Page 105 of The Florist and Her Alphas

Silus’s whole body jerks against mine. His arm loosens around my neck. He starts to crumple, and I scream. As he goes down, he shoves me away from him. I crash into the cabinet and hit my head on the hard corner.

White light explodes behind my eyes.

I crumple to the floor. The boards are warm under my cheek. Through the white haze, I see, very far away, Ezra standing in the front doorway in his charcoal suit, gun still raised, his face torn wide open with shock, his eyes locked on me.

His mouth opens.

He’s shouting my name, I think, but the sound comes through water now, slow and warped, arriving from somewhere much farther away than the length of the room.

I can’t move. I can’t speak. My hands won’t answer me.

The last thing I see is Ezra dropping the gun. Starting to run.

“Liana!” he shouts again with pure terror in his voice. Then there is nothing at all.

Twenty-Eight

EZRA

My throat is tight as I sit in the waiting room.

“You want water too?” Julian asks, his voice hoarse.

I shake my head.

He studies me a second longer than he needs to, like he’s deciding whether to push, and then he doesn’t. He stands, presses his hand briefly to my shoulder, and walks toward the vending machines and the cafeteria at the end of the corridor, his shoes silent on the linoleum.

August sits across from me with his knees drawn up, his glasses pushed up onto his forehead, his palms pressed flat against his eyes. Cole stands by the window, arms crossed, staring out at the parking lot deep in thought.

Sometime near eleven, the automatic doors at the end of the hall slide open, and Mira comes through them at a near-run, her coat thrown on over pajamas. She sees us and sits across from me. “Any word from the doctors?”

“Nothing yet,” I say. It’s been hours since we brought in Liana, and I’ve been waiting just as eagerly for news.

Midnight comes.

The double doors open. A man in blue scrubs, mask pulled down around his neck, looks directly at me. I am on my feet before he even speaks.

“Family of Liana Marsh?”

“All of us,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I intend.

“She’s out of surgery. She’s stable. But we had to induce a coma. The swelling in her brain was significant from the impact. It’s a protective measure to give the tissue time to recover without added pressure. We’ll be monitoring her closely.”

“A coma?” I ask in shock, my heart dropping.

“There’s something else,” the doctor says. He glances down at his chart, then back up. “She’s pregnant according to the blood test. Early pregnancy, very early. The baby appears unaffected so far, but given the trauma, we’ll be watching that closely too.”

Pregnant?!

I feel the floor tilt. We’ve been wanting her to be with child so badly, and now it happened; the news feels more heartbreaking since she’s in a coma.

“Pregnant?” says August with contained excitement. “Will the baby be okay?”

“Her blood test indicates that she’s in early pregnancy. We will not know until a few more weeks. Most likely the baby is fine.”

Cole has gone completely rigid by the window.

Mira is the one who speaks. Her voice, when it comes, is very small. “Will she live?”