“Beh!”
Her head swivels toward me, and her father makes more sounds.
I hate, hate, HATE the sounds!
With a growl, I pull harshly at her arm, bringing her to my side as I start to back away. Even knowing this man has to be her father doesn’t matter; she is mine, and I don’t understand what is happening. I need her. Lah needs her.
The stranger begins to make his sounds much louder, and I roar back to silence him. Beh touches my cheek, and she makes soft, relaxing noises at me, but it does nothing to calm me. My heart is pounding, and my breath is quick. I want to pick her up and run back to the cave with her. I want to find my sharpest spear and guard the entrance, forcing this unknown away from my family.
I need to protect Beh and Lah.
“Ehd,” Beh whispers softly as her hand runs over the side of my face. She leans close and touches my nose with hers. Another tear runs down her face. “Luffs.”
“Luffs,” I repeat.
“Luffs Lah,” Beh says, and her sounds are choked by her tears. She makes more sounds, and I hear Lah’s name-sound among them. Beh’s eyes look into mine, and her sadness cuts through my heart.
“Lah…” I look down at the child in my arms. Her eyes are open again, but they are dull, and where they should be white, they are yellow. She stares up at me as her little chest hops up and down with labored breaths.
Beh removes her hand from my face and drops it to Lah. She slowly pulls the girl from my arms and looks into my eyes as she backs away from me. I stand there in the field, stunned. My body chills from my shoulders all the way down my torso and out my limbs. I don’t understand, but the feeling of dread is unmistakable.
Beh turns around and holds Lah in her outstretched arms. Her father reaches out and takes the baby carefully and gently in his arms. His eyes dart from the baby to his daughter and then to me.
More sounds.
I take a step forward, and a growl from my chest escapes. Beh holds her hand out toward me with her palm up.
“No!”
I stop moving, but the growl continues.
More noises.
First from him, then from her.
His eyes grow sad, and his head bobs up and down.
A choking sob comes from my mate as she backs away from the man and grabs a hold of my upper arm tightly. Her shoulder pushes against my chest, trying to propel me backwards. I stand still, bracing myself against her as my eyes harden at the sight of this man with my daughter in his arms. She is sick—dying—and I don’t want her anywhere but with her mother and me.
He cradles Lah gently and uses his other hand to poke at the black rectangle thing he holds. A moment later, the humming, whirring sound begins again. Beh pushes hard against my chest again.
“Ehd!”
I look into her eyes, and the pain and hurt are too much. I can no longer hold back the sob that has been caught in my throat. Beh wraps her arms tightly around my neck as she pushes me with her whole body, forcing me backwards. I look out over her shoulder as the blue-grey sphere forms and spins around Beh’s father and Lah. It moves faster and faster, the noise becoming painful to my ears again. I squeeze my eyes shut and cringe from it.
My mate grabs a hold of my shoulder and pushes me away roughly from the spinning thing. I feel as if my head is spinning just as fast, and through the noise and the confusion, I realize she has left Lah there, inside of the thing with her father.
“Beh…Lah!” I look from her to the field where the flashes of red and gold now surround my daughter. I try to move toward it, but Beh holds tight to my arm, and an odd, prickly feeling covers my skin as I get closer. It makes the hairs on my arm stand up, and my head begins to pound. I hesitate, staring ahead as the image of the man holding my baby changes from outline to formless shape and then is gone.
The whirring sound doesn’t fade this time but simply stops.
“Lah?” My eyes search Beh’s, and she moves her head back and forth as tears flow freely. I look from Beh to the bleak, empty field and back again.
Her body goes limp and weak, and I have to catch her in my arms to keep her from falling. Crouching slightly, I pull Beh up into my embrace and hold her to my chest, just as I had been holding our Lah only moments ago.
“Lah!” I cry out louder. Beh tightens her arms around my neck, and she tucks her head against my shoulder and sobs.
Her cries drown out my own screams.
“LAH!”
Finally, I realize our baby is gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I sit, staring.
The snows have melted. The trees have new leaves, and the field outside the cave is empty.
Completely empty.
In my hands is one of the leather triangles Beh would wrap around Lah to keep her from getting too messy when she relieved herself. In my mind are all my memories of her—how she smelled after her mother cleaned the dust and dirt off of her face, the way she would roll right off of the furs to try to get wherever it was she wanted to go, and how she felt lying securely in my arms.