It was easy to think of Knox in human terms the longer she spent in his company, but this was a stark reminder that he was something different. He was more than a man, yet as strong and invincible as he was in so many ways, there were things that could wound him.
There were things that could kill him.
Things as mundane as a few minutes of sunshine.
“I should take you to the county hospital.”
He frowned. “They can’t help me.”
“Then I’ll run a cool bath for you in the tub upstairs. I can make some cold compresses—”
“None of those things can help, Leni.”
“Then what will?” She stared up at his blistered, smoldering cheeks and brow. The sparks that had been igniting in his eyes a moment ago intensified as his gaze caught and held hers. The heat radiating off his big body seemed to shift toward something sharper, something verging on dangerous, predatory. “You need blood. Don’t you?”
She didn’t miss the flare of amber that lit his irises in response. But he shook his head. He took a step back from her, then another.
“I need time, that’s all. A few hours and my body will heal itself.”
“A few hours of agony,” she pointed out. She didn’t want to imagine how miserable that duration of suffering would be for him. “How long would it take you to heal if you were able to feed from someone?”
He shrugged. “Less than an hour probably. It doesn’t matter. I can’t risk more exposure now and I’ll be healed before it’s safe for me to head out and find a blood Host anyway.”
Leni nodded, realizing he’d already considered and dismissed the idea. “I could go out and find someone for you.” Even as she said it, a selfish, possessive part of her regretted the offer. But his suffering was harder to bear. She would do anything in her power to ease it. “I’m sure if I gave Milo at the gas station a few dollars he’d be willing to come. Or there’s Carla. She’d be here in a minute if I asked her to help.”
He visibly balked. “Forget it. The worst of this will pass soon enough. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
“Not even mine?” She lifted her hand toward his ravaged face and let it hover there, wanting to give him comfort yet knowing anything she did would only make his pain worse. Except, perhaps, one thing. “What if you fed from me, Knox?”
“Jesus Christ.” He nearly choked. “Don’t ask me that. Don’t even fucking think it.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not going to happen,” he snapped. He scowled at her, and the glow of his eyes surged brighter. “One drop is all it would take to bind me to you. That means forever, Leni. There’s no taking it back, no matter how much either of us will surely want to one day. It’s a shackle that can’t be broken, not ever.”
He made the idea sound ominous and awful. She didn’t want to feel so stung by his description of something she knew was sacred among the Breed.
She understood the bond between Knox and a woman born with a Breedmate symbol on her body would be an eternal one. She knew only death could sever the blood connection between a mated couple.
And yet she was willing to give that to him.
True, she was offering out of concern for his injuries, but there was something deeper behind the feeling. She cared for him. She had accepted him into her life and her confidence. Last night she had accepted him into her bed. She wasn’t sure when he’d infiltrated her heart, but there was no denying it now.
It stunned her to realize that.
It stunned her even more to realize just how much it hurt to hear Knox dismiss the idea of drinking from her as though it was the last thing he would ever consider.
The feel of his fingertips under her chin jolted her. He lifted her gaze to his, his face a ruined mask of torment and pain. “I’m not here to add to your problems, Lenora. Letting things get out of hand between us last night was bad enough. I should’ve had more control. I owe you an apology for that.”
His gentleness now only made his regret for what they’d done together seem that much more evident. She hadn’t considered making love with him to be a mistake, but it was obvious he did. To hear him blame himself for the incredible night they’d shared broke something tender and vulnerable inside her.
She couldn’t let him see the fracture. She had been the one with a lack of control last night. She had been the foolish one—then and now.
She withdrew from his touch and folded her arms in front of her. “Yeah, I guess we both lost sight of reality last night.”
Standing here with Knox, she would have worsened the mistake exponentially by giving him her blood, her bond.
The awful truth was, if he wanted her, she still would.
