Forgotten (64 page)

“
You’re not?” Liv and
Sophie asked together.

“
No.” Kate shook her head.
“Because I remembered—I remembered everything! My past, the three
years I lost—everything! And even better, our bond is
back!”

“
Back and stronger than
ever,” Rone growled, squeezing her shoulders.

“
Wow,” Liv said. “How did
you manage that?”

“
We, uh…” Kate blushed.
“Well, remember how the Goddess said I should, uh,
feed
my
appetites?”

Sophie laughed delightedly. “I’m guessing
she wasn’t talking about your appetite for pizza or brownies or any
other kind of food, was she?”

“
Nope.” Kate grinned,
despite her red cheeks. “Anyway, everything just kind of…came back
while we were…well, you know.”

Liv cleared her throat.
“You know, you
might
want to be a little bit, uh, careful there. Sylvan told me
that due to Wulven Kindred anatomy, their mates are actually able
to get pregnant
twice,
if the second, uh, breeding occurs within a solar week of the
first. They call it ‘twice expectant’ or a double conception. So if
you don’t want twins…”

“
Pregnant twice? Twins?”
Rone looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“
Oh—you don’t know yet!”
Kate exclaimed. Turning back to the viewscreen, she gestured at
Olivia. “Show him, Liv! Show him the flower!”

Obligingly, Liv held the small, perfect blue
flower up to the viewscreen.

“
Here you go,” she told
Rone. “Looks like you’re going to be a daddy.”

“
Gods!” Rone gripped the
back of the seat Kate was sitting in so violently she nearly fell
out of it. “Are you serious?” he demanded of Olivia. “Is this
really true? Kate is pregnant?”

“
She absolutely is.” Liv
nodded decisively. “And Sylvan would really like you to come back
to the Mother Ship so he can run some more tests and make sure
everything is going just right.”

“
We’ll come right away,”
Kate promised. She looked at Rone who nodded.

“
Yes…yes, of course.” He
still looked stunned.

“
All right then, we’ll be
waiting for you in the med center,” Liv said.

“
And don’t worry,” Sophie
added. “Sylvan says he’s sure everything is fine—he just wants to
do a more thorough checkup.”

“
See you soon!” Liv added
and then the viewscreen went blank.

For a moment Kate just sat there, soaking in
the news. Then she looked up at Rone. The big Kindred still had the
back of her chair in a death grip.

“
I can’t believe it,” he
muttered. “I just can’t…I can’t believe it.”

“
It’s true, though.” Kate
looked at him hopefully. “Are you happy?”

“
Happy? Of course I’m
happy—this is what we’ve wanted forever. I’m just…just stunned.” He
shook his head. “It must have happened when my Beast—”

“
When I tamed your Beast,”
Kate said quickly, not wanting him to start feeling guilty all over
again. “And listen, honey—this is what I was trying to tell you
earlier, before the girls called. I
had
to meet and tame your Beast for
just this reason.”

He shook his head. “What do you mean? What
are you talking about? I thought you said you had something to tell
me that you hadn’t gotten a chance to say before you lost your
memories.”

“
I do.” Kate looked at him
intently, wondering how he was going to react to what she had to
say. She took a deep breath. “Do you remember how the statue of the
Goddess came to life during Emily and Tragar’s joining
ceremony?”

“
Remember it?” Rone gave a
short, barking laugh. “How could I forget it? I’d never seen the
Goddess in person before. It was…amazing how she manifested
herself.”

“
I was amazed too,” Kate
said quietly. “Remember how afterwards, when everyone was leaving
the Grove, I told you I had to go back because I had forgotten
something?”

“
Yes, and…?” he
prompted.

“
Well, I just wanted a
minute alone with her—alone in the presence of the Goddess,” Kate
admitted. “I mean, I thought she had left but I went back and knelt
at her feet anyway—at the feet of the statue. And I prayed—prayed
so hard for what we both wanted so badly.”

