Tohr lunged for the glass door, arm outstretched, hand ready to shove the transparent, fragile barrier aside.
He caught himself just as he opened the way.
What the fuck was he doing? What the fuck was he doing?
Another scream echoed down to him, and he sagged as a wave of sexual instinct nearly brought him to his knees. As his higher reasoning browned out again, his thought patterns ground to a halt as all he could think about was mounting Autumn and easing her torment.
But as the hormones ebbed, his brain started cranking over again.
"No," he barked. "No, no fucking way. "
Pushing himself away from the door, he scrambled backward until he hit the desk and grabbed onto the thing in preparation for the next onslaught.
Images of Wellsie's needing, the one when they had conceived their young, flickered through his mind, the onslaught as unrelenting and undeniable as his body's urges. His Wellsie had been in such pain, crippling pain. . . .
He'd come home just before dawn, hungry, tired, thinking he was going to enjoy a good meal and some bad TV before they fell asleep against each other. . . but as soon as he'd entered through their garage, he'd had the same response he was fighting now: an overwhelming urge to mate.
There was only one thing that caused that kind of reaction.
Six months before that, Wellsie had made him swear, on the very basis of their sanctified mating, that when she went into her next needing, he would not drug her. Man, they'd had a fight over that. He hadn't wanted to lose her to the birthing bed; like a lot of bonded males, he would have rather they remain childless for the rest of their long lives together than for him to be left with nothing.
And what about you fighting? she'd yelled at him. You face your own goddamn birthing bed every night!
He couldn't remember now what he'd said to her then. No doubt he'd tried to calm her down, but it hadn't worked.
Something happens to you, she'd said, I've got nothing either. You think I don't go through that crucible every fucking night?
What had he said to her? Fuck him, he didn't know. But he could picture her face clear as day as she'd stared up at him.
I want a young, Tohr. I want a piece of you and me together. I want a reason to go on living if you don't - because that's what I'm going to have to do. I'm going to have to keep living.
Little had they known that he'd be the one left behind. That the young wouldn't be why she died. That all the things they had fought over that night hadn't been the right worries.
But life was like that. And as soon as he'd walked into their house, he'd wanted to call Havers, had even gone to the phone. But in the end, and as usual, he hadn't been able to deny her.
And instead of bleeding after the needing had passed, she'd found herself pregnant. Incandescent had barely described her joy -
The next scream was so loud, it was a wonder it didn't shatter the glass door.
Jane burst into the office. "Tohr! Listen, I need your help - "
As his hands clawed into the desk's edge to keep himself in place, he shook his head like a crazy man. "I'm not doing it. I'm not servicing her - no fucking way. I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it - "
Babbling, he was fucking babbling. He didn't even hear his own words as he started to lift up the desk and slam it down over and over again, until something hard and heavy got knocked onto the floor.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he dimly thought it was too fucking ironic that he was losing it in this room again.
He'd found out Wellsie was dead in here.
Jane held her hands up. "No, wait, I need your help - but not in that way - "
Another wave of instinct made him grit his teeth and have to bow his upper body as he cursed.
"She told me not to call you - "
Then why was he here? Oh, fucking hell, the urge - "Then why did you text me!"
"She won't take any drugs. "