The Beast (Black Dagger Brotherhood #14) - J. R. Ward Page 0,174

he himself was likewise unsteady. Probably some of both.

How did it come to this? Qhuinn wondered silently.

But as soon as the thought hit him, he shook his head. What the fuck had he assumed was going to happen with two young in there?

“Is she all right?” he barked. “Are they alive?”

“Here comes one,” Blay said roughly.

“Baby A,” Manny pronounced as he handed a little purple bundle to Ehlena.

There wasn’t even a chance to look at the kid. The nurse moved fast, rushing the infant over to one of two triage beds that had been set up.

Too silent. Motherfucker—it was too damn quiet.

“Is it alive!” Qhuinn yelled. “Is it alive!”

Blay had to hold him back—but then again the lunge forward was ridiculous. Like he could do anything to help any of this? Oh, and as if he wanted the nurse to be thinking about anything other than saving that infant?

But Ehlena looked over. “Yes, he is. He is alive—we just need to keep him that way.”

Qhuinn took no comfort in any of that. How could he when the entity she was intubating and giving drugs to looked like some kind of tiny alien. A tiny, fragile, wrinkly alien that had nothing in common with the fat babies he’d seen born to humans on T.V. from time to time.

“Jesus Christ,” he moaned. “So small.”

The infant wasn’t going to survive. He knew it down to his soul. They were going to lose him and—

“Baby B,” Jane announced as she handed something over to Vishous.

V steamed by with the young, and Qhuinn gasped.

The daughter—his daughter—was even smaller. And she wasn’t purple.

She was gray. Gray as stone.

All at once, the memory he had taken with him when he had serviced Layla during her needing came back to him. It was from when he had nearly died himself, and had gone up unto the Fade, and had faced off at a white door in the midst of a foggy white landscape.

He had seen an image on that door.

The image of a young female with blond hair and eyes that were shaped like his—eyes that had changed color before him from the precise shade of Layla’s to the mismatched blue and green of his own.

With an animal’s cry of pain, he bellowed into the OR, screaming with an agony he had never felt before—

He had guessed wrong. He had … been wrong. He had misinterpreted what he had seen.

The vision on the door had been not the prediction of a daughter to come.

But a daughter he had lost in birth.

A daughter … who had died.

SIXTY-ONE

As Mary sped through the underground tunnel to the training center, the slapping sounds of her rushing feet echoed out in front of her, an auditory shadow seemingly in as much of a hurry as she was to get where she was going. When she came to the door that opened into the office’s supply closet, she put in the code and burst through into the shallow space beyond, passing by the shelves of pens and pads, the back-up flash drives and stacks of printer paper.

Out in the office, she pulled up short. Tohr was sitting behind the desk, staring at a computer screen that had all kinds of rainbow-colored bubbles obscuring the DailyMail home page.

He jumped as he noticed her and then scrubbed his face. “Hey.”

“How are they?”

“I don’t know. They’ve been in there for what feels like forever.”

“Where’s Autumn?”

“She’s out at Xhex’s hunting cabin. It’s my night off and she was getting it ready for us to … you know.” He checked his watch. “I’ve been debating on whether or not to call her. I was hoping for news first, so she wouldn’t worry. Well, good news, that is.”

“You should tell her what’s going on.”

“I know.” His eyes returned to the monitor. “I, ah … I’m not handling this very well.”

Mary went around the desk and put her hand on the male’s huge shoulder. The tension in that big body was so great, she felt as though she’d laid her palm on a knot. Made out of granite.

“Tohr, I don’t think you should be alone. And if I were her, I’d be really upset if you didn’t let me support you.”

“I just…” Now he looked at the office phone. “I’m back in the old days, you know.”

“I know. And she’ll understand that. Autumn is one of the most understanding people I’ve ever met.”

The Brother glanced up at her, his deep blue eyes boring into her skull. “Mary, am I ever going