**3rd Person POV**
“I'm telling you I'm pregnant and you say you do not have time for me?” quipped Diane. She had never thought there'd come a day when she would regret her over-a-decade affair with Lord Edvin. She had been so in love with the man until now when he had decided to pull the wool off her eye.
“Diane…”
“You have time to roll around on dirt with me but now you're too busy?” questioned Diane. She was angry and filled with self-loathing. She remembered vaguely that Regina had hinted she was making a mistake then but she had been so in love. She had been so in love with Edvin that she had never stopped to ask if he would ever make a just woman out of her. He had never thought once of improving her privileges. She had expected things to be different though when she had told him that she was pregnant with his child but he had only avoided her since.
“Diane, you must understand that I…” Edvin started to say but Diane only shook her head in disappointment. She had not expected that Edvin had it in him to treat her this way. She had only thought of him as a fine man in character; it was a wake-up call releasing that he was just like any other man.
“Don't patronise me, Edvin. I understand what this is. You have no wife or children but you cannot have me parade your child because it would be too embarrassing. I can understand that you know. It's just that you should have had the decency to tell me upfront,” rebuked Diane.
“Who knows about the baby?” Edvin ignored the bitter tinged tone.
“Wow! You're concerned about your image now?” quipped Diane. She was on the verge of tears. She had never pegged Edvin to be such a jerk.
“Just answer me, Diane.”
“Don't worry about it. I do not want to have anything to do with you again. No one would ever know you knocked me up, okay?” She turned bitterly and walked away.
Edvin watched her walk away from him. He observed that she was a bit more rounded. The change in her bulk was subtle but he still noticed because he had slept with the same woman for twenty years. He would be lying if he said that he did not love her. In his own way, he did but he was not blind to the class difference. He also would not insult her by suggesting she become his paid mistress; he did not want their affair to be tainted by money.
The situation however was complicated. He had not married all this time because he knew it would be pointless. Nydia had killed off his reproductive health with her poisons. He could never forget the day his physician had told him that the poison had damaged his reproductive health and as such it was possible he would never have any children.
So when Diane had told him that she was pregnant, he had genuinely thought she meant she had moved on and was with someone else. He had not entertained the possibility that she had meant that the child was his. And if she was claiming that the child was his then that made her a fraud because he was incapable of having a child.
He was in an obvious fix.
“Lord Edvin, are you visiting me or just here on your rendezvous?” teased Dagen bringing Lord Edvin out of his reverie.
“I'm here to see you, Alpha. It's about the surge of vampires in the capital,” replied Edvin entering the study.
“I thought we had it under control,” returned Dagen. His friend was older now and looked very mature. Some flecks of grey hair were beginning to colour his slick black hair. Edvin realised he was also getting old and he still had no child to call his own. It hurt him whenever he thought about it but he had made peace with his childlessness regardless. The only thing he could never bring himself to do was to forgive Nydia.
“We did until two days ago. A couple enjoying an evening walk was murdered; their corpses were left on the road for all to see,” replied Edvin.
“And we have reason to believe they were not the victims of a robbery but a vampire raid?” asked Dagen.
“Yes. The bite marks on their neck confirmed our suspicion,” came Edvin’s response.
“What do we do? What's our response?” asked Dagen. He knew that when Edvin came with a problem it was because he already had half the solution to it.
“My intel tells me that Queen Emily is sending Princess Charlotte to the kingdom of Dome to do some talking,” said Lord Edvin.
“And your advice is that we toe that line as well? And why Charlotte? She hates talking,” the sarcasm in Dagen's tone was not lost.
“She is grooming the young lady into filling her seat,” Edvin stated the obvious.
“I certainly do not envy her. And Charlotte, she will be here tomorrow, yes?” quipped Dagen who was always delighted to have his daughter around. It was not hard to figure out that Dagen favoured his daughter more than anyone. He had almost ended his friendship with Alpha Raphael over his precious princess.
“She will. I have arranged for her safe transport,” returned Lord Edvin.
“Although, I am sure she will protest the soldiers you have sent to guard her. I know she can take them on all at once,” the pride that rang in Dagen's voice was hard to miss. Edvin envied his friend. He wished he had a child he could dole out such pride on.
“There is no doubt about that but I have asked the soldiers to insist for her own safety,” said Edvin.
“And I'm certain you reminded them of the consequences that would ensue if as much as a strand of hair was missing from the princess?” quipped Dagen who was fiercely overprotective of his daughter.