"M-m-my what?" Cassandra asked, floored by Kat's words. She couldn't have heard that correctly. There was no way she was pregnant.
"Your baby."
Obviously her hearing was fine. "What baby?"
Kat took a deep breath and spoke slowly, which was a good thing since Cassandra was having a hard time following all this. "You're pregnant, Cass. Only just, but the baby will survive. I'll make double damn sure of that."
Cassandra honestly felt as if someone had slugged her with a stunning blow. Her mind could barely conceive of what Kat was telling her. "I can't be pregnant. I haven't been with anyone."
Kat's gaze went to Wulf.
"What?" he asked defensively.
"You're the father," Kat said.
"Oh, like hell. I hate to break it to you, baby, but Dark-Hunters can't have children. We're sterile."
Kat nodded. "True, but you're not really a Dark-Hunter now, are you?"
"Then what the hell am I?"
"Immortal, but unlike the other Dark-Hunters you didn't die. Ever. The others become sterile because their bodies were dead for a time. Yours, on the other hand, is every bit as intact now as it was twelve hundred years ago."
"But I didn't touch her," Wulf insisted.
Kat arched a brow at that. "Oh, yes you did."
"That was a dream," Wulf and Cassandra said in unison.
"A dream you both remember? No, you were put together so that you could renew Cassandra's bloodline, and I ought to know since I was the one who drugged Cassandra earlier so that she could be with you."
"Oh, I'm going to be sick," Cassandra said, stepping back to lean on the sofa arm. "This can't be happening. It's just not possible."
"Oh, well," Kat said sarcastically, "let's not have reality intrude now, shall we? I mean, hey, you're a mythological being descended from mythological beings and you're in the house of an immortal guardian no human can remember five minutes after they leave his presence. Who's to say that you can't get pregnant in a dream by him? What? We're jumping into the realm of reality now?"
She gave Cassandra a penetrating stare. "Tell you what, I'll believe in the laws of nature when Wulf here can go out in the daylight and not spontaneously combust into flames, or better yet, when you, Cass, can actually go to a beach and get a tan."
Wulf was so stunned that he couldn't move as Kat continued to rail. Cassandra was pregnant with his child? This was something he had never, ever even dared to think about or hope for.
No, he couldn't believe it. He just couldn't.
"How could I have made her pregnant in a dream?" he asked, interrupting Kat.
She calmed down a bit and actually explained it to them. "There are different kinds of dreams. Different realms for them. Artemis had one of the Dream-Hunters pull both of you into a semiconscious state so that you could, shall we say, get together."
Wulf frowned at that. "But why would she do that?"
Kat indicated Cassandra with her hand. "She wouldn't sleep with anyone else. In the five years I've been with her, she hasn't so much as even looked at a guy with lust in her eyes. Not until the night you stepped into the club to kill the Daimons. She lighted up like a firefly. After she ran out after you, I thought we'd finally found her someone she would happily sleep with.
"But did you two do the normal, natural thing and go back to your place and mate like bunnies? No. She comes strutting back in like nothing had happened. Sheez. You are both hopeless." Kat sighed. "So Artemis figured she could use that momentary connection you two had on the street to put Cass into your dreams so that you could impregnate her that way."
"But why?" Cassandra asked. "Why is it so important that I be pregnant?"
"Because the myth you laugh at is true. If the last of Apollo's direct bloodline dies, the curse is lifted."
"Then let me die and free the Apollites."
Kat's face turned dark with warning. "I never said they would be free. See, the fun thing with the Fates is that nothing is ever easy. The curse is lifted because Apollo will die with you. Your blood and life are linked to his. When he dies, the sun dies with him as does Artemis and the moon. Once they are gone, there is no world left. All of us are dead. All of us."
"No, no, no," Cassandra breathed. "This can't be right."
There was no reprieve in Kat's expression. "It's right, hon. Believe me. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
Cassandra looked at her while inside she struggled to make sense of it all. It was so overwhelming. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I did and you freaked out so badly that Artemis and I decided to erase it from your memory and start over more slowly."
Fury lanced through her. "You did what?"
Kat turned defensive. "It was for your own good. You were so angry at the prospect of being forced into pregnancy that Artemis decided you would need a father and a baby in order to cope with the reality of it. When I explained it to you, you were gung-ho to toss yourself under a bus rather than use a man and leave behind a baby to be hunted down. So it's great now that you found Wulf, right? With his powers, the Apollites and Daimons can't come near him without dying."
Cassandra started for Kat only to find Wulf pulling her back so that she couldn't reach her. "Don't, Cassandra."
"Oh, please," Cassandra begged him. "I just want to choke her for a few minutes." She raked an angry glare over the woman she had mistakenly thought of as a friend. "I trusted you and you used me and lied to me. No wonder you kept trying to set me up with guys."
