He stood beside her. The back of his hand slid up and down her bare arm. “I’ve always wondered what it might be like to kiss you like that. To have you kiss me back like you would die if I let go of you.”

And now she wondered what it would be like, too. In fact, she wondered so much, she knew she would die if she didn’t find out. Soon.

She grabbed his shoulders to pull herself up for a kiss, and before her lips could touch his, she felt something cold and wet against her belly.

Lyka looked down and saw that she was covered in blood. It stained her shirt and soaked into her pants.

Fear sank its claws into her. She patted at her body, searching for the source of her bleeding.

“It’s not yours, kitten,” he said, only his voice was much weaker this time—not at all like it should have been. “It’s mine.”

The line bisecting his abdomen had split open. Blood poured from it, soaking both of them down to their knees.

That’s when Lyka remembered. She hadn’t come here to see daydreams and naughty fantasies. She’d come here to heal him.

She’d come here for his power. Whatever this place was, it was the source of the energy she needed to keep him alive.

This man who stood before her, this apparition—it wasn’t real. None of this was real.

“It’s all real,” he said, as if hearing her thoughts. “At least to me it is. Stay with me, kitten. I like having you here. You feel good in my mind. It’s where you belong.”

In his mind? That’s where she was?

Full-blown panic crashed down on her, detonating with the force of a bomb. She flew away from him and landed with a hard thud on the ground.

When she opened her eyes, she was sitting on the forest floor next to Joseph’s body.

He wasn’t breathing.

Chapter 17

There was no more time for Lyka to worry about what she wanted. If she didn’t act fast, Joseph was as good as dead. It didn’t matter that she was freaked-out to have been inside his head, or that he might have seen things in hers that he shouldn’t have. All that could matter now was the life of a man balanced in her untrained hands.

She scrambled to his side and fastened his hand around her throat. The second the two parts of the luceria locked together again, she knew he wasn’t dead. At least not yet. She could feel life in him, power.

She didn’t stop to think or worry. Instead she dove headfirst for his power, not caring what he might see in her mind.

There it was, right where she’d left it—a pool of energy and light so huge, she knew she’d never be able to absorb it all.

Tendrils of it rose to her call, threading their way through the link the luceria provided. The instant it hit her, she recognized it, like something she’d lost long ago that had finally come home.

She grabbed onto that power with everything in her and willed it into action. Instincts guided her way, helping her find the worst source of Joseph’s bleeding. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing, but the energy seemed to have a mind of its own.

It wanted Joseph to live.

So did she. In fact, she wanted it so much that she was holding her breath, pouring as much of herself into the act of healing him that she could.

The process quickly robbed her of her strength. Channeling so much power strained her mind and body in a way she never could have predicted, much less trained for. No drills or strength training could have prepared her for the monumental task of controlling and directing the kind of elemental force Joseph housed.

It was like trying to shove the sun into a five-pound sack. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t control the power at her fingertips. It was burning her up from the inside out.

All she could do was let go and watch as it consumed her.

She heard deep male voices. One of them was inside her head, and still she couldn’t understand it. The roar of magic in her ears was too loud.

Someone pried at her hands. She clung to Joseph, refusing to let go. A second later, she was lifted bodily and hurled through the air. When she finally hit the ground, she had a deep sense of loneliness. Emptiness.

All of her power was gone now. Someone had sto- len it.

She tried to open her eyes to see who, but her eyelids were too heavy. She tried to sit up so she could regain her sense of equilibrium, but her head was spinning too fast for her to do more than flop on the ground.

Finally, a heavy wave of exhaustion sucked her under and didn’t let go. She couldn’t fight it. Even breathing was too hard. All she could do was relax and hope that wherever this current took her, it was someplace safe.

Chapter 18

Ronan had no patience to deal with a newly bonded pair of Theronai. His hunger was raging. He was worried about the woman who’d saved his life—a woman who’d run from him. One he was determined to find.

He’d had no time to hunt tonight upon waking. He’d used all the power the unknown stranger had given him to find her, only to come up empty-handed. His plan was to search again tonight, but the call for help had come through, thwarting his plans.

The sun had only just set, and he’d been confined to his van, unable to do more than suffer through the acute weakness daylight brought upon him. It was his bad luck to be the closest Sanguinar near Joseph when all he wanted to do was hit the road, following the faint trail of a woman who’d seemingly vanished.

If not for the blood that she’d fed him, he wouldn’t have even had that hint of a trail to follow. But he did have it, and he would find her before it faded to nothingness.

He had to find her. There was no other choice. She compelled him like no other creature ever had.

He needed her.

In an effort to have this task of healing Joseph out of the way as soon as possible, Ronan raced through the trees toward the Slayer settlement. Their kind liked to be isolated and difficult to reach, which was often handy—when it wasn’t completely inconvenient.

Like it was right now.

Branches slashed at his face as he hurried through the forest. There was only the slightest path left visible in the foliage—no more than a natural trail that wildlife might leave behind. But even without that trail, Ronan would have been able to find Joseph. The scent of his blood was heavy in the air, telling Ronan that the man was gravely injured.

As he came over the top of a rise, he saw Lyka and Joseph down below. Sparks arced between their bodies as she clumsily tried to heal him.

Ronan suffered a moment of surprise. Nicholas had said that Lyka had bonded to the leader of the Theronai, but Ronan wouldn’t have believed it possible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.