“This is an emergency—”

From a distant corner in his mind, Max heard Vivienne make the call. He kept rocking Amber Rose against his chest. Her little body was getting colder, her breathing was so soft he could barely hear it, and she wasn’t moving any longer.

“Please, Goddess, don’t take her away from me,” he whispered, repeating the words several times.

“They sent an ambulance,” Vivienne said.

Max’s dragon let out a tremendous roar, the beast’s fear amplifying Max’s own as he dipped lower to check his daughter’s breathing and couldn’t hear any.

Amber Rose’s already pale skin became blue around her little mouth.

“There’s no time—” He ran with the baby to the back terrace he had used not so long ago for his emergency landing. “Hold her,” he said to Vivienne, handing Amber Rose to her as he jumped onto the balustrade and started shifting without bothering to discard his clothes first.

His dragon took immediate control and opened his wings, his long neck craning toward Vivienne. He raised one talon and turned it palm up.

Vivienne hesitated, but his low growl spurred her into action, and she placed the baby in the safety of his talon. He closed his long fingers around his daughter, creating a harness. Without hesitation, he flapped his wings and soared high in the sky, leaving the high-rise and Vivienne behind. He flew as fast as he could, not caring if anyone saw him.

A moment later, he descended toward Seattle Shifter Hospital at full speed. Two ambulances and several cars moved out of his way as he landed in front of the entrance. He deposited Amber Rose on the ground, shifting back in record time and picking her up again.

Naked and on the brink of insanity, Max burst into the hospital. “Neonatal ER!” he said at the top of his lungs.

“This way,” a nurse answered, gesturing for him to follow her. After taking a brief glance at Amber Rose, she sprinted into a run, leading him deeper into the bowels of the hospital. All along, she talked into her cell phone she kept in front of her like a walkie talkie, asking Max questions about the baby and passing his answers to someone on the other end.

At the end of a long hallway, two nurses and a doctor exited the Neonatal Ward, running straight toward them as they wheeled a stretcher. The doctor reached for Amber Rose. Max snarled.

“I need to take a look at her,” the doctor said. She was a were-panther in her mid-forties with stern features and short hair. “If she isn’t breathing, we need to act immediately.” Without waiting for Max to comply with her request, she took hold of Amber Rose and placed her on the stretcher.

Max’s enraged growl echoed in the hallway, but the doctor didn’t flinch.

Instead, she gave the nurses a few sharp orders and pushed the stretcher behind the Neonatal Ward’s door. Max followed her, but the nurse who had accompanied him placed a hand against his chest.

“I know you are terrified for your daughter, but Doctor Kalisten is the best shifter pediatrician in Seattle, and she will do everything in her power to make your little one feel better,” the nurse said, talking in a soft tone.

Max stepped to the side with the intention of moving past her.

The nurse was surprisingly fast and blocked his passage. “You can’t enter the Neonatal Ward. There are sick babies there, and you might bring with you all sorts of germs and viruses. Let the good doctor do her job.”

This time, the nurse’s words penetrated his thick skull. Max slumped to the floor then, his energy drained and his heart galloping fast against his chest.

“Come,” the nurse said, patting his shoulder. “Let’s find something to cover you.”

It was half an hour later when Vivienne and Wilson entered one of the waiting rooms and found Max sitting in a corner, hugging the edges of the thin blanket the nurse had given him.

He looked up as Vivienne handed him a Nordstrom bag. “They took Amber Rose and haven’t told me what’s happening to her,” he said. He had stormed into the hallway, demanding someone inform him about his daughter, but the nurses simply told him to calm down and wait where he wouldn’t be underfoot. “I asked them—”

“I’ll ask again.” Wilson pivoted on his heels and darted toward the reception desk facing the waiting room.

Vivienne sat on the chair next to Max’s and took his hand.

“She was fine, and then she wasn’t.” Max shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Without saying a word, Vivienne hugged him.

“I don’t understand,” he repeated, leaning into her embrace, needing the human contact as his eyes blurred.

Max didn’t cry. He had never cried. Not even when he was small and weak, and the bullies at school had relentlessly picked on him. The counselors his parents hired for him always stressed the importance of having a good cry to let his anger out, but he never followed their suggestions.

Lacking the strength to stop them, he let the tears fall. Vivienne’s embrace became tighter around him, and even though he dwarfed her, she managed to surround him with her warmth.

“Everything will be all right,” she said, her voice a solid anchor he held on to. “She’s strong like her daddy.” Her hands caressed his back with soothing strokes. “You need to put something on.”

Max remembered the bag she had pushed into his hands. Reluctantly, he left the safety of her arms and walked to the restroom where he put on the change of clothes she had selected for him. Wilson came back at the same time Max strolled into the waiting room.

Max looked at his friend. “Any news?”

Wilson shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell me anything but promised me that the doctor attending Amber Rose will be out shortly to talk to you.” He sat and patted the chair next to him, motioning for Max to sit as well.

“I’ve had enough of sitting.” Max paced the small room back and forth for a long time. His mind ran in circles as he thought of his little baby with her pale face and blue lips, lying still in his arms.