She laid her hand on his whiskered cheek. The pain in his eyes touched her deeply. She kissed him lightly, then snuggled against him. He withdrew only enough so that he could spoon himself behind her. She rested her head on his biceps as he cradled her tenderly. Her heart pounding with joy, she listened to him breathe. He lifted his head, kissed her cheek, then settled down with one hand buried in her hair.
Within a few minutes, he was sound asleep. It was the most peaceful moment of her life. Deep in her heart she knew that tonight Wulf had shown her a side of himself that he had let no one else see. He was gruff and stern. But in her arms, he was a tender lover. And in the back of her mind was the thought that she could learn to love a man like this. It wouldn't be hard.
Cassandra lay quietly in the stillness of the early morning. She wasn't sure what time it was, only that Wulf warmed a part of her she hadn't realized was cold until now. She wondered as she lay there how many centuries Wulf had been confined to an area like this one. He had told her that this house was only a little over a hundred years old.
Looking around, she tried to imagine what it would be like to be here alone, day after day, decade after decade. It must be lonely for him. She reached down and placed her hand on her belly as she tried to imagine the baby there. Would it be a boy or girl? Fair in color like her or dark like its father? She would most likely never know the baby's real hair color. Most children's baby hair fell out and it wasn't until they were toddlers that you could tell.
By then she would be dead. Dead before its first tooth. Its first step or word. She would never know her child at all. Don't cry... But she couldn't help it.
"Cassandra?"
She didn't answer Wulf's sleepy call. Her voice would betray her if she did. He rolled her over as if he knew she was crying and pulled her into his arms. "Don't cry."
"I don't want to die, Wulf," she sobbed against his chest. "I don't want to leave my baby. There's so much I need to tell him. He won't even know that I ever existed."
Wulf tightened his grip on her as he heard those heartfelt words. How he wished he could tell her how foolish her fears were, but they weren't. She cried over a fate neither of them could change.
"We have time, Cassandra. Tell me all your stories about you, your mother, and your sisters, and I'll make sure the baby knows every one of them. And every baby after this one. I won't let them forget you. Ever."
"Promise?"
"I swear to you, just as I swear I'll keep them safe forever."
His words seemed to calm her. Rocking her gently in his arms, Wulf wondered which of them had it worse. The mother who wouldn't live to see the baby grow, or the father who was damned to watch the baby and all those after him die.
Chapter 9
For three solid weeks, Wulf kept Chris and Cassandra under house arrest. But as time went by and no Daimons showed, he began to wonder if maybe he wasn't overreacting a bit. Thor knew Chris accused him of it at least five times an hour.
Cassandra had withdrawn from school entirely even though she hated to. She was only about three weeks along, but looked more like three months. Her stomach was rounding out, letting them all know that there really was a child inside her.
It was the most beautiful thing Wulf had seen, even as he struggled to keep himself emotionally distant from her. But it was hard. Especially as they spent so much of their time together taping her for their baby. Most of the time, she was perfectly calm as she told the baby about her past, her mother and sisters. Her father. With every fond memory she shared with the baby, he felt himself growing closer to her.
"See, this," she said, as she showed her hand with the signet ring on it to the small camcorder he held. Wulf focused the lens on it. "My mother told me that this was the actual wedding ring the Atlantean kings used when they married."
Cassandra looked at it sadly. "I'm not sure how it survived all these centuries. My mother gave it to my father so that he could give it to me. I'll make sure your father has it to give to you too."
Whenever she talked about the baby's future without her, it killed a part of him. The injustice of it tore his heart into pieces. The pain in her eyes, the regret. And whenever she cried, it hurt him even more. He would soothe her as best he could, but in the end they both knew what the outcome of all this would be.
There was no way to stop it. Her father came often during the daylight hours to meet with her. Cassandra didn't have her father meet Wulf since her father wouldn't remember him anyway. For that he was truly grateful. Instead, Cassandra introduced her father to Chris and they made plans for the two of them to stay in touch after the baby came.
Acheron had called on Mardi Gras night and put Wulf on an immediate leave from his Dark-Hunter duties to watch over Cassandra and protect the baby. Two more Dark-Hunters had been transferred to St. Paul to take over Wulf's usual patrols and to help keep watch should Stryker or the others come after them.