Page 6 of Destined for Eternity
Chapter 3
Bartol
He found Cori cleaning up her booth. She must have just finished with a customer, as all her equipment was still laid out, and there were ink splatters on her work tray. For a moment, Bartol stood in the doorway watching his mate and marveling at her changing body. It seemed she grew larger with each passing day, but not in a terrible way. Her new curves only made her more beautiful to him.
At a distance, he could truly appreciate her form and how it was producing life—a life they’d created together. It was only when they were close that he began to fear her and the intimacy between them. How would he feel about their child? Would he be a good father to his daughter or son?
“You can stop staring and help, you know,” Cori said, turning to look at him.
She had her shoulder-length black hair pulled into a ponytail with just a few wisps free to frame her face. Her fair skin seemed paler than normal, and there were dark circles under her eyes, which worried him. She was working too hard and not resting enough.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
She smiled, her hazel eyes lighting up. “Take this spray bottle and some napkins. You can wipe down the seat.”
He did as Cori asked while she went to work cleaning her tattoo machine. “How was your day?”
“I was going to ask you the same thing, considering you weren’t supposed to meet me here this soon.” She paused to rub her lower back. “Shouldn’t you be working with Tormod right now?”
Bartol ignored her question. “You work too much. Sit down and I will take care of this.”
“I own and run a business.” She gave him a pointed look. “I can never work too much, and I have to make sure this is done the right way.”
“If I had my way, you’d be confined to your house.”
Cori rolled her eyes. “Good luck with that.”
“But the baby…”
“Is fine,” she interrupted. “Paula says the pregnancy is progressing as expected.”
“You haven’t seen her since last week. That could always change.”
Bartol hadn’t lived for nearly two millennia without noticing a thing or two about women. In the later stages of pregnancy, they tired more quickly and had to rest. Cori was carrying a child with angel blood in its veins that would tax her body even harder than a mortal one, especially with the shorter gestation period.
Cori set her freshly sanitized tattoo instruments aside on the counter. “I have another doctor appointment in a few days. You can come with me and see for yourself that the baby is doing alright.”
He’d gone with her once before when he first found out she was pregnant. The vampire doctor, Paula, had done what she called an ultrasound so he could see the baby. Bartol had marveled at the moving child on the screen at first, but then he thought of how it would grow and evolve. One day, it would leave the safety of its mother’s womb, and he’d have to protect it. A thousand other thoughts had raced through his head about the huge responsibility that would come with a child. The next thing he knew, he’d panicked and flashed halfway across the state. Hours passed before he’d had the courage to return and seek out Cori. She had been angry with him at first, but then she’d become sweet and understanding. The woman was doing her best to be patient with him.
He couldn’t even explain his reaction logically since he was happy with the idea of becoming a father. For nephilim, most accepted that it would never happen since they were cursed not to have children. It was only with a sensor that they could procreate because that race was immune to curses. Cori technically wasn’t a full sensor, but she’d had enough of Melena’s blood that it apparently allowed her to get pregnant by him.
“I’m not sure if that’s a good idea,” he said, shuddering at the panic he’d endured last time.
She turned her head, attempting to hide the disappointment he caught lurking in her gaze. “Of course. Only if you’re comfortable with going.”
He desperately needed to change the subject. “How are you doing with the new tattoo design for vampires?”
“The last test didn’t go so well,” she said in a weary voice, heading for the sink to wash her hands. “The vampire burned up.”
“You experimented on someone who would have been executed anyway, correct?” he asked. Cori had developed a special ability since ingesting Melena’s blood that allowed her to infuse certain immunities into tattoos if she put a lot of concentration into it. At first, she hadn’t done it on purpose, but she’d practiced to have more control.
Her back was stiff as she pumped soap onto her hands. “Yeah, but that doesn’t make me feel any less guilty.”
Months ago, she’d discovered she could create tattoos that prevented demons from possessing human bodies or keep them from being compelled by vampires. She’d given the tattoos to both supernaturals and human agents during the outbreak last year to protect them during a battle with Hell’s minions. The special design had worked very well, protecting everyone. She’d also discovered she could give tattoos that allowed werewolves to shift during the day, whereas before they could only change into a wolf at night.
The next test was to craft something that could allow a vampire to walk in the daylight. Nothing she’d come up with so far had been successful, but Bartol knew of her conducting only two experiments, including the latest. They had to use vampires who deserved to die anyway since it only took one touch of the sun for them to burn.
Derrick, the supernatural leader of Fairbanks, was very controlling about which people Cori gave her special tattoos. The leading sups needed to be able to compel most of the nearby population in case of incidents they wanted to cover up. Also, they couldn’t afford for just any werewolf to run around in their animal form during the day, and the same went for vampires walking in the sunlight. It taxed his mate to do them as well. With her pregnancy wearing her down more lately, she wasn’t doing as many as before. The vampire experiment was an exception.
