The Skin She's In by Margo Collins (online e book reader .txt) 📕

semicircle we had created—almost as if he was used to taking orders.

Eduardo and I exchanged nods, and the were-coyote moved around to meet him and make sure he didn’t cause any problems.

I pushed away all thought of window-travelers, focusing instead on my original task—sending power and strength to Evangeline and the babies still waiting to be born in their human forms.

I gathered the power that I had coiled and stored inside me. After scooping it up, I imagined separating it into three separate balls of energy.

Then, I spooled it out, sending it as threads up through the hospital, all the force and strength and life energy that had been held inside me, stolen from the hotspots in the earth—all of it I sent to Evangeline and the babies.

And then I let it move from me into the three of them a little at a time, just enough to keep from overwhelming them all at once.

Live, I told them.

Grow.

Develop.

I pictured the babies doing just that—growing, developing.

Becoming.

Love.

By the end, that was all I have left to send—love.

And when I’d sent that out, as well, I crumpled to the ground, every ounce of magical energy drained out of me and given so that the next generation of lamias might live.

WHEN I WOKE, I’D BEEN placed in a hospital bed myself. I blinked, glancing around the room to see what monitors I might have been connected to.

None.

So perhaps I wasn’t the patient after all.

I sat up and rubbed my hand across my eyes. From beside my bedside, Daria glanced up from her magazine.

“Oh good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re awake. We thought you might be able to use some rest.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“You passed out. Probably simply exhaustion, but we wanted to make sure, so we kept you here for a while. We ran some IV fluids through you, and Dr. Nevala said not to let you go until he’d had a chance to take a look at you.” She glanced at her watch. “His shift should be ending soon.”

“I’m okay now,” I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes with a yawn, but eager to learn what I’d missed. “What happened to the babies?”

Several expressions passed across Daria’s face in rapid succession. “The one is still gone—no one has figured out where the shifters might have taken it. The other two were born healthy and happy, though.”

At that moment, Kade came in with Janice.

“You ready to get out of here?” he asked.

“I feel like I ought to be searching for the baby,” I said.

Janice shook her head. “We have people out looking already.”

“But he took the infant through that Earth-magic portal, or whatever it is.”

“Yes,” Janice said. “And we’ve got those shifters—other than you—who are the most adept at using the Earth magic working on figuring out what, exactly happened.”

“What about the wolves who threatened us?”

“Your new jaguar friend and his crew are assisting in guard duty for those who need it.”

“And spy duty against the wolves,” Kade added. “We sent Jeremiah and Shadow home to rest, too. We’ll all be needed tomorrow.”

“Your herpetologist friend and several nurses are with the infants. Eduardo’s set guards down there and has our local Shields on alert,” Janice said. “You can join them tomorrow.”

“Where’s that guy who came through the portal to our side?”

“Eduardo’s taking him back to his place,” Janice said.

“He seems harmless as far as anyone can tell.” Kade sat down on the edge of my bed. “Seriously, you don’t have to try to take care of everyone. We’ve got it under control.”

“Absolutely.” Janice leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. “We’ll all be meeting tomorrow, and you can join in after you get off work.”

“Work?” I blinked up at her.

She paused, narrowing her eyes at me. “Yes. After you catch up on your day job. Of all of us, you’re supposed to stay most connected to humans. You need to do that.”

Even the thought of work made me yawn involuntarily.

Kade laughed and I was reminded briefly of how, even in the darkest moments, there are flashes of joy.

“Go home,” Janice said. “You can’t do anything more until tomorrow, at the earliest. Rest. I’ll be in touch.”

IN SOME WAYS, IT FELT like a cop-out—but I let Janice and Kade convince me to go home. We stopped by the NICU long enough to see the two new babies. They were snuggled in their incubators, eyes closed, tiny hands and feet curled in.

“Do you have names for them yet?” Kade asked quietly.

I shook my head. “Not yet. I almost want to wait until we find their sibling—God, I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl.”

“No one does,” Kade said quietly. “That’s not as easy in serpent-born lamias as in the human-born ones. We didn’t have time to find out before the wolves took it.”

Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and Kade wrapped his arms around me, whispering words of comfort. “It’ll be okay. We’ll find the baby.”

I nodded. “And then I’ll name them all.”

As Kade drove us home, I threaded my fingers through his, thankful he understood me so well.

We walked in the door and I shut it behind us, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him down to me. The heat of his lips slanting across mine sent chills racing down my spine, and my shiver seemed to move through me and into Kade.

Kade pulled away long enough to brush strands of hair from my face and stare into my eyes. “This okay tonight?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” I murmured, standing up on my tiptoes to wrap my arms around his neck and pull him back down into another kiss. “I need this.”

Sliding his palm down my back and settling it in the small indentation just above the top of the scrubs I’d borrowed to wear home, he pulled me closer to him, molding my body to his until I couldn’t tell where I ended and Kade began.

The realization that he wanted this