1 Chapter 1

A/N: I will be slowly editing this book later on. So, hopefully, this rough draft isn't too bad. Also, this cannot be read as a stand-alone book. The first book in the series is called Haven.

*5 Years Later*

"Mommy! Mommy! It hurts." I looked down at my sweet little girl, who had tears falling from her dark hazel eyes.

"Oh, sweetie, what happened?" I bent down immediately, taking her into my arms.

"I hurt my knee." I pulled back a bit so I could examine her knee. She definitely hurt it. It was a pretty good scrape. The bleeding is very minimal, but I know for a fact that it's gotta hurt.

"My poor baby. Want mommy to kiss it and make it better?" She just looked at me with puppy dog eyes and shook her head yes. So I put my hand over her knee and bent down and kissed the back of my hand. I love my daughter, she's my own flesh and blood, but there is no way in hell I'm going to straight-up kiss her bloody knee.

"There we go, my little bear, all better." She looked down at her knee and saw that the scrape was completely gone. She looked back up at me with a glow of happiness in her eyes and flung herself onto me, hugging me.

"Thank you so much, mommy! I'm going back to playing with Aleksey now!" I stood up and smiled at her.

"You know, she's starting to look more and more like you every day." I jumped a little as I put my hand over my heart.

"Damn it, Emma. You scared the crap out of me." Emma, my beautiful soulmate, wife, and other mother to my children. Still, to this day, I am completely in love with her.

"Sorry, love. You would think with you being a vampire and all; you would know that someone is behind you. Especially your mate." I slapped her on the shoulder.

"Whatever, smart ass. Our daughter is so clumsy. That's the 5th injury this week alone." She looked at me with this look. I knew this look too well. She's about to say something smart.

"Tread lightly." I looked at her with my look, showing I wasn't messing around. She wiped the smirk off her face really quick.

"I was just going to say; I wonder where she got that from...." She trailed off at the end. I already know she was implying to me.

"Just because I stubbed my toe 3 times in one day does not make me a klutz! It was one time! I'm athletic, and I run." She kind of snickered.

"Running doesn't take much balance or hand-eye coordination. You just basically need endurance. You can't play any other sport to save your life." I huffed and rolled my eyes. I couldn't say anything back because, honestly, she was right. I'm not about to say that out loud, though, and give fuel to the fire that is her ego.

"You should really just let her wounds heal on their own. It would be quick; she is a vampire too." I looked down a little guiltily. I can't help it when it comes to the twins anytime they get hurt. I don't want them hurting for long, so I always heal their injuries.

"I know, I know. That reminds me, have you heard anything from the council about our children being born vampires?" Emma just sighed and shook her head.

Only supernatural beings who are born that way naturally can reproduce offspring of that species. Since vampires have to be turned and aren't born naturally, they can't produce offspring of their species, nor can they reproduce naturally at all. They to have help from a witch.

"No. They still don't know how they were born as vampires. They are looking through ancient texts to see if they can find any phenomena like it. They are back 2,000 years in our history so far and nothing yet." I just nodded along.

"That's a long way back. But, who knows, maybe they are the only ones. They are extraordinary. You can't read their minds, and not even your sister can see their future." Emma wrapped her arm around me and brought me into her chest.

"They're going to be just fine. I know my sister not seeing their future scares you, but they'll be okay. Doctors have already confirmed that they are immortal." I snuggled further into her chest and breathed in her scent. She was right yet again. I need to stop worrying.

"Alright. Are you sure?" I looked at Emma with concern and curiosity. I could feel that she had a tinge of fear coursing through her.

"Shit! Okay, Okay. Do we know why it's gotten worse? I thought it was nothing to worry about?" Rarely do her emotions ever get the best of her, so I know this was something serious.

"Alright. Just call me once you find something out. I'll be in early in the morning." She then hung up the phone and let out a sigh while putting her hand to her head. I got up and made my way over to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist, and she melted back into me.

"What's going on?" She tensed up a bit.

"It's technically confidential right now, but you need to know. Please do not tell a soul, though. What I'm about to tell you, if it got out, it could cause mass panic. So, swear you won't tell anyone." She had fully turned around by this point, and her eyes showed how serious she was.

