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I did as he asked and he gently guided my index finger to one of his razor-sharp canines—he hadn’t put his fangs away. He pressed the pad of it against his tooth and I winced as he drew a bead of blood.

He froze.

“I’m okay,” I assured him. “You could have bitten me.”

“Not yet,” he replied. “Let’s not push it. Soon. But not now.”

I nodded.

He licked the drop of blood off the tip of my finger, closing his eyes. “You’re perfect,” he murmured.

I felt a rush of warmth, but I wasn’t sure what to say to that.

He didn’t wait, regardless. Instead, he bit into his wrist and held it out to me. Dark, thick blood welled in the wound. “If you drink, we’ll be connected forever.”

“We’re already connected. My soul is yours. And you’re mine. It’s always been that way, even before we met. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

His eyes turned glassy again. “Sappy, mister. Always so very sappy.”

“But effective?”

“Entirely.”

I grinned at him, but I felt a thrill of fear. What we were about to do was big—the biggest. And it couldn’t be undone.

“I’m afraid, too,” Quinn admitted.

“I thought you couldn’t read my mind yet.”

“Not officially.”

“A little fear is okay. But I’m sure. Are you sure?”

He didn’t hesitate. Instead, he nodded.

I drank.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then the room seemed to dissolve away from us.

Derek? I heard Quinn’s voice in my mind, both of us floating in a warm sea of darkness together. It wasn’t frightening. We were connected to everything and most of all, to each other.

I’m here, I told him. It’s happening.

The blood bond? He let out the telepathic equivalent of a laugh. Is this it? I was expecting it to be scarier.

How could it be? It’s you and it’s me. There’s nothing scary about that at all.

I wish… He let that trail off. But I could feel, for the first time, his trepidation. And his guilt. It was a crushing thing. Something I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to survive.

But he had.

And then, blooming out of the darkness around us, I saw image after image—Quinn as a child. Quinn with his father, at his mother’s gravestone. Him graduating high school, beaming ear-to-ear in his cap and gown. Starting a job at the gas station. Drinking beers with friends. Wondering about what his future would hold.

And then a smiling blond-haired vampire with malice in his eyes: Magnus.

His maker.