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Liam grabbed Shaye’s arm in a firm grip and dragged him forward, unlocking this fear-driven paralysis.

Until he stepped into his bedchamber.

Blood.

Smears, stains, the smell.

Everywhere.

It filled his private sanctuary. The one place where he and Moira shared everything.

“Brother,” Rihanna gasped. She freed herself from Bryce’s embrace and ran to him, hands grabbing his face and forcing him to peer into her blood-stained face. Blood. Moira’s blood. “Where’s the potion, Shaye?”

Nay, this wasn’t happening.

Nay!

His gaze lifted from Rihanna, the scene around him slowing as realization began to sink its cruel claws into his mind. Killeny and Aspen, Horano and now Liam. Surrounding a figure on the bed he shared with Moira. The biting stench of blood overwhelmed him. The sensation of his bond dimming…dimming…

“Shaye!” Rihanna shook him hard, stripping the horror from his mind. Fear unlike anything he’d ever known exploded through him as he focused on his sister’s terrified expression. “We’ve not much time. She’s lost too much blood to survive. Where’s thepotion?!”

“Her old room. Locked in the jewelry box on the dresser,” Shaye heard himself say through the rush of blood dulling his hearing.

He broke away from Rihanna, his eyes locked on the figure on his bed. Moira. His beloved Moira.

Aspen chanted ancient Gaelic healing spells. Killeny’s healing power suffused her belly. A belly that rippled and jerked with the struggles of his unborn son.

The blood soaking the blankets beneath Moira’s legs spread.

He leaped onto the bed and dropped beside Horano, taking Moira’s bloody, bruised and broken head into his lap. One of her closed eyes had swollen red-purple. Lacerations over her forehead and her cheeks oozed blood.

This could not be happening. Could not! Not his wife, hisanam cara.Not. His. Moira!

Wetness splashed against his fingers, leaving a track through the sticking blood on Moira’s temple.

“Shaye, look at me,” Liam said. Despite the chaos in the chamber, Liam maintained his calm, his control somehow pushing Shaye’s impending grief aside. His eyes flashed with gold flecks, those flecks pulsing and throbbing as he splayed his hands over Moira’s belly. “The only hope to save Terrek is by delivering him. The placenta has torn, restricting his blood flow and oxygen. She can’t birth him unconscious.”

Liam lowered his head slightly, but his gaze intensified. Shaye understood. He understood there was only one way to save hisanam caraand their son.

“Aye,” he consented.

Liam nodded, power surging from his fingers as he fought to keep Moira and Terrek alive a little longer. The distress evidenced by Terrek’s fierce movements pained him in a way only a father could suffer over his child. His beloved Moira suffered a tremendous trauma.

Because I was gone.

As much as he wanted to look at Horano, ask what had happened,howthis could have happened, he couldn’t take his eyes off Moira.

To his utter surprise, and immense relief, her unswollen eyelid fluttered until it opened to a mere slit. She didn’t speak. Didn’t give any indication that she knew what was happening. She stared up at him through a shimmery haze over her stormy eye.

Rihanna returned, clambering onto the bed beside him. The small gold vial trembled in her hand as she held it up.

Liam motioned to Moira’s head. “A small dose. Her system is under tremendous stress. With what she’s suffered, we can’t shock it more than we have to.”

Rihanna fumbled to unscrew the top of the vial, droppingthe small cap onto the bed. Shaye brushed strands of hair away from the sticky blood on Moira’s forehead.

“Mo ghra. I’ll not let you go until you are safe and well. I’ll never let you go again.”

Her lips moved slowly, precisely forming a single word on a rush of breath. “Baby?”