Forever (Fallen 3)

“I do too,” I murmured. And it was true. Something was different this time. I could feel it.

Diana stood when I came back into the waiting room.

“He put me on bed rest,” I grumbled.

“Smart man,” she laughed.

“I’m going to be confined to a bed for the next nine months. Please shoot me,” I grumbled. I would do anything to keep my baby alive, including not moving for nine months, it didn’t mean I had to be happy about it though. Plus, I knew Jonathon, and chances were he’d carry me everywhere. By the time I gave birth, if I made it that far, I would probably have forgotten how to walk.

Diana laughed. “You know you’ll do anything to keep that little guy safe.”

“I know,” I rubbed my stomach, praying that my son would be okay. I would do whatever it took this time. “Jonathon might have to chain me to the bed though. I hate the idea of being confined to the bed for that long. I’m a mover and I hate being useless. I need things to do. I can’t just sit. I’m going to go crazy. I guess I’ll have to take up knitting,” I muttered.

“I can teach you,” said Diana. “Knitting is very therapeutic.”

“I’m sure you can. All of you apparently know how to do everything.”

“Maybe this would be a good time for you to learn to fluently speak Italian,” she said as she started the car.

I groaned. This was starting to sound a lot like school. “No, thanks.”

“Come on Kylie. Once you’re a vampire you’ll need to know many languages. Plus, it helps to fight the boredom. It becomes awfully tedious when you don’t sleep often and you have twenty-four hours to fill. You just wait and see,” she pointed a finger at me.

“Well, if everything goes according to plan I already have the next eighteen years filled up.”

“I guess you’re right,” she said with a smile. “When are you going to tell him?” She asked, suddenly serious.

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. “Tomorrow, I guess, when he gets back from hunting.”

She nodded her head.

“He’s going to be mad,” I stared down at my hands, wringing them together.

“No,” she shook her head. “Not mad. Just worried. Jonathon is about to drive Patrick nuts with worrying about you. You’re all he cares about. And just so you know he’s upset about Matteo too.”

I flinched at the name.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “I know you don’t like to hear his name. But you need to know that just because we’re vampires doesn’t mean we don’t care. In fact, we Pulmer’s are an extremely moral bunch. Some vampires don’t retain as many human qualities

as we have. Patrick believes it’s all about who turns you. How pure they are that determines how we behave. Imagine if Selena had turned a criminal into a vampire. That vampire would have already had evil characteristics as a human and then would take on some of the creator’s characteristics as well. And even if that human had been a nun and been turned by someone as sadistic as Selena they still would take on some, not all, of her evil tendencies. But that’s just his theory, keep in mind.”

“It makes sense though,” I shrugged. “But Selena wasn’t always evil.”

“No, she wasn’t. She was a good person. It’s terrible what happened to her. Jonathon still blames himself. It’s in his nature to take the blame for things that are beyond his control. But what happened to Selena can happen to any of us. To me, to Jonathon, to anyone. It’s a terrible twist of fate. We’ve already been dealt a bad car by being condemned to live for all eternity and then to be given the gift of a soul mate and have it taken away? It’s sickening. And the way Selena lost Andrew is the most painful, because it was technically her fault. His body rejected her venom. It’s rare, but it does happen. You know that if another vampire turned you, besides Jonathon, that it would kill you but sometimes the human body will reject even the soul mates venom. That’s what happened to Andrew. His body resisted the change. It’s a terrible way to lose your soul mate. In ways I have to sympathize with Selena.”

I shuddered at the thought of not making it through the transformation from human to vampire. It had been a difficult decision for me to make, to become a vampire. I wanted to stay human but I wanted a child more and I realized I wanted Jonathon forever. It would have been difficult to grow old while he stayed young. But my biggest reason for becoming a vampire, one I wouldn’t tell him because I knew then he would refuse to change me, was his soul. If I stayed human I would die one day and that would lead to Jonathon losing his mind and becoming like Selena. And I couldn’t stand the thought of his brother, or his cousins, or his uncle, or anyone having to kill him because of me. He was too golden to have that fate. Too perfect. I couldn’t do that to him and I knew he wouldn’t do it to me. He loved me more than anything and I felt the same towards him. He was my everything and I wouldn’t hurt him that way.

Diana pulled into the Pulmer’s driveway. I stared up at the massive stone, U-shaped, mansion that was my home now. So many things had changed since I had first seen the mansion. My whole life had been turned upside down. Even though so much tragedy had struck since I moved to Rome I could never regret any of it. The move here had brought me to Jonathon and he was worth any bad that came my way. Some days it was hard to cope but I would never take any of it back. Not for anything.

* * *

“Hey,” Jonathon kissed me as the boys came in the door from their hunting trip.

“I missed you,” I kissed him back. My fingers tangled in the blond hair at the nape of his neck.

“If you’re going to greet me like this I might have to leave more often,” he chuckled, his chest rubbing against mine from the movement.

“Please don’t.”