in tact before Na-
thaniel took them away from me.
“Brianna, don’t push it.”
“Or what Nathaniel? Will you drain the life from me so I can’t keep
on going on about this in front of you?”
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Now that I knew his ex
that would no doubt be dead by now or extremely old was involved in
this somehow, I wanted to know the reason why. Relationships didn’t
last on secrets, lies and deception and I didn’t want my relationship go-
ing down that path. I was getting the feeling that it was already starting
to.
“Why do you insist on knowing this for?” he finally asked, opening
his eyes, but his voice was still hard and full of anger.
“Because you are my boyfriend and I am worried about you,” I whis-
pered, not moving from my spot.
“I will tell you when I am ready Brianna. Don’t press me or anything.
You should know that I don’t respond to pressure by now.”
“And I don’t respond to being smothered Nathaniel Monroe. You
handing me that money before when I said that I didn’t want it made
me feel embarrassed and I only took it because I knew that you would
have started a fight with me over it and I didn’t want to fight in front of
Hudson and Brandon, but you need to learn that you can’t keep on
handing out money like that. I got on fine before I met you and started
going out with you so I think I can still cope with having hardly any
money,” I said, hoping he would listen to me.
“There is no use stopping me from doing what I want to do when it
comes to you and that includes handing out money.”
I raised my hands in the air and walked out of the room, giving up on
this fight that I knew I wasn’t even going to win. Amylia looked up when
I walked back in the room and opened her mouth, but I put my hand up,
stopping her from talking. I didn’t want to hear it. Grabbing my bags, I
walked out of his place and made my way back home.
Walking out of the property, I looked to my left and saw that Augus-
ta was standing there, smirking at me. This day wasn’t going to get any
better. It now appeared that it was going to get worse and I was sure
317
that Augusta was going to be the one that made it worse.
“Where is Nathaniel?” she asked, walking up to me.
“Still inside,” I replied, not giving anything away.
“I’m shocked to see that he isn’t glued by your side like he has been
all the other times. Has something happened?”
“Nothing has happened Augusta so why don’t you go and bother
someone else?”
Augusta looked at me and started laughing like I had said something
that was extremely funny.
“Oh Brianna, when will you learn? I’m here to make your life a living
hell so you will leave town and Nathaniel will be all mine,” she said,
smirking at me.
“Good luck doing that then. I am here to stay for the long run and
nothing you can say or do will ever change that. Get it through your
head Augusta; Nathaniel will never date you in a million years so just
give up on him,” I said.
“And how do you know that Brianna? We both know he showed
interest in me when they first move to this area so it won’t take much
for that interest to come back again once you do something bad
enough.”
I narrowed my eyes at Augusta and slowly raised my hand to hit her,
but decided not to. She wasn’t worth my time. I shook my head and
walked away from her, leaving Augusta standing there in the street.
Looking behind me, I saw that Nathaniel had come outside and was
staring at my retreating form with Augusta standing in front of him, try-
ing to catch his attention.
I stopped walking and stared at my vampire, the wind picking up
and blowing my hair in my face. He didn’t move from his spot and I
didn’t move from mine. It was like both of us were waiting for each oth-
er to make a move, but we weren’t. I stood still for five minutes, me
looking at Nathaniel and him looking at me before I turned back around
and walked away. I wasn’t in the mood for playing games with Na-
thaniel. I just wanted to go home.
And that is what I planned on doing.
318