Lorelei shrugged. "I don't know. I just haven't been feeling well."

"Mentally or physically?"

"Both, I guess."

"Any theories?'

Her temper p.r.i.c.kled. "I'm surrounded by vampires. I know all of two people here. One of them's all involved in-I don't know-saving the world or something, and the other can't think about anything but Nicky Nicky Nicky."

The doctor smiled. "You're lonely." 177 "I'm lonely, I'm depressed, I can't stand the smell of Julian's cigarettes. I never see him anymore. n.o.body uses my name in front of me. It's always, 'The Senior's Woman,' or 'Julian's Woman.'" She stopped, feeling tears clog her throat. "Shall I go on?"

He regarded her soberly. "No. I think that's enough."

She sniffed, gathering herself. "So what's the verdict?"

"There are a few things I'd like to check. But honestly, I think you might need a vacation."

Five minutes later, though, they were both staring at a little plastic stick.

Lorelei could barely see straight. "This is impossible."

"Yeah," said Dr. Greene, which didn't make her feel any better.

She crossed her arms hard over her chest. "What the h.e.l.l am I going to tell Julian?"

Julian was in his office, at the computer. Lorelei came in without knocking and sat down. He looked up at her with a smile.

"Good morning. Where have you been?"

She took a deep breath. "I went to see Dr. Greene."

His smile faded, his attention shifting fully from the computer

to her. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, really." Call that the understatement of the century. "I wasn't feeling well. I haven't been feeling right for a couple of weeks, and I wanted to know what was going on."

"So what is it? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She took another breath, deep and long enough

to make her a little dizzy. "I'm pregnant."

Julian's eyes widened. "What?"

She spread her hands helplessly. "The test was positive.

We did an ultrasound, found a heartbeat."

He just looked at her for a time, his face, as always, hard to read. She sat quietly. There was nothing to say, really.

He found something, though. "Whose is it?"

It was her turn to gape in shock. He'd said the words without anger, but that he'd said them at all . . . 178 "How can you ask me that?"

He shrugged. "We haven't been together all that long. Was there someone before?"

"No. There was n.o.body before. Not for a couple of years.

This is your child, Julian."

His mouth tightened. "That's impossible."

"Apparently not."

Something stirred against her stomach, and she looked down to see her arms folded protectively across her abdomen. This was her child, born of herself and the not-quite-man she loved, and no one, not even its father, would be allowed to speak against it.

He leaned back in his desk chair, his dark, almost-Asian eyes riveted to her face. "You're serious. You're truly serious."

"I am."

"Then, oh my G.o.d and holy s.h.i.t."

She blinked back tears of relief. "Yeah. Something like that."

Standing, he rounded the desk to stand next to her, setting the tips of his fingers against her shoulder. "You're sure you haven't been cheating on me?"

She pushed his hand away. "That is so not funny."

He smiled. "Then let's go see the doctor."

Dr. Greene looked up from his microscope. "They're motile, all right. See for yourself."

Julian looked into the microscope. "Oh my G.o.d and holy s.h.i.t."

"Yep," Dr. Greene agreed. "They're some happy little swimmers."

Lorelei took her turn, mesmerized by the impossible sight of long-tailed sperm swimming randomly through the microscope's bright field of vision. They were silly-looking, and very beautiful.

"How is this possible?" Julian asked.

She forced herself to look up. When he decided to cloak his emotions it was impossible to tell what he might be thinking, and he had them cloaked now. The realization made her cold inside. 179 The doctor shrugged and continued, "It's really not much of a stretch, given everything else that's been going on here lately. After all, Lucien's fertile, and he's said you've become something closer to what he is. You don't need human blood anymore, you barely sleep, and you can go out in the daylight.

How is motile sperm such a big surprise?"

"Well, when you put it that way." Sarcasm edged Julian's voice.

The doctor straightened, and when he spoke his voice was tight. "The thing you need to consider here is that there's a child on the way. The rest of it is just statistics."

Julian nodded. He looked at the floor, the wall. Not at Lorelei. Never at Lorelei. "This is no place to raise a child."

He walked out of the room, his shoulder barely brushing hers as he pa.s.sed. She bit her lip and tried hard not to cry.

Julian left the doctor's office and kept walking. Down into the Underground, not sure where he went but letting his instincts guide him. There were places down here where no one had been in years. Decades, even. Maybe centuries. They all reeked of vampire. When he'd been one, he hadn't noticed the smell.

Now it made him queasy.

Too many things had changed too fast. How was he supposed to a.s.similate them all? And how was he supposed to focus on the growth and birth of a child in the midst of all this?

The vampire reek, the lurking dangers, not to mention the children already here, whom he'd pledged to protect in some way or another. The thought of Lorelei giving birth here was more than unsettling. It chilled his blood.

What was to be done, then? None of the possibilities appealed to him. And the only thing he was sure of was that he needed to apologize to Lorelei.

She was in their room, stuffing clothes into a duffel bag.

He stood in the open door, staring a moment before it soaked in.

"Lorelei, no."

Her head jerked up to look at him. She'd been crying, but 180 she wasn't crying now. Her eyes were puffy, but bright and clear. Hard, even. Coolly, she looked away from him.

"I need to think."

"You can't think here?"

Her mouth thinned. "No. Not really."

"What I said . . . I didn't mean I don't want the baby. I only meant-"

"I know what you meant, and I agree. This isn't a suitable place to raise a child, or to give birth to one, for that matter. The place is lousy with vampires, and I get the impression there are bad guys on the way." She shoved a last pair of socks into the bag, then zipped it shut. "I need to think. I'll come back, if only to tell you what I've decided to do."

He swallowed, surprised at the intensity of his own pain.

"Don't leave me."

She stilled, then straightened, lifting the bag from the bed.

For a moment she stood there, resolve in the set of her body.

Then she stepped toward him and brushed a hand down his cheek. "I hope not." 181

TWO.

Standing in front of the once-familiar door to her apartment, Lorelei took a long breath. Nothing felt right anymore.

Everything felt wrong. Smelled wrong. The smell of Julian's cigarettes had made her ill lately, but the absence of the same smell left a hollow feeling in her stomach.

She pushed the key into the lock and twisted it, pushed the door open.

Everything was exactly as she'd left it, but it seemed as if she'd never been here before in her life. The couch, the paintings, the stretch of bare floor where dying vampires had bled all over her favorite Oriental rugs-all of it was strange to her.

With a sigh, she tossed her duffel bag on the couch. She wasn't even sure what she expected to accomplish here, or to find. But she knew she had to be here, if only for a short time, to make the decisions she had to make.

She felt lost already. Empty without Julian, but she'd felt empty with him. She just didn't know where to go anymore.

Blinking back tears, which came far too easily of late, she went back out of the apartment. Maybe the boutique would feel more familiar.

Finally, downstairs in the boutique she'd nurtured to reasonable success, she found something that didn't seem to belong to someone else's life. Randy sat behind the counter, reading the New York Times. He grinned broadly when she came in, laying the paper aside and coming out from behind the counter to embrace her.

"Lor! It's so good to see you." He patted her back a few times, then let her go. "How was the vacation?"

It took her a few seconds to remember the story she'd told him to cover her extended absence. The vacation had 182 supposedly been to the Magic Kingdom, not Vampire Land.

"Not quite what I expected."

Randy studied her face. "b.u.mmer. Didn't get to meet the Mouse?"

"No. No mouse." She folded her arms over her chest.

"Look, Randy, I might be leaving in a few days. If I do, I'm not coming back."

"Ever?"