She nodded again, then shifted her weight, one hand pressing briefly—protectively—against her lower abdomen before she caught herself and dropped it. The movement was unconscious. Instinctive.
Julian noticed anyway. His expression changed—not alarmed, just… attentive. He angled himself between her and the flow of people moving past the table without making a show of it.
I looked away before they caught me watching.
It wasn’t anything dramatic. No hand on her stomach. No talk of nausea or cravings. Just a handful of tells I’d seen a hundred times before—guarded movements, subtle reassurance, the way he checked in without asking a real question.
Could I be wrong? Sure. But if I had to guess—
I exhaled slowly and filed it away, the same way I did everything else that wasn’t mine to name yet.
Then because I couldn’t help myself, my gaze landed on Taranis.
He was watching me now, expression carefully blank, and for a moment we didn't move. The noise of the ballroom faded into background static. There was just him, and me, and the weight of everything I'd said and hadn't said hanging between us like smoke.
Then Max said something that made everyone laugh, and the moment shattered.
The server appeared, taking orders with practiced efficiency. Around me, conversation flowed—easy, comfortable, the kind of banter that came from years of knowing each other.
The food arrived. I ate mechanically, tasting nothing, hyperaware of Taranis three feet away doing exactly the same thing. I was cutting into my chicken when the sound cut through everything else.
Not a shout. Worse.
A wet, choking gasp—the kind that meant someone's airway had just stopped working the way it was supposed to.
My head snapped up.
Three tables over, a man in his sixties lurched forward, one hand clutching his chest, the other scrabbling uselessly at thetablecloth. His face had gone gray, lips already tinged blue at the edges. His companion—wife, maybe—screamed his name, her voice sharp and panicked.
I was moving before I consciously decided to.
A chair scraped back. A napkin slid to the floor. The space between our tables vanished as my body took over, muscle memory and training kicking in without asking whether this was my job or whether anyone wanted me making calls anymore.
“Call 911,” I said sharply, already dropping to my knees as the man slid sideways out of his chair.
His eyes locked on mine—wide, terrified, desperate. I caught him before his head hit the floor and eased him down, one hand cradling his shoulder while the other went to his neck. Carotid pulse. Fast. Weak. Thready.
Heart attack. Acute. The color, the clutching, the panic—it fit too cleanly. And if it tipped into arrest, we’d be racing the clock.
“Sir,” I said, loud and clear. “Can you hear me? What’s your name?” He tried to answer. What came out was a wet, wheezing sound that barely counted as air. His eyes fluttered. Then rolled back. The pulse vanished under my fingers.
Shit.
I lowered him flat, ripped his shirt open, buttons scattering across the carpet, and placed the heel of my hand at the center of his chest. “Someone get me an AED!” I shouted. I started compressions—hard and fast, straight down, letting my weight do the work. The kind that cracked ribs if they had to, because broken ribs healed and dead hearts didn’t.
One and two and three—
The ballroom went eerily quiet except for the woman sobbing beside us and the dull, rhythmic thud of my hands against his sternum. I counted automatically.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
People were moving now—chairs scraping, staff running, someone shouting into a phone—but none of it registered. There was only the count. The rhythm. Keeping blood moving until something stronger than my hands arrived. “Come on,” I muttered. “Stay with me.”
Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one.
Footsteps skidded to a stop beside me. “I’ve got the AED,” a voice said—young, breathless, trying hard to sound steady. I glanced up long enough to see a hotel employee kneeling beside me, name badge swinging, hands already shaking as he popped the red case open.
“Good,” I said. “You know how to use it?”