“Cliff,” Adam mewls and his chin quivers.
"Baby?" Cliff takes half a step closer, his voice dropping into something almost tender. “Are you?—”
Adam screams.
It tears out of him, raw and savage, bouncing off every wall in the room. I slap my hands over my ears as his body arches offthe mattress, his back bowing, his hands fisting in the blankets. Then his scenterupts.
There's no other word for it.
It detonates in the room like something that's been under pressure for decades and has finally, catastrophically given way. Sugary sweet and wild and overwhelming, pouring off Adam’s skin in waves so thick I can taste it on the back of my tongue.
Then the room fills with a low rumbling sound.
Cliff growls low, but it builds fast, a dangerous, rolling noise that I feel in my back teeth. Raff answers it immediately with something just as deep, the two sounds layering together into something that makes every hair on my body stand straight up.
"What—" Perrin shifts on his feet, deep lines settled between his brows. "What's happening?” He reaches out to touch the bedding. “Adam?—"
Cliff jerks before Perrin can touch the bed.
It's not a conscious movement. It's pure instinct, his weight lurching forward on an impulse to protect his mate’s nest.
I don't think, I just move.
I push away from the bed fast, clearing the space between Cliff and Adam before two hundred and twenty-five pounds of alpha intensity goes right through me.
Thankfully, Cliff doesn't seem to even register that I've moved.
His eyes are fixed on Adam with a locked, tunnel-vision focus that I recognize from when he first saw me at the Morder.
His whole body is different.
The way he's standing, the way he's breathing, the way his handshave curled loose at his sides, ready. Raff is the same. He’s now standing at the foot of the bed, his weight forward, gray eyes locked on Adam with that same focused attention.
It’s like neither of them is fully in the room anymore.
“Elle?” Perrin looks at me with devastating eyes and I move.
I grab the beta by the arm, and pull him away. He resists for half a second, his body straining toward his brother, but I get both hands on him and haul him backward until we hit the far wall, putting the entire room between us and the bed.
"Stay here," I whisper, keeping my body angled between him and the alphas. "Don't go near the bed. Not yet."
Perrin's chest is heaving. His eyes haven't left Adam. "Why?" His voice comes out so small. "What is happening?"
But before I can answer, Adam screams again, the sound cutting through the room and wrapping around my sternum like a fist. He's bent over in the center of the bed, his knees drawn up, and slick pouring down the backs of his thighs.
Cliff and Raff move at the same time. Cliff tracks around the bed while Raff moves in the other direction. They both go back and forth, not touching the bed, but staying close.
“Sweet boy,” Raff purrs, clearly trying to soothe Adam, and Cliff quickly follows.
The low continuous rumble moves through the room like something warm and physical, and I feel it settle over me. While the purr isn’t directed at me, my body responds to it anyway, and I’m so thankful.
I pull in a slow breath, finally able to steady my hands.
“I don’t know what’s going on.” Perrin pulls his phoneout of his pocket, his thumb already moving across the screen. "But I'm calling an ambulance."
I grab the phone out of his hand.
"Hey—" He reaches for it.