“
A baby,” Rone said
softly. “A son.”

“
Or a daughter,” Kate
whispered. “I told the Goddess I wasn’t particular. I just wanted a
baby to love and I didn’t care what it took.”

“
And what happened?” Rone
asked in a low voice.

“
She came back to life.
Or, well—the statue reanimated or whatever you want to call it,”
Kate said. “And she told me that the desire of my heart was within
reach but I would have to go through terrible hardship to get it.”
She looked down at her hands. “I told her I didn’t care—that I
would do whatever it took if you and I could just have a
baby.”

“
Then what did she say?”
Rone’s voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.

“
She told me my prayer had
been heard and that it would be answered.” Kate looked up at her
husband. “And then I went to tell you and walked right into that
damn trap by smelling the bouquet that was meant for Emily.” She
bit her lip. “Are you angry with me? I think…I guess all of
this—everything we just went through—is my fault.”

“
I don’t know what to
say.” Rone shook his head. “We nearly lost each other, Kate. I was
going to avenge you or die trying. Then I was going to go to the
Desert. To—”

“
To
Corith al Cruthe.
Oh my God!” Kate
put a hand to her mouth. “The second destination in the
navcom—
now
I
remember where I’ve heard it before! Your aunt told me about
it!”

Rone frowned. “Tante Corii
has a bad habit of saying more than she should. I bet she’s the one
who gave you a copy of the
Volume of
Submission,
isn’t she?”

“
Of course she is, but
Rone…” Kate got up and went to stand in front of him. “How could
you? How could you even
think
of doing that? Of going into the Desert of Death
and letting your Beast take over your mind forever?”

“
I thought I’d lost you,”
he said simply. “And after what my Beast did to you I felt I
deserved no better than the Living Death.”

“
For the last time, what
your Beast did was
necessary.”
Kate pressed his hand earnestly. “Listen to me,
sweetheart—we were trying to circumvent the natural order of things
by using my Knowing to get around taming your Beast. Without a
whole and complete bond, I never would have been able to get
pregnant. The Goddess knew that and she also knew you’d never let
me meet your Beast willingly.”

Rone frowned. “Are you saying she used that
sick bastard, Two, to bring you to my Beast on purpose?”

Kate nodded. “I am. I
believe there was a reason for everything that happened to us. If I
hadn’t lost my memory and been taken away from you, you wouldn’t
have spent six months looking for me while your
hunger
grew. And you know what iron
control you have—if you hadn’t been deprived of my touch and taste
for so long, your Beast never would have had a chance of coming out
to meet me. To breed me.”

He nodded slowly. “I guess I can see that.
But Kate…as much as I want a baby, I want you more. I’d rather have
you and be childless than lose you.”

“
I understand.” Kate stood
on her tiptoes and put her arms around his neck. “And I’m sorry,
Rone—so sorry I put you through all this. Can you forgive
me?”

“
I’ll try.” He leaned down
into her hug and then gathered her into his arms. “Oh,
baby…oh,
Lalli,”
he murmured, nuzzling her neck. “I can’t believe I came so
close to losing you forever. I’m never going to let you out of my
sight again.”

His deep voice was hoarse and broken and
Kate felt his tears wetting her cheek. Tears of her own stung at
her eyes and she hugged him harder.

“
You don’t have to worry
about that,” she whispered. “I feel the same way. I’m never leaving
you again—especially if I’m ‘twice expectant.’ Because you have to
help me raise this baby—or these babies if there are two now—I
can’t do it on my own!”

“
Don’t worry,”
Rone whispered through their newly restored link
as he kissed her gently on the mouth.
“You
won’t have to. I’ll be with you every step of the way,
Lalli.”

Kate knew it was true. She had finally come
home to the man she loved and they would never be parted again.

