Soul Bound

Epilogue 2

RPOV

I stared at her. My mouth was open and I just stared. She wouldn't meet my gaze. A surprising gesture for her, clearly indicating her guilt in the matter. Even though Sydney had had reservations about us 'evil creatures of the night' she has always stood her ground against us.

But as her words resonated with me, playing over and over in my head, I couldn't speak, I couldn't breathe. Until my brain had found something to focus on.

"This is your fault!"

Her gaze met mine and I saw a mix of the aforementioned guilt and annoyance. She crossed her arms in front of her and frowned.

"There was no possible way I could have known this would happen, Rose. I mean this is..."

I stood up angrily, well mostly shocked and I needed an outlet. And seeing as Sydney was the only one in the room, she was my intended target. Poor Sydney.

"Impossible. The test must be wrong. Do it again."

She sighed as she picked up a pile of paperwork and flipped through the pages.

"I did Rose, three times. On three different vials. So to exclude the possibility that I somehow mixed them up. Not that I could. Most of the tubes of blood are yours. It would be impossible to mix all of them up."

The reality of the situation started to dawn on me.

"We haven't made any progress, Rose." I tried to mimic Sydney's voice when we had this conversation about three months ago. "We have been at this for three years and have not found anything different about you. I want to try to see if we can exclude all forms of external regulation, maybe it is masking something. What harm could it do?"

Sydney didn't seem to appreciate my impression of her and liked my tone even less.

"Well, how on earth was I supposed to have foreseen this?"

She threw up her hands in the air, clearly not knowing what to do with this information either.

I sat down a little defeated; because I knew it wasn't her fault. It wasn't anybody's fault. I wasn't even sure it was a bad thing. It was just that I had never considered this to be an option. It never crossed my mind, not when I was slated to be Lissa's guardian and not when I was with Dimitri, but now I would have to think about it.

A small smile pulled at my lips when I thought about Dimitri. I imagined his goofy smile and the happiness and wonder in his eyes. This would be a good thing.

I rubbed my abdomen a little as if I could feel the precious life growing inside of me and as if that life could feel my hand.

"Pregnant. I can't believe I am pregnant."

Sydney sat down next to me. She grabbed my hand.

"On the bright side, we finally found something you are unique in because of your transformation."

She laughed with a wry smile.

"Although we can't rule out a dormant Shadow kissed effect there either."

I thought about it. I had been off of birth control pills for about three months now. Sydney having suggested it, so we could monitor some blood values and vital signs, without the influence of hormonal interference. As it turns out, it did interfere with some restored-Strigoi ability. I knew it took a little while to flush the birth control out of my system, so we conceived pretty quickly. Before I became Strigoi and was still Shadow kissed we had been intimate for a while too. And although I knew conception is a mix of timing and luck, I could have conceived before I became Strigoi and I didn't, most likely this was a new ability because of my restoration. Although we couldn't rule out this originated from Dimitri since he was shadow kissed now too.