The cry of a giant bird reaches us, and I only need to see Malachi’s face to know that it’s not good news. “They found us again?”
“Looks like it.” He picks up his pace, nearly flying across the uneven ground. “We’ll know more after we meet up with Rylan and Wolf.”
It took them less than a week to track us down this time. They’re closing the gap, and no one can figure out how. Hell, if seraphim and demons exist, maybe witches do, too. Maybe they have some sort of scrying spell. I’ll ask Malachi about it after we get out of danger. I don’t think any of my father’s people can match him in size, speed, and strength, but I wouldn’t have wagered on my father trapping Malachi behind a blood ward for decades on end.
I could keep peppering him with questions, but the truth is that until we regroup with the others, the only priority is to put as much distance between us and the other vampires as possible. We can’t fight, not without risking one of us getting hurt. There’s no reasoning with them. They’re following orders, and only a direct order from my father will change their course.
This is a race, but I still don’t know the parameters. I know our goals, but we have no idea what my father knows.
I lift my head and tug on Malachi’s shirt. “We need one of them alive.”
He glances at me without breaking stride. “That’s risky.”
“I’m aware. But we need to know if he’s pursuing us because he wants you back or if he knows what happened when we broke the blood ward.” If he knows I have seraph blood, that I awoke that power, that I’m bonded with not one, but three Bloodline vampires…
That changes everything.
If he can get his hands on me, he’ll hold the leash for three of the seven Bloodlines. I know all too well the lengths he’ll go to get what he wants once we’re under his control. The men might be able to hold out indefinitely, but if I have to choose between keeping them alive or doing something really unforgivable, I already know what I’ll choose.
My father knows that, too.
“We need to know,” I repeat.
Malachi nods. He doesn’t turn back, but that’s fine. Getting to a secondary location is the primary goal. We know where they’re headed, and they’ll stay at the house for at least a short period of time to plumb it for any information they can. We just have to pick one of them off when they leave. It sounds easy, but I know better.
I lay my head against Malachi’s chest and let him carry me away.
Judging by the position of the sun in the sky, several hours have passed by the time he slows and sets me on my feet. I study the little farmhouse in the distance. It’s surrounded by rolling fields and looks like something out of a painting. “Is that where we’re headed?”
“Yes.” He rolls his shoulders. He doesn’t look like he’s been sprinting at full speed while carrying another person, but he does look tired. “Rylan will have gotten word to Wolf by now. They’ll meet us here.”
“We have to—”
“I know, little dhampir. But no one is going back there until you’re secured.”
As much as I want to argue, he’s right. We fall into an easy jog that eats up the distance at a pace slightly faster than an athletic human could maintain. My knee barely twinges. A month ago, I wouldn’t be able to do this. Not after my father shattered my knee in punishment for an escape attempt. He wanted to make sure I’d never be able to run again, and it was a reality I’d made a tumultuous peace with. Until Malachi gave me his blood.
Bloodline vampires really are something special.
My father always set himself above the rest at the compound, and up until I met Malachi, I thought that was just narcissistic bullshit because my father has some magic. Now I realize how deeply the difference between normal vampires and Bloodline vampires go.
Malachi is the last of his line, those who carry the power to control fire. If he doesn’t have children, his Bloodline will die with him. I glance in his direction. “Do Wolf and Rylan have family?”
He doesn’t take his gaze from the farmhouse. “You mean others that are part of their Bloodline? Yes. Not many, but yes.”
Not many.
Guilt claws at my throat. “Shouldn’t they be out procreating or something to ensure their Bloodlines keeps going? I understand why you didn’t, but they weren’t trapped behind a blood ward.”
“We live very long lives, Mina. There’s no rush.” The words are right, but there’s something off in his tone.
Once again, Wolf’s words, Malachi’s words come back to me. He wants me pregnant with his babies. It’s still a little mind-blowing. A few months ago, pregnancy wasn’t even on my radar, and now it’s my highest priority. Even that hardly seems real, though. My future is measured in goals right now.
Survive. Get pregnant. Become heir. Kill my father.
Every time I try to think of after, my brain bounces off the concept. Pregnancy is one thing. Children is something entirely different. But if I get pregnant, the goal is children.
“I’m going to be a terrible mother.”
Malachi stops. I don’t notice for two steps, not until he reaches out and snags my wrist. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s the truth.” I don’t look back at him. “I don’t know what your childhood was like. Maybe it’s been so long that you don’t really remember. I’m only twenty-four, Malachi. Those memories are still fresh and bloody in my head.” My violent, manipulative father. My ghost of a mother. How does someone come from such trauma without perpetuating the cycle?
“Mina.” He tugs on my wrist. When I don’t turn, he tugs again, harder this time. I know I could tell him to stop and he would, but I let him haul me back to stand before him. “Look at me.”
Reluctantly, I obey, lifting my gaze to his. He catches my chin, holding me in place. “Do you want children?”
The question makes me laugh. The sound comes out almost like a sob. “What does that matter? The path is set.”
“It matters.”
No, it really doesn’t. Not to me. I try to pull back, but he keeps me easily in place. “Malachi, please.”
“Answer the question.”
It’s a simple question. A vital one, even. Why does it make me want to cry? I close my eyes, hiding from him as much as I’m trying to keep the burning internal. “I don’t know. It was never a possibility, until it was a decision thrust upon me, first by my father and then by this situation.” All true, but not the full truth. My lower lip quivers despite my best efforts. If anyone else asked me this… But it’s not anyone else. It’s Malachi. “Maybe part of me has always wanted kids, but it was never in the cards. And now that it is—”
“This situation is hardly ideal in that respect.”
His understatement makes me open my eyes. “You want kids.”
“Of course I want kids.” He shrugs as if this is a given. “I always have. Not simply to continue my line. I…” Malachi glances away and clenches his jaw. “I want a family.”
The way he says it. Like it’s a sin to be ashamed of. Maybe it is in our world, where marriages and children are political right down to their very core. There are no love matches in my father’s compound, no matter what some there would like to believe. “I see.”