She kept her eyes open, but there was so much pain he felt sick. She was so cold he felt her slipping away. Her pulse beneath his seeking fingers was thready and weak. Don’t leave me, baby. Stay for me. I need you. Need you so much.

She was gone. They took her through double doors, forcing him to stay back. He felt her slip away from him. Felt the breath leave her body. Felt the moment her heart stopped beating and the pulse went quiet in her body. He felt her leave him. He knew he wasn’t making it up when he heard the voices shouting instructions, all a calm, but frantic fight for her life. He almost lost it, shoving at the two men who stepped in front of him, but Jake was there, one restraining hand on his arm.

“Let them do their job, Eli,” Jake advised. “Both surgeons and their team are well aware of what she is.”

“She’s pregnant. I know she is. I didn’t tell them.” Eli shoved both hands through his hair in agitation. “Maybe a month.”

Jake immediately approached one of the two men who had stopped Eli from entering the surgery rooms. The man turned and rushed through the double doors.

“They’ll take care of it,” Jake assured again.

He’d been there with Emma. The same waiting room. He remembered standing in front of the window, his world bleak and gray. Waiting to know. Waiting to hear if she was alive. He’d prayed for the first time in his life. He knew what Eli was feeling, a gut-wrenching sorrow. An agonizing fear. Terror that the one person who made up his world could be taken from him.

Eli was grateful Jake was there, but he couldn’t talk. He needed quiet. He needed to find the invisible thread that he’d made psychically with Catarina. No one had come to tell him she was dead, so they had to have got her breathing again. He would know if she tried to fade away again, and he would do everything in his power to stop her. She had to love him that much. Enough to endure whatever was necessary in order to stay with him.

He wouldn’t survive her loss. Not intact. It was impossible. She’d made her way into his heart. Snuck in when he wasn’t looking. It was impossible to be with her and not fall deeply, madly in love with her. But that hadn’t been enough. She’d taken his soul.