Forever (Fallen 3)

“Don’t worry. I don’t like being away from you. It makes me anxious,” he held me close.

“You don’t need to worry about me. Look, not a hair out of place,” I pointed to my head.

His cold fingers stroked my head. “Looks like you’re right.”

“Don’t worry, Jonathon. Amelia and I took good care of her,” said Diana giving me a significant look. I knew that look. She wanted me to tell him. I knew I had to and the sooner the better. He’d only get angrier if I waited.

I took his hand in mine and laid my head against his stone shoulder. I inhaled his delicious scent to take my mind off of what I was about to do. “Why don’t we go somewhere?” I asked. “Just the two of us,” I added before someone got a wild hair up their behind and decided to join us.

“Sure,” he said. “Wherever you want to go.”

I smiled. I knew the best place to do this.

He got the car door for me like he always did. You’d think by now I would be used to his Camaro but I still found myself expecting his mustang.

“Alright, where do you have in mind?” he asked starting the engine and waiting for my answer.

“Your mother’s garden,” I replied, the nerves creeping up on me.

He smiled. “We haven’t been there in a while.”

He navigated the tiny streets and before long we were turning off onto the obscure road that led to the garden his mother had lovingly created.

He parked his car and took my hand to lead me into the garden. We passed the fountains and he led me to the bench where he had first told me that he was a vampire. I would never forget that day no matter how many millennia I lived.

I took both his hands in mine and angled my body towards his.

“Principessa, what is it? Is something wrong? You look ill.”

I took a deep breath and held it. After a moment I released it. “This is difficult to say,” I began. There was no joy in telling him the news this time. No, now I felt like the guillotine hung above my neck. What should have been a joyous moment felt like a death sentence.

His hand rubbed my back. “What is it? It can’t be that bad.”

I closed my eyes and braced myself. “We’re having a baby.”

Suddenly his hand was gone from mine and he was ten feet from me. “No,” he ran his hands angrily through his hair so it stuck up in every direction. “No, no, no!”

“Calm down,” I pleaded. “Dr. Crane is very optimistic this time.” I hadn’t been thrilled upon discovering I was pregnant again but Jonathon seemed to be close to losing it. Maybe he had taken the loss of Matteo harder than I thought.

At those words he went even more impossibly pale. “This is bad. So, bad. I knew this would happen, damn it! It’s all coming true! What have I done? Why couldn’t I have just died when I was supposed to? Why? Why? Why? This is terrible. This can’t be happening! What have I sentenced us to? I might as well have killed us all with my bare hands? Nothing will ever be the same if it comes true! I can’t let it happen! Why didn’t I just turn you? This. Can. Not. Happen. We’ll all die!” His whole body shook with anger and his eyes flashed black. In that moment he looked like the stories everyone heard about vampires. Evil, strong, impossibly beautiful, and most important, deadly.

Anger coursed through my veins. I stood up. “Jonathon! How can you say that? What are you saying?” I knew he would be upset and maybe a tad angry but I hadn’t expected this. He was beyond angry. He was livid. His fists were clenched and his breathing ragged. He looked like an angry bull about to charge. What was going on? This couldn’t just be about the baby could it?

He growled, grabbed the stone bench, and threw it against the ground where it shattered. Tiny, stray, pieces hit my skin cutting me in places. Small trails of blood dripped down my arms. “Jonathon!” I cried again. “Stop it!”

He threw his head back, his fists clenched, and screamed at the heavens. When he looked back at me his eyes were black and his incisors elongated. I had never felt frightened of Jonathon before but in that moment I was terrified that he would hurt me… hurt the baby.

I ran.

In a way it was comical. I was terrified of my husband. I was running away from the man, the vampire, which I loved. I wanted to hide. I had never thought of any of the Pulmer’s as being dangerous. Not even in the fight against Selena. It hadn’t even frightened me when I’d seen what Jonathon had done to Selena; her decimated corpse. No, none of that had had this kind of effect on me. I knew now the amount of power, of strength, that they all kept bottled up. Jonathon was the most dangerous creature out there. At any moment he could hurt me beyond repair, simply by accident. I had thought he never would but now I wasn’t so sure. I kept running. Past the fountains, past the car, past everything. I just wanted away.

He was my soul mate and I had never let the fact that he was a vampire bother me but right now it bothered me greatly. I thought

he loved me but right now I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t very sure about anything now. Had it all been a lie? How could he act that way towards me?

Finally my legs would carry me no farther and I stopped in the middle of the gravel road gasping for air and clutching my chest. Tears rolled out of my eyes because despite the scene Jonathon had just played out for me I still loved him. He was my soul mate. But I knew things would be different now. He had never before become so unhinged in front of me. His reaction seemed over exaggerated to me. We were having a baby! Not going to hell like he seemed to think! His reaction was ridiculous! Childish even! He’d been so happy when I got pregnant on our honeymoon! When I found out I was pregnant with Matteo he hadn’t been as ecstatic but I’d chalked it up to worry. Now, I knew it had to be something else. This was just too strange! Something else had to be going on! That was it. It wasn’t about the baby. I clutched my stomach and closed my eyes. What was going on?

I heard a noise behind me and jumped. A choked sobbed and then, “Kylie?” I turned around and to see Jonathon standing about fifty feet behind me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered before he fell to his knees with his head in his hands.