“Claude, secure the stairwell!” Rafaela dropped to her knees next to Jody. The Weres, most in skin now, crowded around behind her. “Liege! How bad?”
Jody tried to pull air into her lungs. An agonizing inferno raged in her chest, her vision wavered, and crushing pressure made it impossible for her to speak.
“A blood mate?” Rafaela asked urgently. “Are you bonded? Where should we take you?”
Jody gathered the last of her power, projecting her will with the force of her ancient bloodlines. There could be no mistake. Only seconds left. So little time. Eternity stretched before her. The cost. Who would pay? Not Becca. “No. No one. Take my body to the manor head.”
And then the blackness came.
Sylvan asked, “What happened?”
Rafaela turned flat hard eyes to her. “My Liege is dead. We will take her now.”
“Wait a minute.” Niki knelt on the other side of Jody’s body. “She’ll rise, won’t she?”
Rafaela’s sculpted face set into hard unreadable lines. Her voice was cool, all the playful arrogance gone. “That is not your concern, Wolf.”
“The hell it isn’t.” Niki leapt over Jody and snarled in Rafaela’s face. “She fought beside us. She saved Katya. We all saw it. They’re firing silver!”
Pain flickered in Rafaela’s eyes before they became impenetrable. “She is not blood-bonded. We will take her now for proper burial.”
Niki grasped Rafaela’s arm. “She is. She is bonded. And her bonded mate is at the Compound.”
“No formal announcement has been made,” Rafaela said. “No official notice has been given. My Liege denied a bond.”
Niki whirled around to Sylvan. “Alpha? I’ve seen them together. I know they’ve exchanged blood.”
“Jody must have her reasons for denying the blood bond,” Sylvan said, “but if Becca is her blood mate, she deserves to be involved.” Sylvan took Katya from Claude. “Let’s get everyone to safety.” She lowered her voice and growled at Rafaela. “The Vampire comes with us.”
Rafaela hesitated for a second, then nodded curtly. “As you wish, Alpha Mir.”
*
Becca checked her phone for the tenth time in five minutes for word from Max or Jody. Why hadn’t someone called? They were supposed to have been in and out, a rapid stealth attack. And Jody should have called her. She was going to kick her Vampire ass when she got back from this little adventure.
The door to the small library in Sylvan’s headquarters, where she had been using the computer to track down specs on the research center, opened behind her. At last. She jumped up and spun around. “It’s about time you got ba—”
“I’m sorry.” Elena came in and closed the door. “I need you to come to the infirmary with me.”
Becca’s stomach tightened, and icy dread slithered down her spine. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“The Alpha just called. They’ll be here in a few minutes. You’re needed.”
“Why? What’s happened? Tell me now. Please.” Becca gripped the back of the chair to hide the trembling in her hands. Jody hadn’t called. “Just tell me.”
Sadness and compassion filled Elena’s eyes. “I’m sorry. Detective Gates was shot and killed during the raid.”
A gray curtain dropped, suddenly blocking all the light in the room. Becca struggled to catch her breath. Please, this couldn’t be. They’d had so little time. So many things left to say, to do. The years of her life stretched before her like an endless night. Endless dark years.
Becca fought back against the despair. “She’s a Vampire. She’ll rise. She’s not dead. It’s not the same thing. She’s not dead.”
“I don’t know,” Elena said gently. “I only know the Alpha said it was urgent, and you needed to be there.”
“Take me there.” Becca grasped Elena’s arm. “We’re blood-bonded. Someone must know what to do. I’m not letting her go.”
*
The treatment room door banged open, and Sylvan strode through, Jody in her arms. Behind her, Niki carried Katya. A white-and-gray wolf padded close beside them.
“Jody!” Becca rushed forward. Jody’s white shirt was drenched with blood. Becca grasped Jody’s hand. It was cold, beyond even the cold when Jody had not fed for a long time. “God, oh God, baby. What have they done to you?” She looked past Sylvan to Rafaela and saw nothing in her eyes except resignation. “Tell me what we need to do.” When the Vampire didn’t answer, Becca grasped Sylvan’s arm. “Please. Help me. I can’t lose her.”
“Elena,” Sylvan said, shaking her head at Niki when Niki made a move to pull Becca’s hand from her arm. “Katya and Gray need attention.”
