Page 58 of Love Bites
Puck's eyes narrowed on Talon. "Things would have been different if not for that wretched prophecy. Fear can be a powerful motivator too."
"Prophecy?" Talon had no idea what Puck was talking about. That was the first he’d heard of any prophecy.
"I'm sorry to say I don't know its exact contents. I don't waste time on nonsense like prophetical magic. All I know is that it was a prophecy that first made your kind lead a witch-hunt against dhampires. Some witches tried to stop you back then, when it all started, but it was at a time when most of us were too busy dealing withactualwitch-hunts, if you get what I mean."
Even though Talon wasn't sure what he was going to do with all this information yet, the conversation was certainly educational. He would never have suspected a prophecy to be the reason the coven wanted Collin and everyone like him dead. "Who made that prophecy? A witch?"
"Inga the Ingenious, as she liked to call herself. More like Inga the Insane, if you ask me. Honestly, I don't know why people paid her words any mind." Puck scoffed again, clearly not taken with this branch of magic. "At any rate, that's all I can tell you aboutthat."
"That's fine. There are more pressing questions I need answered."
"Ask."
"If one of the male dhampires were to fall pregnant, how would the baby be born?" It wasn't something that Talon liked to think about, but the question was constantly on his mind—and on Collin's too. They'd already concluded that his pregnancy wasn't progressing like a normal human pregnancy. At the rate Collin's belly was growing, he was going to have the baby long before nine months were up, which meant that they needed to figure out what to do when the baby wanted out.
Puck looked at Talon for a long time. His lips twitched, and then he burst out laughing. "Of course! That's why you're so desperate for information. You knocked him up, didn't you?" Once Puck's laughter abated, he leaned forward, intrigue coloring his features. "A real dhampire baby, that's—"
"You're not getting the baby's blood," Talon cut him off before he could even utter the suggestion.
Puck sighed. "You vampires are no fun. Where's your curiosity? Where's your drive to—"
"My only drive right now is to save my mate's life, if you don't mind."
"Your mate, huh?" Puck's lips curled up.
Talon cursed himself. He'd started thinking of Collin as his mate a little while ago. It was hard not to, really, considering that the man had been sharing his bed for weeks and Talon didn't feel like kicking him out anytime soon. Quite the opposite. He loved coming home to Collin, to see the sparkle in his eyes when he brought home pizza or some other junk food he'd been craving. Collin thought Talon was referring to the hair and body glitter he liked to wear when he called himSparkles, but that wasn't really what had inspired the nickname.
It was his eyes.
But Collin didn't need to know that, and neither did Puck. "If we could get back to the topic on hand..." Talon said, trying to keep his cool instead of letting Puck catch on to how off kilter he felt when it came to Collin.
"You really don't need to worry that much about the birth," Puck said. "Did you really think a witch as smart as Atlus would let his sons die in childbirth? He passed his own body's modifications on to them to prevent that."
"What exactly are those modifications?"
"From what I've gathered, they're not going to become apparent until childbirth is imminent. A line will open on his stomach. You can picture it like a natural C-section, of sorts. It might leave him with a scar, but nothing worse than that."
The process still sounded painful, though. Talon cringed inwardly. He didn't think Collin was going to like this news. On his way home, he should swing by a store and buy one of those cheesy movies Collin loved to appease him. And possibly ice cream too. If those movies had taught Talon anything, it was that mortals went through a lot of ice cream when trying to overcome emotional trauma.
And also that they had a weird obsession with coffee, but that was beside the point.
"If he's going to be fine, that's all I needed to know."
"Are you sure? Because there's so much more I could tell you that might be of interest."
Talon hesitated. "Things regarding the dhampires?"
Puck smiled. "Things regarding vampires," he clarified. "If you plan on staying with your lover, you know you're going to butt heads." Puck made some odd motions with his fingers that made no sense to Talon. "I can see your soul, you know. Both parts."
"What are you talking about?" Talon took a sip of his wine, trying to distract himself from the unsettling turn their conversation had taken.
"I could tell you..."
"You realize there's only so much blood in my body that I can give you."
"I'm sure we can come up with some other way for you to repay me."
Talon mustered Puck. "You realize I'll never give you my family's blood."
