Warm.
He felt a warmth.
And then he saw the light, the glow that, unlike the destructive force that he housed in his palm, was a gentle healing power, a rejuvenating force, a blessed, miracle-giving benediction.
“Qhuinn?” his sister said roughly. “Qhuinn, give me your hand.”
Vishous got the fuck out of the way, although he had to still hold the breathing mask in place because the infant was too premature for even the smallest one Havers had.
Qhuinn extended an arm, and, shit, the male was shaking so badly it was as if he were standing on an agitator. Payne took what he put out, though, and laid it under her glowing palm so that the energy had to pass through his flesh to get to the infant’s.
The brother gasped and jerked in response, his teeth beginning to chatter, his flushed face instantly paling.
“I need another set of hands over here,” Vishous barked. “We need to keep Dad off the floor!”
Next thing he knew, Manny was by Qhuinn, the human jacking a hold on the guy around the waist.
As energy began to leave him and channel into the young, Qhuinn started to breathe hard, his chest pumping, his mouth falling open, his lungs clearly burning—
The infant changed color in the blink of an eye, all that was matte and gray and the terrible hue of death going red and pink.
And then the tiny hands, the impossibly tiny, but nonetheless perfectly formed, hands twitched. And so with the legs, the feet kicking once, twice. And so with the belly, the hollow pit expanding and contracting along with the beat of the machine.
Payne didn’t stop. And Qhuinn lost his footing, only Blay’s strong arms and Manny’s extra support keeping his body from the floor.
Longer, Vishous thought. Keep going longer. Bleed the well dry if you have to …
And that was exactly what his wonderful sister did. She kept pumping energy from herself into and through Qhuinn, where it was magnified and focused, and thereafter funneled into the young.
She kept going until she passed out cold.
Qhuinn wasn’t far behind her.
But Vishous couldn’t worry about them. He just kept his eyes on the young, looking for signs that the life force wouldn’t hold … that the gray would return and signal death’s renewed grip on the little thing … that the miracle would be but a short, cruel respite …
Don’t you do this, Mother, he thought. Don’t you do this to these good people.
Don’t take this life from them.
SIXTY-TWO
Rhage was probably crushing Mary with the hold he had on her, but she didn’t seem to notice. Good thing, as he doubted he could have loosened his arms.
All around him, he was both dimly and achingly aware of his brothers, their mates and the Chosen, the household and community standing together in the midst of the tragedy on the far side of a door that was too flimsy to contain all the ensuing grief.
Rhage just couldn’t help thinking about Bitty. God, if he got the chance … if he and Mary got the chance, he would never rest from protecting that little girl. Making sure she got the life she deserved, the education she needed to be independent, the grounding to know that she was never without a home, no matter how far away she traveled.
“It’s so awful,” Mary whispered. “So terrible. There’s just been too much death around here lately—”
The door opened wide and Blay exploded out of that OR like he’d been shot from a cannon.
“She’s alive!” he yelled. “They’re both alive! They’re alive! And Layla is stable!”
There was a moment of total silence.
As if everybody who was in the corridor kind of had to reprocess everything, switch to a different track, change to another gear.
“And Qhuinn’s out cold on the floor!”
Later, Rhage would think it was bad timing that the cheering started up right after that little update—but who the fuck cared?
Blay was engulfed in bodies, everyone shouting and crying, hugging and slapping palms, cursing and laughing and sputtering and coughing as details were demanded and given once, twice, many times. There was just so much noise, so much life, and Rhage was right in there with the best of them, feeling like the lottery had been won, the gift given, the semi-trailer truck sailing by instead of striking one of their own.
Doc Jane was the next one out, and she peeled her mask off her face as everyone cheered for her. But unlike the new dad, she was careful to shut the door behind herself, holding it in place.
“Shhhh,” she said with a laugh. “We have a lot of patients in there. I need two gurneys to come through here, can you guys make some room? Oh, thanks, Ehlena.”
The nurse had obviously exited through the other door, and was doing a push-and-pull with the rollers. People milled to get out of the way, but Blay was still getting hugs, which led to a little bit of a delay.
“How can I help?” Rhage asked Doc Jane.
“Well, right now we’re good. Everyone’s okay—we just need to move some patients around.”
Rhage took the doctor’s arm before she turned away. “Are we really out of the woods with the young?”
Those forest green eyes held his. “As much as we can be right now. It’s going to be a long couple of nights, but that water ventilation system of Havers’s saved both their lives. We owe him.”
Rhage nodded and let the female go. And then he was going over to where Mary and Tohr were hugging and waited his turn. He just wanted to feel his shellan against him once more.
As Mary pivoted toward him, he held out his arms. It was so damned good to have her jump into them, and he lifted her off the floor.
“You ready to give it a shot?” he said into her ears. “You ready to be a parent with me?”
“Oh, Rhage.” His shellan’s voice caught. “Oh, I hope so.”
“Me, too.” Putting her back down on the ground, he frowned. “What?”
“Ah…” Mary looked around. “Where do you think we can get a little privacy for a sec?”
“Come with me.”
Taking her by the hand, he led her away from the crowd, going past the locker room and the weight room to the entrance to the gym.
“Ladies first,” he said as he held one of the steel doors open.
The security lights softly illuminated the vast space, and the exit signs over the doors glowed red like little hearths.
“I’ve forgotten how big it is in here,” Mary said as she broke away, put her arms out, and circled around, going Sound of Music.
Rhage hung back and just watched her move, her body lithe and beautiful to him, stirring him in places that were going to get greedy fast if he didn’t look away.
“I can turn on some lights,” he murmured, hoping for something to do.
“I like it dim like this. It’s romantic.”
“I agree.”
As his cock kicked behind the leathers he’d thrown on for dinner, he shook his head. Clearly, they had something important to talk about, yet here he was with sex on the brain. Disgraceful.
But, man, she was hot.
And he was juiced from the good news.
And they were alone.
And then Mary did a pirouette and some kind of sashay thing that made his eyes go to her ass and stay there.
Cursing under his breath, he cracked his back and stretched first one arm and then the other.
“Is there something wrong?” God, he hoped not. On a lot of levels. “Mary?”
“Oh, Rhage. Loss is hard, you know?”
The sadness in her voice was like a great eraser, wiping all the erotic right off his mind.
“Is Bitty okay?”
“That’s what she wanted to know.” Mary smiled in a way that seemed mournful. “That’s what Tohr wanted to know, too. Isn’t that what everyone does … and yes, she’s all right. She’s just going through a lot.”
“She needs a family.”