I flipped on the switch, but the room was empty. I couldn't figure out what the sound was at first, but then it happened again and I immediately understood. This room had a door that led to the backyard and Teren had put up a doggy door so his pup could come and go freely. A round laundry basket had been set right in front of the flap, the heavy obstacle overflowing with clothes and impossibly for the collie to push back, effectively trapping him outside. A flash of guilt washed through me that I'd inadvertently blocked Spike's entrance to our warm home, and I immediately removed the basket, vowing to do better on keeping up with that sort of thing. No one ever mentions that the signing of wedding papers, also commits you to the responsibility of doubled laundry loads. Of course, my husband did make amazing dinners for me, more often than not, so I didn't complain about it, too much.
Spike immediately bolted into the room, cowering back into a corner. Startled at his odd behavior, I went over to him, hugging the shaggy coat to me. He nestled into my side and I could feel him lightly shaking. "You okay, boy? Something out there?"
Feeling protective of my step-pet, I walked over to the door and unlocked it, stepping outside onto a small concrete slab. The late January air was chilly and a shiver went through my pajama clad body as I vigorously rubbed my arms, looking over Teren's sloping lawn. It was a big yard and there were hidden areas with deep shadows and dark, menacing looking trees. As something in the back corner near a garden shed shifted, my heart seized. Then Goldie the neighbor cat hopped up on Teren's fence and I nearly had a heart attack. Thinking I was beyond stupid at being alone in the backyard, investigating strange things just like Teren had a habit of doing, I hurried back into the house.
I closed the door, securely locking it, and encouraged Spike to follow me into the kitchen to get him something to eat. Teren instantly breezed into the room, a disapproving look on his face. Oh yeah, I guess if he could hear me sighing contently, then he'd also just heard me ask the dog if something had spooked him, and then he'd heard me stupidly go check on what that might be. That really wasn't too smart of me, and I wouldn't have been happy if he'd done it. We did need to be more careful than the average husband and wife.
Teren seemed about to scold me, when a strange look suddenly passed over his face and he tilted his head at me. Then he looked over to the hall where the laundry room was and his features shifted to surprise. "Oh," was all he said.
His face shifting to normal, he came over and squatted down by his dog, ruffling his fur. "Sorry to lock you out, boy." He grinned and then kissed Spike's head while Spike thumped his tail noisily.
Confused by his weird reaction, I put my hands on my hips. I'd really been expecting a reprimand; I'd already even prepared my defense, namely that the hormones in my body had temporarily flooded my common sense. "Oh?" I said sarcastically. "That's it?"
He looked up at me, still smiling, then straightened and kissed my forehead. "Yep."
He turned to walk away, but I grabbed his t-shirt. "Wait, you can't just say 'oh', all surprised like, and then not explain." Shaking my head at him, I added, "That's not proper etiquette."
He chuckled and raised an eyebrow at me. "I didn't realize you and me followed the rules of etiquette."
I slung my arms around his waist, trapping him to me, well, not physically, but symbolically. "Yes, we do. Everyone does to a certain extent." Smiling, I added, "That's what keeps us civilized."
He grinned and leaned in to place a cool kiss along the vein in my neck. "Was I being civilized then, when I bit you last night in that spot that makes you-"
I cut him off, smacking him in the chest. He straightened and chuckled while I sputtered out, "What was 'oh'?" My cheeks heated from the memory he'd just given me and his thumb traced the flush of color.
"I felt you," he whispered.
I cocked my head, confused. "You...felt me? What do you mean?"
He slung his arms around me, actually trapping me, and shrugged his shoulders. "When you went outside, I knew it. At first I thought I'd only heard it, but when you came back inside, I realized that I was wrong." He shrugged. "It was faint, but I'd also felt it."
I sighed, not understanding his meaning. "I don't..."
He grinned, twisting me back and forth a little in our embrace. "Like I can feel my family...I felt you. I sensed where you were. I'm doing it right now. I see you, I feel you, I smell you, I hear you...and I can sense you."
My eyes widened as his meaning hit me. His entire family, well, the vampiric part of it, could sense each other's locations, like they'd all been low-jacked, or bugged or something. And now apparently, he could sense me too. "How...?"
His eyes drifted to my stomach, bulged between us. "Them." His eyes went back to mine, joy clear in the pale depths. "I can sense them. Their blood is my blood, my family's blood." He squeezed me tighter, a huge smile spreading over his face. "Now that I know what that faint feeling is, it's very apparent to me, and I think that will only get stronger as they grow." He chuckled a little. "As long as they are inside you, I'll know where all three of you are."
Shocked silenced me. I'd forgotten about that vampiric trait. Well, not necessarily forgot about it, but I certainly never considered that he'd have a bond with the children like that before they were even born. A tiny part of me was jealous at his connection to them, and a tiny part of me was irritated that even more of my privacy was lost. He'd always know where I was now. My mind spinning, I focused on what his bloodline tracking ability meant for our children's future. "Well, I guess we'll never have to worry about losing the kids at the mall..."
