Only Him

Chapter 33

After my argument with Dimitri I decided not to see Lissa right away. I would be poor company for anyone at the moment, let alone her new pupil. Instead I moped around the apartment nursing a wicked headache and replaying every moment of our argument.

Dimitri was right. I was trying to control a lot of the decisions we made in regards to our son. Part of that was because it was my body that was being made a spectacle of and I felt that I had the right to address it in my own time. But it wasn't just my body anymore, was it? I now shared it with Dimitri's son and as such he was just as entitled to making decisions as I was. I'd somehow lost sight of that. No matter how bad I felt about this oversight, however, I couldn't help but also be mad at his accusation. How could I be embarrassed about our son? Give the choice I'd repeat this experience a hundred times over, kidnapping and all if that meant feeling our son move inside me and sharing those moments of joy with Dimitri.

Maybe I am a little embarrassed, I admitted to myself for the first time. Pregnancy in dhampirs is almost always viewed as dirty because, nine times out of ten, the pregnancy was a result of a hook-up or some other sordid activity. That negative stigma was already rife in our society and was bad enough. For me to be in a committed relationship with another dhampir and turn up pregnant was pretty much an admission of my own guilt as a testament to my unsavory moral character in the eyes of our people.

I hadn't really thought about it in such terms before. Never considered it before Dimitri brought it up.

By the time evening came around I was ready to apologize to him and try to make things better.

Only he didn't come home.

I didn't know if that made me feel guiltier or angrier or both but when morning came and he still wasn't in his customary place beside me in bed my anger returned full force. I sought an outlet in the only place I could

I barged into Lissa's office without knocking, needing nothing more than to rant to my best friend about the stupidity of men and how my life was currently falling apart. I didn't get very far, however.

"I don't know what I could possibly do to convince him that I'm not emb—" I cut myself off abruptly, spying Lissa, not at her desk as I had anticipated, but on the couch. And she had company. Sitting beside Lissa on the couch was James Wakefield. I had been meant to meet them yesterday but after my fight with Dimitri I had decided against it. I hadn't even thought of the possibility that Lissa would be with him when I'd come storming over a few moments ago. I gave a guilty look to Lissa who looked slightly annoyed but mostly exasperatedly amused as she usually did when I was in one of my moods.

"Sorry," I said. "I didn't realize you had company." I nodded to James. "Mr. Wakefield. Good to see that you arrived safely."

"Woah," was all the young boy said, eyes wide as he stared at me.

I raised an eyebrow. Was that a reaction to my entrance or to my physical state? I'd met the boy before at the academy and, while he'd admittedly given me a longer than necessary once over, he hadn't been overly lewd in his attention. He'd obviously found me pretty but not worthy of gaping open mouthed as he was now. Of course, I hadn't looked pregnant back then either. "What?" I demanded, when he continued to stare. "Never seen a pregnant woman before?"

He didn't answer me, instead turning to Lissa. "Is that aura normal?" he demanded. "I haven't seen it before."

I hadn't been expecting that. "What about my aura?" I demanded, glancing reflexively upward as if I could see the colorful cloud that Lissa assured me was there. What was wrong with it? He was acting like the spirit users I'd encountered while bonded to Lissa when they noted my abnormally dark aura. "I thought it went back to normal after the bond broke."