“We’ll keep her stable,” Sally promised. “Peri is bringing her true mate. His blood should be able to cleanse the venom for good.”
Stella cocked a brow. “This chick has a true mate and still got involved with a vampire? Wasn’t she made aware that she’d have a wolf for a matebecauseshe’s a healer?”
“Even if she was aware, the heart doesn’t always listen to reason,” Anna said quietly. “And if it’s not her heart that has made the choice, then she didn’t have a chance to begin with. Supernatural bonds are powerful. Obviously, the sire bond is more than we realized.”
Sally shook her head, her hand clasping tightly to Alice’s. “None of that matters now. We just have to buy time until he arrives.”
The others nodded resolutely, and they bent their efforts back to the fight raging inside Alice. Bit by bit, they beat back the poison a little farther.
Hang on, Sally urged.Keep fighting, Alice. Your mate is coming.
This wouldn’t be easy. The vampire’s hold ran deep. But with their combined strength, Sally knew they could hold death at bay until Alice’s true mate could save her. They just had to keep pushing back the darkness a little longer.
“Five minutes more.” It was Jewel who spoke for the first time. “Just be stronger five minutes more, Alice.”
“Drink this.” A voice broke through the barrier of the dream state. Sally frowned. “Who is that?”
“That’s Lizzy’s voice,” Kara said eagerly. “She must be in the room with Alice. She’s trying to help her in the real world while we’re in this dream state.”
“You know this Lizzy chick?”
Kara nodded at Stella. “She’s a dormant, though I didn’t know that when we were kids in the system. I thought she’d died.” Kara waved a hand. “That’s a story for another time. The point is, we aren’t the only ones fighting for her. And if I know Lizzy, she will do everything she can to make sure Alice doesn’t end up with Cain.”
Heather nodded. “So we have an ally on the inside?”
“Definitely,” Kara said.
“Let’s hope our combined strength can keep her here.” Sally continued to pray to the Great Luna for the woman. Alice hadn’t asked to be brought into their world in the first place. But now she was stuck, whether she liked it or not.
* * *
Fragments of soundfiltered into Alice’s hearing. She heard the voices of the females she’d met in her dreams before, and she heard Cain’s anxious voice. It was weird to hear them in tandem without the ability to respond to either. She couldn’t open her eyes. Her lids felt as if they’d been taped shut.
Alice’s body was manipulated and moved. Clothes being removed and replaced. A wet, warm cloth on her face, washing her tenderly. The pinch of something in her arm. But sickness and seizure wracked her again. Each time she started to surface, something pulled her back under. She was rolled to the side of the bed as she vomited into a bucket.
Once, she was roused just long enough to see Lizzy press a mug urgently to her lips. “Drink, it’s blood. You need strength.”
Alice managed two swallows before her traitorous body rejected the offering. She turned her head and retched helplessly as the world faded away again.
In the void, she sensed Sally’s presence, reassuring but worried.Hold on five minutes longer, Alice.Another voice, one she didn’t recognize. So that’s what she did. Instead of worrying about if she would live, Alice tried to fight for five minutes longer. And then five minutes longer after that.
“Peri is looking for your mate,”Sally told her.“He’ll be able to fix this.”
Alice’s stomach twisted. What mate would want her after she drank the blood of a vampire, kissed the lips of that same vampire, and even considered a future with him? She knew he was bad news, knew what he was capable of, and for some reason, Alice had allowed herself to think she could love him. What the hell was wrong with her?
Suddenly, fire shot through her veins. There was an inferno raging through every cell of Alice’s body. She was burning alive from the inside out. This was no sickness. Alice was being unmade. She wanted to scream, and maybe she was screaming. Alice couldn’t tell because she couldn’t move, at least not in the unconscious state.
A single coherent thought pierced the delirium. I’m dying. She clung fiercely to the healer bond, clinging to Sally and the other bonds wrapping around her like a lifeline. Even so, the flames consumed her. All she could do was pray that they’d find the supposed true mate and that he’d want her even though she’d already shared a part of her heart with someone else. And not just anyone, but the damn vampire king.You can’t just sort of screw up, can you, Alice?Nope, if you’re going to make a mistake, you’re going to go all in and make sure it’s the mistake of a lifetime.At the tail end of the thought, she heard another voice: a deep, masculine voice. It had an accent, but Alice was entirely too delirious with pain to figure out who it was.
“I’m coming for you, female of mine. The vampire king will pay for touching what wasn’t his to touch.”
* * *
Finn hovered justinside the opulent bedroom, apprehension gnawing at his gut as he watched Lizzy bathe Alice’s fevered brow. His mate was the picture of gentle care, but fury smoldered in her eyes every time Cain approached the bedside. When the vampire king reached out to brush a lock of hair from Alice’s face, Lizzy intercepted his hand with a hard slap, the sound reverberating off the walls.
“Don’t,” she bit out. “You’ve done enough harm already.”
Cain gave an infuriating smile, and then acquiesced and stepped back. “Such ferocity, pet. I only want to help her.”