He chuckled, and held me as tight as my GPS-spouting stomach would allow.
A couple of weeks later, nothing had changed. Well, nothing had changed in the Teren vs. Ben standoff. Plenty of things were changing in my world. For starters, I felt the twins move. At first I thought it was just gas or my stomach rumbling, but one night, when Teren and I were snuggling on the couch watching a movie, I felt a definite and profound kick. Teren looked at my stomach at the same time I did, both of our hands shortly following.
I glanced up at him. "Did you hear that?"
He grinned and nodded, his eyes returning to my tummy. "Yeah, I've been hearing movement for awhile now, but that was really distinct."
A second kick greeted our awaiting hands and we both started laughing, and then I started crying, Teren scooping me into his lap and laughingly kissing away my emotional tears. Once I knew what it felt like, I started feeling those little kicks and squirms all the time. I started to feel less jealous of Teren's ability to bond with our children pre-birth, and started relishing my connection to them. He may be able to sense them and hear them in ways that I couldn't, but I was the one keeping them alive.
Teren started becoming more conscious of that too. In a move that actually didn't please me, he stopped feeding off me. A week after we'd both felt them kicking, I'd tried to get him to bite me. I'd never had to really try before, not since that very first bite, and it was a little irritating to me to have to beg for it. He worried his lip as he stared at his favorite vein in my neck that I was offering him, and slowly shook his head, his eyes betraying the fact that he wanted to be piercing my skin more than anything.
"Why not?" I said breathlessly. "I can wear that nice turtleneck you bought me for a few days."
With a sigh, he sat back on his heels, still kneeling over me, just below my h*ps where my growing belly didn't get in the way. He shook his head, his eyes instantly going to that belly that was getting larger and larger as I now rolled into the halfway point, the 20th week. The doctor said they were growing wonderfully, and every blood draw or pee test I'd taken had showed no inherent dangers to them. Personally, I wasn't worried about me passing anything dangerous to them, I knew exactly what condition they were going to end up with, but it was a comforting thing for a doctor to say anyway. We had an intensive ultrasound scheduled in two weeks - the big one - the one where they could tell the sexes. We hadn't decided if we wanted to know or not.
Teren put a cold hand on my nak*d belly, his chilly fingers automatically eliciting a response from the twins. I don't know if they sensed his temperature, even through the layers of skin and fluid separating them, or if they just sensed that Dad was near, but they almost always kicked or moved when he touched me like that. A slow smile broke out on his face, a face full of wonder and love, as his hand circled the now watermelon-like stomach.
"I can't. I shouldn't," he whispered. I tried to sit up, but failed in getting around my belly. He looked back up at me struggling to get closer to him, and shifted his position to lie beside me. I rolled onto my side and put a hand on his bare, silent chest, still subtly exposing my neck to him. His eyes drifted over to what I offered, but he shook his head again. "It's not mine anymore, Emma." His eyes came back to mine, content and committed. "You are supporting three lives with that precious blood." He took my wrist and placed a kiss along the crisscross of veins just under the surface, his eyes closing as my pulse vibrated across his lips. "I won't let you support a fourth." He opened his eyes and smiled at me. "I have plenty of other ways to get fresh blood."
I frowned at that, but knew full well he meant an animal. Teren would never bite another human, and not just because he couldn't erase the event from them like Halina could. No, he would never bite another human because that would almost be like he was cheating on me. The act of drawing blood was a surprisingly intimate one, and I'd be devastated if he ever touched another girl that way. He knew that and would never hurt me like that. So no, my frown wasn't over fear that he'd "stray", my frown was because...well, I liked it.
He smiled as he followed my thought process. "After they are born, I will drain you until you pass out, but not right now, okay?" He grinned playfully and squeezed my bloated body tight to his.
I sighed, then smiled and kissed him softly. "Fine...but you better."
He laughed and then rolled me on top of him. I had to bend over my stomach to still kiss him, but I managed. "You're so kinky," he whispered through increasingly heated kisses. I laughed huskily, my hormonal body quickly igniting at the seductive, half nak*d man pinned underneath me.
"You haven't seen anything yet," I whispered right back at him, a low groan escaping him at hearing my words. Then I proceeded to show him just how "kinky" my hormone driven body could be.
After those changes, the next biggest shift in my life was work. Eventually my expanded body was too much for me to hide, especially since my clothes before had always kind of highlighted my figure; me switching to baggy clothes had tipped off some of the more observant girls that worked there. Not Clarice though, she didn't clue in until she caught me absentmindedly stroking my stomach one day. Then her jowly jaw had dropped, and I swear her face went a ghostly shade of white.
"God, are you pregnant?" She asked that like I had some sort of infectious disease. She almost looked like she wanted to put her hand over her mouth and nose as a precaution.