The Vampire Queen's Resurrection

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: UNEXPECTED NEWS

“Congratulations, Mrs. Royal. You’re pregnant!” the doctor announced in the room, and Aaliyah shivered despite the warmth of the day. It was probably because of the cold and emotionless topaz pits of Emir’s which stared back at her in horror at the unexpected news.

If his expression got any more forlorn, she would have sworn it would have killed her instantly. The man seemed like his worst nightmare was materializing, his body had gone so rigid that it could snap any moment now. It looked like he’d seen a ghost.

Aaliyah squirmed as she struggled to sit up after wiping the gel from her belly. Her gaze flickered to the doctor with a frown, the news finally seeping in. She was going to have a baby. The emotions going through her were conflicting – she wasn’t sure where she stood exactly.

It wasn’t so surprising considering the reaction of the father-to-be.

Was it that bad? She knew they were not the couple she’d flashbacked on a few hours earlier, but she hadn’t reckoned the thought of a baby would have made him look traumatized. Had he been planning on leaving her? Why else would a husband be so unhappy about the pregnancy announcement of his wife?

“Pregnant?” she asked uncertainly, not even certain whether she’d gotten her menses lately. That had been last of her worries considering that she’d just been revived from the grave and had a vampire as a husband.

Doctor Miller seemed clueless to the tension in the air around them. “Yes, Mrs. Royal. You’re three weeks pregnant. I’ve checked your vitals, and everything seemed to be in perfect order. I’ll prescribe some iron supplements and some vitamins…,” the medical practitioner rambled on methodically.

When the prescription paper was thrust into her hands, Aaliyah could only grab it without thinking as she watched Emir send the doctor off. He came back wearing the same anguished look on his white face which made Aaliyah bit her lips in worry.

It was the worst she could ever feel at that moment, with him carefully studying his feet as he shifted from one foot to another. Probably trying to find a way to get out of that situation. A situation he clearly wished he wasn’t part of.

“Why don’t you sit down, Emir?” she asked quietly, taking a deep breath as she placed her hands over her flat tummy. A baby. The news was starting to kick in filling her with a sense of purpose which she felt for the first time since she’d awoken.

She walked towards the window to look at the garden and prayed for strength. “I can take care of the baby on my own. Now that I have my new passport, I’ll move to another country and line incognito. You really don’t have to deal with this.”

When she was met with silence, she turned back to find his head buried in his hands, his whole body shaking uncontrollably. “Vampires cannot procreate,” he said, his voice muffled by his hands. “Oh God! I can’t go through this again!” he exclaimed with a catch.

Her ears pricked in curiosity. Again? Did that mean that she’d been pregnant before. She frowned in concentration, trying to remember the rest after Emir’s candid love confession in the past, but her mind drew a blank.

Then it clicked. Of course, she already had a son. Ezekiel something. Wasn’t that how the werewolves had introduced him to her on the first day of her resurrection. She didn’t know what happened in the past to make Emir so scarred, but she was having good vibes about this pregnancy.

“I managed fine the first time,” she replied firmly. “Look at Ezekiel, He turned out fine! I’m pretty sure this will work out as well.”

That sentence made Emir look up at her. “Ezekiel? What has Ezekiel got to do with this? With us?”

“Well, he’s our son,” she replied with a shrug at the apparent fact.

His head went in between his hands again. “No,” his answer although hushed could not hide the agony behind the monosyllable. “No, Ezekiel is not my son.”

She blinked back in surprise. “Not your son? Then why did you say again? What did you mean by not being able to go through this again? I’ve been pregnant before? You said vampires weren’t supposed to procreate!”

Nothing was making sense, and her head was spinning as another bout of nausea caught up with her. Her hand feeling around, she sat on the nearby seat available, almost dumped her body actually.

“Yeah, you were pregnant before. Pregnant with my child,” he answered quietly after a long agonizing moment of silence.

“But I thought you said…”

“Another of your experiments. After the sun elixir, you invented another elixir which helped to curb vampires’ hunger for human blood. And then you tried to get vampires to procreate.”

For some reason, her heartbeats accelerated in a painful staccato beat as she had difficulty to breathe. Judging from his dejection, things didn’t turn out well. That was the reason why he was so horrified at the thought of her pregnant again. It had nothing to do with their love story, and more with the pain he’d endured in the past.

A groan escaped him. “Well, it started as an experiment first, but then it turned into an obsession.”

“Obsession?” she echoed as his gaze landed on hers full of reproach and undisguised antagonism. “What kind of obsession?”

