Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
The baby’s mind hiccuped, settled.
Shh, Auden whispered to her child, I have you. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.
Filaments of blue spidersilk swirled between them, her baby’s mind reaching for a filament even as pain wracked Auden’s physical body. Pretty, so pretty, she said, her focus absolute. There’s nothing to fear. I have you. Mama has you.
A wrenching in her womb that was pure agony.
Auden couldn’t keep her baby inside anymore, her body ejecting her precious child when all Auden wanted to do was hold her inside, where she could protect her.
It was no use, the violent contractions of her body not in her control. “Promise you’ll keep her safe if I can’t?” Her words came out in a sob, her nails cutting into Remi’s skin as well as her own.
She tried to stop the spasm, ease her grip, couldn’t.
“I promise,” he said without hesitation. “Don’t you worry about that, Auden. Your cub is one of mine now.”
Their mingled blood seemed to glow to her panicked brain.
She gave birth on a piercing scream, the agony of it nothing compared to hearing her child’s mind stutter. She enfolded her in love, in calm, her own screams nothing but stifled echoes in the background.
Stay, my baby. Mama has you. Stay.
The spidersilk escaped her dreams to float outside her mind, the fine blue filaments hitting the black shields that protected her from exposure. Right as she felt her child leave her body on another gush of blood.
Auden’s mind faded, her hand going limp in Remi’s.
Chapter 28
Emergency teleport request received from RainFire. Nerida handled first ’port, but they need two teleporters for the second transport.
—Message to Vasic Zen, second-in-command of the Arrow Squad (11 November 2083)
REMI YELLED, “GO!” into the open line as soon as Finn had the child in his arms, and suddenly, there were two Arrow teleporters in the room.
Remi had already grabbed Auden’s bloody body, the sheet Finn had placed over her thighs crumpled between her limbs and his arm.
A pulse of disorientation later, and they all stood inside Finn’s infirmary. The healer raced to place the child in an incubator designed to protect its fragile life, while his nurses, Hugo and Saskia, as well as the Psy doctor—Dr. Edgard Bashir—whom Nerida had brought in after she dropped Finn off, worked to save Auden’s life.
She’d lost blood, far too much of it.
Remi made himself release her hand, give the medical staff room to move. The teleporters had already left, but a tired Vasic reappeared soon afterward with an equally tired-looking Aden, the three of them meeting in the hallway outside the large infirmary suite that was the biggest of the three cubes.
“Is she safe on the PsyNet?” he asked one of the deadliest men in the PsyNet.
Aden nodded, the slick and straight black of his hair gleaming in the artificial lighting; he wore it short, no fuss. “Her shields are airtight. No one knows she’s given birth. Zaira handled the initial response and I took over when I finished up in Europe. I added a secondary shield to protect her privacy from me, too.”
Remi knew a lot of fucked up shit was going on in the PsyNet, could see that both men were worn to the bone. And still they—all of the squad—had responded to his call for help. “Thank you.”
“No thanks between us, Remi, you know that.” His friend’s dark eyes held Remi’s gaze, the olive tone of his skin too pale—as if he hadn’t had much chance to get out into the sunlight. “I didn’t even know Auden Scott was pregnant.”
“Not security related.” Remi kept his tone even, because these men didn’t deserve his anger. “None of anyone’s damn business.”
“Agreed,” Aden said without hesitation, and that was when Remi remembered that his friend had trained as a medic. Not only that, but Aden wasn’t just an Arrow—he was a good man, a good mate to Zaira, a good friend.
“Status?” Aden asked.
“Critical. Both of them.” Remi had to fight every instinct in his body not to push back into the room. “Does Dr. Bashir have any idea why she began to hemorrhage?” He knew they had to be in telepathic communication with the man.
“No, not yet. But he’s a neurosurgeon who’s also trained in trauma-related injuries because of the squad, not an obstetric specialist—we’d have to go outside the squad to get you one of those, and we haven’t yet zeroed in on a trustworthy candidate,” Aden said. “Do you want to take the risk?”
Remi thought rapidly, and came up against an unexpected solution: Tamsyn Ryder.
DarkRiver’s healer had assisted with Psy births. He had the feeling she had more training than any other changeling healer when it came to the Psy—and he knew she had infinitely more experience with women and childbirth than Dr. Bashir.
“I’ll make a call,” he said to the Arrows, then walked away to do so.