The Beast

Shaking himself into focus, however, he snapped back into action to do the one thing that might possibly help. With steady hands, he got a small tube down the infant’s throat, slid a mask over the face and hooked the breathing apparatus up to a piece of medical equipment that was not human, but strictly for vampires. When he initiated the flow, a fortified, oxygenated saline solution went into the young’s lungs, flushing out the sacs, blowing them open . . . and then sucking out the liquid, which was sent into a filtering system that would clean it, reoxygenate it, and send it back in.

Using his thumb, he pressed into the achingly tiny chest, massaging the heart with a rhythm.

Bad color. Really wrong color. Goddamn gray of a headstone.

And the young was lax, nothing moving, the arms and legs that were scrawny and wrinkled as a hatchling’s flopping loose from shoulders and hips.

The eyes were open, the all-white orbs showing no pupils or irises because the little girl was so fucking premature.

“Come on, wake up . . . come on . . .”

Nothing. There was nothing.

Without thinking, he shouted over his shoulder, “Payne! Get me fucking Payne—RIGHT NOW!”

He didn’t know who responded to the command. He didn’t fucking care. All that mattered was that a millisecond later, his sister was right next to him.

“Wake her up, Payne,” he barked. “Wake this kid up—I am not having this on my conscience for the rest of my goddamn life. You wake up this fucking kid right fucking now!”

Okay, yeah, his delivery sucked. But he didn’t care—and neither did his sister, evidently.

And she knew just what to do.

Extending her open hand directly over the infant, she closed her eyes. “Someone hold me up. I need—”

Qhuinn and Blay were on it, each of the males taking one of her elbows. And, shit, V wanted to say something to the pair, offer some kind of . . . anything . . . but there was nothing that could be helped with mere words here.

“Payne, you gotta do this.”

As the aching syllables hit the airwaves, it was a shock to realize that he had spoken them, that it was his voice that was cracking, that he, the one male on the planet who never begged, ever, for anything, was the person uttering the shaky—

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—”