Born to Love (The Vampire Reborn Series) (Entangled Ignite) (7 page)

“How is she?” Diana asked.

Maggie had calmed somewhat during the delay, but she was still out of it.

“She’s not herself. We should get going. That is, if you’re done,” he said.

“I’m done,” she answered quickly, with a vain attempt at a tired smile.

David sensed that her words were about more than the evidence she had collected. It was as if she had reached the end of her physical limits and was barely hanging on.

“Then let’s go,” he said, unwilling to inflict any more hurt on his ex-partner.

Chapter Nine

Diana was filled with relief that Ryder had the sleek black sedan waiting for them again outside the Blood Bank. The men bundled Maggie into the back seat, the driver surprisingly blasé about it, until Ryder explained, “He’s one of us.”

David worked his way onto the seat beside his ex-fiancée, displaying the greater mobility he’d been hiding. Diana wondered why he hadn’t revealed it earlier that day when he’d driven to the crime scene.

She tried not to be pissed at her former partner. Make that their partner. He was on this case with them, and now he was part of their Scooby Gang whether he liked it or not.

And now Maggie was no longer the way she had been.

She was different.

Different like Diana was.

Different like David was, too, though not in the same way.

“Take us home,” Ryder said.

As David began to protest, Diana urged David not to argue. “We’ll be able to handle Maggie better at our place. If any help is needed, Melissa is nearby and Ryder will be also,” she said, and was glad David didn’t fight her.

She sat beside Maggie, her gut twisting with each shudder of her friend’s body. Ryder sat in front beside the driver, shooting anxious glances back each time Maggie whimpered. After nearly ten minutes, Maggie let out a long, relieved sigh.

“How are you doing, Mags?” David asked, stroking back her hair from her face, his actions gentle and filled with love.

Without moving or opening her eyes, Maggie uttered one word, “Spent.”

Diana understood all too well, having felt like that way too often lately. She was feeling that way right now. Exhausted beyond measure.

The turbulence of the day and night had taxed her and all she wanted to do was to climb into bed. But first they had to deal with Maggie, and then she had to handle David and all the unanswered questions he likely still had bottled inside . Nonetheless, she was grateful for the slight thaw in him earlier. It gave her hope.

When they reached their apartment building, the driver quickly got out David’s wheelchair and he slipped into it. Ryder helped Maggie to her feet, but then she curled into David’s lap and he wrapped one arm around her. At his pained look, Ryder assisted, pushing the chair to the elevator.

Inside the condo, Ryder wheeled Maggie and David toward the door of their guest room. “Let’s get Maggie settled. I can have Melissa come down—”

“No,” Maggie said. “Tomorrow,” she added, her single-word bursts clearly taxing her.

Diana shared a brief look with her husband. “Okay. Tomorrow, Mags. Go get some rest.”

Maggie nodded weakly and Ryder helped push them into the guest room, Diana trailing behind.

When they reached the bed, Maggie eased onto it, but when David went to move away, she said, “Don’t go.”

“Are you sure?” David asked, and when Maggie confirmed it with a nod, her gaze never wavering from David’s, Diana knew it was time for her and Ryder to leave.

“We’ll see you two in the morning,” she said, and after she closed the door to the guest room, Ryder glanced at her anxiously.

“What are you going to do about her and Rafe?” he asked, leaning by the door, arms tucked across his chest.

Thought after thought slipped through her mind, but in reality, she knew there was just one viable option. “The only thing I can do,” she said. “Find some shifters who’ll explain to us what’s happening.”

…

Maggie sensed an odd finality to the sound of the door shutting behind Diana and Ryder, almost as if it was closing on a chapter of her life.

Maybe it was, Maggie thought.

David hovered anxiously by the bed. He had shut himself off from her over the last year of their relationship, and tonight was no different. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking or feeling.

But then he ended all conjecture by blurting out, “How long have you known?”

“About what?” she asked, and rose slightly, strength returning to her body as the odd sensation she’d had from being close to Rafe receded with each passing minute. She reached behind her to remove the holster tucked against her back and laid the weapon on the nightstand beside the bed.

