As my hands ran through his hair, I felt the warmth spread through my entire body. I felt myself relaxing as his tongue found mine. I felt my heart slowing as our frantic kiss settled into something languid and lustful. As my heart slowed to calmness, my breath started to pick up.
Teren broke apart from me, his pale eyes concerned. "Are you okay? What do you feel?"
Aching with the loss of his retreat, I leaned forward to find his lips again. "Fine, I feel fine." We met again, a slight groan escaping me.
He pulled away again, his breath faster too. "What do you mean you feel fine?" His eyes searched mine, a passion there, buried under the layers of concern.
I smiled, feeling that warmth from the injection circulating through every cell. It gave me a light, airy feeling, and I felt everything about me slow down. Everything but my breath. That picked up as I glanced over Teren's face. "I think it worked," I said huskily, finding his mouth again.
He pulled back, cupping my face. I held my breath as I watched him. I heard the room silence as every vampire held their breath. Only Jack's low, deep breathing remained. Teren's eyes moved down to my chest, to my heart. He stared, like he could stare straight through me. I listened with him, as I let out a soft exhale. My breathing back to a normal, slow pace, I cherished the steady thump I heard, mixing pleasantly with the two fast, fluttery beats underneath it. The entire room listened to those beats for a solid ten minutes.
Time finally seemed to convince Teren that I wasn't going to keel over. His eyes finally flicked back up to mine. "You're alive. Oh my god, you're alive." His lips were back on me then, no longer holding back.
I heard Alanna, Imogen and Jack all start to exclaim and make joyous noises of celebration. Then I felt Imogen slip from the room, offering her congratulations and support from her darker, bedroom environment. Alanna and Jack tried to offer their supportive comments, but Teren and I were letting our relief spill out physically, and couldn't pry ourselves away for long enough to acknowledge them.
Finally, Alanna leaned over our making out bodies and said, "Would you mind taking that upstairs, dears? Your father eats here."
I could clearly hear the humor in her voice and I chuckled in Teren's mouth. His humor wasn't quite there and he only grunted, lifting me up and blurring us to our room here at the ranch. The room where our children were going to be born...when they were ready to be.
Chapter 22 And Then There Were Four
Relief, exhaustion and stress finally took its toll, and we fell into a deep sleep after our celebratory reunion. A sleep that I'm sure would have lasted for a solid twenty-four hours. Would have, if just before dawn, the door to our bedroom hadn't been busted open. Stalking into the room, Halina glared at our nak*d, tangled bodies, barley covered in loose quilts. Ignoring my squeals of protest, she blurred over to Teren, grabbed him around the throat, and lifted him, one-handed, off the bed.
"You disobeyed me...again," she snarled.
She was holding him in the air with one arm, his feet not quite touching the floor. She glared at his face, ignoring that he wasn't wearing anything. She also ignored my plea for her to let him go. He struggled against her, looking more embarrassed than hurt. Finally prying her fingers away from his airway, so he could speak, he bit out, "I'm no longer a child, Halina, and I don't need your permission."
Her eyes narrowed at the use of her name and she lifted him a little higher. He squirmed, pried her fingers loose again, then added, "Emma couldn't wait. She needed the shot."
Halina seemed to remember that I was in the room at that point. She glanced over at me and I clutched the sheets around my body, like she could somehow see me through them. She ignored my nak*dness as assuredly as she was ignoring her great-grandson's. She tilted her head as she listened to my heartbeat. "It worked?"
Her head twisted back to Teren and he nodded, or tried to anyway, she was still clenching his throat. Loosening her fingers, he squeaked out, "Can I get dressed now?"
She looked down, finally noticing that he was buck-naked. She smirked as she lowered him to the floor. "I've been changing your diapers since the day you were born. It's nothing I haven't seen before." Teren rolled his eyes before blurring away to the closet.
While he dressed, Halina came around to me. A soft smile on her lips, she reached out and placed a cool palm on my stomach. The twins inside squirmed at her touch, one kicking my bladder. She smiled at them, her teenage face full of wonder. I ignored my desire to be dressed as well, as I watched her. "Amazing man, that Gabriel. He assured me it would work on you." Her eyes flicked up to mine. "He was right."
She was still smiling at me as Teren came back, dressed in gray lounge pants and a basic white tee. She glanced at him as he slid back into bed with me. Straightening, she said to Teren, "Interesting house of vampires down there." She raised one corner of her lip. "I may need to visit again."
Teren slid his arms around me, covering my bare body more with the sheets. "Yes, I hear you and Gabriel...got along well."
She grinned and sat back on a hip. "Repeatedly."
I groaned and lowered my head to my hands while Teren chuckled and kissed my head. "Can we go back to bed now, Halina?" I peeked up at her through my fingers. "You can ream Teren out tomorrow night, okay?"
She smirked at me, then frowned and raised an eyebrow. "Don't think I won't." Abruptly her frown shifted to a soft smile. "I'm really glad you are okay, Emma." Then she blurred from the room. I heard her swish into her daughter's room, waking her up. Then the giggling started as she relayed her trip to the woman that seemed more a best friend to Halina, than her flesh and blood. Both of them were laughing as Halina went over horribly graphic details of her encounter with Gabriel. They had apparently spent several hours of the dawn in a lightproof room downstairs, "getting to know each other". I groaned, holding my hands over my ears and wishing that I hadn't inherited Teren's super sense of hearing.
