The King

SEVENTY-ONE

As Wrath saw the first of his appointments, Beth snuck out into the kitchen and snagged a bowl of fresh strawberries that Fritz had bought for her at the local Hannaford.

Man, after the past number of months, she had gotten used to the spoiling—a benefit Bella had told her to enjoy, but which had taken some time to become chill with: Everyone had been, and was being, so kind, the Brothers and their mates, the staff, John Matthew, the Shadows. It was incredible.

Just like the pregnancy.

By some miracle, she was trending exactly like a normal human pregnancy, well into her eighth month and feeling great. She had plenty of stamina, no swollen ankles, no stretch marks, and a baby that did laps under her rib cage every time she ate. Especially if there was sugar involved.

It was nothing that she had prepared herself for.

Disasters? Shit yeah, she’d been all about them. After that initial shock at the doctor’s, she’d naturally gone right to the Internet and terrified herself stupid with all the different things that could go wrong. The one saving grace had been that, by that point, she’d already gotten herself out of that hairy first trimester when most miscarriages happened—although unfortunately, that needing that had kicked in was a wild card that she hadn’t been able to fully relax about for another month.

But, yeah, the worry had mostly passed now that she was pulling into the final four-week lap. And sure, labor was going to be a bitch—but no, she wasn’t going to try to white-knuckle it with a no-drug birth plan. And anytime she got a little rattly? She just reminded herself that millions upon millions of women and females had done this all before her.

What her birth plan did entail was iAm and Trez both being available at the drop of a hat for the next four weeks. Dr. Sam had promised to make herself free no matter the hour, day or night—a little commitment she suspected iAm had instilled with a mental sleight of hand.

He had worked a number of those, discreetly, of course.

And thus they’d been successful in keeping the race’s identity on the DL.

She was hoping that, like a lot of women, she went into labor at night, so Wrath could be a part of at least some of it. But they’d both agreed—even though it was going to kill him, her safety and the safety of the baby came first.

And that meant she was going to have to go to Dr. Sam—

“Are the berries to your liking, madam?” Fritz asked.

Looking across her father’s kitchen, she nodded. “They’re perfect.”

As the butler beamed like he’d won the lottery, she finished what was in the bowl and allowed him to take the thing from her.

Heading back out into the dining room, she was careful to make no noise as she went across to her padded seat.

Wrath was sitting in the armchair he favored, the one on the left, the one that Saxton’s desk was behind. Across from him, in the matching chair, a male was sitting with his hands clasped hard on his knees, his shoulders hunched, his face gray. The clothes he was wearing were not fancy, just the kind of stuff you could get at Target, and his watch was nothing like a Rolex, just a matte black rubber–strapped one.

Wrath leaned forward and offered his palm. “What happened?”

The male rocked back and forth in the chair. “She…” All at once he looked at Beth, his face blanching even further.

As she stiffened, she put her hand over her belly.

Oh … hell.

“Talk to me,” Wrath said in a low voice.

“She…” At this point, the male began to whisper so softly that nothing carried.

But it was clear Wrath understood every word. And as she watched her husband’s hands clench, those forearms bunching up, she knew what it was about.

Deaths. From childbearing.

She had heard for so long about how the vampire race suffered on the birthing bed, as they called it, but she’d had no true appreciation for their losses before. Doing this with the commoners now? She was routinely horrified.

So many dead. Mothers and children.

Just as her own mom had died.

It was a tragedy that medical science couldn’t seem to make much of a dent in. Say what you would about Havers: He had a clinic outfitted with all kinds of modern technology, and yet bad things happened. Seemingly all the time.

Wrath reached out his great arms and put his hands on the male’s shoulders. He spoke softly as well, but whatever he was saying, the husband who had lost everything was nodding.

They stayed like that for a very long time.

When the meeting was finally over, the two of them stood up and embraced, the civilian so much smaller than her husband.

Before the male left, he kissed Wrath’s ring.

Abalone escorted the commoner out, talking quietly with him, as Wrath slowly lowered himself back down. His brows were tight, his mouth a grim line.

As she stood up, she winced and had to stretch her back. Going over, she wanted to pull him tightly to her, but figured a reminder of the pregnancy was probably not what he needed at the moment.

“I can’t help him,” Wrath said in a voice that cracked. “I can’t … help where he’s at.”

“Sometimes knowing you’re not alone is enough.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

But he took her hands and brought them to his lips, kissing her knuckles one by one. And as a sudden wave of exhaustion hit her, he seemed to recognize it.

“How about you head home?” he said.

“How did you know?”

“You just yawned.”

“Did I?”

“Have Fritz take you.”

As she arched her back, she wanted to stay, but had to be realistic. “Maybe walking around the mall for all that time was a little much.”

“Go on, take a rest. I’ll be home in a couple of hours and I’ll put some shitty television on for us, ’kay?”

“That sounds like heaven.”

