If she lost him because of Opus Nostrum . . .
No. She refused to think it.
She refused to allow even the possibility that they could take him from her too.
“Let me help you.” She reached over to him, laying her hands gingerly on his chest.
She had barely begun to pull his healing ability into herself when she realized it wasn’t going to work. His body was depleted, rallying all of its energy into combatting the damage from the ultraviolet exposure. He was fading in and out of consciousness already. She could siphon his psychic ability, but it would mean draining him of the last of his strength. She wasn’t sure she could push it back into him fast enough to save him.
And failure wasn’t an option she was willing to risk.
She severed the connection, drawing her hands away.
“You need blood, Rafe.”
She glanced out the windows, seeing nothing but deserted roadway and construction around them. Not a single human anywhere to be found, and no time to race around searching for a blood Host for him. Not that she wanted to see him feed from someone else. Not even under these circumstances.
Especially not then.
Human blood was an inferior solution, anyway. His body would need something far more powerful to boost its recovery.
Her blood.
There was hardly anything purer.
There was nothing in this world that would heal him faster.
But if she gave it to him, she could never take it back. The bond would remain long after he healed. It would be unbreakable. If she fed him even one sip, he would be fused to her forever through that bond—a gift he might view as a curse.
She didn’t take that understanding lightly.
He might come to hate her for it, but at least he would be alive.
Devony brought her wrist to her mouth and bit into the veins that pulsed there. Blood dripped onto Rafe’s scorched skin and into his beard as she lowered her hand to his parted, blistered lips.
He moaned at the first drop that slid onto his tongue. His big body twitched as the steady patter continued to flow. He licked at it, then his mouth fastened over the punctures and he drew deep from her. As he swallowed, a low rumble built in his chest.
Abruptly, his eyes peeled open. Fire blazed in the tormented pools of aquamarine.
“Devony.” Her name was a threatening snarl.
“Drink,” she whispered.
And he did.
CHAPTER 18
He was burning up.
Lightning in his veins. In his muscles and bones.
In every depleted, thirsting cell in his body.
And he couldn’t get enough.
The full-body, overwhelming agony that had dropped him on the floor of the warehouse and nearly scorched the life out of him now gave way to something infinitely more humbling.
Devony Winters.
