Alex
Toby braces his hands on either side of the bundle of blue fabric on my bed, tilting his head and squinting at the little fist reaching through the folds of a baby blanket. “Was he born with fangs?” He reaches like he’s about to stick his filthy fingers in my son’s mouth.
I swat his hand away. “No, of course not. He’s a baby.”
“Babies can have teeth. Don’t–don’t look at me like that, Alex. They can. Look it up. It’s rather terrifying.”
Lucan starts to whimper, flailing until he loosens the blanket. Toby winces and backs away, allowing me to scoop Luc up and tuck him in my arm, giving my friend a better view of the newborn who was born only two weeks ago.
“Wow. He looks like Skye.”
“He does, doesn’t he? That’s exactly what I thought when I saw him for the first time.” Actually, I was thinking a million things during a horrific twelve-hour labor that Skye breezed through while I crumbled, her face set in silent determination. I’ve truly never met another woman like her. Once she sets her mind on something, it happens. It’s the reason I’m here now, in our suite at the palace, with our friends and family gathering to meet our son. She set her mind on me once. I’m still not sure I deserve it.
“So is he a vampire or not?”
“It’ll be a while before we know for sure. My Uncle Michael is here. He’s a hybrid, too, but leans more toward his wolf shifter side, though. I think it’s different person to person.” Luc grabs my pinky. I jostle him a bit until he settles, which happens quickly. Since the moment he was born, quiet and honestly quite relaxed given the circumstances, he’s been… easy going. He barely cries and is perfectly content resting between us in bed while we read books or in our arms on walks around the castle.
The door to our bedroom flies open, and Abby waltzes in, suntanned and bright-eyed, carrying the scent of ocean breezes and damp sand in her wake after several months in her new industry position in Maatua.
Toby arches a brow at Skye, who follows behind her.
“Gimme that baby!” Abby squeals and takes Lucan from my arms, inspecting him thoroughly before placing him on her chest and giving Toby incredible puppy-dog eyes. “I want one.”
“I’ll give you a baby,” he says, his cheeks stained red.
I glance at Skye, who’s trying to hide her smile. Abby whirls with Lucan in her arms and glides back to the door. “We’re taking him upstairs,” she tells Skye, squeezing her forearm. “So you can get some rest.”
“You’re stealing my baby again. We talked about this.”
Abby grins and nuzzles Lucan. “I’ll give him back, I promise!”
“She’ll give him back,” Toby echoes but winks at me. Skye steps to my side as we watch our friends leave our suite, closing us into a rare, private moment of quiet.
She turns to me and folds into my touch. I wrap my arms around her and rest my chin on the top of her head, taking a much needed deep breath.
I returned three weeks ago–in time to witness the birth of my son. It was simultaneously the best and most stressful day of my life, but while Skye had her entire family rallying around her, I also had mine.
My mother and father, as well as my Uncle Michael, but more because he was beside himself with curiosity, came back with us, making the arduous jump from Scarlet Thunder to Moonrise, which took over a week with multiple stops, one of which was Lunaria and the university, where I quit on the spot, said goodbye to my postdocs, my colleagues, and my students, and haven’t looked back.
But I had the opportunity to show my family what I’d built and why.
At least, I thought the diplomas hanging on my office walls and my extensive publications were my reason for everything–a future I wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Skye’s hair smells like vanilla and roses. Lucan has her impressive cheekbones and bright eyes, but his eyes don’t swirl with violet light–yet. Our suite in the palace is temporary but feels like home. It smells like us. The sheets on our bed are soft, and sunlight paints our bedroom in shades of gold and butter yellow throughout the day. I spend my days sitting with my wife, with my son resting on my thighs while our family dotes on us.
Skye is my reason. The reason I put an end to a bloody war. The reason I ran. The reason I left everything I knew and loved behind. She’s the reason I finally faced myself in the mirror and remembered who I was before.
“Should we join the rest of the family upstairs?” she asks, closing her eyes.
I tighten my grip on her waist, shaking my head. “They have what they really want. My mother and your mom are going to be busy for the next half hour trying to convince Abby to hand Lucan over.”
Skye chuckles against my chest, but I can feel her exhaustion. Her muscles are tight despite how she slumps into my touch like she hasn’t slept since Lucan was born, but not just because we have a newborn.
Later that evening, in the sitting room in our suite, surrounded by bright wallpaper and windows letting in a cool night breeze to break the relentless heat of the day–Skye wasn’t lying when she said Moonrise is hotter than hell in the summer. Skye rests on a couch beside me with Lucan, fast asleep, tucked in the crook of her arm while Maeve and Blake converse with my father, Cole, on the far side of the room, just out of earshot. Uncle Michael is there as well, nodding alone while Maeve gives them her spiel, even if the setting and circumstances feel remarkably casual.
Deals are being made in the shadows. Treaties of peace, and honestly, secrecy, have been signed. While Scarlet Thunder, Crimson Peak, and the Allied Kingdoms will remain peaceful, they’ll also remain separated… for now. There’s no telling what the future will hold.
“How is our darling?”