"I know and I'm sorry." Her eyes said Kat meant that, but Cassandra had a hard time believing it at the moment. "But don't you see how it all works out for the best? Wulf is afraid of losing his last blood link to the world. Through you he has another line that will remember him while you have someone immortal who can tell your child and grandchildren about you and your family. He can watch over them and keep them all safe. No more running, Cass. Think about it."
Cassandra didn't move as Kat's words sank in. She would be remembered and her children would be safe. It was all she had wanted. It was why she'd never considered having children before now.
But dare she believe in this?
Apollites gestated their babies in a little over twenty weeks. Half the time of humans. Since they had such an abbreviated life span, there were several weird physiological differences. Apollites reached adulthood at age eleven and often married between the ages of twelve to fifteen.
Her mother had only been fourteen when she married her father, but her mother had looked like any human woman in her mid-twenties.
Cassandra looked at Wulf, whose face was unreadable. "What do you think about all this?"
"Honestly, I don't know what to think. Yesterday my number one concern was getting Chris laid. Now it's the fact that if Kat isn't on drugs or delusional, you are carrying a part of me that holds in his or her hand the fate of the entire world."
"If you doubt any of this, call Acheron," Kat said.
Wulf narrowed his gaze on her. "He knows?"
Kat hedged a bit and appeared nervous for the first time. "I seriously doubt Artemis told him any of this particular plan to put you two together and make a baby. He tends to get rather upset at her whenever she interferes with free will, but he can easily verify everything I've told you about the prophecy."
Cassandra let out a bitterly amused half-laugh upon hearing that her "friend" actually knew one of the men they had read about on the Web site. Not to mention the fact that Kat also knew Stryker and his men. "Just out of curiosity, is there anyone you don't know?"
"No, not really," Kat said a bit uneasily. "I've been with Artemis a 1-o-n-g time."
"And just how long is that?" Cassandra asked.
Kat didn't answer. Instead, she stepped back and clapped her hands together. "You know what? I think I should give you two a few minutes to talk to each other alone. I think I'll go scope out Cass's room."
Without another word, Kat bolted for the hallway that led to Cassandra's wing. Though how she knew that was the right way to go, Cassandra couldn't imagine. Then again, Kat wasn't exactly human either.
Wulf didn't move until Kat had vanished. He was still trying to come to terms with everything Kat had told them.
"I didn't know about any of this, Wulf. I swear it."
"I know."
He stared at her, the mother of his child. It was incredible, and despite the confusion he felt, the one truth he knew was that a part of him wanted to shout out in delight. "Do you feel all right? Do I need to get you anything?"
She shook her head, then looked up at him. Her green eyes scorched him with need. "Actually, I don't know about you, but I could use a hug right now."
Mentally, he didn't think that it would be wise to get attached to her. To open himself up to a woman who came with a short expiration date, but he found himself pulling her into his arms anyway, and he had to tense to keep himself from falling victim to the sensation of her body against his. Her breath tickled the skin on his neck as she wrapped her arms around his waist.
She felt so good here. So right. In all these centuries, he'd never known anything like this feeling of warmth.
What was it about her that made him tremble? Made him hot and aching?
Closing his eyes, he held her close and let her scent of powder and roses lull him into forgetting they should be enemies.
Cassandra closed her eyes, too, and let Wulf's warmth seep into her.
It felt so wonderful to be touched like this. This wasn't sexual, it was the kind of touch that soothed. One that bound them a lot closer than the intimacies they had already shared.
How can I feel comforted by someone who has already told me he has no use for my people ?
Yet there was no denying that she did.
Then again, feelings seldom made sense.
As she stood there, one horrible thought disturbed the peace she felt. "Will you hate my baby, Wulf, because it will be part Apollite?"
Wulf grew tense in her arms as if he hadn't thought of that. He stepped away from her. "How Apollite will it be?"
"I don't know. For the most part, my family has been pure-blooded. My mother broke with the custom because she thought a human father could protect us better." Her stomach tightened as she remembered the secrets her mother had imparted to her not long before she died. "She figured he would at least outlive his children and grandchildren."
"She used him."
"No," she said breathlessly, offended that he would think that for even a minute. "My mother loved him, but like you, she was doing her duty to protect us. I guess since I was so young when she died, she didn't really have time to tell me how important my role would be if all of us died without children. Or maybe she didn't know either. She only said that it was every Apollite's duty to carry on our lineage."
Wulf moved to turn off the TV, but he didn't look at her now. He kept his attention on the mantel where an old sword rested on its side on a pedestal. "How Apollite are you? You don't have fangs and Chris said you can walk in daylight."
Cassandra wanted to go over and touch him again. She needed to feel close to him, but she could tell he wouldn't welcome her.
He needed time and answers.
"I had fangs as a child," she explained, not wanting to hold anything back from him. He deserved to know what their child might need in order to survive. "My father had them filed off when I was ten to better hide me among the humans. Like the rest of my people, I need blood to live, but it doesn't have to be Apollite, nor do I have to drink it or have it daily."
