“Get more rags!” Adam shouted as he gripped his wife’s trembling hand.
An agonizing scream belted from her lungs as her back bowed against the mattress.
“Another opening started!” Gracie tossed away yet another sopping red towel.
“Anna, stay with me. I need you to stay with me.” He pressed his lips to her damp skin. “Check the baby, Grace.”
“I just did. This wound needs a suture—”
“Now!” Adam ordered.
His sister’s hands went to Anna’s swollen stomach.
“Adam, what’s happening to me?” Anna’s cry ripped through his heart.
“The baby’s stressed, but his heart’s beating.”
“Tell me what you need, ainsicht.”
“Sleep, Adam, I need to sleep. The pain—” Another scream ripped through her, and he winced.
As soon as one wound healed, another two opened. His mother rushed in with a stack of towels. They couldn’t keep up with the blood.
“She’s losing too much, Adam,” Gracie said, her eyes wide with panic.
He tore into his wrist, opening his flesh, and shoved his vein to her lips. “Drink, Anna.” She was so weak. “Do it!”
The flutter of her mouth was barely detectable. She sipped only to jerk back and grab her skull, screaming hysterically. “My eyes! It’s crushing me!”
“What is it?” He was on his feet, helpless. “Anna, talk to me!”
A chunk of her skin ripped away, exposing the raw, pink pulp of her inner flesh. Bruises took shape as he stared in horror.
“Make it stop! Please!” A jagged gouge scored her arm and she coughed up blood.
“For God’s sake, go get the healer!”
Cain grunted and spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground, his limbs trembling and muscles pleading for this to end. This was no ordinary female. Her strength wouldn’t wane.
He screamed as she tackled him to the ground, claws ripping open his throat and teeth tearing at his back. The sick gurgle filling his lungs and the taste of fresh blood on his tongue was alarming as he wrestled her off in a frantic attempt to escape.
The scores of claw marks running over his back burned down to the nerve. Sticky blood caked around his eyes and dirt coated his sweaty flesh. His clothing hung like ribbons off his bleeding limbs.
This had gone on long enough.
He kicked out his legs and threw her off of him, hearing her land somewhere twenty feet away.
Panting and grunting, he staggered to his feet and froze. His eyes searched the shadows. Where was she?
The unexpected weight crashed onto his shoulders, knocking him to his knees with an excruciating crunch of bone. She screeched, ripping back his hair and biting into his throat as if planning to gnaw his head clean off his shoulders.
Anna’s screams beat against the walls as she arched off the bed. Her muscles clenched and her limbs flailed. She clawed at an invisible enemy, doing more damage to herself.
The bedding wore a crimson stain so thick it dripped to the wood floor. Her spine bore lacerations too deep to close. The horrific sight of his wife’s tortured body stole his breath. If he lost her, he’d have nothing to live for.
“Anna, breathe with me.”
“Adam,” her voice was weak, a mere tremble beneath the pain.
“Give me your pain. Let me—”
One glimpse of the agony she suffered and he jerked hard, his knees buckling as a grunt robbed him of the air in his lungs. How was she surviving this?
The healer, who had been sopping up the blood with soiled rags, staggered back, head shaking as if running out of hope.
“Do something!” Adam raged.
“Please, Adam,” Anna rasped, red with busted blood vessels. “Please, let me sleep. I want to be numb.”
Selfishly, he didn’t want to lose their connection. “No, ainsicht, you need to stay awake.”
“Perhaps it would be better if she slept. Less traumatic for the baby,” the healer suggested.
Adam looked at Gracie, who held Anna’s belly with shaking, blood-soaked hands. She nodded, which could only mean that her concern for their unborn child had grown.
Adam pressed a kiss to his wife’s damp hair, his breath rushing past his lips, and he fought the urge to cry. “I’ll be right here, my love. Come back to me.” He gave the mental command for her to sleep and the tension in her body loosened, her weight sinking lifelessly into the blood-soaked bed.
Cain drew back his arm, prepared to strike when his vision flickered. The edges of his peripheral field darkened with black shadows and he blinked, fighting to see through the dim woods. A sharp tug at the back of his mind threw his balance and his enemy winked out of view.
Had he lost too much blood? If he passed out, she’d kill him.
“Tell me who your maker is!” Breath soughed in and out of his lungs like fire fed by bellows.
Laughter rung with a haunting echo from the canopy above. Another tug, hard at the back of his mind, and he staggered.