Silent Embrace Book 2

SETH

Seth considered himself a miracle.

After all, he had been left for dead, and here he was, distinctly alive.

Able to practice medicine, even.

Like now. He was giving a prenatal exam to one of his favorite patients, Shannon. It amazed him that she’d been able to conceive six months ago in the face of all the madness.

So there you had it. Two miracles together in one room. Three, if you counted the fetus.

“Can you hear a heartbeat?”

Despite her protruding belly, Shannon sat rigidly erect, staring up at him anxiously with her deep eyes.

He looked down into those eyes. He knew why she was in this state: she had never made it this far in a pregnancy before. Several attempts, several losses.

Also, by the looks of it, she was going it alone.

“Shan, we’re way past that. It’s kicking.”

“I know, I know, I was…just checking.”

He put a finger under her chin. “I know how high the stakes are for you. Trust me when I tell you that we’ll have a much better chance of this all going smoothly if you relax.”

“Seth…”

“It’s as healthy a fetus as I’ve ever seen, Shannon. You don’t have to be such an overachiever.”

He’d thought the same about Carrie. He shuddered.

“But I do,” Shannon said.

He took her hand and squeezed it supportively. He didn’t make a habit of prying into his patients’ personal lives, especially his female patients’.

And he had a lot of them.

The women who were formerly known as “Breeders” in Lazarus had been released from those responsibilities, but Shannon still had a child to carry.

Several of the others were having trouble processing all that had happened to them.

So, they needed Seth.

He didn’t talk about their situations. But he was there for them.

He loved his job. He hated the reasons for doing it here.

“Ok,” he said as he pulled Shannon’s shirt back down over her belly, “I’m going to get you some more of your vitamins and then we’ll talk about the next few months.”

He helped Shannon down from the exam table. She followed him out to the room containing the medicine cabinets.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

They both turned to see Blythe standing in the doorway.

“Hey,” she said, looking as if she hadn’t slept. “Sorry, am I interrupting?”

“No,” Shannon said with a smile. “We were just finishing up.”

Seth turned his head to his patient as he dug in the medicine cabinet.

“All right,” he said, “your job is to relax. In fact, I’m putting you on bedrest. Don’t do any more than you absolutely have to. We’ll have people bring you food and stuff.”

Blythe raised her hand. “I can help with that.”

“Thank you, Blythe. Case in point. Now, I know you’re a real adventurer, but this is—”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, Seth. Whatever it takes to deliver this baby.”

Shannon glanced gratefully at Blythe before saying her goodbyes and closing the door behind her.

Seth looked at Blythe, and she looked at him.

“Now, I should warn you, I’m not a psychologist, but are you here because you saw a person die?”

She came and sat on the exam table, swinging her legs. “I’m talking to you as a friend, Seth.”

“Oh.” He chuckled uneasily. “Good. I guess I assume the worst these days.”

“I mean, I’m glad it’s business as usual somewhere. Everyone else is sort of shell-shocked.”

Seth nodded. It had shocked him, too. He’d been involved in the early stages of Carrie’s prenatal care.

Her behavior had been the polar opposite of Shannon’s—granted, she hadn’t suffered any miscarriages.

Blythe had been the one to call him in late last night. He had pronounced Carrie dead by electrocution.

When he’d asked if she’d seen how it happened, Blythe had said it looked like Carrie had been trying to fix a light bulb.

She’d seemed hesitant, but Seth wasn’t going to press it. By any standard, that sort of trauma was unimaginable.

“Yeah.” Blythe’s voice was hollow, almost as if she’d adjusted to it already. Or as if she were refusing to adjust.

“Jesus, it’s awful.”

“No one’s going to be the same.” A single tear glistened in Blythe’s eye. “She was so important to everyone. Especially the human women.”

Seth bowed his head. Carrie had been something of a beacon among the humans. She had gotten Walker back. She had even helped engineer the possibility of a revolution.

No. He couldn’t go there. No.

“How’s Walker doing?”

Seth did a double-take.

“I haven’t seen Walker yet.”

“You haven’t?” Blythe said as her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

“No. Why?”

“He isn’t in their room, so I figured he was with you.”

“He hasn’t been to see me. I mean, I haven’t gone to see him either, but…”

Blythe looked at him with muted panic in her eyes.

“Then where is he?”

KILLIAN

This was just perfect.

“Okay, man, look at me, in my eyes, come on.”

“Walker. Breathe. Breathe.”

“In my eyes, damn it.”

“Tristan. Don’t push it.”

But Tristan wouldn’t even spare him a glance—his eyes were on Walker, his brother, his flesh and blood—who at this point was not human.

He was bear. All bear. And he was angry.

They stood in the dust in the back of the compound. The giant grizzly would sprint a few yards and then slow, disoriented and unsure.

Killian and Tristan danced around him, light on their feet, fearful of where he would go next.

Every so often he would let out a roar and rear up on his hind legs, and they would hold up their hands to try to bring him back down.

It had been a while since Killian had talked himself through the stages of grief.

Walker’s stage of denial had lasted ten minutes before segueing into anger.

And, because Tristan had happened to be around when he shifted into bear, he was the one dealing with it.

Except Walker had clearly been too much for him on his own, so he’d called in reinforcements. Killian had been out here ever since.

“It’ll be alright, Walker, it’ll be alright, just calm down.” He kept this commentary on loop, this string of consolations that would never be true, never be enough.

His own past was starting to catch up to him.

“Let’s get you inside, huh?” he said, inching closer. Tristan was just over Walker’s furry haunch, signaling ever so subtly to start closing in.

“Just find your human in there, and we’ll go back in and—”

Walker roared. Killian jumped back. Tristan bolted over to the bear’s other side to keep him from making a run for the fence.

Killian had an inkling that they had a long day ahead of them…

DEREK

Derek slumped against the door of the control room on the ground floor. He’d been run off his feet all day.

The thing about this place was that just when you thought things had hit rock bottom, rock bottom bottomed out.

You couldn’t trust shifters. At least, not entirely. They were liable to go haywire at any second.

Ever since one of the human women was pronounced dead in the middle of the night, the whole building had collapsed into mayhem.

It was a wonder the physical structure hadn’t collapsed at this point.

He had found her mate in bear form out back. He had helped to contain him alongside Killian and the bear’s brother Tristan.

People were emotional. People he’d hardly ever seen at all were wandering the halls, crying. Crossing between floors. It was all he could do to maintain order.

He let out a long, deep sigh when his phone buzzed.

Rowan.

What fresh hell is this?

MILO

Milo’s head was spinning. As per usual. He hoped to God no one would try to talk to him today.

Then again, he needed more information on all that had happened last night with Carrie.

And now Walker…

The title of Alpha had not turned out to be what he thought it would have been.

More like ‘puppet.’

The consistent headaches and lack of sleep didn’t help, either.

He needed to feel in control of something. Anything.