“Good.” He kissed her once. And then seemed to have to do it again. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Fritz!” her husband called out. “Car!”

She made sure to pet George a couple of times and tell him where she was going before she left. And then she was out into the night, getting into the rear of the Mercedes, heading for the mansion.

Letting her head fall back against the seat, she could feel herself already begin to doze off. “I’m afraid I’m not very good company,” she said to Fritz.

“Just rest, madam.”

“Good idea, Fritz.”

As Beth departed, Wrath leaned back in the armchair, and was not at ease in the slightest.

… she died in front of me …

… held my lifeless son in my hands …

“My lord?”

“I’m sorry, what?” He shook himself. “What?”

Abalone cleared his throat. “Would you like a break, sire?”

“Yeah. Just gimme a minute.” Taking George’s halter, he said, “Kitchen.”

Walking through the flap door with his dog, he was relieved that Fritz had already left and that the brothers stayed back.

Shit, the minute he’d smelled the pain and sorrow of that civilian, he knew that all had been lost for the male—and not in a material sense. People didn’t get into that kind of agony over things. And as usual Abalone knew the full story, but Wrath preferred to let the people tell him the details in person; he wanted to hear things directly from them.

Childbirth had not actually claimed the female’s life this time.

A car accident.

Wrath had expected it to be the former, but that was not the way destiny had played out. Nope, the female had lived through the birth and so had the child. They’d been killed by a drunk driver on the way home from Havers’s clinic.

The casual cruelty of fate was sometimes a ballbuster on an epic scale.

Unbelievable.

Going over to the table, he pulled out a chair and sat down. He was pretty sure he was facing the windows—not that he could see out of them.

So many stories he’d heard, but this one … Jesus Christ, it got to him.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but eventually V put his head in. “You okay?”

“Nope.”

“You want to reschedule, true?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.”

“V.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember that vision you told me about. Where I was looking up at the face in the sky and the future was in my hands?”

“Yeah.”

“What…”

Abruptly, he relived that civilian’s anguish. “Nah, never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Sometimes, information wasn’t a good thing. If that commoner could have seen the future, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome. He would have just spent the remaining time with his female and his young terrified of what was coming.

“I’ll clear the decks,” the brother said after a moment.

The flap door closed with a thump-bump.

For no apparent reason, he thought of his father and his mother, and wondered what the night of his birth had been like. They’d never spoken of it, but he’d never asked, either. There had always been something else going on—plus, he’d been too young to care about that stuff.

As he tried to picture his own child’s arrival, he couldn’t imagine the stream of events. It was a hypothetical too emotionally charged to resonate.

But there was one thing that was abruptly crystal fucking clear.

He just wasn’t sure how to get around it.

As he stewed on things, memories from the last couple of months filtered into him. Stories and problems, gifts given and received. After all the struggle he’d brought to doing the King’s job before, it had been such a revelation to actually love what he was doing.

He hadn’t even missed the fighting.

Hell, there had been too many other challenges to confront and overcome: Battles, after all, weren’t always waged in the field, and sometimes enemies weren’t armed with conventional weapons. Sometimes they were even ourselves.

Finally, he knew exactly why his father had gotten so much out of being on the throne. He totally fucking got it.

And it was funny: The one thing that so many of the people had in common was love for their family. Their mates, their parents, their children; all that seemed to come first.

Always.

Family first.

The next generation … first.

He thought back to the night his parents had been slaughtered. The one thing they had done before that door had been broken down? Hide him. Keep him safe. Preserve him—and it hadn’t been about ensuring the future of the throne. That was not at all what they’d said as they’d locked him in that crawl space.

I love you.

That had been the only message that had mattered when their time had run out.

Not, Be a good King. Not, Follow in my footsteps. Not, Make me proud or else …

I love you.

It was the tie that bound, even across the divides of death and time.

As he imagined his son coming into the world, he was pretty damn sure one of the first things he was going to say was, I love you.

“Wrath?”

He jumped and turned toward the sound of Saxton’s voice. “Yeah? Sorry, just a little in my head.”

“I’m finished with all my paperwork from last night and tonight.”

Wrath turned back to the windows he could not see. “You worked fast.”

“Actually, it’s three in the morning. You’ve been sitting there for about five hours.”

“Oh.”

And yet he didn’t move.

“Most of the Brothers left hours ago. Fritz is still here. He’s upstairs cleaning.”

“Oh.”

“If you don’t need anything—”

“There is something,” he heard himself say.

“Of course. How can I help?”

“I need to do something for my son.”

“A bequest?”

As Wrath started working the whole thing through in his head, he was a little freaked out. God, you’d think that great corners in life should come with a warning sign at the side of the proverbial road, a little yellow number that announced which direction you were going to go in, and maybe offered a “reduce speed” kind of advice.

Then again, he and his shellan had been pregnant months before her needing.

So life did its own thing, didn’t it.

“Yeah. Kinda.”