Nik glanced at the clock on the dash of his SUV for the hundredth time since they’d driven out of Penton. It was only seven-thirty p.m., yet it felt like eons had passed since he’d gotten the mental call from Shay. He’d run to Aidan’s room, who’d gotten through to Mirren, who told Glory. Mark got mixed up in it at some point.

As soon as they made it through this—they had to make it through this because he wouldn’t allow himself to think otherwise—he would make sure Shay was blood-bonded to Aidan or Mirren directly, just as any other Penton resident was. He’d bonded with Aidan his first day in Penton, but Shay had been left vulnerable because of her vaccinated blood.

He sat in the backseat of the SUV with her cradled in his arms. She seemed calmer and less agitated when he held her, although she hadn’t regained consciousness. He knew what that bastard had done to her. Hit her. Kicked her.

Mark zipped into the emergency room entrance of the regional medical center about thirty miles due south of Penton. “Get her inside and tell them I’m on my way from the parking deck with her financial information.” Mark turned to look at him. “And see if you can calm down. Your eyes are glowing.”

Shit. Before he became a vampire, Nik had envied their strength and grace and enhanced senses. Now, he realized how vulnerable they were—dependent on humans for survival, constantly looking for safe spaces for daysleep, and cursed with telltale glowing eyes.

He eased Shay out of the SUV and nudged the door shut with his hip. As Mark sped away, Nik focused on something neutral to quell his anger and fear. The first thing that came to mind was his mom and sister, Ana, and how he needed to make his peace with them once this was over.

A nurse met him near the entrance. “What’s the problem? She’s pregnant?”

Nik nodded. “My fiancée. She was attacked near our home in Chambers County, outside LaFayette. She’s bleeding and hasn’t regained consciousness. I was afraid to wait for an ambulance.”

The nurse called for a gurney and an ob-gyn, then motioned Nik to follow her. “Give me the basics first. Name, age, how far along she is.”

Even though Gadget had come up with a fake identification, Nik and Mark had agreed to use Shay’s real name just in case her medical records were needed from New Orleans. If they had to tie her in with the missing person case, so be it. They’d figure it out as they went along.

“Her name is Shay Underwood. Age thirty-one. She’s only at twenty-four weeks.” God, could a baby that small survive?

“Does she have other children? Any other pregnancies?”

“No.”

“What’s your name—so we can give you updates?”

“Nik Dimitrou.” He spelled the last name for her. He still had his identification, with the address of his Houston apartment on it. “We just moved here because we thought it would be a safe place to live. Can the baby survive?”

“We have an uphill battle, but don’t give up.” The nurse and an orderly wheeled Shay into an exam room filled with bright lights and a shitload of machines. “You wait outside now. I can already tell you she’ll be admitted, so go to the front desk and do the paperwork. It’ll be a while before the doctor can tell you anything. And if she has any other family, you need to call them. If you haven’t already, you need to call the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office, or we can contact them for you.”

The nurse was middle-aged, no-nonsense, efficient. Also kind. She put a hand on Nik’s arm. “We’re gonna do everything we can for her and your baby, okay?”

Nik nodded, and stood helplessly in the hallway until Mark joined him. “You stay here”—Mark pointed to the ER waiting room—“and I’ll handle the formalities.”

Nik went to the waiting room, which was about a third full, and took a vacant chair. The layer of cloth between his ass and the chair seat helped dull the image of the people who’d sat here before him. It was the first unbidden images he’d gotten since first being turned. He got up and leaned against the wall in a Mirren-like pose, which helped.

Would they automatically contact the sheriff? That could be a problem. They might have to tell people Mark had found her, just in case it required daytime questions. They were both planning to stay at the safe house until Shay was ready to be discharged.

What if she doesn’t make it?

“Have you heard anything?”

Mark joined Nik in the waiting room at the perfect time, before Nik could go too far down the road of “what ifs.”

“Not yet. Any trouble with the check-in?”

Mark shook his head. “They didn’t like it that I didn’t have Shay’s social security number, but at least we’d already gotten our story ready about an attack and moving to Chambers County.”

“Better say you found her instead of me in case the Sheriff’s Office gets involved.”

Mark nodded. “I have a Gold Card with my name on it tied to Aidan’s accounts, so once they realized this was going to be all cash and that money wasn’t an issue, everyone got a lot friendlier.”

“Mr….Nick Dimatrow?” A woman in a white coat stood in the waiting room doorway. Nik assumed that was him.

“Dimitrou,” he said. “I’m Nik. This is Shay’s brother, Mark.”

“I’m Dr. Camille Costanza. Can you come with me?”

