The Angelus Brothers Chronicles - The Golden Hind

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Kaia crossed her arms and glared at her vampire.

"I have waited months. I am as strong as I ever was." Gabriel sighed.

"Kaia, I just..."

"Want me to wait a little longer." Ground out the hind as Gabriel put down the papers he was reading and gave her his full attention.

"There's..."

"Things going on I don't know about. You're worried for me. Please just wait a little longer." Rubbing his hand down his face he looked helplessly at the papers and plans that covered his desk. They had had this conversation so many times now she knew it by rote. Kaia was right. All outward signs of her centuries of captivity were gone. Her skin was a beautiful deep sun-kissed bronze. Her once skeletal frame was now curvy and muscular. Her ribs no longer showed in either of her forms. When a doe her coat was glossy and she could run miles in mere moments. When a woman she was strong and muscular. To look at her you'd never know she'd spent aeons alone in a small dark cell.

But she still carried the mental scars of her captivity. So many nights he was woken by her screaming for her sisters or to be freed from the dark, they still slept with a small light on as she couldn't bare being completely in the dark. Many nights now he had spent holding her and stroking her hair as she shook and tried to calm herself. It was the loss of her sisters that affected her the most, they may have died thousands of years ago but to her, it was a new loss and it pained her deeply. He desperately wanted to mark her, to make her truly his and feel her pain with her. But he was too afraid to ask her, she still didn't fully understand being fated, or even what a vampire was, and he was so afraid of the rejection. He didn't want her to find out a demon was inside him and be repulsed by him like many creatures were by vampires. He feared the day she discovered the ceramic bottles he drank from contained blood. That a lad from the butcher's in Zeus Square brought them fresh every morning along with the milk. He'd tried to sit her down and tell her many times, but how do you tell someone you're a demon-infested killing machine? It had been hard enough to explain to her why he preferred to be out in the evening, that his sensitive eyes struggled with the brilliance of the midday sun. Especially since it didn't bother Cassiel with his nymph eyes. There was still so much she didn't understand of their world.

"If we don't go now you won't let me go for months." She pouted as she spoke.

"I haven't said months, just to wait a little longer." He glanced back down at his papers for just a brief second. He hadn't intended to touch them, he was just pausing to collect his thoughts, to try and explain. But it was enough to enrage the hot-tempered hind. She lunged forward and swept the papers, his wooden name plaque, pens and waxes from his desk with one swipe of her arm and glared daggers at him as she gripped the outer edges of his desk with her hand. Almost daring him to try and retrieve them.

"I'm pregnant." Gabriel looked up at her, his face unable to hide his utter bewilderment and incomprehension.

"You're what?"

"Pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Yes!"

"With a baby?"

"Yes!"

"But how?"

"I thought you'd know better than me with your fancy education. But I'm sure Marie can explain it to you." She ground out her words through clenched teeth as she watched him.

"You're having our baby?" It wasn't sinking in, he knew what the words meant but couldn't place meaning on them in relation to their relationship. How could she be pregnant already, they had only been together a couple of months? Raphael and Rouge had been trying for years with no luck. The same could be said for Marie and Duncan. How would it happen so fast for them?

"Yes." Her words softened a little seeing the bewilderment on his face.

"Our baby?" His voice was thick with emotion as he stood from his chair and rounded his desk, stepping on his now forgotten papers to stand in front of her.

"Yes." She said again her heart melting at the joy breaking across his usually hard-to-read face.

Sweeping her up in his arms he twirled them on the spot and kissed her so hard she couldn't breathe. Then, seeming to catch himself he placed her ever so gently back on her feet.

"I'm going to be a father?" The crack in his voice was too much for her and tears started to fall from her eyes. When Marie had told her this morning her only thought had been that now Gabriel would never take her to get her bow back from Heracles. She had never thought of being a mother and hadn't considered what it meant. But seeing his joy at the news made the reality come crashing down on her. She was going to be a mother. She might not be the last golden hind anymore. Marie had explained to her the child could be a hind or a vampire or sometimes even a mix of the two. But at that moment as she watched Gabriel drop to his knees and kiss her belly before burying his face in it she didn't care what the baby might be. Whatever it was, it was their baby. Hers and Gabriel's, he was going to be hers for all time, she was starting to understand what being mated meant. This man kneeling at her feet and kissing her belly was going to be hers always. She and her child would always have him. She was never going to be alone again.

"I promise you little one I'll never be like my father. You'll know nothing but love." He breathed as he pressed his face to Kaia's belly and breathed in her scent. As her hands tangled into his hair and she held him to her Gabriel felt an intoxicating mix of love, fear, joy and worry. He was going to be a father, a dad, he was going to have a little one who would look up to him and know he would love and protect them till his last breath.

Looking up he saw tears running down her face as she gazed down at him with a soft loving look he hadn't seen before.

"Kaia? Are you ok?"

"I've never been so happy." Smiling to himself he buried his face back into her belly and wrapped his arms around her hips. He echoed that sentiment, in that moment they were all that existed, Kaia, their unborn child, and himself. Nothing else mattered, Gods, Oracles, the army, his brothers. All of it ceased to exist in this one truly perfect moment. It wouldn't last, deep down he knew before long he'd have to return to the real world and his duties. But that could wait. All that mattered at this moment was them.