O-kay, I thought. "Two o'clock, right?"

"Meet me at St. John's, just come straight up to the maternity ward."

My heart pounded up into my throat. "Maternity ward? Aren't you get­ting a little ahead of yourself there, doc?"

"At my office, we'll have to send out the blood for testing. At the hospi­tal, we'll get all the results back much faster. Depending on the test results, if we want a closer look, the hospital is set up with the ultrasound equipment we'll want for this."

"You've got ultrasound at your office," I said.

"We do, but they've got more sensitive equipment at the hospital. We'll get more information much quicker, and speed really is of the essence here, Anita."

"Okay, I'll be there at two."

"Great."

"Your bedside manner sucks today, by the way."

He laughed. "I know you, Anita. If I didn't scare you, you'd find excuses to delay coming in."

"Did you exaggerate to scare me?" I asked.

"No, sorry, but no. I just told you more bluntly than I would normally have told a patient. But then most of my patients don't need rough treatment just to get them into the office."

"You're not wanting me in the office, doc, you're wanting to see me at the hospital. I only go to hospitals when I've gotten hurt in the line of duty."

"Are you backing out on me?" he asked.

I sighed. "No, no, I'll be there." I thought of something, and figured I should ask. "I can bring company with me to the maternity ward, right? I mean it's not like when I was a kid, and all restricted, is it?"

"You can bring a friend to hold your hand, if you want, but since we may have to do a pelvic exam, it should be a close friend."

Pelvic exam, shit. "At least one of them will be close enough to stay in the room. The rest can wait outside."

"The rest?" He made it a question.

"At least one boyfriend, maybe more, and bodyguards."

"Bodyguards? Are you in danger?"

"Almost always, but this isn't... it's not like bad guys trying to hurt me, or anything. Let's just say that I think this will be a pretty stressful visit for me, and for the foreseeable future I shouldn't be going anywhere stressful without muscle."

"Is that supposed to be a riddle?" he asked.

"Not on purpose," I said.

"You're usually pretty straightforward, Anita."

"Sorry, but this isn't something I can really explain on the phone."

"Okay, does it affect your health, and this situation?"

I thought about it, then said, "Maybe, yes. I guess it does." I realized if I shapeshifted for real that I'd lose the baby, and this entire medical emer­gency would be over before we'd even decided what to do about it. But I just couldn't think of a quick way to explain what had been happening to me. "Can I bring the extra people?"

"Iflsayno?"

"Then we have a problem."

"How many extra?"

"Hopefully no more than four." I did quick math in my head. Two body­guards, and at least one of each beast I held inside me. "Five."

"Five," he said.

"At least two of them will be boyfriends."

"Potential fathers?"

"Yeah."

"If they're not disruptive, then I guess so."

"If anybody gets disruptive, it's gonna be me," I said, and I hung up on him. It was rude, but my nerves just couldn't take any more talk about it. I was scared, so scared that my skin felt cold with it. Cold? I touched my fore­head and tried to decide if I really was cold. If I was, then I was endangering Damian, my poor vampire servant, who was the first of my metaphysical men I started draining energy from, if I went too long between feedings. Was I draining him to death, so he'd never wake from his coffin? I'd tamed the ardeur so that it wasn't as demanding; I could push it off for a few hours,

but the price was high. And sometimes the price had almost been Damian's life. Theoretically, after Damian was dead then I'd start draining Nathaniel. I never wanted to find out if the theory was right.

I checked my watch: ten a.m. God, it had been a long, damn, morning. It was incredibly early for so many of Jean-Claude's vamps to be awake. So far only master vamps had woken up, and that didn't include Damian, but still... Was I already draining him, just because I hadn't fed the ardeur or eaten any breakfast? Real food helped keep the other hungers back, from the ardeur to the beasts. I hadn't even had a cup of coffee yet. It wasn't the time of day, but how long I'd been awake without eating that made it a mistake. Maybe we'd eaten a big enough meal from Auggie last night, but I couldn't chance that. I needed food. The only question was, which hunger to feed first? Sex, or coffee? Hmm, let me think.

29

IT TURNED OUT to be coffee first. Requiem wasn't in the bedroom, and Micah came through the door with a tray of breakfast. He didn't say that I'd waited too long to eat, and maybe endangered Damian, or risked raising my beasts again and hurting myself, or losing the baby, or that by neglecting myself I could make the ardeur more uncontrollable. No, he didn't say any of that. He just brought in the food and put it on the bedside table. Two cups of coffee, croissants, cheese, and fruit. All food in the Circus was catered be­cause there was no kitchen. The old Master of the City hadn't kept many hu­mans with her, and hadn't given a damn for anyone's comfort but her own. Jean-Claude had remodeled the bathrooms first. Priorities. Frankly, you could get good take-out food, but a decent bathroom, that they don't deliver. Still, as I looked down at the tray of food, I thought, We need a kitchen.

I took one of the chunks of cheddar first. We'd found that protein worked best at keeping my energy up. Some of us just aren't meant to be vegetarians.

"Are you all right, Anita? You look very..." Micah seemed to give up on finding a word.

I smiled at him. "Thanks for the food, and I've got a two o'clock ap­pointment with my gynecologist."

"Today?" he asked, "Is that wise?"

I nodded, picking up the first cup of coffee. I'd been good and eaten a piece of cheese first, but that wasn't what I'd really wanted. I took that first sip of hot, strong coffee. Later in the day I'd drown it in sugar and cream, maybe, but first thing, I wanted it black, naked, the way I used to drink all my coffee. I closed my eyes as I sipped, letting the warmth flow through me. Was I addicted to coffee? Probably, but as addictions go, it could have been worse.

I opened my eyes and looked at him. "Good coffee."

He smiled. "I'm glad you're enjoying it, but by two we'll have most of the vampires awake and moving around down here. We'll have daywalking visi­tors, too."

I nodded, and took a smaller sip this time. "I know." I told Micah what the doctor had told me.

He blinked at me, that long slow blink that I used sometimes when I was trying to process too much information too quickly. "You have to go."

"I know," I said. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and made myself take a bite of croissant. The croissant was good, soft and buttery, but I wasn't hungry. I wanted the coffee, but the rest of it I was eating because I had to. Eating to keep everybody alive and well. I'd never been a big breakfast eater, but today I think I was just too nervous. Fine, too scared.

"I'll go with you, as boyfriend and leopard."

I nodded. "Nathaniel probably won't be back in human form by then, I know."

"You know that Richard had arranged today off from his job."

I nodded. "He arranged a substitute."

"He's going to want to go, you know he will."

I nodded. "Probably."

"He can be your wolf," Micah said.

Someone cleared his throat. Remus was closer to the bed than I remem­bered. "I couldn't help overhearing."