Obviously her hearing was fine. "What baby?"
Kat took a deep breath and spoke slowly, which was a good thing since Cassandra was having a hard time following all this. "You're pregnant, Cass. Only just, but the baby will survive. I'll make double damn sure of that."
Cassandra honestly felt as if someone had slugged her with a stunning blow. Her mind could barely conceive of what Kat was telling her. "I can't be pregnant. I haven't been with anyone."
Kat's gaze went to Wulf.
"What?" he asked defensively.
"You're the father," Kat said.
"Oh, like hell. I hate to break it to you, baby, but Dark-Hunters can't have children. We're sterile."
Kat nodded. "True, but you're not really a Dark-Hunter now, are you?"
"Then what the hell am I?"
"Immortal, but unlike the other Dark-Hunters you didn't die. Ever. The others become sterile because their bodies were dead for a time. Yours, on the other hand, is every bit as intact now as it was twelve hundred years ago."
"But I didn't touch her," Wulf insisted.
Kat arched a brow at that. "Oh, yes you did."
"That was a dream," Wulf and Cassandra said in unison.
"A dream you both remember? No, you were put together so that you could renew Cassandra's bloodline, and I ought to know since I was the one who drugged Cassandra earlier so that she could be with you."
"Oh, I'm going to be sick," Cassandra said, stepping back to lean on the sofa arm. "This can't be happening. It's just not possible."
"Oh, well," Kat said sarcastically, "let's not have reality intrude now, shall we? I mean, hey, you're a mythological being descended from mythological beings and you're in the house of an immortal guardian no human can remember five minutes after they leave his presence. Who's to say that you can't get pregnant in a dream by him? What? We're jumping into the realm of reality now?"
She gave Cassandra a penetrating stare. "Tell you what, I'll believe in the laws of nature when Wulf here can go out in the daylight and not spontaneously combust into flames, or better yet, when you, Cass, can actually go to a beach and get a tan."
Wulf was so stunned that he couldn't move as Kat continued to rail. Cassandra was pregnant with his child? This was something he had never, ever even dared to think about or hope for. No, he couldn't believe it. He just couldn't.
"How could I have made her pregnant in a dream?" he asked, interrupting Kat.
She calmed down a bit and actually explained it to them. "There are different kinds of dreams. Different realms for them. Artemis had one of the Dream-Hunters pull both of you into a semiconscious state so that you could, shall we say, get together."
Wulf frowned at that. "But why would she do that?"
Kat indicated Cassandra with her hand. "She wouldn't sleep with anyone else. In the five years I've been with her, she hasn't so much as even looked at a guy with lust in her eyes. Not until the night you stepped into the club to kill the Daimons. She lighted up like a firefly. After she ran out after you, I thought we'd finally found her someone she would happily sleep with.
"But did you two do the normal, natural thing and go back to your place and mate like bunnies? No. She comes strutting back in like nothing had happened. Sheez. You are both hopeless." Kat sighed. "So Artemis figured she could use that momentary connection you two had on the street to put Cass into your dreams so that you could impregnate her that way."
"But why?" Cassandra asked. "Why is it so important that I be pregnant?"
"Because the myth you laugh at is true. If the last of Apollo's direct bloodline dies, the curse is lifted."
"Then let me die and free the Apollites."
Kat's face turned dark with warning. "I never said they would be free. See, the fun thing with the Fates is that nothing is ever easy. The curse is lifted because Apollo will die with you. Your blood and life are linked to his. When he dies, the sun dies with him as does Artemis and the moon. Once they are gone, there is no world left. All of us are dead. All of us."
"No, no, no," Cassandra breathed. "This can't be right."
There was no reprieve in Kat's expression. "It's right, hon. Believe me. I wouldn't be here otherwise."
Cassandra looked at her while inside she struggled to make sense of it all. It was so overwhelming. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I did and you freaked out so badly that Artemis and I decided to erase it from your memory and start over more slowly."
Fury lanced through her. "You did what?"
Kat turned defensive. "It was for your own good. You were so angry at the prospect of being forced into pregnancy that Artemis decided you would need a father and a baby in order to cope with the reality of it. When I explained it to you, you were gung-ho to toss yourself under a bus rather than use a man and leave behind a baby to be hunted down. So it's great now that you found Wulf, right? With his powers, the Apollites and Daimons can't come near him without dying."