“It wasn’t working!” he shouted almost angrily. “And you wouldn’t stop. It became a nightmare! It was all you could think about. Having a baby.”

“Having your baby,” she concluded weakly. It made sense now. She must have been so in love with him that she’d convinced herself that she should give him a child. Most probably to compensate the fact that she’d turned him into a bloody blood sucking monster.

Was that what her life was all about? Making mistakes and spending the rest of her life making up for them?

“Yeah having my baby,” he repeated defeatedly. “Except fate had something different stored for us. It was horrible when it got to you prickling us with needles day and night just to get your formula working.”

She closed her eyes in dismay. “But it did work, didn’t it?”

“If you call it working. You did fall pregnant. Eventually. But it turned out same as your first son. Ezekiel.”

She frowned down as she was unable to comprehend the meaning behind his words. From what she could remember, there was nothing wrong with Ezekiel, except for the fact that he was too young to be her son.

“He was born malformed. In constant pain and totally abnormal.”

“The last time I saw him he looked perfectly fine!” she protested vehemently.

“Well, he wasn’t born that way. He is half werewolf and half vampire. The first hybrid ever to be born.”

“A werewolf? I mated with a werewolf? I don’t understand,” she frowned in confusion. “I thought I was against cross breeding of species. I broke my own rule?”

“No. You established the rule after what happened with the werewolf. You had a son with the werewolf who turned out abnormal. Everything started going downhill in your relationship after that. I am not sure of the details with your ex. All I know is that that’s why you came up with the rule that different species weren’t meant to be together.”

“S…so,” she stammered incoherently. “How come he looked impeccable the last time I saw him? There was no trace of disfiguration at all!”

Emir nodded. “You remember the female werewolf who was with us? The blonde girl with peculiar teal eyes?”

“Ella?” Aaliyah inquired with a nod. “She was very helpful, and I felt very comfortable around her. It was like her presence soothed me.”

“That’s normal. She is known to be the cure. She was the one who fixed Ezekiel. He was on the mission of creating more monsters like himself, by turning vampires into Mongrels. Well, he thought of creating his own army, but it wasn’t working. The Mongrels were in too much pain, and that was when Ella turned into the cure.”

Aaliyah supposed she shouldn’t be surprised with the mystical stuff anymore. Things were so weird around her that anything could happen.

“Alright, so Ella cured him. But what happened to our baby?”

There was a moment of silence during which Aaliyah thought he wasn’t going to reply. The light of his eyes were switched off as he stared back at her, his Adam apple bobbing up and down to show how hard it was for him.

“She was born malformed as well.”

“How bad it was?”

Emir let out a huge puff of air from his chest. “Seriously? You were going against nature so what do you reckon? It was so bad that we were unable to look at her. That we thought there was no fix for her.”

Aaliyah felt like somebody had pierced her heart with a knife. “What happened to her?” her voice was husky as she asked the question.

“She died,” he responded briskly.

A moan of pain escaped her, one which resonated like his earlier. So, that was what had happened between them? The death of a child. She knew how difficult it was for a couple to overcome that kind of grief. Sometimes, it was even impossible as that kind of pain was too much for either parent.

Nausea caught up with her again, and she gagged as she placed her hand in front of her mouth to prevent herself from vomiting. There was nothing left in her stomach to throw up anyway. But it did remind them that the situation hadn’t changed. She was still very much pregnant with his baby now. Without the need to hoodwink nature.

“Well, you know what. I did nothing wrong this time. Falling pregnant was not my idea. Or choice. But I am keeping this baby.”

Emir shook his head. “Al, I suggest…”

“No!” she whirled around savagely, her eyes flashing with an intensity which thew him off. “No, I am not going to even think about causing harm to my baby,” she placed her hand protectively on her belly. “If you don’t want this, I am going to do this alone. We’re living in the twenty-first century now, and it’s perfectly fine for a single mother to have a baby.”

“It’s not about that! I want to keep the baby too.”

He sighed heavily. “Okay, look! There’s nothing more I would like to keep this baby. But if he or she turns out to be a monster again, we’re going to have some serious issues dealing with the disappointment and the pain. You can’t remember what it was like, but I do. I am not sure we can go through this a second time.”

“You’re right. I don’t remember! And I don’t want to. I am having this baby at any cost.”

“But Aaliyah, vampires aren’t supposed…”

When she turned to face her husband, there was a fire burning in her eyes. “I AM HUMAN! I am having this child!”