Page 73 of Blood Red Rage

"She also has Nico who is practically living in her shadow, and Luca when he got back.”

"Better."

A pause, then Roman said, "Get home."

"I am."

"Wash the blood off before you touch her." I looked at my hands, my jaw tightened. "She doesn't need to see what tonight cost." No, she didn't. Bryn knew what I was but knowing and seeing were different things. I stared through the windscreen as the gates of our estate appeared in the distance.

A war gathering somewhere beyond our sight, all of it could wait another hour because lights burned in the mansion ahead and somewhere behind those walls was my mate. Alive, breathing, waiting for me.

The gates opened, my chest loosened for the first time all night. Kosta glanced at me through the mirror.

"Home." I used to think home was territory, land, bloodline. The Dragic name carved into stone, but I knew better now. Home had dark-blond hair, a smart mouth and a scar on her left arm that made me want to murder someone every time I saw it. Home argued with me, laughed at me, slept curled against my chest like there was nowhere safer in the world.

And if Ceasar and Malakai thought they could use her to bring me to my knees, they had made the greatest mistake of their miserable fucking lives because Bryn wasn't the thing that made me weak. She was the reason I would survive becoming a monster, and if war was what they wanted? Fine, let them come because this time, we would be waiting.

Chapter 14

The smell of coffee made me vomit, that was the moment I knew, not suspected. Knew. I barely made it to the downstairs bathroom before my stomach revolted, one hand braced against the marble counter while the other clutched my hair away from my face.

When it finally passed, I stayed bent over the sink, breathing slowly through my nose. Coffee. I loved coffee, I practically required it to function but for the last four mornings, the smell had turned my stomach inside out.

Yesterday it had been eggs, the day before that, Runa had opened a jar of olives and I'd nearly committed murder. And there were other things such as my breasts hurt. I was exhausted despite sleeping more than I had in years.

I'd cried two nights ago because Viking had eaten the last piece of chocolate cake, not yelled but cried. Viking had looked so horrified that he'd sent three men into town at midnight to find another one.

I lifted my head slowly and stared at myself in the mirror. "No." My reflection looked unconvinced. I counted backward, then counted again, my stomach dropped. "Oh, shit." I was late, very late.

My hand moved automatically to my stomach, nothing felt different, there was no magical glow, no instinctive certainty. Just me standing barefoot in a mansion bathroom wearing one of Viking's shirts and staring at myself like I'd suddenly developed another head.

Pregnant. I might be pregnant with a vampire's baby. That sentence alone should have sent me running screaming through the house. Instead, my first thought was Viking and that terrified me more than anything else because Viking was already hanging onto control by his fingernails.

The last month and a half had changed all of us, after the shooting at the mansion, the men had stopped pretending this was a temporary problem. Every evening, as soon as darkness fell, they left.

Sometimes together, sometimes separately. They were always armed and always surrounded by men. Most nights they came home smelling like blood, they thought we didn't notice.

That was almost funny. Vampires seemed to forget sometimes that women weren't stupid. They would come through the doors after midnight with fresh shirts and clean hands, acting as if they'd just spent the evening discussing investments.

But blood lingered, in seams, beneath fingernails, on cuffs, in the cracks of boots. Sometimes Viking would shower before coming to me, but I could still feel what he'd done through the bond.

The rage, the violence. The fury that followed him home like a second shadow. The women talked about it when the men weren't around. Quiet conversations over breakfast. Looks exchanged when Roman walked into a room with bruised knuckles. When Lucien smiled too easily. When Volken became quieter than usual. When Draugr disappeared for two nights and returned without explaining where he'd been.

They were hunting, and they were afraid. Not for themselves but for us. That was the part that hurt because they tried to keep the war outside the walls. Tried to pretend everything was under control, but we knew of course we knew. I knew better than any of them what was happening inside Viking.

Sometimes, when he was away from me, emotion slammed through the bond so violently that I had to sit down. Rage, white-hot and consuming. Then fear, cold, paralyzing. Always followed by the same desperate pull. Me.

He'd come home and find me immediately. Didn't matter if I was sleeping, Didn't matter if I was downstairs, or if he had blood on his shirt or death still clinging to his scent. He found me and pulled me into his arms holding me like he had to confirm I was still solid, still breathing.

Sometimes he didn't speak for minutes, he simply buried his face in my hair and breathed. I knew what haunted him, it was the airport, the blood on his hands, my body going limp beneath him. Then it was the mansion and another gunshot, another reminder that he couldn't control everything no matter how often I told him the bullet hadn't been his fault, he didn't believe me.

Viking carried guilt the way other men carried weapons, always within reach, always ready to use against himself. And now I might be pregnant. I dropped the toilet lid and sat, what the hell was I supposed to do? Tell him? Of course I should tell him, but then I pictured Viking's reaction.

The guards would double, no, triple. He'd probably have Roman install steel plates over every window, I'd never be allowed downstairs again. I'd be locked in our bedroom surrounded by Kosta, Luka, Nico and approximately forty armed vampires while Viking paced outside threatening anyone who breathed too loudly.

I groaned and covered my face. "I'm going to prison."

"That's dramatic." I jumped.