CONCEPTION (The Others) by Sarah McCarty Page B

possible.”
    “Why?”
    “Mates do not—cannot—withhold secrets from each other.”
    She
pulled herself up higher on the bed and leaned back against the carved
headboard, weariness dragging at her. For all that she’d slept, she felt
drained to the point of exhaustion. “Maybe we should just drop the subject of
mates.”
    For a second he looked like he was going to argue, but then
he shrugged and handed her a pillow. “If that will make you happy, it will be
done.”
    She could get used to that attitude. She tucked the pillow
behind her back. She reached up and touched her hair. She didn’t know what
she’d expected to find, but it felt the same as always—thick, with curls
springing all over the place. She squashed one flat. “You couldn’t have seen to
making it straight while you were at it?”
    He glanced at her hand in her hair and what could have been
a smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “No.”
    “You could at least sound regretful.”
    Strange lights flickered in his eyes as he touched a curl.
“I like your hair.”
    So it would seem from the length he’d given her. It was
halfway down her back. She dropped her hand to the comforter. The intricate
quilting drew her fingertips. “You said you fed the baby?”
    “It had to be done.”
    She rolled her eyes. As if she didn’t know that. “What did
you feed her?”
    “Bohdan examined her. While there are differences in her
physiology, her feeding needs seem to be human at this time.”
    “Which means?”
    “Baby formula works fine.”
    Thank God. “I didn’t know how to care for a vampire child.”
    Deuce
didn’t respond, just stared. He stared long past comfortable and just when she
couldn’t suppress the urge to fidget, he said, “You call our daughter ‘the
baby’ or ‘the child’.”
    “I
don’t know her name.”
    “You
have not given her one?”
    “No.”
    It
hadn’t seemed right when she hadn’t known if she could save her, if Deuce would
accept her, if she was even theirs.
    Deuce
frowned, pushing her hair off her face, his expression as harsh as his touch
was gentle. “Did you fear loving her?”
    She
counted the stitches in the quilt. They were very small. Twelve to an inch.
“Yes.”
    “Because
she is mine?”
    She
looked up to find him staring impassively at her, as if her not loving a child
because it was his would suit him just fine. “No.”
    “Why,
Edie?”
    The
way he called her Edie, in that deep voice that danced like soft notes over her
desire, immediately poked holes in her defenses. She held his gaze and bit her
tongue on the shameful truth that wanted to spill out.
    “Why
did you not name her?” he pressed. His hand slid around her head to cradle her
skull in his broad palm. With one gesture, he made her feel small, pampered
vulnerable. And valued. Incredibly valued. She didn’t deserve his respect. “I
didn’t want to think of her as real.”
    “So
you did not name her.” His fingers stirred the curls over her ears.
    Anger
shimmered in the air, mingling with her guilt, leaving her feeling completely
exposed. “Pretty much.”
    “And
for this you feel guilty.”
    It
wasn’t a question. She jerked her face away from his touch.
    He
shook his head, causing his hair to swing and catch the light from the lamps,
and caught her chin on his fingertips. The same lights gathered in his eyes,
flashing—red?—in the black depths. He looked at once totally familiar and
completely alien.
    “I am
grateful you were there to care for her when I could not.”
    His
thumb brushed her cheek. She flinched back. “I didn’t care for her. I threw her
in a sack and ran.”
    “To
me.”
    “That
doesn’t make everything okay.”
    “It
does.”
    She
squared her shoulders and blurted out the horrible reality. “When she cried, I
covered her mouth until she shut up.”
    He
nodded as if she’d just told him she’d bought the baby a new blanket.
    “And
in doing so you preserved both your lives. I am grateful for