The King

SIXTY-ONE

As Beth woke up, the first thing she did was a body scan for the urge to run for the bathroom. When that came back with a not-right-now, she pushed herself to a vertical and swung her feet to the floor. How long had she slept for? The shutters were still up so it wasn’t yet daylight, but man, she felt like she’d been out for days.

Looking down at herself, she put her hands on her belly—

Holy crap, she didn’t remember swallowing a basketball.

Under her palms, her stomach was swollen and hard, the protrusion such that she doubted she would be able to pull her pants on.

Her first instinct was to reach for the phone and call Doc Jane, but then she dialed back on the panic and got to her feet.

“Feeling okay,” she murmured. “Feeling pretty good…”

As she went over to her closet, she felt like her body was a bomb about to go off—and, man, she hated it: She’d had no idea how much she took for granted in the health department until she’d deliberately tried to complicate herself—

For no apparent reason, the Saturnine Ruby slipped right off her finger.

Glancing down, she watched the ring bounce on the carpet—and frowned as she bent over and picked the thing up. She and Wrath had traded back for convenience because both had struggled with something that didn’t fit—and the symbols of their marriage had meaning no matter whose hand they were on.

Or falling off of, as was the case—

“What the hell?” she breathed.

As she went to put the thing back on, she realized that her fingers were positively skeletal, the skin stretched over knobby knuckles and a sunken palm.

Heart starting to hammer, she rushed to the mirror in the bathroom, turning on the lights—

Beth gasped. The reflection staring back at her was all wrong—all totally frickin’ wrong. Overnight, literally, her face had hollowed out, all the fat gone from her cheeks and her temples, her chin sharp as a knife, the tendons in her neck standing out in bald relief.

Stark fear speared into her chest. Especially as she lifted her arm and pulled at the skin on her triceps. Loose. Way loose.

It was as if she had lost twenty-five pounds within hours—except for her belly.

Trying not to completely freak out, she headed for the closet to find something she could wear. In the end, she pulled on a pair of drawstring sweatpants, and one of Wrath’s few button-downs. The latter was like a cloud of fine white cotton around her—and that meant, as she had another hot flash, there was plenty of ventilation happening.

At least her slippers fit perfectly.

Heading down to the second-floor landing, she put her head into the study and didn’t find Wrath at the desk. Maybe he was working out?

She was going down the grand staircase when she found him.

He and George were walking out of the dining room along with a string of doggen, the staff carrying all kinds of silver trays across the depiction of the apple tree in bloom.

The second he caught her scent, he stopped. “Leelan! Are you sure you should be up?”

Turned out the smell of the food was one hell of a distraction: the spike of hunger she got in response enough to halt her in her tracks.

“Ah … yeah, I feel okay. I’m hungry, actually.”

As well as scared to death.

While the staff continued on into the billiards room, filing in past some sheets of heavy plastic, Wrath came over to the base of the stairs. “Let’s get you into the kitchen.”

Heading all the way down to join him, she let him take her arm, and leaned into his strength, taking a deep, easing breath. She’d probably just imagined everything up there. Really. Probably.

Crap. “You know, I slept well,” she murmured as if to reassure herself. Which didn’t work.

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hm.”

Together, they walked past the long dining table, and went through the flap door in the far corner. On the other side, iAm was once again at the stove, stirring a great pot.

The Shadow turned—and immediately frowned as he looked at her.

“What?” She put her hands to her stomach. “What are you—”

“Nothing,” he said, banging his wooden spoon on the steel vat. “You two like chicken soup?”

“Oh, yes, that sounds perfect.” Beth hopped up onto a stool. “And some bread maybe—”

Fritz materialized at her elbow with a baguette and a plate with butter. “For you, madam.”

She had to laugh. “How did you know?”

As Wrath sat on the stool next to her, George parked it between them. “I had him on standby.”

A steaming bowl of soup was slid in front of her by the Shadow. “Enjoy.”

“Him, too?” she asked of iAm.

“Yeah, the Shadow mighta been on it as well.”

Picking up the spoon Fritz offered her, she dug in, aware the three males were staring at her—Wrath with such intensity, it was almost as if he’d gotten his sight back—

“Mmmmm,” she said—and meant it. The soup was perfect, simple, not too heavy, and warm, warm, warm.

Maybe it was just that she’d been through the needing and not eaten for how long?

“So what’s going on in the billiards room,” she asked, to try to distract the males.

“They’re cleaning up after me.”

She winced. “Ah.”

Wrath patted around for the baguette and broke off the hard end, putting it aside. The piece he then tore for her was soft in the middle, crunchy on the outside—and the butter he put on it was the unsalted, sweet kind.

The combo was great with the soup.

“Would you like something to drink?” Fritz asked.

“Wine?” iAm said—before catching himself. “No, not wine. Milk. You need the calcium.”