Cassandra paused as she thought about the necessities of her life and how much she wished she had been born human. But all in all, she had been much more fortunate than her sisters, who had tended to be more Apollite than she was. All four of them had been envious of how much easier life had been for Cassandra, who could walk in daylight.
"I usually go to the doctor for a transfusion every couple of weeks," she continued. "Since my father has a team of research doctors who work for him, he fabricated tests to say that I have a rare disease so that I can get what I need without alerting other doctors that I'm not quite human. I only go whenever I start to feel weak. And I haven't aged as quickly as most Apollites either. I hit my puberty just like a human female."
"Then maybe our child will be even more human." She couldn't miss the hopeful note in his voice as he spoke those words, and, like him, she prayed for the same thing. It would really be a miracle to have a human baby.
Not to mention the joy she felt that Wulf referred to the baby as theirs. At least that boded well.
For the baby anyway.
"You don't deny the baby?" she asked.
His look blistered her. "I know I was with you in our dreams and as Kat said I'm living proof of what the gods are capable of. So, no, I don't doubt the reality of this. The baby is mine and I will be a father to it."
"Thank you," she breathed as tears welled in her eyes. It was so much more than she had ever dared hope for.
She cleared her throat and banished her tears. She wouldn't cry. Not over this. Cassandra was lucky and she knew it. Unlike others of her kind, her child would have a father to keep him safe. One who could watch him grow up. "Look on the bright side, you only have to tolerate me for a couple of months and then I'm out of your hair forever."
He gave her a look so feral that it made her step back. "Don't ever treat death lightly."
She remembered what he had said in his dreams about watching his loved ones die. "Believe me, I don't. I'm very much aware of just how fragile our lives are. But maybe the baby will live longer than twenty-seven years."
"And if it doesn't?"
His hell would continue, only worse now because they would be his direct heirs.
His child.
His grandchildren. And he would be forced to watch them all die as young adults.
"I'm so sorry you got dragged into this."
"So am I." He stepped past her, and headed for a set of stairs that led downward.
"At least you will get to know the baby, Wulf," she called after him. "He or she will remember you. I will only have a few weeks with the baby before I have to die. He'll never know me at all."
He stopped dead in his tracks. For a full minute he didn't move.
Cassandra watched for any telltale emotions. His face was impassive. Without a comment, he continued on his way downstairs.
She tried to push his dismissal out of her thoughts. She had other things to focus on now, like the tiny baby that was growing inside her.
Heading for her room, she wanted to start making preparations. Time for her was all too critical and way too short.
Wulf entered his room and closed the door. He needed a little time alone to digest everything he'd been told.
He was going to be a father.
The child would remember him. But what if the child was more Apollite than Cassandra? Genetics was a weird science and he had lived long enough to see just how bizarre it could be. Look at Chris. No one had looked so much like Erik since Erik's son had died more than twelve hundred years before. Yet Christopher was the very image of Wulf's brother.
Chris even possessed Erik's temperament and bearing. They could be the same man.
And what if his child turned Daimon one day? Could he hunt and kill his own son or daughter?
The thought made him cold inside. It terrified him.
Wulf didn't know what to do. He needed advice. Someone who could help him sort through this. Picking up his phone, he called Talon.
No one answered.
Cursing, he only knew of one other person who might help. Acheron.
The Atlantean answered on the first ring. "What happened?"
He scoffed at Ash's cynicism. "No 'hi, Wulf, how's it going'?"
"I know you, Viking. You only call whenever there's a problem. So what's up? You have trouble hooking up with Cassandra?"
"I'm going to be a father."
Total silence answered him. It was nice to know the news stunned Ash as much as it had stunned him.
"Well, I guess the answer to my question is a big no, huh?" Ash asked finally. He paused again before asking. "Are you okay?"
"So you're not surprised at the fact that I made a woman pregnant?"
"No. I knew you could."
Wulf's jaw went slack as rage gripped him tightly. Ash had known all this time? "You know, that information could have been vital to me, Ash. Damn you for not telling me this before now."
"What would it have changed had I told you? You would have spent the last twelve centuries paranoid of ever touching a woman for fear of making her pregnant and then her not remembering you as the father. You've had enough on you as it is. I didn't see the point in adding that too."
Wulf was still angry. "What if I made someone else pregnant?"
"You haven't."
"How do you know?"
"Believe me, I do. Had you ever made anyone pregnant, I would have told you. I'm not so big an ass as to withhold something that important."
Yeah, right. If Ash would withhold this, then there was no telling what other vital things the Atlantean had failed to mention. "And I'm supposed to trust you now after you've just admitted lying to me?"
"You know, I think you've been talking to Talon too much. Suddenly you two sound like the same person. Yes, Wulf, you can trust me. And I never lied to you. I just omitted a few facts."
Wulf didn't say anything in response. But he would love to have Ash in front of him long enough to beat the hell out of him for this.
