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The sight of the long, livid slash across the cradle of her hips was her undoing. She’d hurt him. He was gone. Wondering how she hadn’t noticed the loss of him all along, Devin’s sobs became hysterical. She clawed at the bed, dragging herself upright despite the agony ripping through her and their combined shouts that she lay back.
“Devin, he’s okay,” Rey rumbled, pushing her back into the bed when she refused to listen. “He’s okay, they’re taking care of him right now, sweetheart.”
“Mrs. Rey, we have the best team possible looking after your son,” Dr. Annan added, hovering at Devin’s side with a syringe at the ready. “He’s doing very well right now.”
“He’s okay? I didn’t hurt him?” Devin turned her watery gaze up to Rey, more words clogging her throat that she couldn’t push past the thickness of apologies for having screwed it all up.
“You had nothing to do with it, sweetheart.” Again he started up onto the bed, backing off at Dr. Annan’s low sound of negation. “He’s doing just fine. His heart is strong and his breathing’s good. He has to be hooked up to some machines for a while, but Dr. Annan said it looks good so far.”
Devin nodded, taking her first true breath. Letting it out in a shaky exhale, she clung to Rey’s arms as he hovered over her. Stealing this moment to bask in his strength, to accept the warmth of his purr deep into her aching body.
It’d be taken away soon enough.
Within minutes, it turned out.
Smoothing back her hair, Rey murmured quiet apologies against her cheek, promising to return as soon as he could as Dr. Annan called him out into the hall. She watched them through the thick glass doors with bleary eyes, fists sporadic in their clenching over the thick covers of ecru and stark white sheets.
An actual hospital, not Dr. Annan’s office then. Devin glanced around, avoiding the worried cant of Dr. Annan’s lips as she looked back at her. The room was done in soft pastel shades, soothing light blooming to chase away any trace of shadows though it appeared everything could be turned off. The hurried bustle of the hospital seemed far away, at such a great distance as to not bother an Omega and her baby. How many actually had to come to this place to have one though?
Devin doubted many had used the room. It was her broken, cursed body that had caused this. Not even good enough to carry the baby inside of it, he’d wanted to be rid of her sooner rather than later. Blinking back the sudden rush of tears, Devin tried to compose herself as Rey came stalking back in.
“I don’t give a damn what you say, she should see him,” he ground out, coming to Devin’s side to stroke her arm where it lay limp and pale on top of the blanket.
“I’m not disagreeing, Mr. Rey, I’m only asking for you to give her some time to adjust.” Dr. Annan’s palm sliced through the air, taking in Devin’s hunched posture and shivering. “She’s in shock and a great deal of pain. Let’s see to that and then I’ll be more than happy to take her over there myself.”
“Then get it done,” Rey snarled, slamming his fist into the delicate looking side table. A splintering crack resounded through the room, something inside of the table giving way so the lamp canted to the side.
“Yes, sir.” Dr. Annan gave no reaction to Rey’s violence, smooth and efficient as always. No movement was wasted, each a practiced glide. Drugs were pumped into Devin’s IV, words flying from the woman’s lips that Devin didn’t understand. Cesarian, scarring, shock.
She knew Annan was trying to explain more, to warn her of what she would see, but Devin couldn’t shove the pieces together to make sense. Shivering despite the addition of another blanket, one more around her shoulders, the sound she made as Rey eased her into a wheelchair was primal pain.
Kneeling beside her, he quieted her. Soothed away the agony and silenced her mind for a few precious minutes more before they were moving. Gliding through the halls, each one becoming more sterile and bleaker.
He wheeled her into a darkened room where a single occupant resided. The large plastic structure filled with all manner of paraphernalia Devin had no name for, she clamped a hand over her mouth when she spotted him among the nests of tubes and wires. They terminated against his tiny body, smaller even than the miniscule diaper forcing his legs up and out. Tears tracked down her cheeks as she leaned closer, sure that nothing that small could still be alive until she saw the measured rise and fall of his chest.
“He’s doing very well, Mrs. Rey,” Dr. Annan said quietly, giving a brief squeeze to Devin’s shoulder despite Rey’s hovering. “All of his vitals are good right now.”
“Right now,” Devin croaked, accepting Rey’s hand when her took hers. Letting herself lean into him for his strength once again.
What sin had she committed to deserve this horror? But she knew the answer to that question already.
“Nothing is certain, but it looks promising.”
“He’ll be fine,” Rey said, crouching at Devin’s side and crushing her fingers. “He’s strong, just like his mama.”
Devin shook her head, her free hand trembling as it hovered over her belly. She couldn’t even stay pregnant. Her own body rejected him, or he’d rejected her. She could believe the latter more than anything.
“You can’t touch him just now, but soon,” Dr. Annan was saying as Rey rose to take position behind her wheelchair again. “In a day or two, after the proper precautions, you can come and go as you please and sit with him. We encourage the parents to talk to them, touch them. When he’s strong enough, you’ll be able to hold him and feed him.”
Dr. Annan continued as Rey guided the wheelchair from the room. What she needed to do now, how to tend her incision, what precautions she needed to take. To remain hopeful that things would work out well.
Devin might as well have been on a different planet. Lost in her own miserable thoughts of how she’d hurt the little life inside of her, how she hadn’t even given him the chance to survive. She clenched her teeth as Rey settled her back into the bed and curled up beside her. There was plenty of room for them both. Rey told her she’d be staying a few days, expressing milk for the baby who still had no name and visiting him as often as she could.
Chapter Eighteen
“He doesn’t want me,” Devin insisted, refusing to put her arms out for the baby cooing in his father’s arms.
“He just has to get used to us.” Rey crouched, lifting little Gabriel up in offering.
