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He’d had a moment of terror that he would never see them open again.

Then she’d said, “Just make sure the young is okay.”

He’d gone cold at that point, utterly cold, because it was clear Bella didn’t think she was coming out of it alive. And the only thing she cared about was the young.

“Please stay with me,” he’d groaned as the incision was made.

Bella hadn’t heard him. She’d drifted away from consciousness, sure as if she were on a boat that had left its mooring and floated off over calm waters.

Nalla had been born at six twenty-four a.m.

“Is it alive?” he’d asked.

Though it shamed him to admit it now, the only reason he’d wanted to know was because God forbid Bella had to come around and learn that her daughter had been stillborn.

While Doc Jane stitched up Bella, Vishous had worked fast with a suction balloon over the young’s mouth and nose, then he’d fired up a tiny IV and done something with the hands and feet. Fast. He’d been as fast as his shellan at that point.

“Is she alive?”

“Zsadist?”

His eyes popped open and he came back to the present.

“Do you need more painkillers?” Bella asked. “You look as if you’re in agony.”

“I can’t believe she lived. She was so small.”

As the words came out of Zsadist’s mouth, Bella was confused, but only for a split second. The birth . . . he was thinking about the birth.

She stroked the fine, short hair on his head, trying to ease him in some small way. “Yes . . . yes, she was.”

His yellow eyes shifted to the other folks in the room and his voice got quiet. “Can I be honest?”

Oh, shit, she thought. “Yes, please.”

“The only reason I cared whether she was alive was because I didn’t want you to be told she wasn’t. She was the only thing you were worried about . . . and I couldn’t bear for you to lose her.”

Bella frowned. “You mean at the end?”

“Yes . . . you said you just wanted to make sure she was okay. Those were your last words.”

Bella reached out and put her palm on his cheek. “I thought I was dying and I didn’t want you to be left all alone. I . . . I saw the light of the Fade. It was all around me, bathing me. I was worried about you . . . about what would happen if I weren’t living.”

His face blanched even further, proving that there was a color paler than white on the spectrum. “I thought that’s what had been happening. Oh . . . God, I can’t believe how close it was.”

Doc Jane came up to the gurney. “Sorry to interrupt. I just want to do a quick check on his vitals?”

“Of course.”

As Bella watched the doctor make fast work of the examination, she thought of the way those ghostly hands had helped her daughter come into the world.

“Good,” Doc Jane said, linking her stethoscope around her neck. “This is good. He’s stabilized and should be able to get up and move around in another hour or so.”

“Thank you,” Bella murmured as Z did the same.

“My pleasure. Believe me. Now, how about the rest of us take off and let you two have some time alone.”

The crowd dispersed amid offers of help and food and anything else that might be needed. As Wrath went over to the door, he paused and looked at Bella.

Her grip tightened on Z’s shoulder as the king bowed his head a little and then shut the door.

She cleared her throat. “May I get you something to—”

“We need to talk.”

“It can wait—”

“Until you leave here?” Z shook his head. “No. It has to be now.”

Bella pulled a rolling stool over and sat down, stroking his forearm because she couldn’t hold his bandaged hands. “I’m scared. If we don’t . . . can’t bridge this gap . . .”

“Me too.”

As their words hung in the quiet of the tiled, clinical room, Bella remembered waking up from the C-section that day of the birth. Zsadist’s eyes had been the first thing she’d seen. He’d been in agony as he’d stared down at her, but slowly his pain had lifted, revealing disbelief and then hope.

“Show her the young,” Z had called out sharply. “Quickly.”

Vishous had rolled the fetal incubator over, and Bella had gotten her first look at their daughter. Dragging with her the IV line that was in her arm, she