Marc wasted no time in sweeping her up into his arms and carrying her downstairs to his car. He wasn’t going to waste time calling an ambulance. He needed to get Kelly to the hospital as quickly as possible.
The drive to the hospital was a blur. As they drove, Kelly openly wept from the pain in her abdomen. The only thing he could do was rub her back and tell her everything was going to be okay as she bent over in obvious pain. He felt hopeless.
As soon as they entered the doors of the hospital’s emergency room, Marc turned on the full effect of his powers of persuasion. He had the best doctor in the hospital at Kelly’s bedside in less than five minutes. “I need to know what’s wrong. You need to help her. She’s pregnant and she is in pain.”
“I’m going to need you to step back, Mr. DaVaca. Let us do our jobs,” the doctor said.
Normally, if somebody talked to him like that, Marc would have ripped him a new asshole, but he knew in this instance, he needed to let the doctors do their jobs. He stood in the corner of the room feeling utterly helpless as the nurses began taking Kelly’s vitals. When Kelly started to scream, he felt like he was going to jump out of his skin.
A moment later, he found Alex at his side. He had no idea how long the man had been standing there. Alex put a hand on his arm, and Marc felt a calming sensation rush through him. This was part of Alex’s gift as a healer.
“Can you do something for her?” Marc asked.
“I’ll try,” Alex said. “You know as well as I do that my healing abilities don’t work as well on humans as it does on shifters. At least, I can help calm her.” Marc wordlessly gave his consent. He watched his clan member cross the room and inch around the doctor and nurses. Marc gave a short bark telling them to give Alex room to move.
It took several minutes, but then it seemed that Kelly quieted. Marc felt a deep sense of relief even though he didn’t know if she was going to be okay yet. It seemed as if it was hours before the doctor came over to him. He was flipping through a chart and frowning.
“I just finished examining your fianceé,” the doctor said.
Marc nodded for him to continue.
“The good news is it appears that both Kelly and the baby are in stable condition,” said the doctor.
Marc gave a huge sigh of relief.
“It’s a good thing that you got her here as quickly as you did. We’re still waiting on the bloodwork results. I’ll let you know as soon as I have them. Did she do something strenuous recently?”
“I don’t think so. Kelly has had plenty of rest. I don’t want her pushing herself too hard.”
“Had she been in distress? Is she on anti-depressant medication?”
“No,” said Marc, slightly feeling outraged. “She didn’t take any medication. She’s healthy. What’s wrong with her?”
The doctor gave him neutral-mask kind of look, like someone who didn’t feel like disclosing what he was thinking. “We’re going to run more tests on Ms. Hillock. We’d like to be thorough. We’ll let you know once we have a definitive result, Mr. DaVaca.”
Marc was going to use his power of persuasion on the doctor to spill the beans when Alex emerged next to him. His cousin shook his head. Marc cancelled his intension.
“What’s going on?” he asked Alex.
“Pennyroyal,” Alex said.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s an herb with abortive property. I’m certain your mate had ingested a low dose of pennyroyal for the last four or five days.”
“Abortive?” Marc couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Kelly wanted this baby. She’s as excited as I am. She’s been decorating the nursery for the last week.”
“Maybe she didn’t know,” Alex offered. “Pennyroyal has been known to cause miscarriages and it comes from the mint family. It quite tasty, actually. She could have ingested it in her drink or salad, mistook it as mint.”
Marc stood up straighter. “Are you saying that Kelly was poisoned?”
“I have a strong feeling about it. It can’t be just accidental.” Alex glanced the room where Kelly was treated. “They’re going to have to keep her overnight for observation. There’s not much else you can do here tonight. They’ve given her something so that she can rest.”
“What was the herb again?” asked Marc, growling.
“Pennyroyal.”
Marc followed Kelly as she was being trundled to a private room. He wanted to ask her questions but she was in and out from the sedative.