The terrifyingly sharp blade was pressed against a pale throat. "Guess what you're going to do first, ass**le?" Qhuinn growled. "You're going to apologize for treating her like a goddamn incubator."
Qhuinn yanked the male around. Havers's tortoiseshell glasses were shattered, one lens spiderwebbed with cracks, the earpiece on the other side sticking out at a wonky angle.
Layla shot a look at Phury. The Primale didn't seem particularly bothered: He just crossed his arms over his huge chest and leaned back against the wall beside her, evidently completely at ease with this playing out as it did. Over in the chair across the way, Doc Jane was the same, her forest green stare calm as she regarded the drama.
"Look her in the eye," Qhuinn spat, "and apologize."
When the fighter jangled the healer as if Havers were naught but a rag doll, some jumble of words came out of the doctor.
Shoot. Layla supposed she should be a lady and not enjoy this, but there was satisfaction to be had at the vengeance.
Sadness, too, however, because it should never have come to this.
"Do you accept his apology," Qhuinn demanded in an evil tone. "Or would you like him to grovel? I'm perfectly f**king happy to turn him into a rug at your feet."
"That was sufficient. Thank you."
"Now you're going to tell her" - Qhuinn pulled that shake move again, Havers's arms flopping in their sockets, his loose white coat waving like a flag - "and only her, what the f**k is going on with her body."
"I need...the chart - "
Qhuinn bared his fangs and put them right against Havers's ear - as if he were considering biting the thing off. "Bullshit. And if you are telling the truth? That lapse of memory is going to cause you to lose your life. Right now."
Havers was already pale, but that made him go completely white.
"Start talking, Doctor. And if the Primale, who you're so f**king impressed by, would be kind enough to tell me if you look away from her, that would be great."
"My pleasure," Phury said.
"I'm not hearing anything, Doc. And I'm really not a patient guy."
"You are..." From behind those broken glasses, the male's eyes met her own. "Your young is..."
She almost wished Qhuinn would stop forcing the contact. This was hard enough to hear without having to face the doctor who'd treated her so badly.
Then again, Havers was the one who had to look, not her.
Qhuinn's eyes were what she stared into as Havers said, "You're losing the pregnancy."
Things got wavy at that point, which she took to mean she had teared up. She couldn't feel anything, though. It was as if her soul had been flushed out of her body, everything that had animated her and connected her to the world gone as if it had never been.
Qhuinn showed no reaction at all. He didn't blink. Didn't alter his stance or his dagger hand.
"Is there anything that can be done medically?" Doc Jane asked.
Havers went to shake his head, but froze as the sharp point of the knife cut into the skin of his neck. As blood leaked out and ran into the starched collar of his formal shirt, the red matched his bow tie.
"Nothing of which I am aware," the physician said roughly. "Not on the earth, at any rate."
"Tell her it's not her fault," Qhuinn demanded. "Tell her she did nothing wrong."
Layla closed her eyes. "Assuming that's true - "
"In humans that's usually the case, provided there's no trauma," Doc Jane interjected.
"Tell her," Qhuinn snapped, his arm starting to vibrate ever so slightly, as if he were a heartbeat away from dispatching his own violence.
"'Tis true," Havers croaked.
Layla looked at the doctor, searching out the stare behind the ruined glasses. "Nothing?"
Havers spoke quickly. "The incidence of spontaneous miscarriage is presented in approximately one in three pregnancies. I believe, as with humans, it is caused by a self-regulation system that ensures defects of various kinds are not carried to term."
"But I am definitely pregnant," she said in a hollow tone.
"Yes. Your blood tests proved that."
"Is there any risk to her health," Qhuinn asked, "as this continues?"
"Are you her whard?" Havers blurted.
Phury interjected. "He's the father of her child. So you treat him with the same respect you would me."
That had the physician's eyes bulging, those brows surfacing above the busted tortoiseshell frames. And it was funny; that was when Qhuinn showed a modicum of reaction - just a flicker in his face before the fierce features resettled into aggression.
"Answer me," Qhuinn snapped. "Is she in any danger?"
"I-I - " Havers swallowed hard. "There are no guarantees in medicine. Generally speaking, I would say no - she is healthy on all other accounts, and the miscarriage appears to be following the generic course. Further..."
As the doctor continued to speak, his educated, refined tone so much more uneven than it had been the night before, Layla checked out.
Everything receded, her hearing disappearing, along with any sense of the temperature in the room, the bed beneath her, the other bodies standing around. The only thing she saw was Qhuinn's mismatched eyes.
Her sole thought as he held that knife against the other male's throat?
Even though they were not in love, he was exactly what she would have wanted as a father for her young. Ever since she had made the decision to participate in the real world, she had learned how rough life was, how others could conspire against you - and how sometimes principled force was all that got you through the night.
Qhuinn had the latter in spades.
He was a great, fearsome protector, and that was precisely what a female needed when she was pregnant, nursing, or caring for a young.
That and his innate kindness made him noble to her.
No matter the color of his eyes.
Nearly fifty miles to the south from where Havers was piss-pants terrified in his own clinic, Assail was behind the wheel of his Range Rover, and shaking his head in disbelief.
Things just kept getting more interesting with this woman.
Thanks to GPS, he had tracked her Audi from afar as she had decisively passed out of her neighborhood and gotten on the Northway. At each suburban exit, he expected her to get off, but as they'd left Caldwell well in the dust, he'd begun to think she might be heading all the way down into Manhattan.
Not so.
West Point, home of the venerable human military school, was about halfway between New York City and Caldwell, and as she exited the highway at that point, he was relieved. A lot happened down in the land of zip codes that started with 100, and he didn't want to get too far from home base for two reasons: One, he still hadn't heard from the twins about whether those minor-league dealers had showed up, and two, dawn was coming at some point, and he didn't like the idea of abandoning his heavily modified and reinforced Range Rover at the side of the road somewhere because he needed to dematerialize back to safety.