The End

Epilogue #1

“
Well…here we go.”
Commander Sylvan stared at the small, coffee-cup sized machine. He
had just inserted a new vial of Kate’s blood into it and now he was
fiddling with the controls. He’d asked Olivia to do the actual
blood draw since his bandaged thumb made him clumsy. There was
nothing to do now but wait for the results.

Kate squeezed Rone’s hand excitedly. They
were back at the Mother Ship at last and sitting in the med lab.
Actually, they had arrived the day before but decided to spend the
night on the Finder before coming back aboard the huge Kindred
vessel. After their emotional reunion and Kate’s newly regained
memory, they had needed some time to re-bond all over again. In
fact, they had spent most of the night in the Breeding Chair, just
rocking and holding each other with Rone thrusting deep and slow
inside her.

It had been beautiful and perfect and now
Kate felt closer than ever to her mate. She squeezed his hand
excitedly as they waited for the test results.

“
I still don’t
understand,” Sophie complained. She and Liv were waiting
breathlessly too. “How can it show after such a short
time?”

“
Doesn’t the fertilized
egg need time to implant?” Liv finished her twin’s
thought.

“
That’s the thing—it
implants immediately with Wulven Kindred.” Sylvan was still staring
intently at the machine. “They have difficulty conceiving so the
Goddess made them in such a way that the moment an egg finally does
get fertilized, it begins to grow. That is why females carrying a
Wulven’s child typically only have an eleven month pregnancy—not a
twelve month one.”

“
Whoo-hoo,” Kate said
dryly, trying to hide her nervous excitement. “Shaving a whole
month off.”

“
Listen, hon, after you’ve
been pregnant for almost an entire year, one less month is going to
sound mighty nice,” Liv told her.

Sophie snorted. “Try being
pregnant with
twins.
And Kindred babies are so
big.”

“
I know!” Liv said. “Baird
and I want another one but I don’t want to have to go through all
that again.”

“
You didn’t have to go
through
all
of
it,” Sophie reminded her. “Remember, it was poor Baird who actually
had to
have
little Daniel.”

“
Huh?” Kate looked at the
sisters. “Am I missing something? Did you say that Liv carried the
baby but someone else had it?”

“
My husband, Baird,”
Olivia explained. “We happened to swap bodies for a while at just
the wrong time.”

“
You switched bodies?”
Rone asked, frowning. “Is your mate a Switch Kindred? A
Trader?”

“
A traitor to who?” Sophie
asked.

“
No—he means a Trader as
in one who trades,” Sylvan explained, still fiddling with the small
machine. “As in a Kindred who is able to trade bodies with his mate
from time to time. There used to be quite a number of them but they
interbred with another race—a people who considered the ability
shameful and suppressed it somehow.” He shook his head. “It’s a
pity—I’ve always thought it was a valuable experience. It gives a
male a better understanding of what his female is going through and
thinking to spend some time in her body and vice versa.”

“
Oh yeah?” Sophie raised
an eyebrow at him. “I don’t remember you finding it a ‘valuable
experience’ when we swapped! You were mostly crying and upset all
the time and you threw away my best pair of Jimmy
Choos!”

“
They hurt my feet,”
Sylvan said, in a dignified tone. “And I couldn’t help feeling
emotional—you were pregnant at the time and I was bearing the full
brunt of your hormones.”

Kate shook her head. “It sounds like you
guys have had some wild adventures up here on the Mother Ship.”

“
Oh, you don’t know the
half of it.” Olivia grinned at her. “The stories we could
tell…”

“
And we
will
too—especially if
you stay with us during your pregnancy.” Sophie pressed her hand.
“Please say you will! We have a lot of good girl friends up here
that are dying to meet you and we have
so
much fun together.”

“
Well, I don’t know about
staying on the ship but I’m certain we’ll stay close,” Rone said.
“Wulven pregnancies tend to be difficult so we’ll want to be near
Commander Sylvan. Not to mention that pregnant females can’t fold
space.” He looked at Kate. “Thank goodness we took a wormhole back
here instead of asking the Mother Ship to fold for us!”