Read Online Born in Twilight: Twilight Vows by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online Page A

She was a part of me, my very heart. And I loved her with everything in me. Never in my life had I contemplated motherhood. I’d never imagined that I would have a child. But now, I could not imagine not having one. This one, whom they would try to take from me as surely as the sun would rise each morning. They would try to take her.
    And I would die before I would allow that to happen.
    Â * * *
    Every once in a while, Hilary slipped down to the maximum-security sublevels, and checked in on that wide-eyed young woman they held there. And once, very late in the experiment, she heard something that made her heart trip to a stop in her chest. Singing. The purest, most angelic singing she’d ever heard in her life.
    She crept closer to the cell, and peered through the mesh-lined safety glass. And she saw her. Pale and thin, except for her protruding belly. Her name was Angelica, though to DPI she was called by a number. Her hair shone like black satin, long and lustrous, and she had huge violet eyes. Their color no less than stunning, even through the tears that spilled slowly from their purplish depths.
    She sat on the floor of her cell, chains dangling from her arms and pooled around her legs. She hugged her bulging belly, and rocked slowly back and forth, and she sang “Amazing Grace,” so beautifully that it brought tears to Hilary’s eyes.
    And then she stopped singing all at once, and lifted her head. She stared right into Hilary’s eyes from beyond that glass. And Hilary was unable to look away. She was so sad, so frightened and so utterly alone. It was horrible what this organization was doing to her. Horrible.
    And if I try to help, she thought, they’ll kill me. They’ll kill me. I’ll disappear, just like Tamara.
    But the story went that Tamara hadn’t disappeared. According to the DPI grapevine, all those years ago she’d become one of them. A vampire, like the ones she’d been trying to help. Could it be true? Could Tamara be out there somewhere?
    She shook that thought away and looked back at the woman in the cell. But the plea was still there, in those violet eyes. And Hilary knew that she had to help. She had to try. She had to.
    She closed her eyes, and turned away. And the singing began again, filling the entire sublevel with beauty. And as she passed other cells where other captives languished in despair, she saw them listening. Saw them closing their eyes and drinking in the beauty of that song.
    Hilary ran from the cell block to the elevators, eager to shut out that sad, sad voice. But even after the doors slid closed, she kept hearing it. Ringing in her mind. And she saw those beautiful eyes, imploring her to act.
    It was difficult walking into Fuller’s office for the staff meeting that night. Harder than ever to keep her mask in place. But she had to. She made a valiant effort, too, she thought.
    Until Rose Sversky’s dire predictions filled the room, at least. “We can’t take it C-section,” she said. “They bleed like hemophiliacs. The mother would probably bleed out before we could get the child, and then we’d lose them both.”
    â€œThen we go natural,” Fuller said, tamping more smelly tobacco into that rank pipe of his as Hilary took rapid notes.
    Stiles cleared his throat. “Sir, you know that kind feels pain as if it were magnified a thousand times.”
    â€œLike I give a damn,” Fuller said.
    Rose’s eyes met Stiles’s. Even the two of them, monsters though they were, were not quite as heartless as Fuller. They saw the undead as animals, yes. But even animals didn’t deserve unnecessary agony.
    â€œShe’ll need to be tranquilized,” Rose said. “With her preternatural strength, if she pushes, she could crush the child. We’ll give her the drug, a far higher dosage than the daily one. Enough to render her semiconscious before we induce labor.”
    â€œAnd what