“I was thinking I’d been in the damn infirmary for two weeks and if I didn’t get out, I’d bash my head against the wall. You don’t understand. Physically I’m fine. It’s only the labor that might be the problem. All I did was sit in there and think about my baby going loup. I had to get out.”

“You hold on to that baby.” I rocketed down the street like a bat out of hell, bouncing on every pimple in the pavement. “I don’t know anything about delivering babies.”

“I don’t want you to deliver my baby. I want you to drive! Please drive.”

She was breathing like a marathon runner. I glanced into the rearview mirror. Sweat drenched her face.

I drove like all the hounds of hell were chasing me.

•   •   •

THE KEEP WAS an hour away on a good day. I made it in forty minutes.

“Almost there.”

“I can’t hold on any longer.” She was soaked in sweat. Her skin had gone sallow.

I barreled on down the narrow road, right past a Pack sentry. The gates to the courtyard stood wide open, showing the yard filled with shapeshifters, and I drove right into it. People dashed away from the speeding car, parting like waves . . . except one. Jim blocked my way. His eyes told me he wasn’t moving.

I slammed on the brakes.

Do not kill the Beast Lord, do not kill the Beast Lord . . .

The car slid forward and stopped a mere foot from Jim.

He yanked the driver’s door open. “What the hell . . .”

“She’s going into labor!”

He saw Andrea and roared, “Clear the way to the medward!”

Raphael shot out of the tower gates, scooped his wife out of the backseat, and ran into the tower.

“We’ve been looking for her for the last hour. Doolittle got so pissed off, he couldn’t even talk. He just made animal noises. What were you thinking, taking a pregnant woman on bed rest out for a stroll?” Jim’s eyes blazed.

Typical. It’s all my fault. “She picked me up.”

“Then you should’ve driven her right back to the Keep.”

“Me and what army? I’d like to see you try to take the keys from her.”

Ahead Andrea screamed.

I jumped out of the car and chased after Raphael.

•   •   •

WAITING WAS THE hardest part. They took Andrea into the medward, behind two sets of soundproof doors that muffled her screams. Raphael went in with her and when he’d carried her through the doors, I glimpsed Doolittle in his wheelchair and Nasrin, his second-in-command, attended by three nurses and a burly shapeshifter who looked like he could crush cement blocks into powder with his bare hands. I had to stay in the waiting area, a spacious room with an abundance of big pillows and soft couches.