Bayla sat up straighter. Hearing the human females had learned to pilot ships and were serving in an army to take back Zandia cracked the reality she’d been living and set it on its side. These women were willing to serve Zandia. They weren’t just sacrificing their attachment to babies, they were willing to lay their lives on the line for the Zandian species.
It made what she’d done all the worse. She wished to Sacred Mother Earth she could take it back. Undo the wrong. Save the embryo she’d so callously discarded. All for what? To save her already broken heart? How stupid and small. How cowardly.
She hated herself for what she’d done.
“What is it?” Prince Zander’s sharp voice cut across her self-loathing.
The princess—or his mate, whatever, clung to the table with an expression on her face Bayla knew all too well.
She stood up, heading toward the princess. “Are you having a contraction?”
Lamira nodded, seeming unable to speak. The intensity of her contraction seemed stronger than the practice waves that came weeks before a baby is born.
Lamira’s mother also stood, as did Daneth, and the prince, who moved to pick her up.
“Wait until it’s over,” Bayla said sharply, forgetting she was speaking to the prince. She knew what it was like to be touched or moved when in the middle of a contraction, and it wasn’t pleasant. “My lord,” she added.
“Is this the first you’ve had?” Bayla asked with concern.
Lamira shook her head. “Every...ten minutes,” she gasped, eyes squeezing shut.”
“For how long?”
“An hour.”
The prince had frozen, his eyes only on his mate, his fear and concern evident.
Bayla scooted up by Lamira’s side, tracing her fingertips over the woman’s back in a light figure eight pattern, the way the midwives had taught her.
“It’s too early for the baby, isn’t it, Doctor Daneth?” Leora asked.
Daneth’s mouth tightened, brow drew down tight on his forehead. “It is. Four weeks early by human standard. More by Zandian. Let’s get her into my lab.”
“Give it a moment to pass,” she said. It may not be her place t
o give orders, but if there was one thing she knew, it was pregnancy and childbirth.
Lamira’s white-knuckled fingers slowly eased their grip on the table, and she panted. “All right,” she gasped. “It’s all right.”
Zander surged into action, scooping his mate into his arms and carrying her from the table. Daneth led the way to his lab. She, Leora, and Lily trailed behind, Leora and Lily exchanging a worried glance.
In the lab, Daneth placed the probe on Lamira’s belly and opened up the hologram. He studied it for a tense moment. “The young looks healthy. No sign of stress.” He glanced at Zander. “Any...ah...wetness or bleeding from the vagina?”
Zander glowered at the doctor.
“No.” Lamira shook her head.
Daneth returned his attention to the hologram and measured the length of the fetus, from head to toe, then the width of the skull. “Size is small for a Zandian, large for a human fetus at this stage.” He sighed and turned to face Zander. “Either way, he’s not fully grown.”
Zander’s horns stiffed, and he looked positively lethal, as if he wanted to draw the sword strapped to his waist and slay them all. “Will he survive if born early?”
Daneth hesitated. “Yes, it’s possible.”
Bayla drew a breath of courage to speak. “Give her a glass of wine.”
All heads turned to her, everyone blinking in amazement. Daneth gave a dismissive shake of his head, frowning. “Alcohol is contraindicated during pregnancy.”
“It can stop preterm labor.”