“You can be that casual about it? As if I were asking about the weather?” he challenged, his blue eyes frosted with anger.

“If you mean when did I know about Ryder, I always thought something was off about him, but I didn’t know what it was. At least, not until Diana told me.”

“And when was that?” he pressed, his tone that of an interrogator, not a friend or lover.

Former
lover, she corrected as she sat up against the pillows on the bed.

“Two months ago,” she answered bluntly.

“You’ve known for months and didn’t tell me?” he parried, looking surprised and angry. Angry being the operative word when it came to his behavior for most of that night.

But she wouldn’t let him use that anger to make her feel guilty. Especially when he had been keeping things from her, as well. She glanced down at his legs, volleying back the accusation. “And how long did you keep what was happening with you from me?”

Embarrassed color flooded his face before he deflected her question. “Why did Diana tell you?”

“She wasn’t doing well physically, and I pushed her to tell me because I was worried about her. She finally confessed what he is, and what’s happening with her.”

“Which is?”

“The night of the raid when she was shot, she was contaminated with Ryder’s vampire blood,” she explained, earning only a partial thaw in the chill of David’s tone.

“You’re telling me that saved her?”

Maggie nodded. “Her wounds should have been fatal,” she said, and continued with her explanation at David’s confused look. “The contamination seems to have kept her from dying then, but after that…the vampire cells started to take over. They were slowly killing her, until the baby came along.”

“A vampire baby?” he asked with an arch of his blond brow.

“I don’t think anyone knows what it will be…or if she’ll even survive long enough to carry it to term.”

David shook his head with sharp staccato movements. “You’re not telling me she’s dying. I won’t believe that,” he said, and despite his earlier anger, his fear for his old partner and friend could not be missed.

“She may be dying, David,” Maggie said, and reached out to touch his fingers with hers. “We don’t know if the contamination will kick in again. We don’t even know why the baby’s helped, or how long the reprieve will last.”

“That’s nuts,” he said, most of his anger spent, but not all. “What about you, Maggie? What’s going to happen to you?”

Maggie’s mind traveled back to what she had seen happen to Rafe tonight. To the pain and violence as the human had been stolen away by the beast she was certain had bitten her the night before. An animal that had possibly killed and eaten another human.

“I don’t know, David. Everything’s changed in just one night.”

“I know the feeling well, Maggie.” Anguish dripped from every word, and it was impossible to miss his meaning. But it was equally impossible for her to understand. Not yet. Although she suspected that in time she would.

“Will you hold me? I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
Or any other night
. But she didn’t say that. It was too soon. And things were still too uncertain.

After a moment of hesitation, David relented. He pushed off the arms of the wheelchair and used his legs to scoot onto the bed. He yanked off his shoes, then slipped off his suit jacket and shoulder harness.

She watched as, with a powerful shove with his arms and less coordinated movements with his legs, he worked his way to the center of the bed where she waited. He lay down stiffly next to her, his body rigid. With a sigh, she tucked herself against his side. He finally relaxed, brought his arm around her, and hugged her close.

“It’ll be okay, Maggie,” he said.

She knew he was being sincere, however awkward. Funny words coming from him, really. It was exactly what she’d been telling him for so long.

She just hoped she would be better at accepting comfort than he’d been.

…

David lay awake long after Maggie had drifted off into an uneasy sleep, her limbs occasionally twitching and shifting against him as he held her. He soothed her with a gentle stroke of his hand along her back.

He was halfway asleep himself when her body jumped and she woke with a soft cry, shaking all over. Her eyes were wide with fear.

Gathering her face in his hands, he said, “It’s okay, Mags. It was just a bad dream.”

Only it wasn’t, and they both knew it.

“I can’t stop thinking about…about what happened to him. What’ll happen to me.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“We’ll find a way to stop it. And if not—”

She grabbed his arms, almost desperate. “Help me forget, David. If only for this one night, help me forget.” Before he could even think to respond, she kissed him.

