They’re only giving me ammunition to rip them apart when I get my hands on them. Because believe me, if they’ve permanently ruined my chance of getting my mates back, there is no place in all the planes of existence that will keep them safe. Even inside me.
With a notebook and pen that I find on the desk, I race back to Jessup where he’s already crouched over Lucy with a pinched expression. He grabs the items from me without looking up and starts jotting down his notes. Daniel has been busy in the short amount of time it has taken me to find the items because there’s already an ultrasound machine in the room, along with a few medical supplies that Carl is using.
“Lilith! The towels are in the two bathrooms upstairs and in the laundry room next to the kitchen!” Daniel yells at me as he drops a metal case by Carl’s feet before rushing out the door again.
I make several trips with armloads of towels when Matthew passes me in the hallway with his own load of vials.
“Were you really that jealous of them?” he asks, not slowing down his pace and forcing me to catch up.
“It wasn’t me, Mattie. You have to believe me,” I plead. Tears burn in my eyes as he squints at me, reading my emotions. That was often a skill I relied on that helped me in the past, but I’m not sure what he’ll pick up now that I’m possessed.
“We’ll talk later.”
That’s all he says as he runs flat out into the room and helps Carl to prep Layla. From what I’ve been catching, the women are in bad shape and it doesn’t look like they will make it.
I grab the last of the towels and a few bowls from the laundry room and bring them back but stop right outside of the door frame as I hear Jessup ask, “But can we even trust her?”
It’s as if my heart is ripped out of my bleeding chest and acid is poured over the open sores of my rotten organ. I fight back the sharp inhale, knowing that they will hear me this close, and I grit my teeth instead. Fire courses through me as anger rises.
‘Ahh. Poor Lilith. Her mates can’t trust her anymore,’Chew Toy mocks.
‘Such a shame, really. Just imagine what they will say,’Rocks says.
‘The most powerful Demon in all the realms, and her ownharemdoesn’t want her, even when she came to them crawling on her belly.’Grumpy chuckles.‘Because that’s what you did. You went crawling to them when they were already in other relationships.’
NO!
Shaking my head, I push their thoughts away and walk into the room with my head held high.
“If I wanted them dead, Jessup, I wouldn’t have called for help,” I call out to him and raise an eyebrow in his direction. We stare at each other without saying another word. I know what I’m doing, I’m challenging an Alpha and my mate, and it can be taken as a faux pas outside of the bedroom, but I want him to know how serious I am. He opens his mouth to say something but before he does, I break eye contact and walk over to Carl who’s putting on sterile gloves.
“What can I do to help?” My voice is laced with worry.
Before he can reply, a monitor goes off and then another and another until all four of them are pinging. Carl’s eyes go wide as Jessup runs to the first monitor and reads off the stats to him. It’s pure chaos as the guys start yelling back and forth numbers and medical jargon that I’m oblivious to. I pick up a few words while I stand there dumbly and think of ways that I can help, but my specialty doesn’t involve medical training at all. I loved spells, torture, fashion, and teaching. I’m completely hopeless here.
This is all my fault. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for torturing souls and often find myself in bloodlust while doing it, but I draw a line when it comes to children. I would have never attacked these women. If it wasn’t for me wanting or needing—according to Anwen—my men back, then these women wouldn’t be fighting for their lives right now, instead they would be getting their nails done, eating, and enjoying each other’s company. I was the imposter here.
Shouts erupt, pulling me from my musing to see Layla take her last breath.
Oh no!
Her heart monitor flat lines and I watch as another monitor that’s set up next to her starts to drop. Soon enough it becomes clear what I’m seeing as Carl quickly takes a scalpel and cuts into Layla’s abdominal wall, separating her muscles to reach her uterus.
Her baby!
“We’re losing him,” Carl says, cutting into her corpse to deliver her baby early. I think the girls were saying they were around seven months pregnant. Can children survive outside of the uterus that far along?
I try to think of anything that might be able to help in this situation when I hear the sounds of the other guys shouting for help. Looking up, I notice all of the other monitors start to drop. Before I can do anything else, Carl hands me a big fluffy towel with a bloody child squirming about and says, “Save him.” He runs over to help Jessup who’s leaning over and performing CPR on Lily.
The child in my arms doesn’t look like the babies I’ve seen before. This one is more like an alien with fuzz all over it while it squirms and barely makes a sound. It’s all pale skin and bones and its eyes are still shut. In the simplest terms he looks like a twisted water dragon, like a Leviathan. I take a moment to look at it and I notice his lungs slowing down as he fights to take in air, the bluish tinge growing more pronounced on its face.
Carl said to save him. Did he mean for me to use my potion? Mix my DNA with his? It is worth a shot. Conjuring my purse to me, I lean down to open it when I feel the tell-tale signs of the Demons trying to push me back. My sight goes to pinpoints as I try to battle my way through it.
No! I can’t allow myself to fail. This child needs me.
Something brushes against my cheek and I feel the Demons retreat. Looking down, I see the tiny little fingers of the child in my arms reaching for my face as his body struggles.
Did he just save me?