“Good idea, Shadow,” Wrath chimed in as he nodded at Fritz. “Make it whole—”

“No, no, that will make me gag.” Annnnd didn’t that stop all of them in their tracks. “Which was true before all the, well, you know. But the skim does sound good.”

And so it went, the three of them waiting on her: More soup? iAm hit her bowl again right away. More bread with butter? Husband was on it. More milk? The butler raced for the fridge.

Being surrounded by all the normal really helped calm her down. But she felt the need to try to set the record straight before they fed her until she exploded.

“Boys. I really appreciate all this—but we don’t know if I’m preg—”

She did not get to finish the thought, much less the sentence.

All at once, everything she’d eaten headed for the fire exit at the same time, her stomach contracting without warning.

She barely made it to the staff bathroom in time.

Yup, it all came up, from soup to bread, as it were. And then, even when she could have sworn not just her stomach, but her entire chest cavity was empty, the heaving kept her bent over the toilet until her eyes watered, her head pounded, and her throat was nothing but a raw, burning mess.

“Hey, how we doing?”

Of course, it was Doc Jane. “Hey, what’s up—”

It was a long while before she could say anything else. And P.S., she really hated how the gagging sounds echoed in the bowl.

When there was a break in the action, so to speak, she rested her hot, sweaty forehead on her arm, reached up to flush again … and found that she didn’t have the energy to pull the lever down.

“I think we need to get you to the doctor,” Jane said.

“I thought you were one,” Wrath bit out.

“Do we have to?” Beth countered—

The fact that she started throwing up again pretty much answered things, didn’t it.

As Wrath stood just outside the staff bathroom by the kitchen, he was ready to scream at his lack of vision: There was nothing like having your mate in medical distress to get you good and pissed off that you were blind.

With his piece-of-shit pupils, he couldn’t see her face to get a read on her coloring, her expression, her eyes. And his keen sense of smell? Out the window, too—the vomiting had clogged up his sinuses, making it impossible to tease out any emotional clues.

The one thing that was working? His ears—so that every new round of sickness went straight into his brain.

“Okay, let’s go,” Beth finally said hoarsely.

“Wait a fucking minute,” he barked. “Go where?”

Jane’s voice was level. “To the doctor—”

“You are a fucking doctor—”

V’s mate put her hand on his forearm. “Wrath. She needs a specialist and we’ve found one.”

WTF—? Wait a minute. “That does not sound like Havers,” he gritted.

“It’s not. She’s a human—”

“Ohhh no, nope, not going to happen—”

Annnnnd cue another round of heaving.

Behind his wraparounds, he closed his eyes. “Fuck.”

Against the horrible backdrop of his wife’s suffering, Doc Jane started giving him all kinds of very rational reasons that his shellan had to be handled carefully. But, Christ, the idea she’d be going out in the human world, during the day—because hello, the cocksucking shutters just went down …

You know what? He really fucking wished life would take him off its shit list. He was getting pretty goddamn sick and tired of unwinnable situations.

“…half-breed, unknown complications, incapable of making an assessment…”

He cut through Doc Jane’s little speech. “No offense, but I’m not letting my wife go out there without serious-ass backup, and nobody can leave this house right now—”

“So I’ll go with her.”

Wrath glanced over his shoulder at the sound of iAm’s voice. His first instinct was to go all bonded-male on the guy and tell the Shadow he had this, thanks. The problem was, he didn’t have shit—and only an asshole stood in the way of his mate getting the medical treatment she required.

Wrath let his head fall back with a curse. “Are you sure she needs this?” he said, not really certain who exactly he was talking to.

“Yes,” Doc Jane answered gravely. “I’m totally sure.”

iAm spoke up again. “Nothing will happen to her on my watch. On my honor.”

He had a feeling the Shadow was offering him his palm—and sure enough, as Wrath reached out blindly—natch—the other male caught hold of it.

“What can I do for you?” Wrath heard himself say as they shook.

“Nothing right now. Just let me take her.”

“Okay. All right.” Except as Wrath let go and stepped back, he was not at peace with any of this. What other choice did he have, though?

Shaking his head, he thought, see, this was precisely why he hadn’t want a young. This pregnancy shit was not for him.

What the hell was he going to do if he lost her—

“Wrath,” Beth said weakly. “Wrath, where’d you go?”

As if she knew he was two thoughts past sanity—heading into the weeds of wigging out.

“I’m right here.”

“Will you take me upstairs? I think I should try and feed first, and I don’t want to do it out in the open.”

“Plus,” Doc Jane murmured, “I need to call and see when she can fit us in.”

“Wrath? Take me upstairs?”

Snapping into action, he went forward and gathered his beloved gently in his arms, lifting her from the floor.

And what do you know, instantly, he was grounded. Calmed. Prepared to hold his shit together if only to spare Beth the worry over him.

“Thank you…” she whispered as her head lolled into the crook of his arm.

“What for?”

She didn’t answer him until George had guided them over to the base of the stairs and Wrath had begun their ascent.

Her reply was just one word: “Everything.”