She was staring at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused, her face pale. Too pale. The color had drained from her skin completely, leaving her looking gray and waxy under the harsh hospital lights.
Alarm flooded my body, replacing the relief so quickly it made my head spin.
“Dr. Hartley!” I shouted, my voice coming out as a snarl. “Something’s wrong with Lina!”
The medical team split instantly, half of them staying with the baby while the other half rushed to Lina’s side. Dr. Hartley was there in seconds, her expression shifting from relief to concern as she assessed my mate.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demanded, positioning myself at Lina’s head, gripping her hand. It was cold. Too cold. “Why did you leave her? Why wasn’t anyone watching her?”
One of the nurses flinched at my tone but answered anyway. “She’s losing too much blood, Doctor. The afterbirth hasn’t happened yet. There might be complications.”
“Then fix it!” I snarled. “Do something!”
Dr. Hartley was already working, her hands moving quickly as she examined Lina. “We need to get this under control. Someone send the baby to the NICU and I want a full, exhaustive workup on both of them. Blood panels, everything.” She glanced up at me briefly. “Congratulations, Alpha, Luna. It’s a girl.”
A girl. We had a daughter. Under any other circumstances, I would have been overwhelmed with joy. I would have been crying happy tears and kissing Lina and demanding to hold our baby.
Instead, I watched my mate grow paler by the second and felt my world crumbling around me.
“Lina, baby, stay with me,” I said, squeezing her hand. “You did it. We have a daughter. You need to wake up and meet her. You need to stay awake.”
Her eyes fluttered, trying to focus on my face. “Knox...” Her voice was barely a whisper. “Is the baby...”
“She’s perfect. She’s beautiful. She’s going to be fine. But I need you to be fine too, okay? I need you to fight.”
“Tired...” she mumbled, her eyes starting to close.
“No. No, don’t close your eyes. Lina, look at me. Stay with me.”
But she wasn’t listening. She couldn’t listen. She was slipping away from me, her consciousness fading as the machines around us started beeping faster and more urgently.
“Her blood pressure is dropping,” one of the nurses announced.
“Get me more units of blood. Now.”
“She’s hemorrhaging internally. We need to get her to surgery.”
“I know what we need to do. Everyone focus. Someone get the crash cart ready.”
I stood there, useless, watching the medical team swarm around my mate. They were shouting orders at each other, moving equipment, doing things I didn’t understand. All I could do was hold Lina’s hand and pray.
“Save her,” I growled, my voice barely human. “Whatever you have to do, save her.”
“We’re trying, Alpha,” Dr. Hartley said without looking up. “Please stay calm.”
Calm? How the fuck was I supposed to stay calm? My mate was dying. The woman I loved more than anything in this world was bleeding out right in front of me and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do about it.
The beeping from the heart monitor grew more erratic. Faster. More irregular. The line on the screen was jumping all over the place instead of maintaining the steady rhythm it should have.
“Her heart rate is unstable,” someone said.
The beeping grew faster. Then slower. Then faster again. The machines were screaming warnings and alarms and I couldn’t process any of it. All I could see was Lina’s pale face, her closed eyes, her chest barely rising and falling with each shallow breath.
Then the sound I’d been dreading.
One long, continuous beep.
Flatline.
