And that was when the sniffling registered.
Trez turned around. The woman was shivering in the cold, her look-at-me clothes offering no barrier to the December night, her skin pale, her high apparently drained—as if his putting a forty to her boyfriend’s throat had been a sobering influence.
Her mascara was running down her face as she watched Prince Chow Hound’s departure.
Trez stared up at the sky and did the internal-argument thing.
In the end, he couldn’t leave her out here in the parking lot by herself—especially looking as shaky as she was.
“Where do you live, baby girl?” Even he heard the exhaustion in his own voice. “Baby girl?”
The woman glanced his way, and instantly her expression changed. “I never had someone take up for me like that before.”
Okay, now he wanted to put his head through a brick wall. And gee, there was one right next to him.
“Lemme drive you home. Where do you live?”
As she closed in, Trez had to tell his feet to stay where they were—and sure enough, she burrowed in tight against his body. “I love you.”
Trez squeezed his eyes shut.
“Come on,” he said, disengaging her and leading her to his car. “You’re going to be all right.”
THIRTY-FIVE
As Layla was led into the clinic, her heart was pounding and her legs were shaking. Fortunately, Phury and Qhuinn had no problem supporting her weight.
However, her experience was completely different this time through—thanks to the Primale’s presence. When the facility’s exterior entry panel slid aside, one of the nurses was there to meet them, and they were immediately rushed back to a different part of the clinic from where she had been the night before.
As they were let into an examination room, Layla glanced around and hesitated. What…was this? The walls were covered in pale silk, and paintings in gold frames hung at regular intervals. No clinical examination table, such as the one she had been on the night before—here, there was a bed that was covered with an elegant duvet and layered with stacks of fat pillows. And then, instead of a stainless-steel sink and plain white cabinets, a painted screen obscured one whole corner of the room—behind which, she had to assume, the clinical tools of Havers’s trade were kept.
Unless their group had been sent to the physician’s personal quarters?
“He’ll be right with you,” the nurse said, smiling up at Phury and bowing. “May I get you anything? Coffee or tea?”
“Just the doctor,” the Primale answered.
“Right away, Your Excellency.”
She bowed again and rushed off.
“Let’s get you up on this, okay?” Phury said over by the bed.
Layla shook her head. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
“Yup.” The Primale came and helped her walk across the room. “This is one of their VIP suites.”
Layla looked over her shoulder. Qhuinn had settled into the corner opposite the screen, his black-clad body like a shadow thrown by a menace. He stayed preternaturally still, his eyes focused on the floor, his breathing steady, his hands behind his back. Yet he was not at ease. No, he appeared ready and able to kill, and for a moment, a spear of fear went through her. She had never been frightened of him before, but then again, she’d never seen him in such a potentially aggressive state.
But at least the banked violence didn’t seem directed toward her, or even the Primale. Certainly not at Doc Jane as the female sat down in a silk-covered chair.
“Come on,” Phury said gently. “Up you go.”
Layla tried to lift herself, but the mattress was too far off the floor and her upper body was as weak as her legs.
“I’ve got you.” Phury carefully slipped his arms around her back and ran them under her knees; then he lifted with care. “Here we go.”
Settling on the bed, she grunted, a sharp cramp gripping her pelvic area. As every eye in the room locked on her, she tried to cover her grimace up with a smile. No succeeding there: although the bleeding remained steady, the waves of pain were intensifying, the duration of their grip growing longer, the spaces between them getting shorter.
At this point, it was soon going to be one steady agony.
“I’m fine—”
The knock on the door cut her off. “May I come in?”
The mere sound of Havers’s voice was enough to make her want to bolt. “Oh, dearest Virgin Scribe,” she said as she gathered her strength.
“Yeah,” Phury said darkly. “Enter—”
What happened next was so fast and furious, the only way of describing it was with a colloquialism she had learned from Qhuinn.
All hell broke loose.
Havers opened the door, stepped inside—and Qhuinn attacked the doctor, springing forward from that corner, leading with a dagger.
Layla shouted in alarm—but he didn’t kill the male.
He did, however, close that door with the physician’s body—or mayhap it was the male’s face. And it was hard to know whether the clap that resounded was the portal meeting the jambs, or the impact of the healer getting thrown against the panels. Probably a combination of both.
The terrifyingly sharp blade was pressed against a pale throat. “Guess what you’re going to do first, asshole?” Qhuinn growled. “You’re going to apologize for treating her like a goddamn incubator.”
Qhuinn yanked the male around. Havers’s tortoiseshell glasses were shattered, one lens spiderwebbed with cracks, the earpiece on the other side sticking out at a wonky angle.
Layla shot a look at Phury. The Primale didn’t seem particularly bothered: He just crossed his arms over his huge chest and leaned back against the wall beside her, evidently completely at ease with this playing out as it did. Over in the chair across the way, Doc Jane was the same, her forest green stare calm as she regarded the drama.
“Look her in the eye,” Qhuinn spat, “and apologize.”
When the fighter jangled the healer as if Havers were naught but a rag doll, some jumble of words came out of the doctor.
Shoot. Layla supposed she should be a lady and not enjoy this, but there was satisfaction to be had at the vengeance.
Sadness, too, however, because it should never have come to this.
“Do you accept his apology,” Qhuinn demanded in an evil tone. “Or would you like him to grovel? I’m perfectly fucking happy to turn him into a rug at your feet.”
“That was sufficient. Thank you.”
“Now you’re going to tell her”—Qhuinn pulled that shake move again, Havers’s arms flopping in their sockets, his loose white coat waving like a flag—“and only her, what the fuck is going on with her body.”
“I need…the chart—”
Qhuinn bared his fangs and put them right against Havers’s ear—as if he were considering biting the thing off. “Bullshit. And if you are telling the truth? That lapse of memory is going to cause you to lose your life. Right now.”
Havers was already pale, but that made him go completely white.
“Start talking, Doctor. And if the Primale, who you’re so fucking impressed by, would be kind enough to tell me if you look away from her, that would be great.”
“My pleasure,” Phury said.
“I’m not hearing anything, Doc. And I’m really not a patient guy.”
“You are…” From behind those broken glasses, the male’s eyes met her own. “Your young is…”
She almost wished Qhuinn would stop forcing the contact. This was hard enough to hear without having to face the doctor who’d treated her so badly.
Then again, Havers was the one who had to look, not her.
Qhuinn’s eyes were what she stared into as Havers said, “You’re losing the pregnancy.”
Things got wavy at that point, which she took to mean she had teared up. She couldn’t feel anything, though. It was as if her soul had been flushed out of her body, everything that had animated her and connected her to the world gone as if it had never been.
Qhuinn showed no reaction at all. He didn’t blink. Didn’t alter his stance or his dagger hand.