“Oh.” She shuddered to think of the unsuspecting people who were helpless prey to the hunger of the vampires. “Have you spoken to your mother lately?”

“No. She has left the Fortress.”

“Where did she go?”

“I have no idea. I only heard of her departure late last night.”

Feeling suddenly queasy, Elena bit down on her lower lip. Drake was supposed to be his mother’s favorite son. But what if that were no longer true? Drake had destroyed Vardin. He had annulled his marriage to Katiya, resumed his marriage to a woman his mother did not approve of. And now he was bringing change to the Fortress.

Elena shivered. She recalled all too clearly the outrage in Liliana’s eyes the night before when Drake had assumed command of the Fortress—the fury in her voice, the way she had vanished from the Council chamber in a fit of anger.

People made jokes about their in-laws all the time, Elena thought, but there was nothing funny about an angry mother-in-law, not when she was also a powerful vampire.

As it turned out, Drake was right. The four breeding pairs, who had five children between them ranging in age from three months to fourteen years, decided to stay, as did most of the single women. All but one of the men opted to leave.

Those who had chosen to leave were schooled in how to survive in the outside world. Drake was elusive when Elena asked who was teaching them, but when she pressed harder, he told her that the vampires waited until the sheep were sleeping, then spoke to their minds, giving them the information they needed to live in the outside world.

“It is quicker and more effective than trying to teach them while they are awake,” he explained. “But most of the sheep are bright and learn quickly, since my sire selected only the best and the brightest for breeding. They made better companions.”

Breeding, Elena thought. With Drake as her husband, there was no chance of having children of her own. The thought made her stomach churn. Hurrying into the bathroom, she leaned over the commode.

Drake followed her into the bathroom. “Are you ill?”

“I must be catching the flu.” She rinsed her mouth, washed and dried her face. “I’ll be all right.”

Surprisingly, it only took a little over three weeks to prepare the sheep who had decided to leave the Fortress. Stefan and Liam were in charge of transporting them to various small towns in the area. Once they arrived at their destinations, the vampires erased all memories of their life at the Fortress and all memory of the vampires from their minds.

Elena was pleased with the changes Drake had made in the Fortress. It was far less lonely for her now that the sheep—she had to stop calling them that!—could move freely about the first three floors of the castle.

For the first time since she had been there, people walked the corridors during the day. The dining hall was no longer silent. The laughter of children echoed off the walls. Elena spent the daylight hours with Northa, Elnora, Marta, and some of the other women. Elnora was very much in love with Dallin, and since Drake had abolished the law forbidding vampires and humans to marry, she had high hopes that Dallin would propose. Marta held the same hopes for Cullin. Northa had elected to stay because she enjoyed the sensual pleasure of the vampire’s bite, and because she was afraid to leave the only home she had ever known.

“There’s no reason to leave now,” Northa said one afternoon. “Since we’re free to come and go as we please, and to go outside. . . .” She spread her arms wide. “Living here now is like being a princess in a castle.”

“I just wish my prince would ask me to marry him,” Elnora said with a sigh.

“Maybe you should ask him,” Northa said with a wink and a smile.

“Maybe I will!”

“Elena, you’re married to a vampire,” Marta said. “Is it wonderful?”

“Drake is wonderful,” she replied, smiling, and then she thought of Vardin. “But I don’t know if all vampires make wonderful husbands.”

Returning to their apartment, Elena curled up on the sofa and picked up a magazine. She thumbed through a few pages, but she kept thinking about what Marta had said. Would she have felt the same about Drake in the beginning if she had known what he was? Would she have had the courage to take the time to get to know him? Or would her fear of what he was have kept her from trusting him?

She wanted to think she would have loved him the same no matter what, and yet there were times, when she let herself think about the future, that she wished he was human, that they could share a meal, bask in the sun, return to Wolfram. Have a child.

“You are looking very pensive this evening,” Drake said.

“What?” She looked up, surprised to find him in the room. Usually, she sensed his presence almost before he appeared. “I was just thinking about . . . things.”

“Unpleasant things, from the expression on your face.”

She started to deny it, then realized it was useless. He would know if she was lying. “Not unpleasant,” she said. “Just . . . It doesn’t matter.”