“Take them next door,” Elena said to Niki. “I’ll get Sophia.”
“Niki, stay with them.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
Becca clutched Jody’s hand as Sylvan laid Jody carefully on the bed. Jody’s lips were white, bloodless. Her eyelids were nearly translucent, her thick dark lashes like smudges of coal against her stark white cheeks. Becca kissed her. “Jody, hey. I love you.” She looked around the room and found Rafaela. “How much time do we have? What do I need to do?”
Rafaela shifted her gaze away.
“Please.”
“Tell her what you told us,” Sylvan said gruffly.
Rafaela drew a breath and let it out slowly. “My Liege said she did not have a blood mate.”
“That’s not true,” Becca said. “If you don’t believe me, ask Francesca.” She turned her head, pointed to the faint puncture marks low on her neck. “She’s fed from me and given me her blood. We are bonded. I will not let her die.”
“How recently?” Rafaela said, light flaring in her onyx eyes. “How recent is the bond?”
Becca glanced at Sylvan, saw the same compassion in her eyes she’d seen in Elena’s, and her heart started to pound so rapidly her chest ached. “Yesterday, last night. This morning. Why? Why does it matter?”
Rafaela pushed a hand through her dark, disheveled hair. “It’s too soon. Even if her organs accepted your blood, there hasn’t been enough time for your body to create a sufficient quantity of compatible ferrin. A safe volume of your blood will be insufficient to sustain her.”
The room swam, and Becca grasped the cold metal bed frame for support. “What are you saying? That we just let her go? She’s mine! I’m not letting her go.”
“She denied the bond,” Rafaela said flatly. “She did not want to rise.”
“No. That doesn’t make any sense.” Becca’s reason gave way under a wave of grief and rage. A black abyss opened in front of her, and she felt herself sliding into it. Too much. The pain was too much.
No! What was it Jody had said? Your strength is your mind. That is how you will fight. Becca forced herself to focus. Her vision cleared, her mind sharpened. She stared at Rafaela. “What do you mean, a safe volume? You said a safe volume of my blood wouldn’t be sufficient.”
“In order to counteract the tissue death, you might have to give her so much blood you could die in the process. She’ll drain you.”
Becca laughed harshly. “My life for hers. That’s my choice? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Possibly.”
“Well, that explains it, then, doesn’t it?” Becca brushed trembling fingers over Jody’s hair. “She’s so stubborn. Of course she wouldn’t let me risk sacrificing myself for her. Because, after all, who could love her that much? Who would ever think she was worth it?” She leaned down, kissed Jody again, and murmured against her mouth, “You have so much to learn, Vampire. We’re going to need a lot more than a few years before you figure out what I mean when I say I love you.”
She straightened, her fingertips resting on Jody’s cheek, and looked Rafaela in the eye. “I am Jody’s bonded blood mate. Whatever has to be done, do it now.”
Rafaela studied Becca for a long moment, then dipped her head. “If we start, I am not sure if we can stop should you change your—”
“You don’t know me very well,” Becca said impatiently. “How much time do we have?”
“Ordinarily, at least a day,” Rafaela said. “Because your bond is new, and potentially weak, I don’t know.”
“Then we’re wasting time. You need my blood.” Becca held out her arm. “Take it.”
Drake stepped over next to Becca. “I can infuse you with saline, keep your intravascular volume up. That will help avoid shock, at least for a while. We have all the equipment here.”
“Outsiders cannot witness the ceremony,” Rafaela said.
“Make an exception,” Becca said. “Jody brought you here to fight with these Weres. They’re not outsiders. Not to her. Not to me.”
Sylvan said, “Drake will stay, the rest of us will stand guard outside. You have my word whatever happens here will never leave this room.”
“All right,” Rafaela said. “My Liege trusted you. So will I.”
When the others left the room, Rafaela removed Jody’s clothes and turned to Becca. “Lie down next to her. It would be best if you disrobed.”
“Fine,” Becca said and quickly shed her clothes. Her lover was naked, dead, a foot away. She wasn’t going to worry about modesty now. Pulling the sheet aside, she stretched out beside Jody. God, she was so cold and still. “Hurry.”
Drake set up an IV bag and quickly inserted an intravenous catheter into Becca’s right forearm. While she taped it in place, she asked Rafaela, “How much blood does the reanimation require?”
“Usually no more than two units.”
