Richelle Mead - Shadow Heir

“Watch it,” he warned, glancing upward. I was doing the subconscious storm thing again, and a few people had stopped to stare in amazement at the dark clouds that had literally come out of nowhere. “You don’t want to create a panic.”

“Wouldn’t be the weirdest weather phenomenon that’s happened around here,” I said. “Neither would you being struck by lightning.”

He smiled without humor. “You won’t do it, though. Not in this crowd.”

He was right. I could call lightning with pretty perfect precision, but even so, we were in the thick of humanity, with people brushing past us to get where they needed. I could hit him but might inadvertently hurt someone else along the way. These aren’t even people I know or care about , I thought bitterly. But once again, my hands are tied .

“I suppose you arranged this,” I said. “Waited for a chance to approach me in public?”

“Yes, actually. I figured I wouldn’t get a warm reception at one of your castles.”

“You figured right.”

He sighed. “Eugenie ... there are a couple things I need to tell you. I debated a long time about whether I should, but ... well, I don’t know. I feel bad about what happened with Pagiel ... and everything else.”

I had to repress the urge to slap him. “Yeah? Maybe you should’ve thought about that before your fucking girlfriend killed him!” My profanity got a few surprised glances from passersby.

“I’m sorry it turned out that way,” he said. “But it was better for everyone.”

I started to turn away. “Maybe I have to let you live today, but I don’t have to listen to your ‘greater good’ bullshit again.”

“Wait, Eugenie—” He grabbed my shoulder. I immediately jerked his hand off but did come to a stop. “Please. There are two things you have to know.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hurry up.”

He took a deep breath. “First ... your children ... they may still be in danger.”

“I ... what? How?” I demanded. “Isaac’s no longer part of the prophecy.”

“Maiwenn’s not so sure. She’s afraid that maybe the prophecy will simply roll to Storm King’s next oldest grandson.”

I couldn’t even speak right away. “Out of all the fucked-up things I’ve heard—and believe me, I’ve heard a lot—that has got to take the prize. Do you know how nuts that sounds?”

“I didn’t say I felt that way,” he said. There was enough uncertainty in his voice to kill his credibility.

“If you didn’t feel that way, you’d stand up to her and stop running her errands.”

He shook his head. “I can’t abandon her. Not yet. We agree on a lot of other things, and I’m not going to go hunting your kids anytime soon. I’m just trying to warn you that others might.”

“Again, that means little when you can sit by and still be pals with the woman who very well may hunt them,” I growled. “What’s your other ‘important’ piece of info? Is it just as crazy?”

Kiyo look distinctly uncomfortable now. “I ... well, it depends. Yes. No. I don’t know.” He took a deep breath. “Eugenie, I should have told you this a long time ago. I don’t know why I didn’t. I mean, I had reasons ... but well, I don’t know.”

I had no patience for this, no matter how pathetic or conflicted of a show he was putting on. “Kiyo, I’m tired of hearing about your ‘reasons’ because they all suck. Just get on with it.”

Resolved, he gave a quick nod and rushed forward. “Eugenie ... I’m not the father of your children. Dorian is.”

Alabama reminded me a bit of the Oak Land—or rather, the old Oak Land—when my plane touched down. Autumn had come since my last visit, bringing rain at last to the grass and shades of red and gold to the trees. It was beautiful, but I only spared it a brief thought before my mind returned to other, more pressing matters.

Two weeks had passed since Kiyo found me at the mall. I’d lived those two weeks in a daze, reeling from what he’d told me. I hadn’t believed him at first, of course. I had stared at him in disbelief and then laughed outright. It was hard not to. His words were too ludicrous.

“Of course you are,” I had said at last. “I didn’t sleep with anyone else around that time—I mean, except Dorian. But that was before I took the antibiotics. Then I was with you.” I wouldn’t trade Isaac and Ivy for anything, but it still bothered me that I’d gotten pregnant from the idiotic mistake of mixing antibiotics with birth control pills.

“What was the total time span there between us?” Kiyo had asked calmly. “About a week?”

I’d nodded. “About that.”

“That’s enough time. Even if you weren’t fertile at that exact moment, you can still conceive shortly thereafter. Find a health book and read up on it.” His lips had quirked. “It probably mentions antibiotics in the same chapter.”

I hadn’t liked his smirk. “Supposing that’s true, how can you know for certain that it wasn’t you instead of Dorian?”

“Ah, well. Because I, uh, had a vasectomy.”

That had been the moment my life transformed from a fairy tale to a daytime talk show. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the crowd around us had turned into a studio audience and a host with a microphone had appeared, ready to show us paternity results. It was too unreal. Too out there, even for me.

Kiyo had told me the story. Shortly after Maiwenn had gotten pregnant, he’d decided to ensure there were no more unplanned pregnancies in his life. This had been particularly important while he was dating me. Our relationship had been pretty serious, and we’d both expected to be together for a long time. As much as he had wanted that then, he still couldn’t risk me accidentally begetting Storm King’s heir.

“I can dig out medical records if you want,” he’d added. “Or I’m guessing if you just look at the kids, you won’t see much of me.”

Yes ... I had already noticed that. I’d simply assumed the twins had taken after me, but if Dorian really was their father ... it would be hard to say whose genes were dominant, seeing as we both had red hair and pale complexions.

“I don’t know which is the craziest part of this,” I’d told Kiyo. “That you were so adamant about birth control while we were together and never mentioned that you couldn’t have kids or that you let me think you were actually going to kill your own children!” Not that him killing someone else’s children was much better. It was horrible any way you looked at it.

“I thought ... well, Dorian was already on your side. But I thought—no, I knew —that if he found out they were his, I’d have a much harder time of getting to them.”

No doubt. Dorian would level a city to keep his children safe. Still, the fact that Kiyo could have been sitting on a lie like this was mind-boggling.

“Then why are you telling me now?” I had asked. “Why tell me any of these things?”

Kiyo had shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do, especially after you helped me on the Yew Land trip. Besides, some of the pressure’s off now that the prophecy’s immediate threat is gone.”

“Not according to your pal Maiwenn.”

“No. And probably not in the eyes of others. Even people who don’t care about the prophecy are still scared of you, Eugenie. Those kids are leverage against you.”

Kiyo had left shortly after that, disappearing into the throngs of oblivious shoppers. I’d let him go, both because I could do little to him in public and because I was really too stunned to react anyway. When I’d finally recovered enough of myself, I’d immediately sought out a book on pregnancy and learned he’d been telling the truth, that having sex a week before you were fertile could still result in pregnancy. I learned more about eggs and sperm than I’d ever wanted to know, but with my track record, maybe a little education wasn’t so bad.