Seven days. He'd demanded seven days. After three more, I broke.
I climbed the tower stairs at dawn, armed with Maeve's discoveries—salt boundaries that vampires couldn't cross, iron tacks that burned their skin, how cold temperatures dulled the hunger.
Knowledge as the peace offering. Knowledge as a weapon.
The door stayed locked.
"Alistair." I pressed palms against oak. "You promised we'd talk."
Silence.
"I have information. Ways to manage—"
"Go away, Helena." His voice came muffled, distant.
"The week's nearly up."
"I know what day it is."
"Then talk to me."
Nothing. I stood there until my legs cramped, until servants passed with pitying glances, until even pride couldn't keep me upright. The lord of Blackwood had become a ghost haunting his own tower.
By noon, Kathrin cornered me in the solar, blocking the door with her body like a general taking a bridge.
"He won't see me either."
"His own mother?"
"Apparently." She gripped her teacup hard enough to crack porcelain. "This ends today."
"Kathrin—"
"No." She slammed the cup down. Tea splashed across white linen. "My son locks himself away while his pregnant wife wanders alone. The servants gossip. The tenants question. The estate rots from neglect."
"He needs time."
"He's had time." Her voice could have frozen flame. "What he needs is a lesson in duty. Either he emerges from that tower and acts like the husband you deserve—the father this child deserves—or I take control."
"You can't—"
"I can. The power of attorney sits in my bureau, signed when his father died. One word to the magistrate about Alistair's 'illness' and I become regent." She advanced, each step measured violence. "I raised him better than this. A Blackwood heir grows in your belly, and he sulks like a child?"
"It's complicated."
"Marriage is always complicated." She gripped my shoulders, fingers like iron clamps. "But complications don't excuse cruelty. You're carrying his child, Helena. His heir. And he treats you like a stranger."
The lie burned my throat. She didn't know—couldn't know—that the child might not be Alistair's. That her son had reasons beyond mood for his distance.
"Give him until week's end," I managed.
"A couple of days." She released me, stepped back. "Then I visit the magistrate. And if my son wants to keep his title, his lands, his authority—he'll remember how to be a man."
She swept out, leaving me with tea cooling in shattered china and terror crystallizing in my chest.
If Alistair wouldn't hear me, someone must. Someone who wouldn't deny me the audience. Someone who might claim what Alistair couldn't.
The afternoon broke unexpectedly bright—February sun cutting through clouds like a reprieve. I slipped through the servants' door into the rose garden where dormant bushes waited for spring. Where I knew he'd be.
Nathaniel knelt beside a tangle of thorns, adjusting wire snares with practiced efficiency. His shoulders tensed before I spoke—hunter's instinct sensing prey.
"Didn't you swear you never wanted to see me again?" He stood slowly, brushing dirt from his knees. "Yet here you stand."
"Not because I hated you."
His brow arched, that familiar skepticism that once undid me. "Why then?"
"So I wouldn't be seduced." I stepped closer, close enough to smell earth and metal on him. "Because I knew I couldn't stop myself."
"Helena—"
"Feel me." I grabbed his hand, pressed it flat against my chest where my heart hammered like a trapped bird. His palm warmed against the percussion.
Then I guided him lower, to the slight swell barely visible beneath wool and whalebone.
His fingers spread, tentative. "Christ."
"Yes."
He searched my face, something desperate breaking through his control. "Is it mine?"
"Yes."
"How can you be sure?" His grip tightened. "You share his bed—"
"Shared. Past tense. And yes, I'm certain."
"How?" The word cracked like a whip. "How can you know?"
I pulled free, stepped back. The truth sat like glass in my throat. "Because it can't be my husband's."
"That's not an answer." He advanced, predator-quick. "Tell me how you know."
"Because..." I forced the words out. "Because he's a vampire."
Nathaniel went rigid. Every muscle locked. The color drained from his face until he matched the February frost.
"No." The word tore out of him. "Please God, no."
"I know it's terrible. Monstrous. He hid it for months—"
"You don't understand." He grabbed my shoulders, fingers digging deep. "They're not men with illness. They're hunger wearing human faces. Cruel. Vicious. They're a plague that walks upright."
"Alistair isn't—"
"They're all the same." His grip tightened enough to bruise. "Parasites. Demons. They need to be exterminated like diseased cattle."
"You're hurting me."
He released me, stepped back, but his hand went to the silver blade at his belt. "I won't let him near you. Or the child. I'll kill him first."
The line landed hard and clean. But worse was what lay beneath—the absolute certainty. The lack of surprise.
"You knew." The realization hit cold. "When I said vampire, you didn't laugh. Didn't question. You just... knew."
His jaw locked.
"Why?" I pressed closer. "Why are you so certain? How do you know about it?"
He shrugged, too casual. "I'm a hunter. Strange things cross my path."
"Fox and rabbit don't make you an expert on vampires."
"Drop it, Helena."
"No." I blocked his retreat. "Tell me how you know. Tell me why you speak of them like—" The truth crystallized. "Like you've hunted them."
His hand twitched toward his blade again—reflex, not threat.
"What matters is protecting you. And my child." He reached for my belly. "Let me think how—"
I slapped his hand away. "You can touch us when you tell me the truth."
He laughed, bitter as the winter wind. "So we're transactional now? Information for affection?"
"We always were." The honesty burned. "I gave you my body when I needed warmth. You gave me attention when you wanted possession. At least now we're clear about the exchange."
"That's cold, even for the nobility."
"Then warm me with truth."
He studied my face, thumb worrying a scar on his leather glove. When he spoke, his voice dropped low enough that I had to lean in. "You're right. There are things I haven't—"
A branch snapped.
Nicholas stood beneath the yew arch, an unlit lantern swinging from his grip.
His face had gone white as fresh linen, eyes jumping from Nathaniel's silver blade to my obvious belly to the space between us that spoke of secrets.
"My lady." His voice came out strangled. "The lord requests your presence immediately."
"Now?" My pulse spiked. "He's refused to see—"
"Now." Nicholas cut me off, something wild in his expression. "He was quite... insistent."