THE AWAKENING

Tieran remained silent for a long moment but she could feel the tension in the air between them as they lay sprawled naked and spent. He turned slowly to regard her, his expression resigned, and perhaps a bit angry, as he gave her the answer she feared the most.

“The Prophecy has been set in motion.”

Tears pricked Cassandra’s eyes and her hand strayed to her flat belly. She swallowed as the import of his statement hit her hard.

“Am I pregnant?” she whispered. “How can you possibly know? It’s too soon, isn’t it?”

“The point of a Phase is to create new life. It is almost certain that I’ve put a pup in your belly.”

Tieran rose on shaky limbs to grab his shirt and jerk it on. She trembled as she wavered on full-blown hysteria. She wasn’t ready to be a mother, much less the mother of some Prophesied child!

“Tieran…” she pleaded, not knowing what she was asking exactly but he heard the fear and uncertainty in her voice. He softened, albeit minutely, and his eyes returned to their striking shade of blue. “Tieran…I’m not ready for any of this…”

He buttoned his jeans slowly, almost methodically before meeting her gaze. “That makes two of us. But we weren’t given a choice. I will send someone to help you bathe. I will bring food soon.”

“I’m not hungry,” she lied, fighting tears. “Just leave me alone. I need time to figure things out.”

“You will need food. The Phase raises your metabolism. And if you are carrying my child…you will eat, whether you want to or not. There are other things to consider now that the Prophecy has begun.”

voice shaking as she struggled to her feet, mindless of

now? There was nothing to hide from Tieran at this point.

people! I had a life. I had goals and dreams. I wasn’t some mindless freakish slut who spoke in tongues and wanted to fuck

her into the hard shelter of his arms before she could squeak

that I wanted this?” He didn’t wait for an answer as he sneered softly. “You are not the only one being asked to sacrifice something. You may have stumbled onto your heritage but I’ve been shouldering the weight of this clan since I turned sixteen. It’s been ground into my head that I must sire the Prophesied child to save the world from the hands of Clan Barrachius! So hear me when I say that just because I do not weep and wail, wringing my hands at the circumstance that I am not, in fact, grieving for what has been taken from me in the name of some

gave her a hard shake and then when she thought he might thrust her away from him as if she were diseased, he

as he regained some semblance

closed the door and as soon as he was gone, she fell back onto

pillow. When the tears finally

embarrassed at her own inadvertent trespass. She hadn’t meant to pry. It wasn’t as if she had a handle on the things that she could do. Like she’d wanted to know

she did care. She cared a lot — and she shouldn’t give two shakes of a beaver’s tail what that jerk fantasized about in the private theater of his head because he clearly only fucked her because he had

soul. She’d never begged for a man’s attention in her life and she didn’t feel like

this nightmare of a new life so why

She supposed

Hell yes.

that’s what she

to feel her mother’s arms around her, clucking and cooing, smoothing her hair and promising that everything