Page 91 of Pursued
She blew out a breath. “If you two could only see how much you’re alike…”
My spine stiffened. “The hell we are.”
“Mm,” she said noncommittally, and changed the subject. “You want to mate with Mila, don’t you?”
My brows lifted. Trust my mom to cut to the heart of the matter. I’d barely admitted that to myself. “Yes.”
“Oh, Gabriel.” She sounded sad. “Have you thought this through? At least your father could argue that you and your brothers were half-vampire. If you have children with Mila, they’ll be three-quarters human. They might not even be able to drink blood.”
I growled. “You think I don’t know that?”
A long pause. “Or, you could turn her.”
My heart lurched with a mix of trepidation and hope. “To dhampir?”
It had been at the back of my mind all day. But it was too risky. Only half the humans who attempted to transition to dhampir made it. The rest died a painful death.
“Unless she’d let you turn her to vampire.”
I expelled a breath. “She can barely stand to be in the same room as a vampire.”
“And she’s young,” Mom murmured. “She’ll want kids. As a dhampir, she’d have an easier time getting pregnant than she would as a vampire. Plus, she’d be able to have more than one.”
“I know. But I can’t lose her again. Not a second time.”
“Then set her free.”
I dragged a hand down my face. “I can’t.”
“You don’t know what you’d be asking, Gabriel. I went through it. You didn’t.”
I sucked a breath through my teeth.
Still, Mom was right. I hadn’t gone through it. But I remembered when she had—and I never wanted to go through anything like that again.
“And my transition came later,” she pointed out, quiet but relentless. “I was a good twenty years older than Mila is now. I’d had a chance to live, to raise you boys. Not that I was ready to die, but Mila—she’s what, twenty-five? Her life is just beginning.”
“You don’t know her,” I countered. “She changed, those three years she was gone. You should’ve seen her last night. She staked Stefan herself, and if not for her, Andre might’ve drained me until I was too weak to fight him off.”
“She’s strong, then. That’s good. She’d have a good chance of making it through the metamorphosis.”
“But what if she dies?” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Then set her free,” Mom repeated. “Because if you don’t, you might as well put her in a cage. You won’t be able to guarantee her safety otherwise.”
Mila, in a cage? I might as well clip the wings of a wild woodland bird.
“There has to be another option.” I was gripping the phone too tight. I forced my fingers to loosen. “I can’t lose her, Mom. Not this time.”
“Oh, cher. The way things are in the Syndicate right now, you may not have a choice. If you don’t lose her to the transition, you’ll lose her to another Andre Redbone.”
I growled. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I guess you do.” Mom sighed. “This is getting us nowhere. But whatever you decide, I want you to know you have my full support. Make sure you tell Mila that, too.”
“I will. And Mom? Thanks for listening. It…helps. I love you.”
“Love you, too, cher,” she said, and ended the call.