Drake frowned. “Even that is a lot for a woman Becca’s size. Three units and she’s in danger of hypovolemic shock. Any more than that—”
Becca grasped Drake’s arm. “I want your word that you won’t interfere until this works.”
“I can’t stand by and let you die trying to save her,” Drake said quietly.
“Then I don’t want you in this room. Leave now.” Becca covered the horrible gunshot wound in Jody’s breast with her hand, as if hiding the violation would somehow undo it. “Rafaela will do what needs to be done. This is Vampire business, Drake.”
Drake’s jaw tightened, and she rumbled dangerously. “Becca, Jody wouldn’t want you to—”
Becca whipped her head around and glared at Drake. “What would you do, Drake, if Sylvan was lying here like this, and you could save her? What would you give?”
Drake’s eyes flashed to wolf and she snarled. “I would give anything. Everything.”
“Then don’t deny me the same. I don’t intend on dying, but I’m not living without her.” She settled down beside Jody again. “Rafaela, do what has to be done.”
“She has to drink it,” Rafaela said.
“How?” Becca’s throat felt like sandpaper. “How can she swallow?”
“Hold her face to your neck,” Rafaela said. “Her mind is not gone, only deeply dormant. If she recognizes you as her bonded mate, she will drink.”
Becca laughed shakily. “She damn well better after all this, or I really will kick her ass.” She pulled Jody into her arms and cradled Jody’s mouth against her neck.
Rafaela drew a short, double-edged blade from a sheath on her belt. “Are you prepared to provide eternity to our Liege Jody Gates, to bind your body and your blood and your life to her as long as she rises?”
“I am,” Becca whispered.
Rafaela gently grasped Becca’s chin and lifted, exposing her throat, and pressed the edge to Becca’s jugular vein. A frisson of fear skittered through Becca’s stomach, but she quickly squelched it. “Don’t stop, Rafaela. Bring her back to me.”
Rafaela incised the vein in one swift slash, and dark, thick blood cascaded into Jody’s mouth.
*
“How are they?” Sylvan asked when Drake emerged from the treatment room. Niki stood guard in front of another door a little farther down the hall.
“Becca’s very weak. Jody is still…unresponsive. I don’t know if she’ll rise.” Drake wrapped her arms around Sylvan’s waist and leaned into her. She was tired and worried, and the battle had left her needing to connect to her mate. “How are the young?”
“Sophia is with them now. I had to force Gray to shift to skin, but she obeyed me.”
Drake sighed. “They’ve been through hell.”
Sylvan snarled. “I know. Everyone in the Pack will take care of them.”
Drake skimmed her fingers along Sylvan’s jaw. “You found them, you freed them. That will help them heal more than anything else.”
“But I didn’t find who was behind it. Killing their jailers is small justice for what was done.”
“We won’t stop until we find out who was in charge of that lab, and who they reported to.” Drake kissed Sylvan. “But tonight Gray and Katya will sleep with Pack. And their Alpha will sleep with me.” She licked Sylvan’s neck and smiled at the rumble gathering in Sylvan’s chest. She skimmed her fingers down Sylvan’s torso and tugged at the open waistband of her jeans. “I’m glad we brought clothes with us on the raid, but I’d rather you got rid of these soon.”
Sylvan nipped Drake’s ear. “I want Elena to look at you. Then if we can leave Jody, I want to run. I want you alone, all over me.”
Drake settled between Sylvan’s thighs. “I don’t need to see Elena. I’m fine. All I need is you.”
Sylvan raised her lip enough to show the tip of a canine. “That building was filled with silver. I want to be sure everyone is healthy.”
“Oh yes?” Drake scraped her claws down Sylvan’s bare chest, leaving faint blood-streaked scratches behind. “And I suppose Elena has already checked you out?”
Sylvan’s hips jerked, and her canines extruded farther. Her eyes shimmered between gold and midnight blue. “You challenge my judgment, Prima?”
Drake licked the feather-thin trickles of blood from Sylvan’s chest and pressed her mouth to the mate bite above Sylvan’s breast. The pelt line on Sylvan’s lower abdomen thickened, and the rumble that had been gathering in Sylvan’s chest morphed into a warning growl. Drake smiled and sucked the faint mark left by her teeth. “I don’t know, Alpha. Do you feel challenged?”
