Mending the Beast (Awakening Pride #10) - Lacey Thorn Page 0,23

are you?” Miriam asked as she came up beside the exam table and helped Quinn ease down.

Quinn held her breath as they lifted her shirt. Ariel barely managed to hold in her gasp as Miriam lifted Quinn’s shirt. Her belly was taut over the swell of the child she carried. There were cuts on her stomach that oozed blood. What the hell had they done to her? Ariel glanced back to Quinn’s face in time to watch a solitary tear streak down her cheek before she closed her eyes.

“Eight weeks,” Quinn murmured. “I’m halfway through my pregnancy.”

Anna assessed her visually for a moment. “The father is a lion?”

“Yes… He was.” Another tear followed the path of the first.

“The father’s dead?” Anna asked softly, and Quinn nodded.

“Did they give you a transfusion of his blood while you were in the lab?”

Ariel understood why they were asking. As the human mate of a shifter, she would need her mate’s blood to help her through her pregnancy. The gestation period of cat shifters was rapid and took an extreme toll on the human body. With a lion, Quinn would reach full term at close to fifteen weeks. That was less than half the time of a human pregnancy. Without her mate’s blood, Quinn could die during delivery, if she made it that far. Her baby would be at risk, also.

“Not recently.”

Anna continued her visual assessment. “What else did he do to you, child?”

Quinn shook her head. “I’m fine. Check the baby. Make sure the baby’s okay. Please.”

Anna sighed as Miriam moved around the office, rolling over an ultrasound machine. Ariel stood silently, watching as the life inside Quinn’s belly appeared on the screen and the steady whomp-whomp of the heartbeat filled the air.

“Strong. Baby looks healthy. For now. I’m not going to lie to you. If the father is no longer in the picture, the next six to eight weeks could be very hard for you. We could try another lion’s blood. It’s been done before. You’ll need to find one when you get home. The baby will need it. So will you.”

“We have lion shifters who will help,” Ariel answered for Quinn. Daniel was a lion. God, the thought of his blood nurturing another woman’s child shouldn’t have her tiger on edge, but it did. How could she be possessive of a man she’d never possessed? God, she was a fucked-up mess. Her glance fell back to Quinn’s face. Weren’t they a pair?

“I can put something on these open wounds to help them close up.” Anna spoke softly as she put aside the wand she’d been running over Quinn’s belly while Miriam wiped off the gel she’d squirted onto Quinn’s stomach.

“Yes,” Quinn agreed as another tear fell.

Ariel watched Quinn visibly flinch as Anna touched the wounds. She knew what they represented. It was as if they were the elephant in the room. Everyone knew what they meant, but no one stated it aloud. As if saying it would make it worse than the horror it represented. Quinn’s belly had been left with open wounds so the bastards could have access for whatever reasons they wanted. It made Ariel sick. Why couldn’t shifters be left alone to live their lives? It wasn’t as if they randomly picked up humans and did unspeakable things to them. Fucking hunters.

Anna finished then cleaned Quinn’s abdomen again before helping her sit up and pull down her shirt. She cupped Quinn’s face in her hands as she spoke. “What did they do to you?”

“Anything he wanted,” Quinn repeated the words she’d told Ariel earlier.

Anna brushed her finger under Quinn’s eye. “You need to rest. Miriam will take you to a room where you can do that while we wait for Gideon to arrive.”

Quinn’s gaze flew to Ariel. She opened her mouth to promise she’d still be there with Quinn when Gideon arrived, but the truth was that she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t ready to see him again. She wasn’t ready to go back to Oklahoma with Quinn, Gideon and Vic. Especially not with Gabriel who would blame her for Daniel getting shot. Rightly so, but still. Ariel wasn’t ready for that. So she said the only thing she really could.

“Rest. They’ll be here soon, and we’ll get you home. I’m going to speak with Anna for a bit. I’ll check on you when I’m done.”

Quinn opened her mouth then closed it without saying anything. Ariel wasn’t sure if she suspected anything or was finally giving in to her