Teren chuckled again and whispered into my hair, "Welcome to my world."
We celebrated my birthday with gusto. Mom and my sister, Hot Ben and Tracey, all came out to help the poor, pregnant, bed-ridden woman celebrate turning twenty-six. We laughed and talked around my bed while they showered me with gifts, many mainly for the upcoming babies, although, Teren did surprise me with a beautiful, antique heart locket. The intricately detailed gold pendant folded out into four small pictures, and he'd already placed tiny ones of him and myself inside. He'd left the other two blank and my eyes watered at the thought of filling them. Kissing him thoroughly, I marveled at how amazing my man was at jewelry shopping. Again, the benefit of being raised by three strong women.
Mom massaged my swollen feet while Ash laid her head on my stomach, trying to hear the beats I could hear more clearly all the time. Alanna brought us some cake and everyone still eating enjoyed the rich, chocolate dessert.
As Mom stuck a large forkful of cake in her mouth, she indicated where Teren was sitting, and not eating, and asked how Teren's allergies were going. Immediately after the wedding, we'd convinced my mom that he'd developed a severe allergic reaction to certain foods, and, until we could narrow down which foods were toxic to him, he was staying to a strict home-based diet. But he'd joined us for meals anyway, scoring great husband points with my mom. Whenever we'd eaten and he hadn't, merely holding my hand while he watched me eat, Mom had questioned him repeatedly on what foods he thought might be causing the problem, and Teren, having researched it, gave her thoughtful and insightful answers. It had made me grin every time I'd listened to them talk about it, since every answer he gave her was correct - every food was toxic to him.
That cover story had played off better than we'd hoped and Mom had never thought it odd whenever he didn't share meals with us. Smiling at her concern, even after all this time, he assured her that his doctors were still narrowing it down, but she shouldn't worry, he was getting enough to eat. Hot Ben laughed when he said that, earning himself a strange look from Tracey.
Halina and my sister went over Russian baby names while I relaxed in my mammoth bed, warmed that everything really was going to be okay. I wasn't sure how I felt about not entirely being human anymore, but at the moment, it didn't matter. Our kids were going to have a shot at making it full term, that's all that mattered. Of course, I still wasn't excited over the whole "exiting" process, but I pushed it out of my mind, for now.
When my friends and family grudgingly left me, the vampires broke out some fresh blood and we had a celebratory toast to me successfully getting older than Teren. I reminded them that technically he would always be older, even if he had stopped "aging". They all thought that was funny, and we all laughed away the last few months of tension.
When weeks started going by, my body started doubling, and I swear, tripling. I went past the cute, 'obviously pregnant' stage, straight to the 'I swallowed a house' stage. Teren told me I was adorable, and I tried to feel that way, but mainly, I felt stretched. My vampire sensitivity felt every centimeter of my tight skin. But I relished the life inside of me, and didn't begrudge the loss of my trim figure. Teren could help me get that back anyway.
He injected me with Gabriel's formula every day. We did it right before bed, and he watched me anxiously for a few minutes, every time he did it. After the third straight week, I tried to ease his mind, telling him that it was working and my heart wasn't going to suddenly stop, but he worried anyway. Worry was a big part of love.
Gabriel checked on my progress, calling me on his cell phone. That was shocking to me at first. He was so old, it was a little startling that he'd adapted to technology; I couldn't even get my grandmother to use an answering machine when she'd been alive. But he had a vampiric mind, self healing, and surging with a free-flowing supply of brain cell enriching blood. I suppose he'd always have his mental faculties, and he'd already proven he was smart. Me just being alive, proved that.
He was always interested in the state of the twins when he called. I had a feeling he was keeping notes on me and my progress, and we were being studied discreetly. I hoped his inquisitiveness didn't become a problem after they were born. Teren didn't want them treated as science experiments. Neither did I.
After a month of injections, Teren finally let me leave the ranch again. Feeling assured that I wouldn't convert during dinner, he took me out to a nice restaurant, ordering a plate for himself for show, but letting me snack off it. We stayed out of San Francisco, just in case we ran into someone that we'd told my cover story to - I shouldn't exactly be out and about if I was on bed rest. He took me to a small town nearby the ranch and we ate, went for a short stroll, talked about trivial things, and seemed like a normal couple again.
With no more fear over their fate, we finalized our baby names and guessed what sexes we thought they'd be. We discussed what we thought they'd look like, Teren assuring me that they wouldn't necessarily be carbon copies of him. We laughed and flirted and kissed softly in the moonlight. It was disgustingly romantic, and I cherished it.
Not being able to see doctors anymore, I relied on the women of the house, who had all successfully carried children before. They listened and felt my body, assuring me that everything was going just as it should. I smiled, trusting their abilities and experience, but still wishing I could have another ultrasound, just so I could see for myself. I even considered asking one of them to steal a machine for me. I didn't though.