"So how's Cassandra dealing with her pregnancy?" Ash asked.
Wulf went cold. There were times when Ash was truly spooky. "How did you know Cassandra was the mother?"
"I know lots of things when I apply myself."
"Then perhaps you should learn to share some of these details, especially when they involve other people's lives."
Ash sighed. "If it makes you feel better, I'm not happy with the way all this went down any more than you are. But sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see one day, little brother. I promise."
Wulf ground his teeth. "I really hate it when you play Oracle."
"I know. All of you do. But what can I say? It's my job to annoy you."
"I think you should find a new occupation."
"Why? I happen to enjoy the one I have." But something in Ash's voice told Wulf the Atlantean was lying about that too.
So Wulf decided on a change of venue. "Since you don't want to give me anything helpful, let me change the subject for a minute. Do you happen to know one of Artemis's handmaidens named Katra? She's here and she claims to be on our side. She says she's been protecting Cassandra for five years, but I'm not sure if I should trust her or not."
"I don't know the handmaidens by name, but I can ask Artemis about it."
For some bizarre reason that actually made him feel better. Ash wasn't completely omniscient after all. "Okay. Just let me know immediately if she's not friendly."
"I will definitely do that."
Wulf moved to hang up.
"By the way," Ash said as soon as he pulled the phone away.
Wulf replaced it to his ear. "What?"
"Congrats on the baby."
Wulf snorted at that. "Thanks. Maybe."
Cassandra wandered around the huge house. It was like walking through a museum. There were Old Norse artifacts everywhere. Not to mention oil paintings she'd never seen before by famous artists that she was sure were authentic.
There was one in particular outside her room by Jan van Eyck, of a dark-haired man and his wife. In some ways it reminded her of the famous Arnolfini portrait, but the couple in this one looked entirely different. The blond woman was dressed in vibrant red and the man in navy.
"It's the wedding portrait for two of my descendants."
She jumped at the deep sound of Wulf's voice behind her. She hadn't heard him approach. "It's beautiful. Did you commission it?"
He nodded and indicated the woman in the picture. "Isabella was quite an admirer of van Eyck's work so I thought it would be a perfect wedding present for them. She was the eldest daughter of another Squire family who had been sent to marry my Squire Leif. Chris is descended from their third daughter."
"Wow," she breathed, impressed. "All my life, I have struggled to find out something about my heritage and lineage, and here you are, a walking textbook for Chris. Does he have any idea how lucky he is?"
He shrugged. "I've learned that at his age, most people aren't interested in their past. Only their future. He'll want to know as he gets older."
"I don't know," she said, thinking of the way Chris's eyes lit up whenever he tried to teach her Old English. "I think he knows a lot more about it than you realize. He's a star student in class. You should listen to him go. When we were studying, he seemed to know just about everything about your culture."
Wulf's features softened, turning him into the gentler man she'd seen in her dreams. "So he does listen."
"Yes, he does." Cassandra started for her room. "Well, it's getting late and it's been a really long night. I was going to go to sleep."
Wulf took her hand and pulled her to a stop. "I came to get you."
"Why?"
He stared at her intently. "Since you're now pregnant with my baby, I don't want you to sleep up here where I can't get to you, should you need protection. I know I told you you could come and go in the daylight, but I'd rather you didn't. The Daimons have human helpers just as we do. It would be too easy for one of them to get to you."
Her first reaction was to tell him to stuff it, but something in her refrained. "Are you ordering me?"
"No," he said quietly. "I'm asking you. For your safety and for the baby's."
She smiled at that and at the edge in his voice that told her he wasn't accustomed to asking anyone for anything. She'd heard him bark enough orders at Chris to know Wulf and free will weren't exactly synonymous.
"Okay," she said, giving him a small smile, "but only because you asked me."
His features relaxed. Good grief, the man was gorgeous when he looked like that. "Is there anything you need from your apartment? I can send someone after it."
"Clothes would be nice. Makeup and a toothbrush even more so."
He pulled his phone out and dialed it. Cassandra listened to him introduce himself to his security men as she opened the door and he followed her inside her room. Kat, who was sitting in a chair reading, looked up without comment.
"Hang on." He handed the phone to her. "Here, tell them what you need and where you live."
"Why?"
"Because if I tell them, they'll forget within five minutes what I said and won't leave the premises. I always have to have someone, usually Ash, Chris, or my friend Talon, tell them what I need done, or I e-mail them. And right now e-mail or text-messaging would take too long."
Was he serious?
"I can go with them," Kat offered as she set her book aside. "I actually know what she uses and I want to grab a few things of my own."
Wulf relayed the message to his guards and then had Cassandra repeat every word of it.
Once she finished talking to the guard, she hung up the phone. Lord have mercy, and she had thought her life was screwed up. "So are you telling me that humans can't even remember a conversation with you?"
"No, never."
