Feeling like I was about to lose it, I moved from the bed to pace. How on earth would I be able to cope with this new information?

Then I stopped dead in my tracks. Thane. Just the thought of him was enough to cool the blood in my veins.

“Thane?” I breathed the question, hoping that he would have nothing to do with my new found information but knowing he would.

There was no other way to explain his interest in me. Slowly everything that had confused me before began to make a lot more sense even if it horrified me.

“Due to the limited available Sires that can bear vampires, there is a list that is kept to distribute the Sires across the families evenly. It takes in various factors but usually the more influential families top the list.”

A list? Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse.

“Thane?”

“He is to receive the next Sire.”

I heard everything he didn’t explicitly say. It was me. The next Sire to be distributed like an object who had no say in what happened.

How on earth could this be happening?

I held my waist, feeling like I was being violated in some way.

“When will it happen,” I asked, when I found the little courage that remained to get some sort of estimate to be able to figure a way out.

Just thinking of Thane made my skin crawl. I didn’t want to even be in the same room with, never mind anything else.

“It won’t be long.” His voice was sombre, like he understood the crisis I faced.

“Um..I…how are these children made?” I questioned, needing to know how bad it was going to be.

“The conventional way.”

I couldn’t even comprehend that, with Thane.

Now I wished I hadn’t asked him any of these questions. The answers would haunt me every moment of every day. There would be nothing else than the fear of what would happen to me.

“Is there any way out of this?” I asked, feeling like my world was spinning out of control.

He shook his head.

My heart fell. I would be exposed to a new level of cruelty I would have to face.

I let out a shaky breath before focusing my attention on Silas.

“Are you sure?” I asked, hoping there was a way to avoid it.

“Yes.”

There was no way out. I had no way of getting myself out of this situation.

“It’s a pity I hadn’t figured this all out before the fight with the Scav,” I murmured softly, wishing I could go back in time and change things.

Then it dawned on me that if I was still in training then perhaps there might be another chance to face a Scav but this time I would ensure there would be a different outcome to the last time.

“I know what you’re thinking Avery. Now that they know how important you are there will no longer be any training for you. You are far more valuable to us than you were before.”

It was awful. The logical way he spoke. He talked like I was just expected to go along with this, without a fight.

“I’m not an object Silas.” I put my hand to my chest. “I can’t just be passed around without having a say in it.”

He gave a dismissive shrug. “Like I told you in the beginning. You don’t get to choose. You are here only to follow our commands, no matter what they entail.”

The thought of sleeping with Thane made my stomach turn.

I hadn’t been able to stand the sight of him before, it would be a lot more difficult for me now.

“So what happens now that I can’t do training? What am I supposed to do?” I never thought for a second that I would want to fight but given the situation it was the lesser evil.

“Keep yourself healthy and don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

I rubbed my forehead slightly. How could he expect me to just go along with this horrible idea like it was the most normal thing in the world?

“What happens if there isn’t a child?” I couldn’t stop myself from digging deeper into it, now that I had someone who would answer my questions.

“It’s in your best interest for there to be a child.”

I frowned. “What happens if there isn’t?” I had to know.

“Why are you tormenting yourself with all of these questions?” he asked. The slight frown that marred his features did nothing to detract from the affect of his looks on me. He was beautiful and cruel.

“I need to know. I need to know everything, to prepare myself.” I wasn’t even sure if I was strong enough to hear the worst but I had to try.

“Sires unable to bear children are sent back to training to fight Scavs.”

He made it sound like a demotion but I would rather face every Scav on the planet before I would want to be subjected to Thane to bear his children.

Then something else occurred to me. His children would also be mine.

“Will the children be genetically mine?” I asked, still trying to understand the logistics of what it would mean.

He nodded.

It made me face a whole new dilemma. Could I possibly love a child when I hated the father? And when that child would grow up to be a part of a system that had only brought me pain, would I feel differently for them?

“How many children are expected of us?”

“Unfortunately due to our limitations, the birth rate is very low so not many are expected from a female Sire.”

Was that going to be the only upside of this whole thing? I would only have to bear one child.

One was one too many. I didn’t want any part in any of this.

“I can’t do this Silas. I just can’t.” The hysteria was starting to take over, which made me look toward him for an answer to my predicament.

“You have no choice Avery. Like I told you when you first became a Sire. You are here to do as you are told, nothing more. What you want, doesn’t matter. Do you understand that?” His tone was harsh.

I flinched, like he had physically struck me.

“I’m not here to help you. All that I’m required to do is to ensure you are capable of defending yourself and taking out a Scav as efficiently as possible. It would be a waste of time and energy if you had to die the first time you faced the enemy.”

He was driving the point home that despite my hope, he was not here to help me in any way. The only thing he had done was reveal what future nightmares were to come. There was no way out, no way to avoid it. I had no choice but to go along with what they wanted.

It didn’t matter what I thought, or whether I could cope with it. I didn’t have a choice. And no one to help me through it and there was no escape.

Someone knocked on the door. It opened, they wheeled in my glass of blood. It signified, who I was now, and the sacrifices I was expected to make.

A baby. A child. My mind still couldn’t fully comprehend it.

I had never been maternal. Not once as a human had I ever thought about kids, or even envisioned myself having them.

But here I was, being faced with a situation where I had no choice, I would have to do what they wanted.

If I didn’t? I frowned. What would happen if I point blank refused? My mind took the thought and raced ahead, proving every possibility.

I waited until the man left and closed the door behind him.

“What will happen if I don’t go through with it? What if I refuse.”

Silas shook his head. “You can’t refuse Avery. Refusing would entail a choice and you do not have one.”

My eyes held his as I contemplated his words and what that meant for me. A fate worse than death.