Nik and Mark exchanged glances. The woman’s face was a sphinx. He couldn’t tell a thing. She led them into a small room with four or five chairs in it, and closed the door behind her.

On impulse, Nik stuck out his hand. “Thank you for taking care of Shay.”

Dr. Costanza smiled and placed her hand in his. The handshake was brief, but Nik had pulled a lot of images. Shay was alive. The doctor was compassionate. She had saved babies this young before.

He relaxed his shoulders. “How is Shay? How’s the baby?”

“We’re prepping Shay for delivery, so she’s being taken to our childbirth unit. She was attacked, the nurse said?”

“I think so.” Mark introduced himself and said he’d found her outside their home. “I found her on the ground near her car. She’d been to the store, and Nik was coming over later for dinner.”

The doctor nodded. She looked to be in her forties, with dark hair and eyes. “She has bruises on her left shoulder and hip—probably where she fell. A deep bruise on her lower back that looks as if someone kicked her.

Nik’s fury boiled up so fast he had to get up and walk around the room to quell it. “What kind of sick freak does something like that?”

Frank Greisser’s sick freak. Mark had killed the human, but his boss was currently buried alive and Nik would have his revenge.

“I don’t know, but some of the things we see…” The doctor sighed. “Anyway, Ms. Underwood is in stable condition but the baby is in distress. We have to deliver now. Our neonatal unit is good, and we’ll do our best to make sure the baby survives.”

Nik nodded. “Can we see Shay?”

“I’m sorry, but no.” Dr. Costanza stood and motioned them toward the door. “If you’ve gotten all the admissions work done, go to the third-floor surgical suite waiting room. I’ll update you as soon as I know anything.”

At least Nik and Mark had the waiting room to themselves. The place had been made to look homey, with laminate floors and brightly painted baby-looking stuff on the walls. The whole thing made Nik’s skin itch.

He looked at Mark, who’d slumped down in his chair with his eyes closed. “I should’ve said it sooner, but thanks. If you and Glory hadn’t gotten there…”

Mark gave a brief nod. “I just wish we’d gotten there sooner. It was a fluke that I was in the kitchen when Glory came looking for help. Good thing the vampires have that mental communication thing going. You heard from Shay to start it off—does that mean you’ve become bondmates?”

Nik nodded. “Although the more I think about what happened, the less I think we can make a go of it. Even without the obvious danger. I mean, there are no other kids. No schools. The only doctor can’t work during daylight hours. And the baby, if she lives, won’t exactly have a father who can go to her PTA meetings and dance recitals.”

“Most of those are at night, I think.” Mark paused. “Aren’t they?”

Nik smiled, but inside he felt like crying. “I have no idea.”

Mark was quiet a long time, and Nik thought he must have dozed off, but he was staring at a painted tiger cavorting across the opposite wall.

“You need to talk to Aidan,” he finally said.

Nik frowned. “Krys told Shay the same thing. What’s going on?”

“He’s been putting some things in motion that—”

“Excuse me, but I have an update for you.” Dr. Costanza stood in the doorway, smiling.

Smiling was good. Nik and Mark jostled each other trying to stand at the same time. “How are they?”

“Shay made it through the surgery just fine. She’s weak, but she’s awake and asking for her fiancé.”

Nik grinned, then promptly settled his mouth back into a big smile. He might have flashed some fang. Luckily, the doctor didn’t seem to notice. “And the baby?”

“Your daughter is small, just under a pound and a half, which puts her a little above the normal weight for twenty-four weeks. She’s going to have to fight, but we have a better than sixty-five percent survival rate now for babies at her stage of development.”

A pound and a half. Shit, he’d eaten hamburgers bigger than that. “Can I see her too?” He needed to think of her as a living, breathing baby, and not a couple of Big Macs.

“Let’s go and see the baby first, then you can reassure her anxious mother that she’s tiny, but perfect.”

Mark agreed to wait, and Dr. Costanza left Nik at the door to the NICU, where a nurse made him wash his hands, then don a hairnet, gloves, and a blue hospital gown over his clothes. “We have to be careful about infections when the babies are this small.” She smiled. “Don’t look so scared. She’s a beautiful little girl.”

When Nik first peered inside the closed crib, he only saw the equipment. An IV in a hand the size of his fingernail into which blood dripped from a bag, adhesive heart-monitor patches, monitors that showed the baby’s blood pressure, temperature, and oxygen rate. A ventilator had been taped over her tiny mouth.

Then he looked beyond the stuff keeping his daughter alive—because she was his daughter, and always would be regardless of where he and Shay ended up or whose sperm had helped create her—and saw a perfect little nose peeking from beneath a pink and white toboggan-style hat. Tiny fingers and toes.

