Her essence rushed into him with every hungry gulp he took from her veins. Bold, intense, sweet . . . intoxicating. Unforgettable.
Life-altering.
She had been all of those things to him even before this moment, but now she lived inside him through his link to her. He felt her strength and power feeding his ravaged body, restoring the damage that surely would have killed him if she hadn’t defied his instructions and come looking for him tonight.
His extraordinary partner.
He owed her his life.
God, he owed Devony so much more than that.
And he still owed her the truth.
He lifted his eyelids and found her watching him with tender relief as he fed from her. “It’s working, Rafe. Keep drinking. Your skin is healing. The burns . . . they’re starting to fade.”
He groaned against her wrist, feeling like the worst kind of bastard as all of her emotions flooded into him at once. Her fear over the gravity of his injuries fading now, replaced by a bright, rising joy over seeing him on the mend.
The astonishing depth of her care for him.
It was too much. He had taken too much from her, not just at her wrist tonight, but from the moment he first met her.
Now this. The connection he would have to her for as long as either of them lived.
Fuck.
Angrily, he forced himself to release her, sweeping his tongue over the twin punctures and sealing them closed.
He sat up, taking a quick inventory of himself. Beneath the healing light of Devony’s blood, he still hurt like hell. His skin still felt as if it were being stripped off him with a hot knife, but he was breathing. He was alive.
Thanks to Devony, he was alive.
Remorse clawed at him. Not because he didn’t want her gift, but because of the regret she would bear once she realized he didn’t deserve it.
Scowling, he glanced at her. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
Her expression faltered a bit. Some of the bright intensity of her emotions dimmed in the face of his stony response.
He couldn’t help it. Guilt sank its talons into him as she stared at him in the silence of the vehicle.
The best way he knew how to ensure her gift wasn’t wasted on him was to do everything in his power to see her family avenged and Opus Nostrum destroyed. He wasn’t going to rest until it was done.
“Slide over,” he said, already opening the passenger door. “I’ll drive now.”
He hoofed it around to the other side and climbed in. They were a few miles out from the center of Boston. Rafe sped back toward the drop location.
He was all but certain the few minutes’ detour while he came back online had probably given Cruz ample time to transfer the crates to LaSalle or whoever was actually at the other end of the supply-and-demand chain. So, he couldn’t have been more pleased to see the delivery truck still parked at Atlantic Wharf.
Except . . . something wasn’t right.
“Rafe,” Devony murmured from beside him.
“Yeah. I know.” There was no activity near the truck. When he saw the massive hole punched through the windshield, he arched a brow at Devony.
She gave him a flat look. “I should’ve killed Cruz while I had his throat in my fist.”
Rafe parked the sedan in front of the other vehicle. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Stay here.”
“Like hell I will.”
