She looked so weak, so pale.
Fuck, her skin was so damned cold beneath his blood-stained fingertips.
“Willow? Sweetheart, please, open your eyes.”
Moaning softly, she did as he implored, though it clearly wasn’t easy for her. “Razor . . .”
“That’s right, it’s me. I’ve got you now.” He started unfastening the restraints on her ankles. “I’m going to get you out of here, baby. I’m going to make this right, I promise.”
Moving to the leather straps shackled around her wrists, he worked impatiently to free them. Next, he got to work disconnecting all of the medical machinery.
Emotion swamped him as he unhooked her from the wires and tubes and leads. He didn’t know he was capable of the kind of raw anguish he felt seeing her like this—or the terror he knew at the idea that even after all of this, he could still lose her.
“Don’t you leave me, Willow,” he told her urgently. “It nearly killed me when I realized you had left earlier today. When I realized I was to blame—”
“N-no,” she whispered, her head moving side to side on the pillow. Her eyes were open, but only barely. Yet he could not mistake the ferocity shining in them. “Not your fault.”
“Yes, it was.” He bent his head toward hers, gently caressing the side of her face. “I know why you left. I know you saw that drone footage of Laurel’s cabin. I know what you must’ve thought.” He cursed under his breath. “I should’ve told you Theo had asked me to watch over the cabin for him. I should have explained everything to you right upfront—including the fact that I fell in love with you from the moment I first saw you drive up that mountain.You, Willow. There was never anyone else for me in all the time since. Only you.”
A sob caught in her throat as she looked up at him. “I thought . . .”
“I know what you must’ve thought,” he said, still loathing himself for the pain he caused her. “What you need to know is I love you, Willow. I always will.”
She sighed softly, her eyes drifting closed. A peace settled over her, but all it stirred in Razor was bone-chilling alarm. Her color was fading toward a terrifying shade of blue. He took her hand between his and tried to rub some warmth into her. “Willow?”
She didn’t respond. Carefully, he lifted her toward him and held her close. She was limp in his arms, slipping away with every shallow breath she took.
Ah, fuck. He couldn’t let it happen.
He didn’t know if she would welcome the gift he was about to give her. It should be her choice to make, not his. He had already taken her bond when it hadn’t truly belonged to him. Now, he was about to bind her to him for the rest of eternity.
It was either that or feel her die in his arms.
A dark, desperate curse exploded off his tongue. Razor lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit down hard with his fangs. As soon as the blood began to pulse from his wounds, he pressed them to Willow’s slack lips.
“Drink,” he whispered fiercely. “Please, Willow . . . drink.”
Her tongue swept lightly against his wrist. Then again. She took a deeper breath, a quiet moan vibrating her body. When her tongue came back for another taste of him, her lips fastened over his punctures. She drank. One small sip, then a bigger one.
Relief surged through him as she began to feed from him in great, hungry gulps.
“Yes,” he coaxed her. “That’s it, love. Drink some more. Drink as much as you need.”
CHAPTER 31
At the first taste of Razor’s blood, the thick black tide that had been clawing at her so determinedly recoiled, shrinking back under the power surging into her as she drank.
Like a scuttling thing made of shadows, insubstantial and cowering, that drowning darkness was no match at all for the roar of Razor’s blood now filling her depleted body. His strength was hers, feeding her cells and organs, replenishing the life force that had been drained from her.
Razor’s words in the moments before he gave her his wrist continued to echo through her senses. He didn’t long for her sister or anyone else. He loved her. He had from the start. He loved her now and always would.
His words had been such a balm to her, she’d clung to them as he’d said them, ready to give in to the black tide of a sleep she knew she’d never wake from. Instead she felt herself coming back to life stronger than ever before.
All because of him.
Because of the blood bond that now connected him to her mind, body, and soul.
She felt his love for her through the bond, a force even more immense than the vitality she felt surging into every cell and fiber of her being.
