Bannockburn Binding (Beloved Bloody Time) (22 page)

Lee turned to face Nayara, the first real animation he had shown all day. His eyes glittered with some unnamed emotion. “It’s too early,” he said flatly. “You can’t induce now.”

Nayara held out her hand. “The ob-gyn says it’s risky, but not impossible. You’re just a general physician, Christian. He is one of the very best specialists in Los Angeles. If we can let him examine her…” She bit her lip. “If you will let me bring him here.”

“To bring on the delivery?” Rob asked, his eyes narrowing.

“Yes,” Nayara said, pleased he understood the nuances.

“Then Tally can begin the birthing now? As soon as he gets here?” The hope in his voice was almost painful to hear.

“If that is all right with you, Rob. The baby will be premature, but not dangerously so, not for our time, and Natália’s time grows short. The poisoning is taking her.”

“Then of course it’s bloody well all right with me,” he growled. “D’ye think I’m so daft I’d deny them a chance to live?”

“No,” Christian said, his voice low. “Rob, no. You don’t understand the risks.” He crouched down in front of Rob and looked him in the eye. “You have to trust me. This seems like a miracle solution to you, I know, but it’s not. There’s all sorts of dangers Nayara isn’t telling you about.”

Nayara had caught from the edges of Tally’s mind the fact that Rob and Christian were lovers, but this was the first time she had been faced with the fact in reality. They really
were
lovers as well as being Tally’s lovers. Nayara could see the bond between them even though they were doing nothing more complicated than look at each other.

It was a true ménage, then. Nayara realized she felt a tiny touch of envy. It had been at least two hundred years since she had seen a ménage relationship at work. That it was her own was the cause of the envy.

It had always puzzled her that vampires did not naturally coalesce into more ménages than she had seen in her lifetime. It was a perfect relationship for long-lived, high-demand high-risk-living vampires. That Christian and Tally had found a human from such an ancient era to complete their ménage was quite astonishing. It meant Rob MacKenzie was a very unusual man. His mind had to be quite extraordinary to have coped with all the changes and ideas that Natália and Christian would have thrust upon him in the last few weeks.

Rob put the dirk aside now and laid his hand on Christian’s shoulder. “It’s not our decision, Lee,” he said, his voice low and gentle. Nayara recognized the tone with a jolt. It was the tone a leader used to settle restless men before a battle with long odds. She used that tone herself.

A very unusual man, indeed.

“We have to ask Tally,” Rob added.

Christian shook his head. “She can’t speak!”

Rob’s fingers dug into Christian’s shoulder. “She can speak to you,” Rob said, his voice still low and calm.

Christian swallowed, staring at Rob.

“She can speak to you and you can tell me. All of us,” Rob added, glancing at Nayara.

“You know we haven’t done that since you…since Bannockburn, don’t you?” Christian replied. “It didn’t seem fair.”

“I know,” Rob replied. “But now it will help us all.”

Christian pressed his lips together. “All right.” He got to his feet and moved into the bedroom. Rob followed him in. Morag stood as the two men approached the bed, but Christian patted her shoulder and she sank down onto the stool once more, wringing her hands.

Nayara moved over to the doorway and rested her shoulder against the frame.

Christian settled himself on the edge of the bed and picked up Natália’s hand. Instantly, Natália’s agony-filled contortions lessened. Nayara suspect Natália was trying to hide her pain from her men so they would not be troubled. It would be just like her. But she could not hide it completely. Her body jerked and twitched as she lay on the bed, her eyes on Christian.

Rob stood at Christian’s shoulder. “They want to bring on the birthing, Tally,” Rob said. “Lee’s against it, for medical reasons and because he’s afraid for you and the babe. I think you should get to choose. It’s you who will be taking the risks.” He rested his hand on Christian’s shoulder again. “Lee will have to explain the risks to you, because I want this to happen. I want to end your pain and I would minimize them.”

