Page 109 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Eventually the tumult died. The Queen assured everyone she’d hold a proper meeting in the morning, after they’d all rested, and plans would be made. When the last of the crowd had filed from the room, he was still standing in his posture of defeat, staring blankly at nothing.
He heard a gentle voice say his name. He looked up to find Jenna
staring at him from across the room with something like concern. “You’ll want to leave with the reporter, I suppose.”
In a voice low and dangerous, Leander said, “This is madness, Jenna.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Such is life. If our end is here, if that’s what’s meant to happen, so be it. We’re all on a ticking clock, and life in a cage isn’t a life worth living.”
“You sound like Morgan!” he exploded, but his wife remained calm as morning.
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment! This isn’t only about us! About our safety, our future! What about the girls?”
She sent him a look that would have had Hawk’s testicles shrinking up into his abdomen. But Leander was apparently a stronger man than he; he didn’t even flinch.
“This is for the girls. For their future. So they don’t have to grow up like I did.”
“But how in God’s name are we supposed to protect them from—”
“The children can protect themselves.”
Hawk looked up, arrested by the odd note in the voice that had spoken.
It was Olivia Sutherland; she hadn’t left with the others. She stared down into the bassinette by her side with the strangest combination of awe, affection, and fear. She glanced up, looked between Jenna and Leander, and finally let her haunted gaze rest on Jenna. She whispered, “You know that.”
Leander looked confused. Jenna stood, walked slowly to the waist-high railing that spanned the perimeter of the room, brushed aside a gauzy curtain, and stared off silently into the starry, humid night.
“What do you mean?” demanded Leander, striding to the bassinette. Two pairs of small white arms waved in the air as the twins reached for their father. He lowered his hand into the crib and stroked their faces, cupped four tiny hands within the broad expanse of his palm.
Without turning from the view, Jenna said, “They took your Gifts.”
Olivia answered, “Yes.”
“What?” said Hawk and Leander in unison.
Jenna passed a hand over her face, inhaled a heavy breath, then squared her shoulders. She turned to face them. “I think it’s one of their Gifts. They can absorb the Gifts of others, at least while they’re in close contact. Physical contact. During the pregnancy . . . then breastfeeding . . .” her gaze flicked to Olivia, who nodded.
Slowly, Leander withdrew his hand from the bassinette and let it fall to his side. He lifted his gaze to Jenna, his body still as stone. “They can feed on us? Like . . .” He swallowed, leaving the word unsaid.
Vampires.
Jenna walked toward him with a muted rustle of fabric, trailing the blanket behind her like the train of a wedding gown. “I realized tonight that my Gift of Sight was back. When I touched Weymouth, I Saw all his plans, all his lies. I knew them already from my visit to Caesar, what they’d been up to, but . . .” she trailed off to silence. After a moment, she said, “And the only difference was that I hadn’t breastfed the twins for days.”
“Why haven’t they done it with me?” Leander murmured, looking back at the girls.
Jenna said, “I don’t know. Maybe we should ask them.”
“Do they speak to you, too?”
Olivia spoke in a tone of such hushed fervor it raised all the hair on the back of Hawk’s neck.
Speak? he thought, horrified. Infants? Babies? Speak?
He and Leander stared at Olivia in shock, while Jenna remained silent, her gaze on the bassinette.
“They also go into my dreams,” Olivia continued, her eyes glazed with fatigue. Her hands had begun to shake, and as she wrung them together, her gaze darted around the room as if she were looking for something lurking in the shadows. Past his horror, Hawk wondered how long it had been since she’d slept.
