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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.”
“Maybe it’s foolish to want something that so few of our people have, but I want it all the same.”
I know what he means even without him explicitly saying it. “There does seem to be a dearth of happy childhoods among vampires.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.”
I try to picture what he’s saying. A happy childhood. I’ve seen it represented fictionally, but a part of me always believed it to be exactly that—fiction. Even the humans manage to fuck up their kids in astronomical numbers, and most of them are attempting to marry and procreate because of love, rather than politics. The odds are not in our favor.
They’re especially not in our favor with this current situation.
I don’t want to ask the question, but I need to know the answer. “What happens if I get pregnant and you’re not the father?” Even with Rylan attempting to stay out of the race to impregnate me, Wolf and I have sex nearly as often as Malachi and I do.
He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’ve made my choice.”
As if it’s just that simple. “If we broke the bond and one of them got me pregnant instead… Malachi, you’d be free. Free for the first time in decades. You should be focusing on that instead of tying yourself to a sinking ship.”
“Mina.”
Gods, the way he says my name. It makes me shiver. “Yes?”
“I respect your ability to make decisions for yourself enough to stand by while Wolf courts a demon, even though I don’t agree with it. Give me the courtesy of returning the favor.”
I open my mouth to continue arguing, but I don’t have a leg to stand on. He’s right. No matter what I think, he’s more than capable of making his own choices. I swallow hard. “Okay. Sorry. I just don’t want you to end up regretting…”
“Regretting you.” Malachi gives me a small sliver of a smile. “Impossible. You’ve crashed into my life with all the subtlety of a bomb detonating, but it’s been refreshing.” He turns us toward the farmhouse. “Now, let’s get inside and discuss next steps.”
And that’s that.
I’m completely unsurprised to step through the door and find that Wolf and Rylan both beat us here. Neither of them were weighed down with carrying me, or having that conversation out in the field before entering. That said… I glance at Wolf. “How did you know we moved?”
“Rylan caught me on the way back.” He hops onto the faded counter and rubs his hands together. “I should have news on the demon front within a day or two. Those bastards like to play hard to get.”
Malachi appears in the doorway. “Everything is secure.”