Sitting beside her, he reached for her hand. “Of course it matters. I want no secrets between us.”

“Isn’t that impossible when you can read my mind?”

“Yes, I suppose it is, but I have been making an effort not to intrude on your thoughts. So, tell me, what troubles you?”

“Nothing, really. I was just wishing for things that can’t be.”

“What kinds of things?”

She made a vague gesture with her hand, as if to push them away. “Nothing major, except . . .” She blew out a breath. If he didn’t want any secrets between them, then she would tell him the truth. “I was wishing we could have a baby.”

“Ah.”

“It doesn’t matter, not really,” she said quickly.

But they both knew she was lying.

Elena met Northa in the drawing room the following afternoon. She was relating the conversation she’d had with Drake the previous night when she bolted for the bathroom.

What was the matter with her? This was the third time she had thrown up in the last few weeks. It wasn’t the flu. She couldn’t be pregnant, and she didn’t really feel sick, but if there was nothing wrong with her, why was she throwing up?

“Are you all right?” Northa asked when Elena returned to the drawing room.

“I don’t think so. Is there a doctor here?”

“One of the drones is a doctor.”

“Really?” Elena exclaimed. “How is that even possible? They all look like . . . like, I don’t know.”

“Like zombies,” Northa said.

“Exactly.”

“All the drones have special occupations—doctors and dentists and pediatricians. Once the vampires release them from their spell, the drones become regular people again and don’t remember being enthralled. Are you really sick?”

“I hope not.” Elena didn’t care how skilled the drones might be; she didn’t want any of them examining her.

She said as much to Drake when she saw him that night.

“Why do you need a doctor?” he asked, his brow furrowed with concern.

“I’ve just been feeling kind of. . . I don’t know . . . sick to my stomach lately. But it isn’t the flu. I don’t have a fever or anything.”

“I will take you to Brasov tomorrow evening.”

“Never mind. I feel fine now.”

“Tomorrow evening,” he repeated.

Drake stood at the foot of the bed, watching Elena sleep. Lying there, with her hair spread like black silk across the white satin pillowcase, her dark lashes like fans against her cheeks, she looked like a fairy-tale princess waiting for the prince to awake her with love’s first kiss.

He watched the rise and fall of her chest, listened to the faint whisper of her breathing, the slow, steady beating of her heart. He had rarely known fear, but the thought that she might be ill—perhaps fatally so—filled him with dread. He had never expected to fall in love. Before Elena came into his life, he had resigned himself to marrying a woman of his sire’s choosing, having children, watching them grow to maturity. He had never thought beyond that. And then Elena had wandered into Wolfram Castle and it was as if sunlight had taken residence in the old place. He had basked in her glow, delighted in her innocence, reveled in her love. Even now, it was hard to believe that she wanted him, that she loved him. How would he live without her?

True to his word, Drake took Elena to a doctor in Brasov the next evening. There were several people in the waiting room, but after Drake spoke to the receptionist, Elena was immediately taken into an examination room and handed a white plastic cup.

“For a urine sample,” the nurse explained, and directed her to the nearest restroom.

When Elena returned to the room, the nurse instructed her to undress and put on a paper gown.

A short time later a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair and kind blue eyes entered the room. She introduced herself as Doctor Mary Arcos. She listened to Elena’s heartbeat, took her temperature and her blood pressure, checked her eyes, ears, nose, and throat, drew some blood, and, lastly, did a pelvic exam that Elena found embarrassing and uncomfortable.

“You can sit up now.” The doctor removed her glove and tossed it into the wastepaper can.

“So, is everything all right?”

“You’re very healthy,” the doctor said, smiling. “And very pregnant.”

Elena blinked at the physician. “Excuse me?”

“Pregnant. About twelve weeks.”

“But . . .” Elena shook her head. “That’s impossible.”

“Are you telling me this is a virgin birth?” the doctor asked with a wry grin.

“No, of course not, but . . . that’s . . . Are you sure?”

“Very sure. I hope it’s good news.”

“Oh, yes,” Elena murmured. “The very best news. Thank you so much.”

“You may want to thank your young man,” the doctor said, chuckling. “You may get dressed now. Be sure to start taking prenatal vitamins right away. Get plenty of rest. Try not to do any heavy lifting. And come and see me again in four weeks.”