Admiration filled Nayara for Rob’s clear-headed thinking even at such an emotional and crisis-filled time.

“Wait,” Christian murmured. He reached toward Natália’s face, as if he were about to stroke it, then pulled back. Simply holding her hand would be causing a degree of pain. Even the slightest drag of fingertips across her flesh would be worse. Christian sat back again, his shoulder against Rob’s hip. “You’re sure, Tally?” he asked.

She nodded, her chin moving a fraction of an inch. Her dark eyes shifted, lifting up to Rob. Her mouth curved up into a small smile, even as her eyes filled with tears.

“Tally wants us to induce the baby,” Christian said heavily. “She doesn’t care about the risks to herself, but she wants me to monitor the baby and protect him at all costs.”

“I bloody well care about the risks to her,” Rob returned sharply. “You do both, Lee.”

“No.” Christian looked up at Rob. “You don’t understand, Rob. This is a patient privilege. Tally gets to decide this matter, no one else. It’s her body, her choice. If there is a life or death decision to be made at some point, that is the decision she wants made. The baby over her.”

Rob shook his head. “No.”

Christian stood up. “It may never come to this, Rob. But if it does, do you really want the doctor to stand there trying to make some sort of ethical and moral decision and dithering over which way he should jump and letting them both die?”

Rob looked at Tally, who was gazing at them both, her damp eyes steady. “No, he told Christian, his voice hoarse.

“Do you really want some stranger to make decisions on your behalf? To make a decision about Tally and our son?”

Rob glanced at Tally again. He dropped his gaze and shook his head.

Christian stepped out of the way. “Tally wants you to kiss her.”

Rob took a breath that lifted his shoulders and let it out heavily. “Ye can’t talk and ye still driving me insane, lass,” he told her. He bent over her and pressed his lips softly to hers.

Christian laughed. “She’s complaining. She wants a proper kiss.”

Rob looked at Christian, startled. Then at Tally. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t. Not enough to make the kiss worth passing up. I’m quoting her word for word,” Christian said.

Morag smiled and moved her stool out of the way.

Rob knelt by the side of the bed and gently turned Natália’s head toward him. He pressed his mouth against hers.

That was when Nayara realized she had lingered at the doorway long enough. She had her answer. She straightened and moved out of sight of the intimate scene in the bedroom.

Before she arranged for the transport of the two medical experts and had to face anyone else, she stopped off in Christian’s marvel of a fourteenth century bathroom and washed her face to remove any trace of tears.

* * * * *

When he arrived in the security area, Charbonneau immediately felt the uptick in tension since he’d left twelve hours before. He looked around, trying to analyse the cause and realized he knew almost everyone by name. Although he had not made it a mission to meet and get to know everyone at the station, it seemed he’d managed to do just that.

Even Tinker was sitting at a desk, frowning over the controls. Charbonneau went up to the boy. “They pulled you in here, too?”

Tinker shook his head. “Naw, I’m just filing a flight plan with Halfway Traffic Control. Got one of them secret visitors to shuttle over, you know?”

“No, I don’t think I do.”

Tinker grinned. “You should. You were one, seven months ago.”

“I was a secret?”

“Well, they didn’t broadcast who you were and why you were coming, but it’s not like everyone didn’t hear one way or another, anyway.” Tinker stabbed at one of the soft controls with some satisfaction and stood up. “I wouldn’t stick around here, if I were you. They’ll find you a job as soon as you cross your eyes.”

“What’s happening? Do you know?”

“You vamps are a suspicious lot. No-one will tell me.”

“Is your mystery guest part of it?”

“Who knows? I’m just the errand boy. It was a last minute arrangement, though. Which is why I’m stuck here doing flight plans, ‘stead of filing in comfort on Halfway. All I can tell you is his name. Dr.
Isingoma
Sophus
, from Los Angeles.”

“A medical doctor?”

“I guess. If he’s from Los Angeles, that’s pretty much a lock, ain’t it? Medical capital of the world and all that.”