"I swear," I stated genuinely.

"There's some type of sickness spreading throughout the supernatural community." I looked shocked. We rarely ever get sick. She soon cut my thoughts off. "The thing is, it's only affecting the supernatural community. We don't know why, but the virus, from what little we know about it right now, specifically attacks the supernatural gene." I kind of stumbled backward and felt my head kind of spin. Emma's hands immediately reached out to me to steady me.

"I'm fine. Just anxiety and panic rising inside of me. I'm concerned for our kids, you, our friends, our family. How could this happen?" I had to sit down. I could feel the panic rising more as I thought about every one, specifically our kids.

"We don't know. Not yet anyway. We have our top doctors and scientists working around the clock." I snapped my head up towards her.

"How long has this been going on, Emma?" Her eyes grew wide at my bitter tone.

"Don't give me that tone, Mila." I put my hand up, and she stopped immediately.

"Just answer the question," I said in a calmer voice this time.

"A month-" I shot up.

"A month!" I whisper-yelled so the kids wouldn't hear. I immediately looked at her, and I could feel that my eyes held the glowing red specs.

"Into the Dissension." Her eyes grew wide, and she honestly started to look a little scared. Dissension is the room we added to the house that is soundproofed so that anytime we had a disagreement or dispute, we would work it out in there. One of our main agreements was we never wanted to have a heated discussion in front of the kids. A disagreement is fine, but I knew I would fly off the handle in this situation.

I zipped into the room with her right behind me. Once the door was closed, I whipped my head around. I could see and hear her gulp.

"Now, Mila, just please calm down-" This made my anger spike. I scoffed.

"Calm down? Calm down?! No, Emma. I will not calm down. You should have told me when you and the council first had your concerns! We have two young children who, if you remember, were born with the supernatural gene! We don't even know why vampirism isn't supposed to be passed down because none of us were born as natural vampires. Have you not thought about their safety?" She sat on the chair and put her head in her hands, sighing defeatedly.

"At first, it was just a couple cases. It was a mated pair. We thought that it was just contained to them, but soon more and more cases started popping up." She looked up at me, almost seeming broken. This deflated my anger. "This virus, Mila, spreads quickly and is very contagious. It's airborne mainly, and even taking precautions like masks can't stop it. The virus is so small that it can go through." She got up and paced a little bit. Finally, she stopped and looked at me with tears glossing her eyes.

"I am absolutely terrified. I'm so worried about any of us getting sick because...." She trailed off. It seemed like she was having a battle within herself on whether she should tell me or not.

"Because, why Em?" I question softly. I closed a little bit of the distance between us.

"The mortality rate. It's 100 percent." I gasped out, covering my mouth. My world started spinning. No one has survived. No one has survived.

I could feel my airway becoming smaller. I looked at Emma, and she made her way to me immediately. She brought me into her arms, and I broke down. Hyperventilating, I could feel fear continuing to build up as the tears slowly made their way down my cheeks. My mind was becoming overloaded; I was crashing. I felt my legs go limp, and soon I felt gravity drag me down to the floor. Luckily I had Emma there, and she eased us to the floor.

She put me between her legs with my back to her front and leaned herself up against the wall. Then, she just held me close to her as if her life depended on it.

"I promise. I'll keep us safe. I'll work nonstop to figure out how to contain and cure this virus." I melted back into her more.

"I trust you'll do everything in your power to keep us safe, but don't promise something that isn't within your control." She sighed, not saying another word, confirming that she knew I was right.

She held me like that the rest of the night. Then, silence overtook us as we succumbed to our own thoughts. I looked down at my watch to see it was already 5 am.

"Come on, Em. We need to make breakfast for the kids. I don't know where they got it from or why they had to possess this quality, but you know they are early risers." I said with slight amusement trying to lighten the mood a bit. Kids are a lot more observant than what people give them credit for. They can see when their parents are stressed.

She helped me with a light chuckle. I could tell it was kind of forced. Once we were standing up, we looked at each other, taking a deep breath together before putting on a facade that everything was okay.

avataravatar
Next chapter