“Fuck!” The expletive shot from Ronan’s mouth as he pushed himself from his chair. Too many variables stood in their way, the most important being Claire’s whereabouts. And now he had random attacks to worry about? “Mikhail will need to be notified. We’ll help however we can, but gods, we’re totally unprepared.” It was time to bump up the timetable. Mikhail wanted to wait for his mate to come back to him before Ronan was turned, but they couldn’t wait. “Let’s get moving before there isn’t a gods-damned race to save.”#p#分页标题#e#
Jenner levered himself out of the chair and followed Ronan out the door. “I’ll give it to you, Ronan. You’re earning your reward from Mikhail.”
Wasn’t that the fucking truth?
CHAPTER
18
Claire collapsed over the toilet and emptied her guts into the bowl, her stomach heaving again and again until there was nothing left but aching dry heaves that burned her throat and left her raw from the inside out. She felt like death. Worse than death. Like death run over seventeen times by a commuter bus, flipped over, reheated, and then run over again. And she was tired. So damned tired she could barely put one foot in front of the other, let alone serve plate after plate of food all day.
She gripped the little plastic stick in her fist so tightly she’d cut off the circulation to her fingers. This wasn’t the stomach flu. And since she hadn’t been able to stomach food for over a week, it wasn’t a tainted batch of ramen noodles, either. No, her ailment was far, far more complicated than simple food poisoning. She stared at the red plus sign staring back at her from the little window. It was the fifth stick she’d peed on in the past three days. This wasn’t a false positive, and it wasn’t karma biting her in the ass for telling Lance that she had mono, either.
Pregnant!
The word echoed in her mind as though shouted down a long corridor, ending with a silent finality that left her shaking and on the verge of tears. Since leaving Mikhail’s house twelve days ago, she’d focused all of her energy on blocking whatever connection it was they shared. Anything to keep him from finding her. Bringing her back to him. Because once that happened Claire was certain that she’d never leave his side again.
She belonged to him as surely as he belonged to her.
Even apart, her body vibrated with awareness of him, as though some part of him was embedded within her. The sense of rightness that resonated through her scared Claire more than anything else in her entire messed-up life. Every minute of every day her thoughts wandered to her vampire. The man who was supposed to be hers for all eternity. The man who’d been determined to make sure that she was given that eternity.
Nothing had ever spooked Claire, the unflappable hustler, the way Mikhail had that night after they’d made love. He’d been so full of joy, so positive that she was this Vessel, he’d been prepared to sink his teeth into her throat again and again, draining her of her lifeblood so that he could replenish her with his own and thus turn her into a vampire.
Strong. Powerful. Immortal.
A shudder danced over her skin as she brought her fingers to her throat and felt the slow throb of her pulse. The ecstasy she’d felt the moment he sank his fangs into her flesh was unparalleled. The memory of each deep thrust inside of her, coupled with the strong pull of his mouth, made her inner thighs slick with desire. Claire’s stomach cramped violently and she lurched over the toilet bowl once again. God, how ridiculous was it that she was literally losing her lunch in the midst of a sexual fantasy?
Mikhail might have been convinced that she was this Vessel. In the heat of the moment she had been, too. But now Claire wasn’t so sure. Wouldn’t a human with the capability to survive being turned into a vampire be able to withstand a little morning sickness? Not to mention she’d had the speed and vitality of a tortoise lately. Ever since meeting Mikhail she’d felt a strange draw, and it had only gotten worse over the past several days. If anything, she was below average on the superpower scale.
A wave of nausea hit her and Claire suffered through another bout of dry heaves. She was tempted to force-feed herself a plate of pancakes and guzzle a gallon of water just so her stomach would have something to throw up next time. Mikhail’s vampire sperm must have possessed some seriously supernatural swimmers. Who in the hell got morning sickness a couple of weeks after getting pregnant?#p#分页标题#e#
“Claire, you okay?” Lance’s voice accompanied the soft knock on the bathroom door, and she slowly pushed herself up from the floor.