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“Do you think that worked?” Rose asks me after a minute, when our heartrates finally slow.
I turn my head to look at her, smiling like a fool in love. “If it didn’t, give me a second and we’ll try again.”
She laughs and kisses me.
For once in my life it feels like destiny is smiling upon us.
Life has never tasted so sweet.
Epilogue
VALTU
A Few Years Later
“Signor Aminoff,” Maria says to me, clapping her hands together. “Rose é entrata in travaglio!”
A wave of nausea comes over me. “Already?”
“What did she say?” Amethyst cries out grabbing my thigh and digging her nails in as she looks between me and the vampire doula.
“She’s gone into labor,” I tell her. “Please unhook your claws from my leg.”
Amethyst lets go of me and leaps to her feet, pleading to Maria. “Can I see her?”
I translate to Maria, who has been helping Rose ever since we found out she was pregnant, who also happens to know very little English. Apparently, Maria hasn’t been a vampire that long, so her lack of languages is forgivable.
Maria tells me in Italian that it is up to Rose if she wants to see anyone and she disappears back upstairs.
“It’s up to your daughter,” I tell Amethyst. “I’m sure she’ll want you in there.”
“She’s never going to want me in there! She’s going to curse me for giving birth to her in the first place,” Amethyst says just as Wolf walks back in the room.
“What did I miss?” he asks eagerly. Then he looks at me. “You okay, Valtu? You look a little pale.”
I just raise my hand and nod, trying to breathe through it.
The truth is, I’m not okay. I’m so nervous that it’s making me sick. I was better earlier in the day, when Rose told me she was having contractions and I called the doula and the doctor over, but now that the contractions have turned into labor, I’m about to have a complete panic attack.
I have a reason to be nervous too. For the last few years, ever since I reunited with Rose, we’ve been trying for a baby. I had my vasectomy reversed pretty much right away and I think we both assumed she would get pregnant immediately. After all, vampires are incredibly fertile, especially the young women right after they turn, and it had happened that way for us in the past.
But no matter what, she never got pregnant. It wasn’t for lack of trying, obviously. Every day, often multiple times a day, I was screwing her brains out and yet it just wouldn’t take. Her body remained in status quo.
Rose had faith, though. Unwavering faith. She said it would happen in due time.
But in the back of my mind, I started to think that maybe there was a reason for this. Maybe it was a good thing that she couldn’t carry my child. We were very aware that both of her prior pregnancies ended in her death, as well as the child’s death. What if this was sparing her life this time around?
I made peace with it. I wasn’t about to do anything that would jeopardize the love that we had. I went to the ends of the earth to make her happy and keep her safe and I wasn’t going to throw any of that away, even if having a child was something that I really wanted.
At least, I thought I made peace with it. But nine months ago, Rose came to me with a smile so big it nearly split her face, her eyes dancing with delight, and I knew what she was going to say.
“I’m pregnant,” she had said, and the joy and pride in her voice made me realize how badly she had wanted this. And the way my heart swelled at the news, like it had become too big for my chest, made me realize that I hadn’t really made peace. I know we would have been fine without children, but knowing she was pregnant cemented how badly I’d wanted them with her.
We had another chance.
And so I wasn’t about to take any chances.
At the time we were jet-setting around the world. Rose wanted to travel and I was happy to indulge her. We spent months on a yacht in the Mediterranean, just the two of us, eating fish we’d caught off the boat, drinking retsina in tiny white-washed bars in Crete. We climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and spent weeks on the beaches of Madagascar. We studied art in Argentina and lived in a penthouse in New York City. We did whatever Rose wanted to, whatever would keep her happy. I just wanted to be with her, it didn’t matter where.