"Then how do you keep Chris under wraps? Can't he just tell them you said it was okay for him to leave?"
Wulf laughed. "Because any order concerning his safety has to be cleared through Ash first and Chris knows it. The security guards would never move without direct orders from Ash."
Wow, the man was strict.
Kat gave Cassandra a gentle smile as Cassandra picked up the clothes Wulf had given her from the dresser. "I'm glad you handled this so well this time. And Wulf too. It makes things a lot easier."
Cassandra nodded. It did indeed.
If only Wulf could accept her heritage as easily as he had the baby. But then what good would it do when she was destined to die?
Perhaps this was the best way for it to work out. This way he wouldn't mourn her.
No, the voice in her head said. She wanted more than that from Wulf. She wanted what they had shared in her dreams.
Stop being selfish.
Cassandra swallowed at the thought. She was right. It would be kinder to stay away from Wulf. The last thing she wanted was to know he would grieve for her.
The fewer people mourning her, the better. She hated the thought of people hurting for her the way she hurt for her mother and sisters. There wasn't a day that went by where they weren't in her thoughts. Where a part of her didn't ache that she could never see them again.
Once she had the T-shirt and sweatpants in her arms Wulf walked with her back through his house. His powerful presence touched something deep inside her. She'd never imagined feeling like this.
"You know, you have quite a place here," she said.
He looked around as if he hadn't noticed it in a while. "Thanks. It was built at the turn of the century by Chris's great-great-grandmother. She had fifteen boys and wanted enough room to raise them and their children." There was a tender note in his voice whenever he talked about his family. It was obvious he had loved every one of them deeply.
"So what happened to them that Chris is the only one left?"
Sadness darkened his eyes and it made her heart ache for his grief. "The eldest son went down with several of his cousins and uncle as passengers on the Titanic. The influenza plague of 1918 killed three more and made two more sterile. The war took four more. Two died as children and one died in a hunting accident as a young man. The other two, Stephen and Craig, married. Stephen had one son and two daughters. The son died in World War II and one daughter of illness at age ten, the other in childbirth before the baby could be born."
Cassandra winced at his words and at the pain she heard in his voice. It was so obvious he had loved each of them dearly.
"Craig had four sons. One died in World War II, one as an infant, one in a car accident with his wife, and the other was Chris's grandfather."
"I'm sorry," she said, touching his arm in sympathy. No wonder he guarded Chris so zealously. "I'm amazed you let so many go to war."
He covered her hand with his. The look in his eyes told her how much he appreciated her touch. "Believe me, I tried to stop them. But there's only so much you can do to keep a stubborn man home. I finally understand how my father felt when Erik and I left home against his wishes."
"But you don't understand why your mother refused to welcome you home."
He paused mid-step at that. "How did you know that?"
"I..." She paused as she realized what she had just done. "I'm sorry. Every now and again I can read passing thoughts. I don't mean to and I have no control over it, it just happens."
His eyes were stormy again.
"You know." She tried again, hoping to comfort him a little. "Sometimes people say and do things in the heat of anger that they later regret. I'm sure your mother forgave you."
"No," he said, his voice low and deep. "I had forsaken the very things she had raised me to believe in. I doubt she ever got over it."
Cassandra pulled at the silver chain around his neck until she held his necklace in her hand. Just as in the dream, it held Thor's hammer and a small crucifix. "I don't think you have forsaken everything. Why else do you wear this?"
Wulf looked at her fingers that cradled his mother's cross and his uncle's talisman. Ancient relics he had worn for so long that he barely remembered their presence.
They were the past and she was his future. The dichotomy reached deep inside him. "It's to remind me that words spoken in anger can never be recalled."
"And yet you speak so often in anger."
He snorted. "Some faults can't be broken."
"Perhaps." She rose up on her tiptoes and kissed him, intending it as a friendly gesture.
Wulf growled at the taste of her as he pulled her close and held her tightly against his chest so that he could feel every inch of her feminine body.
How he wanted her. Wanted to tear her clothes off her and sate the burning ache in his loins that he felt every time she looked at him. It felt so good to have a woman who knew him.
One who remembered his name and whatever he told her.
It was priceless to him.
Cassandra moaned deep in her throat at the sensation of his lips on hers. At his fangs gently grazing her lips, his tongue spiking against hers.
She felt his muscles flexing under her hand, felt the coiled steel of a body that was finely honed and ruggedly dangerous.
He was so overwhelming. So fierce and yet strangely tender. A part of her didn't want to ever let go of him.
A part of her demanded that she do so.
Aching at the thought of it, she deepened their kiss, then pulled away reluctantly.
Wulf wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms again. He stared at her as his heart raced, his body burned. Why hadn't he found her as a human man?
What would it have mattered? She would still be an Apollite and he another species.
Theirs was an impossible relationship and yet they were joined together by a conniving goddess. He was captivated by Cassandra's spirit and passion. Her voice, her scent. Everything about her spoke to him.
