It was his Beast Lord voice. Very difficult to disobey. I still managed, but Dali had grown up in the Pack, and old habits died hard. She dropped into the nearest chair.
“Take a deep breath.”
Dali sucked the air in and let it out slowly.
“Why are you in my house?” he asked her.
Dali took another deep breath. Her bottom lip trembled, her composure broke, and she clamped her hands over her face. There was no sound. Just hands over her face and shudders. Poor Dali.
Curran crouched by her and gently pried the glasses from under her fingers. I got a handkerchief and brought it over. Curran took it from me and offered it to Dali. She grabbed it and pressed her face into it. He wrapped his arms around her. Her shoulders shook.
I turned to Doolittle. “What’s going on?”
He sighed. “She’s been under a great deal of stress.”
Dali said something through her hands.
“What is it?” Curran asked gently.
She said it again.
“We can’t understand you.” I kept my voice warm but firm.
She dropped her hands. Without glasses, she looked ten years younger, her dark eyes wide and tear-drenched. “I’m barren! I can’t have children.”
I turned to Doolittle.
He nodded.
Dali flipped the box open. Inside was a large crystal vial filled with amber liquid. It shimmered and glowed, as if filled with glitter.
“Roland sent us this. It’s a gift.” She spat the word out as if it were poison. “We don’t even know how he knew we were trying to conceive. The man he sent said it will heal me. Jim refused to take it, but he left it on the ground just outside the gates, and I went and got it. I need to know if it will fix me. He told us to test it to prove that it wasn’t poison, but I don’t want to be responsible for anyone getting hurt.”
Well, now we knew what was in the briefcase.
Hugh kept eating.
Elara looked at him.
He shrugged. “It’s not my problem.”
“Please answer her,” she asked.
“You feel bad, but I don’t,” he said.
“For me,” she asked.
“You know my price,” he told her.
Elara leaned back and crossed her arms, her face iced over. “Really?”
“The whole thing. You’ll put it in your mouth and you’ll swallow.”
What?
“The whole thing?”
“I mean it, Elara. You will eat the entire chicken.”
“I can’t possibly eat the whole chicken. It’s too much.”
Hugh’s voice was merciless. “Do it over the course of the day.”
“Do you expect me to eat the bones, too?”
“Now you’re being childish.”
“I just want to have the terms of this agreement clear,” she told him.
“You don’t have to eat the bones,” he said. “You will consume the meat and skin of the chicken. Possibly some cartilage if you feel like it. All the parts of the chicken normally eaten by human beings.”
“You’re a bully,” she told him.
“You knew I was an asshole when you married me.”
“Fine. I will eat the damn chicken. Help her, please.”
Hugh stopped eating, placed his fork and knife onto the plate, moved it aside, and nodded at the bottle. “This is ambrosia. Not the actual nectar of the gods, but an all-around curative Roland cooks up. It takes him about a year to make it. It will heal an injury in record time. Personally, I wouldn’t take it. His potions come with fun side effects. You might get pregnant, and ten days later you might saw off your husband’s head in his sleep.”
All the air had gone out of Dali. I stepped closer to her and put my hands on her shoulders. Curran was still holding her. I wished I could make it better.
“So it won’t cure me,” she said, her voice bitter.
“I doubt it. You didn’t suffer an injury that needs to be corrected. Your problem is too much regeneration. Both of your fallopian tubes have fused shut. If you were human, I’d expect to find a severe case of endometriosis. The tissue normally inside your uterus would be growing outside it. But you’re a shapeshifter, so Lyc-V is trying to fix the problem by plugging every hole it can find, and it decided your fallopian tubes are a danger zone. Before the Shift, they sidestepped endometriosis infertility with in vitro fertilization. It’s not an option for us. I take it you tried surgical options, and the tubes reclose immediately after the operation is completed?”
“Yes,” Doolittle said.
Hugh squinted at Dali. “I can fix it, but it will require cutting you open. You’ll have to stay awake during the procedure, and it will have to be done without anesthetic, because I’ll need you to hold back the Lyc-V, otherwise it will heal you faster than I can regrow your tissue. The moment you go under, you surrender control of your virus and it goes into overdrive, because it thinks you’re dying. The surgery won’t be fun. Your husband won’t like it. Talk it over with him.”
“You would do this for me?” Dali asked him. “Why?”
“Because my wife asked me to,” he said.
“How are you planning on reopening the tubes?” Doolittle asked.
“I’m not. I will cut them out of her and regrow them.”
Doolittle looked at Dali. “Even with his power, that will take hours.”
“I said it wouldn’t be fun,” Hugh said.
“Think very carefully,” Doolittle said. “It will be very painful.”
She raised her head. “I want a child. My and Jim’s child. You have no idea what it’s like to not be able to have a baby. All I see are babies. Andrea’s baby, Kate’s baby, and now George is pregnant.”
“George is pregnant?” That was the first I’d heard of it.
“I don’t begrudge anyone their babies. I just want to have one of my own.”
“Talk to Jim,” Curran said.
“It’s not Jim’s decision,” she told him.
“I know that,” he said. “But he loves you. He should be allowed to at least tell you how he feels about it.”
“I would have to be present during the surgery,” Doolittle said to Hugh. “And my assistants.”
“I can do it in front of the whole Pack if you want,” he said. “Makes no difference to me.”
“I just want to be a mom,” Dali said softly. “I want to hold the baby that Jim and I made. I want to cuddle him or her. Sing to her. I want a baby.”
She glanced at me and a little light of the old Dali sparked in her eyes. “I want to freak out and take my baby to Doolittle in a panic when he sneezes.”
Really? “I don’t take Conlan in when he sneezes. I have serious concerns.”
Curran exploded from his spot by Dali. He leaped over the table and tore out the door. I grabbed Sarrat and ran after him.
We burst onto the street. The window on the top floor of George’s house lay shattered, the bars missing. A man landed in the middle of the street with inhuman grace, his patched trench coat flaring around him. Razer.
He was clutching my son to him, pointing the tip of his dagger at Conlan’s neck. The dagger gleamed with silver.
Sarrat smoked in my hand. I snapped my magic like a whip, activating the long-distance ward that would lock him in. He’d have to break it to leave the street, and I had a lot more magic than he did.
Curran shifted. An eight-foot nightmare rose next to me, a meld of human and lion distilled into a thing of power and speed, designed to do only one thing: kill. A huge Kodiak, bleeding from a gash on its head, tore out of George’s house.
Hugh moved to the right of me, a sword in his hand. Next to him Elara stepped forward. Dali stalked to the left of Curran. Derek and Julie sprinted to us from Derek’s house. A trio of vampires burst from the other end of the street, cutting off his exit. More werebears poured out of George’s place.
Razer looked up. Christopher swooped over his head, blood-red wings spread wide.