Father Mine (7 page)

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 to say.

“Hi.” Bella smoothed her hand over his skull trim. “Hi . . .”

“Hi . . .” Before he broke down and made an ass of himself, he glanced around her to see who else was in the PT suite. Wrath was talking to Rhage in the corner next to the whirlpool bath, and Qhuinn, John, and Blay were standing in front of the banks of steel-and-glass cabinetry.

Witnesses. Shit. He needed to pull it together.

As he blinked hard, the details of the room came into clear focus, and he thought of the last time he'd been in it.

The birth.

“Shhh . . .” Bella murmured, clearly mistaking the reason for his wince. “Just close your eyes and relax.”

He did as he was told, because he was back on the brink, and not because of how badly his leg and his hands were hurting.

God, that night when Nalla had been born . . . when he'd nearly lost his
shellan . . .

Z squeezed his lids shut, not wanting to relive the past . . . or look too closely at the present. He was in danger of losing Bella. Again.

“I love you . . .” he whispered. “Please don't leave me.”

“I'm right here.”

Yeah, but for how long.

The panic he felt now took him back to the night of the birth . . . he'd been out in the field with Vishous, investigating a civilian abduction downtown. When the call had come from Doc Jane, he'd dumped V like a bad habit and dematerialized to the mansion's courtyard, plowing through the foyer and into the tunnel. Everyone,
shellans
and
doggens
and Wrath alike, had gotten the hell out of his way to avoid becoming bowling pins.

Down in the training center, in this very room, he'd found Bella stretched out on the gurney he now lay upon. He'd come in right in the middle of a contraction and had had to watch as Bella's body became locked into place as if a giant hand were crushing her around the middle. When the pain eased off she'd taken a deep inhale, then looked at him and offered him a weak smile. As she reached out for him, he'd peeled his weapons off, dropping them on the linoleum.

“Hands,” Doc Jane barked. “You wash your hands before you come over here.”

He'd nodded and gone directly to the deep bucket sinks with the foot pedals. He'd worked a lather all the way up his arms until his skin glowed Barbie pink then he'd dried with a blue surgical cloth and rushed to Bella's side.

Their palms had just made contact when the next contraction came roaring through. Bella had squeezed his hand until it was crushed in her grip, but he didn't care. Holding her stare as she'd strained, he would have done anything to take the pain from her . . . and at that moment he would have cheerfully cut his own balls off. He couldn't believe he'd put her through that kind of suffering.

It got worse. The labor was like a locomotive gathering speed, and its tracks were all over Bella's body. Harder, longer, faster. Harder, longer, faster. He didn't know how she could stand it. And then she couldn't.

She'd crashed, all her vital signs dropping—heart rate, blood pressure, everything going into the shitter. He'd known how serious it was by how fast Doc Jane had moved. He remembered the drugs going into the IV, and Vishous coming forward with . . . shit, surgical tools and a fetal incubator.

Doc Jane snapped on a fresh pair of latex gloves, looking first at Bella, then at him. “We're going to have to go in and get the baby, okay? She's in distress as well.”

Nodding. He'd done some nodding at that point on both his and Bella's parts. The Betadine had been a rusty orange as V had rubbed it all over Bella's swollen abdomen.

“Is she going to be okay?” Bella mumbled desperately. “Is our young going to be—”

Doc Jane had leaned down. “Look at me.”

The two females had locked eyes. “I'm going to do everything I can to get both of you through this. I want you to calm yourself, that's your job. Calm yourself and let me do what I'm best at it. Deep breath now.”

Zsadist had taken one along with his
shellan
. . . and then he'd watched as Bella's eyelids suddenly flared and her stare focused on the ceiling with an odd fixation. Before he could ask her what she was looking at, she'd closed her eyes.

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.

“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'd put her fingertips on the Plexiglas shell. The instant her touch fell upon the clear shield, the young had turned her head.

Bella had looked at Zsadist. “Can we call her Nalla?”

His eyes had watered. “Yes. Absolutely. Anything you want.”

He had kissed her and given her his vein and been everything you could want in an attentive, caring mate.

Coming back to the present she shook her head. “You seemed so happy. Right after the birth. You were rejoicing with the others. You were there for the ribboning of her crib . . . You went to Phury and you sang to him. . . . ”

“Because you were alive and you didn't have to suffer the loss of your young. My worst fears hadn't come to pass.” Zsadist lifted one of his hands as if he wanted to rub his eyes, but he frowned, clearly realizing he couldn't because of the bandages. “I was happy for you.”

“But after you fed me, you sat by the incubator and reached out to her. You even smiled as she looked your way. There was love in your face, not just relief. What changed?” As he hesitated, she said, “I'm willing to give you more time if that's what it takes, but I can't be shut out of the process. What happened?”

Z stared up at the cage of medical lighting hanging above him and there was a long silence, one so long that Bella thought maybe they'd hit an insurmountable wall.

But then a single fat tear had formed at the corner of his left eye. “She's in the dream with me.”

The words were so soft, Bella had to make sure she'd heard him right. “I'm sorry?”

“The dream I have of still being with the Mistress. Nalla . . . she's in the cell. I can hear her crying as the Mistress comes for me. I strain at the shackles to get free . . . so I can protect her . . . get her out . . . stop what's going to happen. But I can't move. The Mistress is going to find the young.” His haunted eyes shifted over. “The Mistress is going to find her, and it's my fault Nalla's in the cell.”

“Oh . . . my love . . . oh, Z.” Bella stood up and draped herself carefully over his upper body, hugging him lightly. “Oh . . . God . . . and you're afraid the Mistress will kill her—”

“No.” Z cleared his throat once. And again. And again. His chest started to pump up and down. “She's going to . . . make Nalla watch . . . what they do to me. Nalla has to watch. . . .”

Zsadist struggled to keep his emotions in, then lost the fight, weeping in the hard, powerful bursts of a male. “She's going to have . . . to watch her . . . father get . . .”

All Bella could do was hold on tight and wet his hospital gown with her own tears. She'd known whatever it was was bad. But she'd had no idea how bad.

“Oh, my love,” she said, as his arms came around her and his head lifted so that his face was buried in her hair. “Oh, my darling love . . .”

SEVEN

It was about five the following afternoon when Zsadist finally woke up properly. It was good to be in his own bed. It was not so great having a cast on his lower leg.

Rolling over, he opened his eyes and looked at Bella. She was awake and staring back at him.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Okay.” Physically speaking, at least. The rest of him, his mind and his emotions, were open to question.

“Would you like something to eat?”

“Yeah. In a little bit.” What he really wanted was to just lie around and stare into his
shellan
's eyes for a while.

Bella eased over onto her back and looked up to the ceiling.

“I'm glad we talked,” he said. As much as he hated the past, he'd do anything to keep her from leaving, and if that meant conversation, he'd blabber on until his voice box bit it.

“Me too.”

He frowned, feeling the distance. “What's on your mind?”

After a moment she said softly, “Do you still want me?”

He actually had to shake himself. She couldn't possibly be asking . . . “
Good Lord,
of course I want you as my
shellan
. The idea of you leaving is just—”

“Sexually, I mean.”

He blinked, thinking about the hardcore arousal he'd gotten the night before—just from watching her towel off. “How could I not?”

She turned her head to him. “You don't feed and you haven't reached for me . . . well, I haven't either, but I mean—”