Their relationship was damned from the beginning.
She's going to die.
The words sliced through him. He'd been alone for so long, his heart bruised and bloodied by loss. And she was going to be another scar there. He knew it. He could feel it.
Wulf only hoped that this one would heal, but something told him it wouldn't. Her presence would linger within him just as the rest had.
Her face would haunt him...
Forever.
In that moment, he hated Artemis for her interference. Hated her for forcing him into this life and for giving him a woman he had no choice except to lose.
It wasn't right.
And for what? Because Apollo had become angry and cursed his own people?
"Bloodlines are so fragile." He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud until Cassandra nodded.
"It explains why you protect Chris the way you do."
She had no idea.
He led her down the steps that descended into his rooms. "I have to admit that I'm surprised Apollo hasn't taken better care of his own. Especially considering how important it is."
"Like you, we started out as many and quickly dwindled down to me. Of course it didn't help any that we've been hunted to extinction."
Wulf paused outside his locked door, which had a keypad on the wall next to it.
"Paranoid?" Cassandra asked.
He smiled slightly in wry amusement as he entered the code. "We have a lot of servants who work here during the daylight and they know nothing of me since they can't remember my existence. This way, they don't stumble into my room and scream out that they have an intruder while Chris is at school."
That made perfect sense to her. "What's it like to be so anonymous?"
He opened the door and turned on a dim overhead light. "It's like being invisible sometimes. What's so strange to me is being able to see you and Kat again and not have to reintroduce myself to you."
"But Acheron and Talon remember you too."
"True. Dark-Hunters and Katagaria Were-Hunters can remember me, but I can't be in the physical presence of other Dark-Hunters for long and the Were-Hunters get nervous and cranky whenever I come near them. They don't like the idea of someone being around them who isn't one of their own."
Cassandra looked about as he moved toward his bed. The room was huge. There was a computer station against one wall that reminded her of NASA, right down to the silver Alienware computer on the black contemporary desk.
But what startled her was the large black bed in the far right corner. It was exactly as it had been in her dream. The walls around them were a black marble so shiny that it reflected, but unlike her dreams, Wulf cast no reflection in them now. Nor were there any windows.
On the wall to her left were more portraits and a long, mahogany buffet stood below them. The top of the buffet was littered with hundreds of silver picture frames. A black leather sofa and recliner like the ones upstairs were set before it along with a big-screen TV.
Looking at the myriad of faces from the past, she thought of the woman upstairs in the portrait outside of what was now Kat's room. Wulf had known a lot about her and it made her wonder how much he knew about every face on that wall and buffet. Faces of people who most likely had had little knowledge of him. "Did you have to reintroduce yourself constantly to Isabella?"
He closed and locked the door behind him. "With her it was a little easier. Since she was from a Squire's family, she understood that I was the cursed Dark-Hunter so whenever she met me, she would smile and say, 'You must be Wulf. Nice meeting you again.' "
"So all their spouses know about you?"
"No, just the ones who are from the Squire families. You can't exactly explain to the average human that there's an immortal Viking living in the basement who they won't remember seeing or speaking to. So the ones like Chris's mother never know I exist."
She watched as he sat down and pulled off his boots. The man had exceptionally large feet...
"Chris's mother isn't a Squire?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the fact that those bare feet made her long to see more bare parts of him.
"No. His father met her while she was working at a local diner. He was so in love with her that I didn't interfere."
"Why did they only have Chris?"
He sighed as he placed his boots under his desk. "She couldn't carry children very easily. She had three miscarriages before his birth. Even Chris was born seven weeks premature. Once he was born, I told his father that I didn't want either of them to go through another pregnancy."
She was surprised by that, given how important his lineage was to him. "Did you really?"
He nodded. "How could I ask them to keep doing that? It almost killed her to give birth and the miscarriages always broke her heart."
It was an admirable thing he'd done. She was glad to know he wasn't truly the barbarian she had feared him to be earlier. "You're a good man, Wulf. Most people wouldn't have thought of someone else."
He snorted. "Chris would disagree with you."
"I think Chris would disagree with a signpost."
She was rewarded with a real laugh from him. It was deep and pleasing, and sent a raw shiver through her. She really loved the sound of his accented voice.
Oh, don't go there...
She had to do something to keep her thoughts off how delectable he was.
"Well," she said, yawning, "I'm tired, barely pregnant, and really could use a good night's sleep." She indicated the closed door behind her. "Bathroom?"
He nodded.
"Okay. I'm going to change and then go to sleep."
"There's a new toothbrush in the medicine cabinet."
"Thanks."
Cassandra left him to get ready for bed. Alone in the bathroom, she opened the cabinet and paused. Inside were all manner of medical supplies, including a scalpel and sutures. Wulf must not be able to go to a doctor any more than she could.
As she reached for the new toothbrush, she remembered the shots the Daimons had fired into him.
Her gaze went back to the supplies.
