What the hell? Was he starting to picture her carrying his kid now? “It might not happen.” He rolled away from her. Headed to the desk of drawers near the wall and found an extra pair of jeans inside. Kali, that doctor with the dark brown eyes and sad smile, had told him that she kept extra clothes upstairs for her patients.
He’d count himself as a patient then.
He glanced back at Marna. “I’ll be careful from here on out.” Shouldn’t she be yelling at him? Telling him how he’d messed things up for her? It wasn’t like she could actually want to be saddled with his kid.
Hybrids weren’t exactly the easiest of the supernaturals to raise. They both knew how the last shifter and angel mix had turned out. Brandt had been more devil than savior. “You can yell if you want,” he offered cautiously.
Her brows rose. “Why?”
Because I f**ked up. Because I didn’t take good enough care of you. “Because I put you at risk! I could have gotten you pregnant.”
She shrugged. Shrugged.
She might just make him lose his mind.
Then she said, “I think I’d like to have a baby.” Her words almost broke him.
Careful now, he asked, “A baby . . . or my baby?” Because if any other dumbass came around her . . .
She might want a child with another angel. A pureblood. And Bastion had sure been sniffing around her.
Bastion could screw off.
Tanner took a nice, long count to five. The red faded from his vision. He could actually stay sane. He could. “I didn’t mean—”
“Yours.”
The panther roared inside, pride filling him. Tanner advanced toward her. “Marna, I—”
Footsteps raced up the stairs. Heavy. Hard. Tanner’s head whipped up and around to the door just as a fist pounded on the wood. “Kali needs you downstairs, shifter!” Riley yelled. “Now!”
Marna jumped from the bed. Her back was to Tanner, and he glimpsed her wounds. He frowned a moment. The red scars looked like they’d risen higher, and when he’d touched them before, the ridges had actually felt more solid, too. He hadn’t really thought much about it then because he’d been too lost in the best orgasm of his life, but—
They look different. They felt different.
“Your brother’s dying!” Riley shouted.
He forgot about her scars and leapt for the door.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Marna raced behind Tanner as he hurried down the stairs. When he’d yanked open the bedroom door, she’d immediately conjured her clothes. Being naked in front of Riley wasn’t an option she was in the mood to consider.
She only wanted to be naked with Tanner. For Tanner.
He leapt over the last few stairs and darted toward the back room. Marna wasn’t sure what she expected—maybe a makeshift operating room like Cody had once had at his place in the swamp—but inside the tiny room, she only saw a bed. A wall of surgical instruments. And a line of refrigerators that hummed.
She took a breath and caught the heavy scent of blood.
“Usually vamps are the only ones who come to see Kali.” Riley was at her side. “We figured out fast that we needed one of our own to help us when things got desperate.”
The small woman with the dark eyes and fragile beauty—she was a vamp? The lady’s hands were currently covered in blood because she had her fingers shoved over Cody’s bleeding wounds.
“The sutures didn’t hold. The bleeding’s too intense!” The woman—Kali—glanced up, and Marna clearly saw the fear on her face.
Cody’s eyes were open. They looked faded, tired, but his gaze found Tanner’s. “I-it’s . . . okay.” His words were a bare whisper.
“The hell it is!” Tanner was at his side instantly. “We can fix you, Cody. We can fix you. Just hold on and—”
Cody’s body started to shake.
Marna stepped forward. “Give him my blood.” It had worked before, with Tanner. It would work again.
Kali looked at her. “I tried giving him a transfusion already. It didn’t—”
“You didn’t try my blood.” Marna held out her arm. “Take my blood. Give it to him.”
Kali frowned at her. The woman managed to look angry, desperate, and hopeful all at once. “And your blood’s special because—”
“It just f**kin’ is,” was Riley’s response as he took what actually looked like a protective stride toward Marna. “Now stop asking questions. Take the blood, and give it to the demon.”