It was a male. Still not moving. Was this the way they behaved at birth? So unlike their kind, he lamented again.
No scales. No claws. No wings. His kind—his beautiful, strong kind—thrived with life from the moment they burst through their shells.
Maybe this wasn’t the way. Maybe they’d have to try and build their cities again. If raging wars meant ensuring the survival of his race, then so be it. This trial did not work. This child was an abomination. And he needed heirs. Not this.
“Toss it outside,” he ordered one of the men. “It’s dead.”
The woman struggled to sitting, crying out at his order. “No!”
He held up a hand to halt the guardian when the man would have stepped forward despite her protest. For some reason he watched her. This woman bent, face pale, and touched the child. She brought it to her breast, stroking it. Talking to it. Aurak reared back when the thing actually began to move. The woman looked up at him. “Not dead, sire. Not dead.”
Studying it, he still didn’t like the fact that it didn’t look like him—not Aurak’s true form. Then again, it had looked dead only moments ago.
Perhaps this was a sign.
He grabbed the woman’s chin and forced her to look at him. “One month,” he spat. “You have one month and then we sire another one.”
She quivered with fear. “Another?”
“You will breed until you can’t. And then I’ll find another who can.”
He dropped his grip, no longer caring to touch her. As he stormed away, the sound of the child’s wailing began to fill the chamber.
Yes, it was a good sign.
Chapter Nine
Alice wiped some of the perspiration from her brow, at a loss to explain the amount of heat surrounding her. She inhaled the clean scent of sheets, a smile curving her lips as she recognized the scent of a man nestled into the fibers as well. There. The undertones of coconut, again reminding her of a warm day on a sunny beach.
Wait...
She sat up, pushing away clothing and sheets and his bulk. God, he was next to her in a bed. The last thing she remembered, she’d been giving him—her hand flew to her mouth as she remembered—she’d been feeding him blood. He’d been drinking her blood.
“Gonna be sick,” she groaned before covering her mouth with a trembling hand.
“No, you aren’t,” Bast said gruffly. “Breathe.”
Her stomach lurched, and Bast sitting upright made the bed shift. The movement did not work in her favor. Swallowing rising bile, Alice tried to focus on something else. Anything other than what they’d been doing not long ago. But she couldn’t stop remembering the way his mouth had felt on her. The way her body had responded every time his tongue teased against her skin. It had been too much, yet she wanted more. She would have let him stay there, drinking from her forever, in exchange for just a few more minutes of that exquisite pleasure.
“God— “ Alice whipped her head away from him as digested pizza came tumbling out of her mouth. She gripped the sides of the bed as she leaned over it, painful waves in her belly forcing the vomit to rush out undaunted. Eyes slammed shut, she waited for it to stop, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Sebastian. The man who was supposed to be her temporary knight-in-shining-armor. The man who’d taken her off the streets for a single night.
He wasn’t a man. He was a vampire.
She’d kissed him and she’d lusted after him. Damn it, she’d even cared for him when he’d fallen ill.
And in exchange, he’d taken her blood.
Powerful hands brushed over her forehead, and Alice idly realized he was holding her hair out of the line of fire. He waited until she stopped gagging before asking, “Better now?”
Panting, she nodded. Her face felt fevered, and she couldn’t decide if it was embarrassment or nausea that caused it. “I’m so sorry about...”
“It’s easy enough to clean up. I suspect I’m the reason behind you getting sick. Correct?”
“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled. Too proud to admit his role in her discomfort.
“There’s a bathroom right there.” Bast’s fingers twirled her curls, managing to twist them into a neat little package that wouldn’t fall in her face. “Why don’t you go freshen up, and I’ll clean up out here? I need you looking and feeling better. That includes getting your stomach to settle down enough to eat. I have a proposal for you when you come back.”