Having him there had helped her get through the pain. And she’d needed him. Doc Jane had advised against an epidural, as vampires could experience alarming decreases in blood pressure with them. So there had been no buffering at all.

And no time to move her to Havers’s clinic. Once the Pitocin had fired up her body, the labor had progressed too fast for her to be taken anywhere—although it wouldn’t have mattered because dawn was near. Which meant there was no way to get the race’s physician to the training center, either.

Bella came back to the present, smoothing her hand over the thin pillow that rested on the gurney. She could remember holding on to Z’s hand hard enough to break his bones as she’d strained until her teeth hurt and she felt as if she were getting ripped in half.

And then her vitals had crashed.

“Bella?”

She wheeled around. Wrath was in the PT room’s doorway, the king’s huge body filling the jambs. With his hip-length black hair and his wraparound sunglasses and his black leathers, he seemed in his silent arrival like a modern-day version of the Grim Reaper.

“Oh, please, no,” she said, gripping onto the gurney. “Please—”

“No, it’s okay. He’s okay.” Wrath came forward and took her arm, holding her up. “He’s been stabilized.”

“Stabilized?”

“He has a compound fracture of his lower leg and it’s caused some bleeding.”

Some being massive, no doubt. “Where is he?”

“He’s coming home from Havers’s right now. I figured you’d be worried, so I wanted to let you know.”

“Thank you. Thank you…” Even with the problems they’d been having lately, the idea of losing her hellren was catastrophic.

“Whoa, easy, there.” The king wrapped her in his huge arms and held her gently. “Let the shakes go through you. You’ll breathe more that way, believe it or not.”