My mother, Emelda, kneels at the foot of the couch beside Skye, who carefully turns Lucan to face his grandmother, who doesn’t look a day over thirty even though she’s well over two-hundred years old. Mom smiles, her eyes creasing, as she strokes her thumb over Lucan’s cheek. “He’s beautiful, just like you,” she says with a teary smile, her eyes locked on Skye’s face. My wife smiles shyly, and I notice her eyes dip momentarily to my mom’s fangs.
“Mom, can I talk to you for a minute? Privately?”
She nods and rises, and I guide her into the study down the hallway leading to my family’s bedroom, closing the door behind us with a soft click.
Her black hair ripples as she faces the window and the lake in the distance, which glimmers against a wash of golden city light. “I know what you want to talk about,” she says in our native tongue, which feels so foreign after thirteen years of not hearing it. “You’re staying here–forever.”
“We’ll visit. We’ve actually decided, with Blake’s help, to make the journey in two months or so if Lucan’s strong enough for it.”
“You’re meant to rule after your father,” she says, turning to face me. “As his heir.”
“It could be hundreds of years before an heir is needed. You know that.”
“Our kingdom is stronger with you by our side. It’s always been that way.”
“My life is here, on that couch in the other room.”
“I know.” Her dark eyes meet mine. She shakes her head, curling her arms around her middle. “I can’t….”
“Don’t say it. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.”
“It doesn’t. It never has.”
“Drake told us everything, Alex. Everything you studied since you were a boy was to try to fix me! Because despite how we tried to shelter you from the truth and gravity of our situation, we couldn’t. We love you. I love you. I love you now. Goddess, Alex, you were mine. My son. The one thing I wanted more than anything.” Her eyes shine like starlight.
“I am, and will always be, your son. That isn’t changing. But I cannot be the king of Scarlet Thunder.”
“This is the life I wanted for you, Alex. I wanted you to fall in love. I wanted you to love someone as fiercely as I love your father, but–”
“But love is like looking into a mirror, and the reflection in front of you is all of the atrocities in our world? Trust me, I know. I think about Skye’s safety every gods-damned day. I’ve been thinking about Lucan’s future since the moment we found out he was on his way into the world.”
“Skye isn’t a vampire, Alex. One day, decades from now, she’ll be gone.”
“So will I.”
“What?” Mom’s lips part in shock, but the door to the study opens slowly with a creak, and Skye slips inside, carrying our son, cloaked in shadow.
I glance from her to Mom, raising my hands in surrender. “Skye is like her father, and she was what I was looking for in Lunaria. The Goddess Particle. The thing I thought could fix this for you, and not just for you–for Aunt Alma. For everyone like you both who were turned against your will.”
“Alex, stop,” Mom warns, but she notices Skye standing in the shadows and nods. “This is impossible.”
“It’s not. I’m still a vampire. I’ll always be a vampire. That hasn’t changed. But I can walk in the sunlight with my family. I can eat, for fuck’s sake, without having to use my wife as a feeder.”
“Alex.” Mom shakes her head, but her eyes are locked on Skye’s, a strange kind of hope glimmering there.
“She can work miracles. She is the Goddess Particle. She can heal you. Make you whole.”
“I can turn you back into the witch you were or into a born vampire. It’s your choice.”
Mom is silent for several long, aching moments. She looks between us, wringing her hands, so I take them in mine, squeezing.
“You raised me as your own, and I love you. You will always be my mother. Always. But now, I have the opportunity to give you something for being the one to raise me into the man I am today. Let her help us.”
Skye steps forward with Lucan resting in her arms, still fast asleep, but her eyes are glowing a soft violet now. Mom gasps.
“You could have a baby of your own. Dozens of them, if you wanted.”
“Will it… will it hurt?”
“You won’t feel a thing,” Skye assures her and looks up at me for confirmation that this is about to happen.
It has to. That’s the thing. In the end, Mom agrees, and I leave them in the study to have some privacy for Mom to ask her questions. I whisper to Dad to let him know where she is when he looks concerned that I’ve returned alone, with Lucan in my arms instead of with Skye, and he joins them, leaving me with Blake and Maeve.
“So it’s settled,” Maeve says, her arms crossed. “All is well with the vampires, and we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming.”
“I’ll be traveling with your parents back to Scarlet Thunder in two days, and when I return, I’ve set up a few meetings with the university I’d like you to attend. My contacts there are interested in making your–”
The door to the suite bursts open with a crack that sends a shockwave through the entire regal apartment. Soren darkens the doorway, his face scrunched in a furious frown.
Blake arches a brow. Maeve scoffs, her voice pitched. “Did you just kick down the door?”
“Where is our daughter?”
“Which one?” she asks, concern turning her impeccably set features into disarray.
Soren hands her a piece of cardstock with an odd sheen that catches the overhead light and shimmers with what I can only describe as magic.
Skye and my parents step out of the study, interrupted by the commotion.
Maeve reads the letter, gasping, and her eyes fly to Soren’s. She mouths no, but startles as the cardstock disintegrates in her hands, like it were meant to destroy itself the moment she read it.
“What was she thinking?” Maeve shouts and shoves past Soren. Her husband turns to follow.
Skye steps to my side and sighs at the door, which is hanging off its hinges. She takes my hand and squeezes. “So… still want to stay here in Moonrise? Or should we call this a wash and just move to Scarlet Thunder?”