The Beast

“Baby B,” Jane announced as she handed something over to Vishous.

V steamed by with the young, and Qhuinn gasped.

The daughter—his daughter—was even smaller. And she wasn’t purple.

She was gray. Gray as stone.

All at once, the memory he had taken with him when he had serviced Layla during her needing came back to him. It was from when he had nearly died himself, and had gone up unto the Fade, and had faced off at a white door in the midst of a foggy white landscape.

He had seen an image on that door.

The image of a young female with blond hair and eyes that were shaped like his—eyes that had changed color before him from the precise shade of Layla’s to the mismatched blue and green of his own.

With an animal’s cry of pain, he bellowed into the OR, screaming with an agony he had never felt before—

He had guessed wrong. He had . . . been wrong. He had misinterpreted what he had seen.

The vision on the door had been not the prediction of a daughter to come.

But a daughter he had lost in birth.

A daughter . . . who had died.

SIXTY-ONE

As Mary sped through the underground tunnel to the training center, the slapping sounds of her rushing feet echoed out in front of her, an auditory shadow seemingly in as much of a hurry as she was to get where she was going. When she came to the door that opened into the office’s supply closet, she put in the code and burst through into the shallow space beyond, passing by the shelves of pens and pads, the back-up flash drives and stacks of printer paper.

Out in the office, she pulled up short. Tohr was sitting behind the desk, staring at a computer screen that had all kinds of rainbow-colored bubbles obscuring the DailyMail.co.uk home page.

He jumped as he noticed her and then scrubbed his face. “Hey.”

“How are they?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been in there for what feels like forever.”

“Where’s Autumn?”

“She’s out at Xhex’s hunting cabin. It’s my night off and she was getting it ready for us to . . . you know.” He checked his watch. “I’ve been debating on whether or not to call her. I was hoping for news first, so she wouldn’t worry. Well, good news, that is.”

“You should tell her what’s going on.”

“I know.” His eyes returned to the monitor. “I, ah . . . I’m not handling this very well.”

Mary went around the desk and put her hand on the male’s huge shoulder. The tension in that big body was so great, she felt as though she’d laid her palm on a knot. Made out of granite.

“Tohr, I don’t think you should be alone. And if I were her, I’d be really upset if you didn’t let me support you.”

“I just . . .” Now he looked at the office phone. “I’m back in the old days, you know.”

“I know. And she’ll understand that. Autumn is one of the most understanding people I’ve ever met.”

The Brother glanced up at her, his deep blue eyes boring into her skull. “Mary, am I ever going to be all right?”

In that moment, she was transported back to sitting with Bitty in Rhage’s GTO—and she thought, Yes, that is what everyone wants to know, isn’t it. Am I okay? Am I loved? Am I safe?

Will I get through this?

Whatever the “this” was, be it death or loss, confusion or terror, depression or anger.

“You’re all right already, Tohr. And I really think you need to call your shellan. You don’t need to protect her from your pain. She knows exactly the burdens you carry—and she picked you with all of them. There is nothing here that will shock her or make her think you’re weak. I will guarantee, however, that if you try to keep this from her, it’s going to make her feel like you don’t trust her or you don’t think she is strong enough to handle things.”

“What if the young don’t make it? What if—”

At that moment, a scream . . . a horrible, masculine scream . . . racked what seemed like the entire training center, the sound so loud it rattled the glass door, a sonic boom of mourning.

As Tohr scrambled out of the chair, Mary bolted for the exit, ripping it open.

It was not a surprise to see the entire Brotherhood gathered once again in the vast corridor. It was also not a shock that every single one of the males, and their mates, was staring at the closed door of the main OR. It was further apt that all of the Chosen and the directrix, Amalya, stood among them looking equally panicked.

No one said anything. It wasn’t as if that scream of Qhuinn’s didn’t explain enough.

Mary went to Rhage, slipping her arm around his waist, and as he looked at her, he pulled her in close.

When there was nothing further for a moment, people began to mill. Soft talk broke the silence. Tohr took out his phone with hands that shook as he sat down on the concrete floor like his legs had fallen out from underneath him.

“Oh, God,” Rhage said. “This is . . .”

Unbearable, Mary thought.

To lose a child, no matter how premature, no matter the circumstances, was an agony like no other.

* * *

For the first time in his adult life, Vishous froze in the midst of a medical emergency. It was only a split second, and he came back online an instant later . . . but there was something about the little lifeless body in his palms that stopped, literally, everything about him.

He would never forget the sight of it.

Wouldn’t forget, either, the scream that Qhuinn let out.