He must have had to tend his own injuries. Alone. He hadn't even said a word about them. Nor had they existed in her dreams.
Then she thought of the way Stryker had healed when she stabbed him and wondered if Wulf's body had the same regenerating ability.
"Poor Wulf," she breathed as she changed her clothes.
It was so strange to be here. With him in his domain. Not once had she spent the night with a man. The few guys she'd slept with had been momentary flings and she had left their places as soon as she could. There was no need to stay and have them become attached to each other.
But she was attached to Wulf. A lot more than she should be. Or was she? He was the father of her baby. Shouldn't they have some degree of closeness?
It only seemed right.
She left the bathroom to find him sitting fully clothed, except for his bare feet, in the recliner in the sitting area.
"You can take the bed," he said. "I'll take the sofa."
"You don't have to, you know. It's not like you can make me pregnant or anything."
He didn't look amused by her words.
Cassandra closed the distance between them and took him by the hand. "C'mon, Big Guy. There's no need for you to wedge that extremely tall body into a small couch when you have a perfectly good bed waiting for you."
"I've never gone to bed with a woman before."
She arched a brow at that.
"To sleep," he clarified. "I've never spent the night with one."
"Never?"
He shook his head.
Boy, they were a lot more alike than she would ever have imagined. "Well, you're never too old for new experiences. Well, maybe you are, but in most cases that's a true statement."
His scowl deepened to that familiar level. "Is everything a joke to you?"
"No," she said honestly as she led him toward the bed. "But humor is how I get through the horrors of my life. I mean, come on. It's laugh or cry and crying just takes too much energy that I need to make it through the day, you know?"
She let go of him to braid her hair.
Wulf took her hands in his and stopped her from plaiting it. "I don't like for you to do that."
She swallowed at the hungry look in his midnight eyes. She had an odd sense of deja vu here in his room with that look on his face. Even though she shouldn't, she liked to see the fire in his dark gaze. Liked the sensation of his hands on hers.
Or better yet, the sensation of his hands on her body...
Wulf knew he had no business being with her, no business sharing a bed or anything else, and yet he couldn't keep himself from it.
He wanted to touch her skin for real this time. Wanted to have her legs wrapped around him as he let the heat of her body soothe his weary heart.
Don't.
The command was so strong that he almost heeded it, but Wulf Tryggvason had never been the kind of man to listen to orders.
Not even his own.
He tilted her head up so that he could see the passionate heat in her green eyes. It scorched him. Her lips were parted, welcoming.
He skimmed his fingers down the line of her jaw until he buried them in her strawberry-blond hair. Then he took possession of her mouth. She tasted of warmth.
She pulled him close, her arms tight and demanding as she ran her hands over his back. His body stirred, his cock hardened immediately.
Groaning, he picked her up in his arms. To his surprise, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist.
He laughed at her response even as the heat of her body stung him. Her core was pressed against his groin, making him well aware of how close that part of her was to him.
Her eyes dark with passion, she tugged his shirt off over his head.
"Hungry, villkat?" he mumbled against her lips.
"Yes," she breathed to his delight.
Wulf laid her on his bed. She reached down between their bodies and unzipped his pants. He growled deep in his throat the instant her eager hand reached down and touched him. The sensation of her fingers stroking his shaft shook every part of him. She even remembered how he liked to be touched. Stroked.
He almost felt like weeping from the miracle of that. Maybe he should have taken an Apollite or Were lover centuries ago.
No, he thought as he buried his lips against the column of her throat and inhaled her rose scent. They wouldn't have been Cassandra, and without being her, they, too, would be lacking what he needed.
There was something about this woman that filled him. That made him burn in a way no other ever had.
Only for her would he breach the code that forbade him to take an Apollite to his bed.
Cassandra lifted her arms as Wulf pulled the T-shirt over her head. She moaned at how good the heat of his naked body felt pressed against hers. All that gloriously male skin was a divine feast for her eyes.
He ran the back of his fingers over her breasts, making them tight and aching. He took the right one into his mouth and-savored her in a way that made her heart pound. His tongue was light and gentle as he flicked it back and forth. Her stomach fluttered in response to the intense pleasure he gave her.
Then, he trailed his kisses lower, over her abdomen. He stopped to nibble her hipbone while his hands slid the sweatpants down.
Cassandra lifted her hips so that he could slide them off. He dropped them on the floor, then used his hands to spread her legs wide.
She stared at him in needful expectation as he looked at the most private part of her body. He looked feral and hungry. Possessive. And it sent an electrical surge through her.
She hissed as he ran his fingers down her cleft. His touch teased and excited her. His touch was divine. Sating and inciting.
Wulf watched the pleasure on her face as she rubbed herself against his hand. He loved the way she responded to him. The way she was completely open and unguarded.
