Ronan rolled his gaze to the ceiling, his antagonism coming to a slow bubble. "You said if I had sex with this woman then I would receive the power I needed to defeat the ancient one. Time is running out here."

Ronan heard the depersonalization in calling Clarissathis woman and winced at his own callousness.

Yusuf opened up. "It is written in an ancient text that only when a great vampire finds a woman who he can impregnate, can the ancient one be destroyed."

"Impregnate?" The word shot out of Ronan's mouth like a bullet. "Are you saying I can get Clarissa pregnant?"

Ronan glanced at his friends and they all stared at him like people who'd just been jabbed by a stun gun.

Ronan's mouth came open as he stood there in stunned silence. Anger grew inside him.

"You didn't tell me this earlier. Why?"

"Don't yell at me, Ronan Kieran." The line crackled with static. "I didn't know until the seer called me. Obviously she was too afraid of you to relay the answer she found in the book."

"What book are you talking about?"

"An old tome at Trinity University that's being held in secret by a professor. Apparently this guy is a bit of a vampire hunter himself."

Shocked and colder inside then he'd ever been, Ronan said, "I can't have children. No vampire can have children."

The old man grunted his dissent. "Mostvampires cannot have children. Ninety-nine percent, actually. You, sir, may be the one percent that can."

A panic started to well inside Ronan as something occurred to him in scary black and white. "Feck me."

Yusuf chuckled. "So you see, great vampire, unless you can get your woman pregnant, there isn't much chance you can conquer the ancient one."

Furious, Ronan responded. "How the hell did I get through seven hundred years without knowing some vampires can impregnate mortals?"

"Or if there is a female vampire that is fertile, she can become pregnant by a mortal male or that rare male vampire in the one percentile."

"Interesting, but I don't care about that right now. How did I miss hearing about it?"

"You sound suspicious, vampire."

"Well, maybe I am. Emotions are running a bit high now. In case you've forgotten, we're fecked up beyond all reason here."

"All right, all right." The Moroccan sounded exasperated by the reprimand in Ronan's voice. "It makes sense you wouldn't hear about the one percent factor. You've been roaming the world hunting the ancient one forever. Also, if only one percent of all vampires can impregnate or get pregnant, how often do you think these births would be noted? There have only been three recorded vampire-caused impregnations in the seven hundred years since you've been immortal."

"What happened to those children?"

"The seer said the first was killed in Huntingdon, England. The second was long-lived before being killed in a fight with another vampire in Russia. The third lived until twenty years ago inGermany. He committed suicide."

"Suicide?"

"He arranged to fall on a silver stake."

"Shit."

Ronan walked to the fireplace mantle and looked down at a fire that Lachlan had started earlier.

"Perhaps, if nothing extraordinary has happened by now," Yusuf said, "Your virility is in question."

"You meanfertility ," Ronan almost growled.

"That is what I meant." Yusuf cleared his throat. "If you impregnate her, it will be accelerated. She could be pregnant right now."

Clarissa, pregnant. Right this minute.

Ronan felt like someone had just hit him over the head with a sledgehammer. He sagged against the mantle.

Yusuf continued as if he hadn't dropped a bomb. "It appears to be another chemical reaction, an alteration in thinking between the vampire and his or her mate that makes the difference in whether an impregnation occurs."

"Chemical?"

"As in feeling between you. There has to be sufficient feeling between you and this Clarissa before she can conceive. You have to want a child with her. Is she in love with you?"

The question echoed in Ronan's head.Is she in love with you? "I...I doubt it."

"Unfortunate. You must make her love you, you must bed her and impregnate her. And the very last step..."

"Yes, go on."

"You must be in love with her. No step must be left out."

Ronan wanted to reach through the phone and strangle Yusuf. Instead he took cleansing breaths while he ruminated. He couldn't believe what he'd heard; the implication disrupted his sense of reality.

"You said the love must be in appearance only," Ronan said.

"Apparently I was wrong." A slow, soft laugh came over the phone. "Nothing is sane about vampires, so why does this surprise you?"

Closing his eyes, Ronan tried to clear his mind and think rationally. Objectivity and the cool detachment slipped between his fingers. "This is insane."

Clarissa wasn'tany woman he'd slept with. She wasn't Selima, a virgin vampire who must be fucked or die. Clarissa had taken him into her body with his promise.

I can't have children.

"Shit, shit, shit," Ronan said.

He dared glance at his friends. Erin and Lachlan retreated into the kitchen and he thought he heard them say something about coffee and breakfast. Micky and Jared stayed on the loveseat, but their expressions said they felt a little uncomfortable, as if they'd intruded on Ronan's privacy. Oh, what the feck? They would have to know the information anyway so what difference did it make? Ronan felt like he needed another pint of blood.

Yusuf's voice came back over the line. "As I said, in order for her to become pregnant you must want a child with her and must be in love with her."

Ronan swallowed hard. "I don't believe you."

"Believe me or not, it is true. It was never just the coupling alone that would bring down the eventual downfall of the ancient one. It is the love and then the impregnation. So it would be advice, vampire, to own up to what has happened to you and learn from it."

Stunned, Ronan walked back to the kitchen and saw Lachlan and Erin had started scrambled eggs and toast. "If I impregnate her. There's no guarantee."

"No, but if you love her, the fertilization will be more certain."

He gritted the next words through his teeth. "I don't love her."