Page 13 of Bond of Passion

Grim shrugged. “I don’t smell anything.”

“I smell it too.” Deja turned away from the blood pressure monitor. “It’s kind of bitter.”

Tavin didn’t smell anything but the patient’s blood. “I’m with my brother on this. I don’t smell—” He broke off at the sudden sting in his nostrils, followed by the bitter scent that Deja had mentioned. Something about it was familiar.

Something that made him uneasy.

He inhaled deeply, homing in on the rancid note that reminded him of the bubbling cauldrons of death potions his parents were always whipping up for clients.

Then it clicked.

Shit.

“Get out!” he shouted. “Evacuate!” When Grim stood there like a dipshit, Tavin shoved him. “Fucking go. Why am I always saving your ass?”

Gem flung the curtain open as staff and patients alike scrambled in confusion or stood frozen in place. It was a real-time demonstration of fight, flight, or freeze. He gestured frantically toward the parking lot exit. “Run! There’s a bomb!”

“Wait!” Deja grabbed the patient’s gurney and kicked at the brakes. “Help me!”

Tavin snagged her elbow and tugged at her. “Leave him!”

She looked at him like he was a monster. She wasn’t wrong. “But the patient!”

That rancid odor filled the room and his mouth, and he nearly gagged. They were out of time.

“The patient is the bomb!” He gave up trying to convince her and flung them both toward the exit.

They were nearly there, almost at the door, when the air shimmered. Oh, shi—

A concussive shock slammed into him. Pain ripped through his back and neck. His world became a blur of black blobs and bright pinpoints of light, swirled with a lot of crimson.

When the pink mist settled and his eyes found focus, Deja’s face was so close, their noses nearly touched. She was pinned beneath him, her slender thigh wedged between his. Her lips moved, but he couldn’t understand.

“…are…Tavin?” She pounded on his shoulder. Whatever she wanted seemed urgent. It occurred to him that he should care more, but his brain didn’t seem to be working right. “Can you…in…hey…hear me? Bleeding bad…”

His lungs burned, and he realized he couldn’t breathe. Pain clamped down all around him, swallowing him whole. For a second, as he gasped futilely for a breath, he thought he was dying. But that couldn’t be true.

Because as his vision faded, it wasn’t his life that flashed before his eyes.

What flashed before his eyes in those final, sort-of-lucid moments, were all the lives he’d taken.