Climbing up on the bed, he laid his body over hers, then rolled over with her. She wrapped her body around his as they kissed hungrily. Her skin slid against his in a sensuous symphony that ignited him even more. Wulf sat up with her in his lap. She wrapped her long legs around his waist while her hands caressed his scalp, her fingers tangling in his hair.
He was honestly afraid of what he felt as she lifted herself up and took him into her body. She rode him hungrily, her body milking his as she took what she needed and gave him what he craved.
He didn't want to let her go. Didn't want to ever leave this bed again.
Cassandra bit her lip at the ecstasy of having Wulf deep inside her for real. He was so hard and thick. He felt even better in the flesh than he had in her dreams.
The light hairs on his chest teased her sensitive breasts while he cupped her bottom and urged her movements. She stared at his eyes, which were dark with passion.
Their breathing was synchronized as she slammed her hips against his groin over and over again.
She'd never made love to a man like this. In his lap, their bodies wrapped together. It was the most intimate thing she'd ever experienced.
She leaned her head back as Wulf suckled her. Cradling his head, she felt overwhelmed by pleasure.
And when she came, she cried out loud.
Wulf lifted his head to watch her face as she orgasmed. She was so beautiful to him. He laid her back on the bed without leaving her body, then took control. Closing his eyes, he thought about nothing except the feel of her warm and wet underneath him.
There was no past, no tomorrow. No Dark-Hunter. No Apollites.
It was just the two of them. Her hands on his back, her legs entwined with his, as he thrust himself deep inside her.
Needing this more than he had ever needed anything else, he buried his face in her hair and released himself deep inside her.
Cassandra held Wulf tight as she felt him convulse. His breath tickled her neck. His body was damp from perspiration and his long black hair teased her skin. Neither of them moved as they breathed raggedly in the afterglow.
She took comfort in his weight pressing down on her. The feeling of his rough, masculine body prickling hers. She ran her hands over his muscular back, over his scars, then she idly traced the tattoo on his shoulder.
He lifted himself up so that he could look into her eyes. "I think I'm addicted to you."
She smiled at his declaration even though it made part of her sad to hear it. His hair fell around his face, which was soft and tender in the dim light. Tucking his hair behind his ears, she kissed him.
His arms tightened around her. She loved that feeling. It made her feel protected. Safe.
Sighing dreamily, she pulled back. "I need to go clean up."
He didn't release her. "I don't want you to."
She cocked her head at him in confusion.
"I like the sight of my seed on you, Cassandra," he said raggedly in her ear. "My scent on your skin. Yours on mine. Most of all, I like knowing that in the morning you'll remember what we did tonight and you'll still know my name."
She laid her hand on his whiskered cheek. The pain in his eyes touched her deeply. She kissed him lightly, then snuggled against him.
He withdrew only enough so that he could spoon himself behind her. She rested her head on his biceps as he cradled her tenderly. Her heart pounding with joy, she listened to him breathe.
He lifted his head, kissed her cheek, then settled down with one hand buried in her hair.
Within a few minutes, he was sound asleep. It was the most peaceful moment of her life. Deep in her heart she knew that tonight Wulf had shown her a side of himself that he had let no one else see.
He was gruff and stern. But in her arms, he was a tender lover. And in the back of her mind was the thought that she could learn to love a man like this. It wouldn't be hard.
Cassandra lay quietly in the stillness of the early morning. She wasn't sure what time it was, only that Wulf warmed a part of her she hadn't realized was cold until now.
She wondered as she lay there how many centuries Wulf had been confined to an area like this one. He had told her that this house was only a little over a hundred years old.
Looking around, she tried to imagine what it would be like to be here alone, day after day, decade after decade.
It must be lonely for him.
She reached down and placed her hand on her belly as she tried to imagine the baby there. Would it be a boy or girl? Fair in color like her or dark like its father?
She would most likely never know the baby's real hair color. Most children's baby hair fell out and it wasn't until they were toddlers that you could tell.
By then she would be dead. Dead before its first tooth. Its first step or word.
She would never know her child at all.
Don't cry . ..
But she couldn't help it.
"Cassandra?"
She didn't answer Wulf's sleepy call. Her voice would betray her if she did.
He rolled her over as if he knew she was crying and pulled her into his arms. "Don't cry."
"I don't want to die, Wulf," she sobbed against his chest. "I don't want to leave my baby. There's so much I need to tell him. He won't even know that I ever existed."
Wulf tightened his grip on her as he heard those heartfelt words.
How he wished he could tell her how foolish her fears were, but they weren't. She cried over a fate neither of them could change.
"We have time, Cassandra. Tell me all your stories about you, your mother, and your sisters, and I'll make sure the baby knows every one of them. And every baby after this one. I won't let them forget you. Ever."
"Promise?"
"I swear to you, just as I swear I'll keep them safe forever."
His words seemed to calm her. Rocking her gently in his arms, Wulf wondered which of them had it worse. The mother who wouldn't live to see the baby grow, or the father who was damned to watch the baby and all those after him die.
