“No reason for what?” Azagoth’s hands fisted at his sides as he fought to control his panic. “Fucking talk to me.”
If Azagoth’s bluntness irritated the doctor, he didn’t show it, and Azagoth’s respect for him bumped up a notch. “She needs to go to the hospital.”
“No damned way,” Azagoth growled.
“Reaver assured us that if she ever needed to go, she could. It’ll be okay.”
Angels—except Memitim and Reaver—couldn’t step foot in Underworld General, but Lilliana’s move to Sheoul-gra had all but destroyed her angel status, dirtying her wings just enough that she could temporarily go places most angels couldn’t.
But that wasn’t Azagoth’s concern.
“I said no. Whatever needs to happen, it can happen here. No one is taking her from me again.”
Eidolon rose to his feet, his steady, dark gaze holding Azagoth’s. “I’m going to be blunt because I don’t think we have much time. Do you want to lose the baby?”
The doctor’s words were a gut punch. Azagoth wanted to destroy the bastard for even asking the question. Wanted to scream in frustration that this was happening. Obviously, he didn’t want to lose his baby, but he was terrified of allowing Lilliana to leave. To go to a place full of strangers and demons and who the hell knew what else.
He’d just gotten her back.
“Father.” Idess laid her slender hand on his forearm in a gentle plea. “She’ll have the best care in the world. I promise.”
“I have enemies,” he insisted. “She’ll be exposed. In danger.”
“My hospital is protected by an anti-violence spell,” Eidolon said in a soothing voice that shouldn’t have worked on Azagoth but did. “No one can flash in or out. I can assign guards, or you can send your own. She’ll be safe within UG’s walls. You have my word.”
Journey stepped forward, his booted foot hitting the floor like a clap of thunder. “I’ll accompany her as a bodyguard. I swear, no one will touch her.”
“I’ll go, too,” Emerico offered.
“Please, darling,” Lilliana croaked. “It’ll be okay.”
He wanted to believe that. Was desperate to believe that. But even as he nodded in assent, he felt a sinking in his gut.
None of this was okay.
But losing the baby wasn’t an option.
“Do it,” he said roughly, catching the doctor’s gaze. “And if you return my mate and child to me, I’ll owe you a debt I can never repay.”
Eidolon gave him a shrewd look as he gathered his bag. “You can expect me to collect. My hospital doesn’t run on goodwill alone.”
Azagoth’s pulse hammered as he watched Journey gently gather Lilliana into his arms. She smiled weakly and captured Azagoth’s hand before they started out the door.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Azagoth still wasn’t comfortable with emotion, so his voice broke a bit as he whispered back, “I love you, too.” Somehow, he summoned the strength to release her so they could go, but not before he seized Eidolon by the elbow. “Remember, Doctor, someday your soul will be mine.”
Idess’s hand came down lightly on Azagoth’s shoulder. “Threats aren’t necessary, Father.”
“I’m used to it,” Eidolon muttered. “He isn’t the first psychotically overprotective mate I’ve dealt with.” The doctor paused at the doorway and turned to Azagoth. “Lilliana will get the best care in all the realms. You made the right decision.”
Azagoth wasn’t sure of that, but he nodded anyway.
And then, the moment the door closed, he fell to his knees and screamed.
Chapter 4
Eidolon wasted no time in getting Lilliana to the hospital. He burst out of the Harrowgate, followed by Emerico, Idess, and Journey, Lilliana draped in the Memitim’s arms.
“This way,” he called out, leading them toward the closest vacant exam room. Hospital staff scrambled out of the way as they rushed in.
“Everything will be okay,” Journey assured Lilliana as he carefully placed her on the exam table.
Eidolon hoped the Memitim was psychic. Eidolon had treated a lot of powerful, top-of-the-food-chain patients and their loved ones, but Azagoth was in a category of his own. The Grim Reaper’s reach was extensive enough in the physical world, but the fact that it went beyond that, past the grave, meant there was no escaping his wrath. Even if it took thousands of years, he would, eventually, nail your ass to the wall.
Literally and for eternity.
Putting those unsettling thoughts aside, Eidolon told the Memitim boys to wait outside. As he grabbed an IV kit from a cabinet, he called over a physician assistant, a cocky, young vampire named Drake with spiky, purple-silver hair.
“I need Blaspheme on this.”
As an angel who hadn’t gotten her wings yet, she was able to run UG’s London clinic. She’d be invaluable in this situation with Lilliana.
Drake’s lips, coated in black lipstick, dipped into a frown. “Uh, Dr. Blaspheme didn’t show up for work today.”
“What do you mean she didn’t show up?” Eidolon handed the supplies to Meesa, a new nurse at UG. She had quit her job at John Hopkins after twenty years, following an unfortunate incident where a co-worker had seen her shapeshift into a lion. “Did she take the day off?”
“No, sir. She hasn’t shown up in two days, and no one can get ahold of her. It’s the talk of the hospital.”
“And I’m just hearing about this now…why?”
“The clinic tried calling you,” Meesa said, “but you didn’t answer.”
Shit, yeah. He’d turned his phone off while he was in Sheoul-gra. “Okay, we’ll deal with that later. Get Gem.” He paused. “And call Shade if he isn’t on an ambulance run. If we can’t get him, we need to start a transfusion.”
Eidolon’s brother, Shade, was a paramedic and had the ability to manipulate bodily functions. A little juice from him could keep a heart beating, lungs breathing, and blood forming.
Lilliana moaned. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
Meesa rushed an emesis basin over as Eidolon helped roll Lilliana onto her side.
“Drake, I need labs. Test for everything, and tell them this is their number one priority.” Summoning his power, he channeled the energy through the glowing symbols of his dermoire and sent it into Lilliana’s body.
All around him, the sounds of a hospital—the beeps of equipment, the moans of pain, the retching of a pregnant female—faded away as Eidolon began to see inside Lilliana.
And it was disturbing.
Touching angels had always given Eidolon a case of the willies, but as a resident of Sheoul-gra and Azagoth’s mate, Lilliana didn’t affect Eidolon’s senses as intensely as she would have if her wings weren’t dirty. But it wasn’t her Heavenly status currently punching Eidolon with a cold fist of dread. It was the shifting, undulating shadow of darkness encasing her womb and the base of each wing.
“Doctor.” The urgency in Drake’s voice startled him, and he glanced over at the rush of blood flowing onto the table.