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And then her vitals had crashed.

“Bella?”

She wheeled around. Wrath was in the PT room’s doorway, the king’s huge body filling the jambs. With his hip-length black hair and his wraparound sunglasses and his black leathers, he seemed in his silent arrival like a modern-day version of the Grim Reaper.

“Oh, please, no,” she said, gripping onto the gurney. “Please—”

“No, it’s okay. He’s okay.” Wrath came forward and took her arm, holding her up. “He’s been stabilized.”

“Stabilized?”

“He has a compound fracture of his lower leg and it’s caused some bleeding.”

Some being massive, no doubt. “Where is he?”

“He’s coming home from Havers’s right now. I figured you’d be worried, so I wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you. Thank you . . .” Even with the problems they’d been having lately, the idea of losing her hellren was catastrophic.

“Whoa, easy, there.” The king wrapped her in his huge arms and held her gently. “Let the shakes go through you. You’ll breathe more that way, believe it or not.”

She did as he suggested, loosening the rigid control she’d clamped onto her muscles. Her body shimmied from shoulder to calf and she relied on the king’s strength to keep standing. He was right, though. Even as she trembled, she was able to take a deep breath or two.

When she’d become more stable, she pulled back. As she caught sight of the gurney she frowned and had to start walking around again.

“Wrath, may I ask you something?”

“Absolutely.”

She had to pace a little more before she could frame the question properly. “If Beth had a baby, would you love the child as much as you love her?”

The king looked surprised. “Ah . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “That’s none of my business—”

“No, it’s not that. I’m trying to figure out the answer.” He reached up and lifted the sunglasses from his brilliant, pale green eyes. Though they were unfocused, his stare nonetheless was utterly arresting. “Here’s the thing . . . and I believe this is true for all bonded males. Your shellan is the beating heart in your chest. More than that, even. She’s your body and your skin and your mind . . . everything you ever were and ever will be. So a male can never feel more for anyone than he does his mate. It’s just not possible—and I think there’s some evolution at work. The deeper you love, the more you protect, and keeping your female alive at all costs means she can care for whatever young she has. That being said, of course you love your children. I think of Darius with Beth . . . I mean, he was desperate for her to be safe. And Tohr with John . . . and . . . yeah, I mean, you feel deeply for them, sure.”

It was logical, but not much of a relief, considering Zsadist wouldn’t even pick Nalla up—

The double doors of the PT room bounced open as Z was wheeled in. He was dressed in a hospital johnny, probably because his clothes had had to be cut off him at Havers’s clinic, and there was no color in his face at all. Both his hands were bandaged, and there was a cast on his lower leg.

He was out cold.

She rushed to his side and took his hand. “Zsadist? Zsadist?”

Sometimes IVs and pills weren’t always the best course of treatment for the injured. Sometimes all you needed was the touch of the one you loved and the sound of their voice and the knowledge that you were home, and that was enough to drag you back from the brink.

Z opened his eyes. The sapphire blue stare he met brought a tangle of tears to his lashes. Bella was leaning over him, her thick mahogany hair trailing off one shoulder, her classically boned face drawn in lines of worry.

“Hi,” he said, because it was the best he could do.

He’d refused any pain meds at the clinic, because the sluggish effect they had always reminded him of the way he’d been drugged at the hands of the Mistress—so he’d been fully conscious as his leg had been opened up and pinned back together by Doc Jane. Well, he’d been with it for part of the time, at any rate. He’d passed out for a while. Upshot was, he felt like death. No doubt looked like it, as well. And there was just too much