"Sounds to me like your decision has been made."
I closed my eyes. "It might have been, except for the fact that it was ARC 1-23 that kick-started my fertility."
"Meaning?" Though he was still sitting on the steps, his soft words cut through the rush of the wind as clearly as if he was standing beside me.
"Meaning, ARC1-23 can have deadly side effects on us half-breeds. They won't know for at least another few months what, if any, effect it will have on me."
And if they couldn't predict what effects the ARC1-23 would have on me just yet, then how could they predict what effect it might have on any child I conceived? If the drug could totally mutate my system, then what the hell could it do to a child growing in my womb?
That was the problem. That was the choice I faced.
Did I have the right to endanger my child in such a manner? Did I have the right to bring a life into this world who might not even live to see their first birthday?
Deep in my heart, I knew the answer was no.
But that would mean blowing the only chance I had of having a child myself. Oh, there were other options - freezing eggs, finding a surrogate, but it just wasn't the same. Wasn't what I'd dreamed of all these years.
I closed my eyes and took a shuddery breath. God, fate was a bitch sometimes.
Arms touched me, turned me around. I sunk into the warmth of his embrace, enjoying the momentary peace it offered.
"If there's one thing I've learned over the years" - his breath stirred warmth past my ear - "it's that nature often has its own way of sorting out right from wrong."
"Nature has very little to do with what is happening to me now. If nature had its way, I would still be infertile."
"Then perhaps there lies the answer to your problems."
I pulled back a little, and met his dark gaze. "There could be more than a little self-interest in that statement."
He grimaced, and raised a hand, brushing my cheeks with his fingers. Longing shivered through me. "There is."
I stepped out of his arms, not wanting to be distracted by the warmth and promise of his touch. "Even if I make the decision not to go ahead and have a child, the situation between you and me is still a difficult one - and for many different reasons."
"There is nothing to stop us resuming where we left off."
"Where we left off was you declaring you had no intention of getting involved with another werewolf." I took a deep breath, and slowly released it. "My soul mate is still out there, somewhere. I won't risk losing him on top of maybe never being able to have a child."
"That doesn't mean we can't come to some arrangement - "
"But could you come to an arrangement?" I cut in. "Knowing that I have the intention of doing what I have to do - even if it means kissing or fucking every sinner in the goddamn state - to stop these bastards coming after me ever again?"
Which didn't mean I intended becoming a guardian - not unless the drug left me with absolutely no choice. But stopping these bastards was a priority, and if that meant I had to sleep with some of them, so be it. At least if I did my bit to help stop them, I could safely follow whatever path fate wanted me to go down without having to look over my shoulder at the ghosts I'd betrayed.
And if that future path meant a life without kids, then I guess I had to accept that.
Which meant the decision I'd come up here to make was, in the end, easy. The drug running havoc through my system had caused my fertility, and because of that, I dare not fall pregnant, no matter how desperately I wanted to take the chance. The future I faced was unknown, and as much as I didn't want to, I had to face the fact that any changes the drug forced on me would make me a guardian. It was either that, or be compelled into military service, as the other half-breed recipients of the drug had been.
I had no right to bring a child into that sort of environment, especially when neither Rhoan nor I had the support of our pack to help care for, and raise, a child if anything happened to us.
Quinn didn't answer my question, but he didn't really need to. We both knew he could never put up with me taking on all comers in the sex stakes. That sort of acceptance wasn't in his all-too-human attitudes.
"Look, Quinn, I'm not denying I want you, but I want you without strings. If you can't handle that - can't handle what I am, or what I intend to do - then back off and leave me alone."
Though his face was carefully neutral, I could see the annoyance burning in his eyes. Feel the force of it crawling across the electric night. It reminded me that he was a very old vampire, and obviously, despite all his urbane and courteous mannerisms, well used to getting his own way.
He might want me, he might be quoting pretty words about compromise, but deep down he was a territorial creature and he wasn't at all willing to share.
"So if I want you," he said, voice a little clipped, "I have to put up with you being the whore I think your race is?"