19

She was pregnant again. Lila didn’t need any werewolf to tell her this time. The symptoms that she’d explained away as stress from the events in her life before her first pregnancy was identified to her were back and unmistakable.

The hate that she felt for Samuel was so intense that it practically consumed her.

Her mind raced over what to do. She hadn’t carried the first vampire child inside of her long enough to bond with it. It might have happened after she’d delivered had the infant not been ripped from her arms almost immediately after his birth and was not seen since. As it was, that motherly instinct that she’d heard so much about simply wasn’t there. What was there was panic and an extreme desire not to have to go through it again.

She lamented for the hundredth time over the weakness of her magic. Had she more if it intact, she’d be able to abort the child on her own. Instead, if she couldn’t get the aid o