“We’re staying with you,” Yazmine said, her tone brooking no argument. “All of us. Until the baby comes.”
“Even if it takes days,” Enya added.
“Especially if it takes days,” Mara muttered, tightening her grip as another contraction ripped through me.
“It can’t take days,” I cried out in despair, clutching Enya’s arm. A white-hot pain ripped through me and I screamed, the distress call warping my voice and echoing through the leaves.
Benedict and Kieran flinched behind us.
The treehouse came into view through the canopy, glowing with firelight. Relief flooded me so sharply I nearly sobbed.
The females carried me inside—laid me on the nest of cushions—and took positions around me like sentinels. Kieran and Benedict hovered like anxious birds out on theplatform. I liked that they were near, but not so near as to fuss over me as to cause stress.
“Get Ronan!” I called out to them.
“Rest now,” Enya murmured, brushing my hair from my forehead. “We are here.”
Her wise voice held nothing but confidence.
Not vampyres.
Not fear.
Not the storm building in my body as my child demanded to come early.
Surrounded by the strongest females I knew, I finally let my eyes close and breathed.
Chapter Eight
BENEDICT
The platform outside our treehouse creaked under my pacing.
I could hear Wren’s voice inside: low, steady, determined. Enya and Yazmine murmured instructions around her, calm as storm-hardened stone. Mara whispered spells to ease breath and pain.
I was poised and ready, but inwardly I was a mess. The baby could not have chosen a worse time to come, right when there were cracks in our mateship.
Kieran sat cross-legged near the railing, eyes closed, palms turned upward, breathing slow as still water. Meditating, the infuriating bastard.
Ronan stood near him, too near, leaning against the curved trunk of the treehouse, arms folded, wings drawn in tight. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted, desperate to be useful and entirely useless. His eyes kept flicking to me. I knew what he wanted, but I was still too angry. And now wasn’t the time.
I stared at him long enough that he finally met my gaze.
And it broke something in me. It pissed me off to see the sadness and self-pity in his eyes.
“You don’t get to stand here like a devoted mate,” I said, voice low, deadly. “Not after what you did.”
Kieran cracked one eye open. “Benedict?—”
“No,” I snapped. “He left her. She was alone on that beach because he thought a drawing was more important.”
Ronan inhaled sharply. “I know. I know I failed?—”
“You don’t know a damn thing.” I stepped toward him, shoulders tight. “You weren’t there when I saw the sand drenched with vampyre blood. You weren’t there when Meruse told me she’d been singing alone against a tide of corpses!”
“The other females came?—”
“RONAN—”
