Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Trauma bay, she thought. She was in a trauma bay.
Dr. Bluff worked fast with his nurses: IVs were started, questions about allergies and medicines were asked, basic assessments were taken. And when he pressed a stethoscope to her belly and listened, she prayed for a—
“The baby’s alive,” he said grimly. “I have a heartbeat.”
Anne’s relief was part of the complicated tangle of emotions she had been stewing in ever since she’d missed her period and learned she was carrying Darius’s child. She had no idea what she was bringing into the world. But it was hers, and she’d made peace with that.
It was the only thing she’d made peace with.
“Nurses, step out, please. I need a moment.”
The women in uniform seemed a little surprised by the order, but they did as the doctor demanded. And then Dr. Bluff was looming over Anne, his face drawn in tight lines.
“You’re bleeding profusely. I believe you probably have a placenta previa, something that is very common for pregnancies that are—that are complicated in the way yours is. Here’s the problem. If I give you human blood, and the young is a half-breed, as you say? It will kill the fetus immediately, although the transfusion may save your life.”
A strange coldness came over her. “And what if you don’t give me blood.”
“You’re going to die.”
As she heard the words, her mind refused to process them. “I’m going to…”
“It’s your life or the young’s—and if you pick the latter, I can’t promise it’s going to survive anyway. But I will promise you will not make it.”
Time slowed to a crawl, and Anne was grateful for the distortion as her mind seemed to be refusing to process anything. Think, think, think…
The image that came to her, the memory, was so sharp, so clear, it was as if it had been implanted in her mind by some other force: She was back in the rear of a car, cradled against something warm and vital, her body sprawled against…
“Darius,” she said weakly.
“Would you like me to call him?” Dr. Bluff asked.
Anne shifted her eyes to the chandelier above her. The light was bright and she blinked in the glare.
As a strange, prevailing coldness began to seep into her body, she felt herself start to tremble.
“Would you like me to call him?” Dr. Bluff repeated. “It has to be now, if you want him here… we’re already out of time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Darius finally got the call he’d been waiting for, praying for… it came in no form he had ever expected and definitely one he didn’t want. Instead of Anne’s voice, reaching out to him, it was that of a male whose face he could only vaguely recall. And instead of his female breaking her rightful silence and somehow forgiving him…
“You need to come immediately,” the doctor from a lifetime ago was saying in a hushed, urgent tone. “St. Francis emergency room. I’m losing her. You don’t have a lot of time.”
Darius’s hearing went in and out. “Anne?”
“Your mate. She’s in labor, and she’s losing a lot of blood. If you have anything you want to say to her, you better get here right now.”
Click.
The line went dead.
Darius took the phone away from his ear and looked at it.
“Sire?”
He glanced across his kitchen at Fritz. His butler was polishing silver at the sink, and had paused in all his elbow grease.
“Sire? Whatever is wrong?”
Blood loss…?
“Ihavetogo.”
Tossing the receiver in the vicinity of the phone, Darius raced out his back door and dived into the shadows. When he closed his eyes, he sent up a prayer unto the Scribe Virgin that he’d actually be able to dematerialize—and the incantation must have worked because in spite of his panic and confusion, he managed to ghost out—
And re-form in the parking lot of the ER where he had first brought his Anne, all those eons ago.
The fact that he came back to his form right under a streetlight wasn’t something he gave a lot of thought to: After nine months of nothing, after nine lonely months of despair and self-blame, after nine months of suffering, he just wanted to see Anne. To hold her. To hear her voice. The black hole of her absence, which he more than deserved, had begun to feel perpetual. But God, he didn’t want the relief like this. Another accident, another dire injury…
Running in through the entrance, he skidded to a halt in front of the reception desk.
“Mr. Wurster?” the woman asked.
When he nodded, she hit a buzzer. “Go through the double doors, follow the trauma signs, she’s in bay one.”
Darius took off again, hoping he could still read once he got through those doors. Fortunately, his literacy stuck with him and the signs were in brilliant red, but more than that, there was the smell of fresh blood. Lots of blood.