I didn’t make eye contact with Ethan when I said, “There’s a chance she could be mistaken, right? This could just be a case of food poisoning, or a bug or something.”
He frowned and stood, walking over to sit on the edge of the bed. Taking my hand into his, he gave me a tender look. His other hand moved across my chest and down to my belly.
In a low voice, he replied, “Food poisoning doesn’t put an extra heartbeat inside of you, Tegan. I wasn’t paying enough attention before. Now that I am, I can hear it beating as loud as a drum in my ears.”
“You can hear it?” I whispered.
His only response was a smile.
After a few moments of quiet, I asked, “You really want a baby with me?”
“Of course, I do. I adore you. I love you. Knowing you are with child makes this one of the happiest days of my life,” he answered fervently.
“Well, that’s certainly high praise considering just how many days you’ve been alive,” I joked half-heartedly to distract myself from my inner turmoil.
Ethan laughed softly. “It’s rude to remind a vampire of his age, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” I grinned. “That’s why I did it.”
A tinge of sadness entered his gaze. “I should have been more careful—”
“Don’t,” I interrupted. “There’s no point in that kind of talk. I have your child inside me now, and all we can do is try our best to ensure its survival. Besides, it does take two to tango. I was careless as well.”
He moved deeper onto the bed and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “You continually amaze me with your strength,” he said tenderly before his expression sobered. “I’ll arrange for a vampire physician to come and examine you. We need to know how far along you are. It can’t be more than a week or so, but I want to ensure you’re at optimum health.”
“Okay, that sounds like the responsible thing to do.”
I drifted off for a nap, Ethan’s arms around me a reassuring comfort. I was woken up a few hours later by Delilah, who gave me an uncharacteristically gentle smile that held too many emotions. I wished she’d stop. I couldn’t handle smiles like that right now.
“Dr Hendricks is here,” she said softly. “Is it okay for him to come in?”
“Sure.”
She returned quickly with a young-looking vampire with brown hair and dark eyes. He introduced himself and congratulated me on the baby. I didn’t know how to react to congratulations just yet, so I didn’t say anything. It was kind of weird being congratulated when both you and your child had a slim chance of surviving.
Dr Hendricks asked me an endless number of questions before examining me.
“How long does this take?” I asked, and he quirked a curious eyebrow at me. “I mean, how long am I going to be pregnant? Is it nine months like human births?”
He pursed his lips and began packing away his stethoscope. “No. Dhampir gestation periods are usually between three and four months. Development is much quicker in these … sorts of cases. That’s why there’s already a heartbeat.”
“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? It means I won’t be the size of an elephant for too long,” I said, trying to inject some humour into the conversation that I definitely didn’t feel.
“May I speak frankly?” he asked, and I nodded, my nerves building. I sensed I wasn’t going to like what he had to say next.
“Vampire babies take just two months to be born from the date of conception. Dhampirs take longer because you are essentially putting a vampire foetus in a human body that is not equipped with the proper genetics to carry it, which is why both mother and baby often … do not survive.”
“Yes, I know that already.”
He grew quiet for a moment, almost like he was hesitating over whether or not to say something else. “I’ve been informed of your, shall we say, powers. Perhaps there’s a way you could channel your magic into the foetus?”
“I wish I knew how to do that,” I told him honestly.
“Are there any female relatives you might consult with?” he suggested.
I bit my lip, thinking of Emilia. The chances of her giving me pregnancy advice were slim to none. “No, sadly not.”
At this, Ethan entered the room and asked how everything was going. He and the doctor stepped away, speaking in hushed tones. I tried to follow their conversation but found my mind drifting off. I’d never considered myself to be a particularly maternal person, but all of a sudden, I felt like I’d die to protect this tiny little being that was growing inside of me.
I felt almost primal in my need to protect my child, to ensure its survival, and the instinct was incredibly jarring. Yesterday, I’d barely given having a family a second thought. Now here I was, desperate for both me and my baby to survive. I’d do whatever it took.