The moment she saw Bowman and his stormy gray eyes, the quiet warmth behind her breastbone flamed into white-hot heat. It cleansed rather than hurt, humming like an electric current, filling the air with a clean scent like a breeze after a grueling storm. Kenzie gasped for breath, but found it flowing sweetly into her lungs, erasing the aches of the fight.

Along with those hurts went the despair of long years of watching, wondering if she and Bowman would ever be complete.

“Bowman,” she whispered.

Bowman gazed back at her, the quiet joy in his eyes matching her own.

She swallowed. “Ryan?”

Bowman nodded, answering in a low voice. “Is fine.” He grinned, which turned up the warmth, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “He looked after us while we lay on the floor in pools of blood. They cleaned him up, checked him out, and let him go home with Afina.”

Kenzie sank back in relief, ready to bask in the new feeling of contentedness. And yet it was more than contentment. A vibration deep in her body promised good things to come.

Bowman was here, whole. They were together. She thought about the way the two of them had shared thoughts during the danger in Turner’s lab, and excitement blossomed inside her.

Then she blinked, as Bowman’s words clicked, one by one, into place. “Let Ryan go home? Who did? Where the heck are we?”

Bowman’s smile grew. “Hospital. After you passed out, campus police and town police were all over us, but they were nice and brought us to the hospital instead of taking us to jail.”

“Jail?” Kenzie asked in alarm. “They wanted to arrest us?”

“They did arrest us.” Bowman lifted his left wrist, which was attached by a handcuff to his bed. That explained the rattling noise. “You were so far gone the doctors wouldn’t allow them to cuff you. They were afraid of circulation problems.” The look in his eyes showed her the worry that had caused him.

“So after they patch us up, they’re taking us in?” Kenzie asked. “Who? You and me?”

“Everyone. You should have heard what Cade called the officers who shock-sticked him into submission and shoved cuffs on him.”

“Crap on a crutch,” Kenzie said indignantly. She, Bowman, and their Shifters had saved the day, kept a dangerous creature from escaping, and got rid of a man who was a sociopathic nutjob, and they’d been arrested. “So after this . . . we go to prison?”

No. Kenzie needed to explore this new feeling, this connection with Bowman. She had to know . . .

“Maybe not.” Bowman looked way too calm as he lay back on his pillows. Bandages wrapped his abdomen, but he’d either refused the hospital gown or slung it off. The thin sheet was draped over his lower body in a way that made Kenzie regret all the pain she was in. If they both felt better she could slip out of bed, climb over him, move the sheet, and . . .

Not being able to jump her own mate made her restless. “Why not? What’s going on?”

“Your uncle Cristian is busy explaining everything to the police. Brigid is helping him.” Bowman glanced around the room as though looking for listening devices, and spoke carefully. “Cristian is telling them how Turner contacted Brigid, an anthropology professor from Romania, begging for her help. How she phoned Cristian, a Shifter she knew, who rounded up a group of Shifters to help contain Turner’s experimental creature. Unfortunately, Turner was killed in the melee, but we managed to put the beast down. Which was still lying dead in the hallway. Pierce’s sword had no effect. The newspapers are having a field day.”

“Oh.” Kenzie relaxed again. Uncle Cristian had a silver tongue; he was the best negotiator she’d ever met. The fact that Bowman lay here, confident, letting Cristian handle it, told her better than words that everything was going to be all right. They’d made it through another crazy week in Shiftertown.

Kenzie reached for him. The movement took way too much effort, but Bowman stretched his hand toward her as far as he could in the cuff. Their fingers touched.

The contact sparked all the way up Kenzie’s arm to her heart. Heat blossomed in her chest, and she swore she felt her wounds start to close.

“The touch of a mate,” she said softy.

Bowman’s smile warmed her again. “And maybe the mate bond?”

Kenzie caressed Bowman’s blunt fingertips, loving their familiar roughness, his strength. “Do you think so?”

“I felt you,” Bowman said, his smile dying. “When you were in the mists, when you were so far from me.” His Adam’s apple moved with a swallow. “I heard you calling out, in my dreams.”

“I heard you.” Kenzie remembered the clammy touch of the mists, her fear, her anger, her need to be next to Bowman. Then she’d heard his voice, shouting her name.

“And then we could talk to each other, in Turner’s lab,” Bowman said, his deep voice awakening every need inside her. “We could speak without words.”

“Can you hear my thoughts now?” Kenzie asked.

Bowman stilled a moment, then shook his head. “No. But it’s different now.”

“I know,” Kenzie said softly.

Their touching fingers brushed each other’s again, a tingle of warmth. Kenzie had expected an explosion of incredible emotion when she and Bowman finally found the mate bond, but this quiet awareness was no less intense.

They were bound together. Bowman glanced from their caressing fingers to her face, and Kenzie caught the storm in his eyes.

She wet her lips, longing to spring across the chasm that separated them and into his arms.

“Is it real?” Bowman asked quietly.

“It’s burning me all over,” Kenzie answered, her cheek pressed to her pillow as she locked her gaze with his. “What do you feel?”

“Fire,” he said. “And love. The most incredible love for my hot, golden-eyed, kick-ass goddess of a mate. It hurts with every beat, but damn, it’s the best thing I’ve felt in my life.” Bowman’s look turned dark, a feral smile spreading across his face. “And I can’t stop thinking how amazingly sexy my mate looks in a hospital gown and nothing else.”

Kenzie closed her fingers around his middle one, letting her fingertips dance suggestively. “If I could, I’d get out of this bed, pull down that sheet, take you in my mouth, and show you what I want to do when we get home.”