“She’s a little big for twenty-four weeks, and I think she has a good chance of making it,” the nurse said, rubbing Nik’s shoulder and handing him a tissue. Damned if he wasn’t crying again. “You can’t touch her yet, but tell her mom that we’ll bring her in here tomorrow, as soon as she can sit up in a wheelchair, and she can start getting to know her daughter. Do you have a name picked out?”

A name? God, Shay had never even mentioned names. There had always seemed to be plenty of time for decisions like that.

“Not yet. We’ll let you know. If she does well, how long could she be here?”

The nurse smiled. “Let’s take it a day at a time, okay?”

What choice did they have? A day at a time. It’s how they’d been living since they’d escaped New Orleans.

Nik wiped his eyes when he left the NICU, pulled off the cap and gown, and followed another nurse to Shay’s room. It was decked out like a bedroom, with a regular bed, drapes, laminate floors, paintings on the wall, an armchair.

Shay’s nose was bruised and she was as pale as the sheets, but she looked beautiful. Her eyes were closed, so he sat in the armchair and watched her.

“Nik?”

“I’m here.” He pulled his chair to her bedside and took her hand.

“Nik, the baby. Did she make it? The nurse said she made it, but they won’t let me see her.”

Damn it, Shay was crying and she had to stop it or he’d start crying again too.

“Hey.” He reached out and made sure she saw him. “Look in my eyes. The baby is okay. I just saw her and she’s beautiful.”

“It’s too soon.”

He had to be honest with her. As upbeat as the NICU nurse had been, he wasn’t going to paint an overly rosy picture. Shay deserved better.

“She’s tiny, Shay. About a pound and a half. But she’s got a better than sixty percent chance of making it, and I’m betting she has her mom’s fighting spirit.”

Shay smiled. “You really saw her?”

Nik grinned. “I did. Her hands are about the size of a quarter, but they’re perfect. I couldn’t see if she had hair because they have one of those little caps on her. They say if you can sit in a wheelchair tomorrow, you can go in and spend some time with her. They won’t even guess at this point how long she’ll need to be here.”

Shay closed her eyes and sighed. “Thank God. I know it’s not a sure thing, but at least she has a chance. Her lungs won’t be developed yet. Do they have her on a ventilator?”

Nik kept forgetting that Shay was a real doctor and not just a lab rat. “Yes, and heart monitors and I think they’re giving her blood transfusions.”

“That’s normal.” Shay sighed again. “I don’t know anything about babies, but Krys filled me in a little. What happened to Frank and…that man?”

Nik didn’t want anyone overhearing much about shooting or collapsing tunnels. “For now, let’s just say the man is no longer a concern, and Glory fed Frank and Marianne some dirt and concrete for dinner.”

“Glory saved me?”

Nik nodded. “We had quite a chain going. I got your mental message as soon as I woke”—he tapped her forehead—“so I sent one to Aidan, who sent one to Mirren, who caught Glory before she left the kitchen. It was like a mental chain letter. Glory grabbed Mark while he was rooting through the fridge and dragged him down the ladder. They did all the work, and the rest of us just showed up and stood with our mouths hanging open.”

Okay, he was embellishing the story, but Shay was laughing. Until she wasn’t. “What about Archer?”

“Krys says he’ll be okay after a few days. He has a twin brother coming down from Tennessee to donate blood.”

Shay raised her eyebrows. “Oh my God. There are two of them? He also had a brother that was killed, right?”

Nik nodded. “His older brother, Adam. But he also has a twin.”

They were silent a few minutes and Nik waited, hoping Shay would get some rest. But her eyes fluttered open again. “We have to make some decisions.”

They certainly did. “I know. Mark wants us to talk to Aidan first, and I have no idea what that’s about. Aidan’s up to something, so let’s wait.” He paused, trying to gauge her reaction and failing. “The baby’s probably going to be in the NICU a while, and there’s a place nearby for me to stay with your brother Mark, by the way, who’s paying the bills. You can stay there too, since you’ll probably be discharged before the baby. We can talk to Aidan first. Then we’ll decide, unless you’ve already decided.”

His heartbeat turned jerky at the idea she might tell him there was no place for him in her life now, that their love had to take a backseat to what she and the baby needed. And she wouldn’t be wrong; that was what hurt. He’d find a way to respect it, though. He wouldn’t make it harder on her.

But she nodded and after a pause said, “We’ll wait and talk to Aidan.”

A wave of relief passed through his system. “There is one decision to make today if you’re ready.”

She cocked her head at him. “What?”

“ ‘Baby Girl Underwood’ needs a name.”