“A human doctor,” Charbonneau said. “You’re right, that is interesting. There’s no one here for him to treat.”

“There’s Pritti,” Tinker reminded him. “But she ain’t sick.” He shoved his thumb at the terminal screen. “I gotta run.”

“
Adieu
,” Charbonneau murmured, as Tinker dashed away, his reading board under his arm.

Charbonneau speculated on the mysterious healthcare expert and the unexplained business of the station for a few minutes, staring blankly at the readout screen Tinker had been using. Then he walked over to Brenden’s office and stepped in.

The big man was hunched over his screen, typing with surprising efficiency with his thick fingers.

“This is a bad time,” Brenden said, with the briefest glance up to confirm Charbonneau’s identity. “Hell’s hounds are loose and braying.”

“So I understand,” Charbonneau said mildly. “Justin is resting and I suddenly find myself with nothing to do, which is intolerable. Give me work, Brenden.”

Brenden stopped typing to look at him. “I can’t ask you to make any jumps.”

“I’ve been jumping for months now.”

“No time jumps,” Brenden amended.

“I don’t have the courage to try that without the closest guidance and supervision. Justin is an effective fear-monger.” He grinned. “I suspect he laid it very thick for me, as I was a willing recruit.”

“He did at that,” Brenden agreed.

Charbonneau spread his hands. “I’ve administered extensive household and family estates and run multi-national corporations in my time. Crunching numbers is nothing to me. Neither is routine paperwork. Give me something to do. Give one of your staff a break out there. They’re all looking haggard.” He smiled to take the sting out of it. “So are you.”

“I’m worried,” Brenden growled. “But if it’s work you want, work you’ll have. See Martina out there?” He pointed to a vampire at one of the desks, with screamingly short blonde hair and Chinese tattoos across the back of her neck. “She’s drowning. Get her to tell you what she needs done.”

Charbonneau looked up to where Brenden was pointing and saw, beyond Martina’s shoulder, hurrying along the glassed-in corridor that led to the arrival chambers, a clump of people that included the white-blonde albino, Fahmido, a vampire who had specialized in medical research on vampire physiology and who was the closest thing the world had to a vampire doctor.

* * * * *

Nayara stood with her back to the closed door of the bathroom, facing Rob where he sat at the very end of the bench in front of the table. Lee sat next to him.

“It’s going to get very weird for you for a while, Rob,” Nayara said. “We’re going to have to do things for which there won’t be time to give explanations. I’m about to bring strangers tramping in here, too.”

“Do whatever it takes,” he said roughly.

Nayara nodded. “Then here is the first strange thing I must ask of you. The male doctor is a human from our time. Not even vampire. He’s been paid an astonishing amount of money to ask no questions about the patient he must tend to, or the circumstances of her delivery.”

Rob considered this. “He doesn’t know he’s back in the past, does he?”

“He will have very strong suspicions that won’t be confirmed. Time-travel is an accepted fact in our world and doctors are smart people. But he will have no way of telling when he is and he doesn’t know the details of Natália’s conception. I’m running all sorts of risks screwing around with time this way, Rob. I have to minimize the potential damage. Will you help with the deception?”

“My best help will be keeping my lips together,” Rob told her.

Her glance slid over him, from neck to feet. It was done in a flicker of her big green eyes.

Rob rolled his eyes. “I can change, of course. He won’t get clues from my clothes.”

Nayara smiled. “Thank you.”

He stood up. “Just hurry.”

“Hurrying,” she assured him. “There’s a reason I’m guarding this door.”

“They’re on their way?” Rob asked. His heart squeezed.

She cocked her head a little and reached for the latch on the door. “They’re here,” she announced.

Chapter Sixteen

When Ryan hurried into security, Charbonneau put down the board he was loading and followed Ryan into Brenden’s office. He entered in time to hear Ryan say, “…in labour.”