God, it had been so long, and he wanted her so much. His body went rock hard just from her kiss, and it was impossible for her not to feel it. They were tucked together, front-to-front, the hard ridge of his growing erection cradled against the softness of her belly. But as much as he wanted her, he knew how wrong it would be.

“Oh, God, Mags. I want you. I never stopped wanting you, but…we can’t. Not like this. Not when you’re so vulnerable.”

“Fuck vulnerable,” she ground out, surprising him. She wasn’t normally one to swear.

He shook his head, and once again framed her face with his hands, smoothing his thumbs across her cheeks to wipe away the trails of her tears. “I can’t take advantage of you like this, Mags. In the morning, we’d both regret it, because—”

“Because you don’t want me the way I want you. As in, forever.”

Oh, how he
did
want her forever. But there was still too much wrong with him, and now too much going on inside her, to jump back blindly into any kind of relationship, let alone one this intimate.

“You’re so wrong. I do want more, Mags. But we need to get our heads on straight and come to grips with everything that’s happening with both of us, so we know for sure what we’re getting into
is
a forever kind of thing.”

Her gaze danced over his face, searching for the truth of his words. Seeing his sincerity, she worried her lower lip as if to bite back a retort, then finally nodded. “I understand, David.”

He wasn’t sure she did. She looked like she was simply putting on a brave front, but didn’t understand at all. She’d had the same look in her eyes the day he’d said he was moving out, that he needed to sort out his new, wheelchair-bound life alone, and didn’t want to hold her back from finding someone who could give her all the love and happiness she deserved.

She’d said the love she deserved was in
him
, but as wounded as he’d been, both emotionally and physically, he hadn’t believe that. And he couldn’t justify keeping her from the possibility of loving someone else.

But she hadn’t. In the many months since then, she hadn’t found anyone else—hadn’t even looked at anyone else…until Rafe.

Another reason tonight would be a mistake.

But he kept that to himself, and said, “Get some rest, Mags. I swear to you we’ll figure this out. Find a way to make things right.”

She bit her lip and nodded again. Then she closed her eyes and tucked herself in close to him, hanging onto him as if he were her anchor.

For tonight, at least, he could be that. He could be here for her, as she had been for him in that first horrible year after the raid.

But when morning came, they were both going to have to face the frightening reality of the future, and decide whether it could include a life together.

…

Diana nestled against Ryder, exhaustion dogging every cell in her body.

“Do you think they’re okay?” she asked, worried about what might be happening with her friends in the guest room.

“As well as can be expected for the moment, I imagine.” He rubbed his hand across her back, soothing her frayed nerves and offering solace.

Between their bodies she could feel a tiny flutter of life, and despite the craziness and uncertainty of the night, peace and hope filled her. That life was what it was all about.

“You look…happy,” he said, peering down at her.

She tilted her face up to meet his inquiring gaze. “This seems so right,” she said, and ran her hand over her belly.

Ryder smiled. Since finding out about the baby, there had been an expectant joy in his eyes that the knife-thin edge they walked together couldn’t dim.

Despite the ever-present danger, there was a lightness in her tonight that went beyond the baby.

“You feel free, don’t you?” he asked.

With a startled jump, an insight flared within her. “I’m glad David finally knows. I never realized how much it was weighing on me, keeping that secret. I hope he’ll be able to forgive me for everything now.”

Ryder’s expression turned to surprise. “Forgive you?
Forgive
you?” he repeated, his voice louder and more clipped. “He should be grateful he’s alive.”

“I don’t think he believed that at first. I suppose that’s understandable.”

“No, it isn’t, darlin’. I’d take life any day. Any day and in any way,” he said with vehemence.

Diana nodded and settled back down against him, dancing her hand across his chest. “I know, Ryder. I know you would. You have chosen life more than once.”

But would she do the same, if it came to it?

She didn’t voice her doubts. She hoped she wouldn’t have to choose eternal life in order to save herself and her unborn child. She’d seen too much of the pain it had brought Ryder and all their vampire friends.

But…she’d also seen the love.

She allowed herself to focus on that as she drifted off in his arms, knowing she’d be safe with him.

Knowing that together they would all keep Maggie safe, too.