Sylvan backed Drake against the wall and caged her in with her arms and legs. She raked her teeth down Drake’s neck and bit the thick muscle at the juncture of shoulder and neck. Drake groaned and tilted her head back, giving Sylvan more access. Her belly tightened and her sex throbbed.
“Sylvan,” Drake warned. “If you tease, you’re going to get more than scratched.”
“You’ll have to catch me first.” Sylvan rolled her hips between Drake’s thighs.
Down the hall, Niki whined softly. Drake gripped Sylvan’s hips and shot Niki a concerned look. Niki shook her head and grinned.
“Soon,” Drake murmured in Sylvan’s ear. “Soon we’ll run, we’ll tangle, we’ll heal our young. And then we’ll go hunting again.”
*
Becca waited, lying beside Jody, Jody’s hand in hers. The sun would be up soon. If Jody didn’t rise in time to feed, she might be too weak to ever rise. She stroked Jody’s face, kissed her mouth. Jody’s body beneath the crisp white sheet was so terribly, terribly still.
Weak, weary, Becca rested her cheek between Jody’s breasts and wrapped her arm around her waist. The silence beneath her ear echoed the horrible emptiness inside her. She closed her eyes, her tears scalding her cheeks and falling on Jody’s cold, perfect breast.
“Please, baby,” Becca whispered. “Please come back. I need you. I love you. And now I’m stuck on you, damn it.” She laughed through her tears. “You were so worried about blood addiction. See? You’re not always right. It’s my heart that can’t survive without you.”
At first Becca thought the warm flutter through her hair was a breeze floating through the open window. She held her breath, her ear to Jody’s chest, listening, listening for the only sound she ever needed to hear again. Please. Please.
And then it came. Slow, steady, strong. Every few seconds, a heartbeat.
Becca jerked upright, afraid to hope but needing to believe so desperately. Jody’s eyes were open, the familiar midnight black as infinite and deep as the heavens, only shot through now with shards of crimson. Different, but still beautiful.
“Jody?” Becca asked softly. “Jody?”
“You never listen to me,” Jody said softly. The timbre of her voice was a little deeper than it had been, but it still flowed over Becca’s skin like warm honey.
Becca’s body shuddered as if caressed from the inside out. Her heart rose into her throat, and she had to swallow before she could speak. “If you’d stop trying to make up my mind for me, I might listen to you.” She raised Jody’s hand and kissed her palm, then cradled Jody’s hand against her cheek. “You scared the hell out of me, Vampire.”
“How did this happen? Why did Rafaela disobey me?”
“Because I told her to.” Becca wanted to ask a million things. Jody had never had time to explain any of this. She didn’t know what happened when a Vampire rose. She thought of Francesca and Michel—avariciously sensual but so…so empty, somehow. Would Jody still be Jody? Would Jody still love her? “How do you feel?”
“Strong.”
Becca traced the spot where the bullet had torn through Jody’s chest. The skin was flawless. “Good.”
“Why did you do it?”
Leaning up on her elbow, Becca frowned down into Jody’s eyes. “Maybe we weren’t quick enough with the reanimation, because your brain doesn’t seem to be working right.”
A flicker of a smile crossed Jody’s lips. They weren’t pale anymore, but flushed with blood. Her blood. Becca leaned over and kissed her. Warm. Alive. “I missed you, for starters.”
“How do you feel?” Jody asked. “How much did you—”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here. So are you. I love you.”
Jody’s eyes flared a deeper crimson, more Vampire now than Becca had ever seen, even when Jody was in the throes of bloodlust. “Did they tell you that risen Vampires don’t feel anything except hunger and power?”
A stabbing pain lanced through Becca’s heart. If she had lost Jody, if Jody could no longer love her, at least she had not lost her to death. “No, no one told me that.”
“I’m glad.” Jody skimmed her fingers through Becca’s hair. “They would have been wrong. I feel. I feel what you taught me to feel. I love you.”
Tears raced down Becca’s cheeks, carrying away the agony of loss, as cleansing as a warm summer rain. With a sigh, she curled up with her head on Jody’s shoulder. Jody’s arm came around her, and the world righted itself. She was too tired to argue, which might have been a first in her life. “I’ll take credit for how you feel, if you want me to. I just want you. I want you in my heart, in my body, in my soul.”
Jody trembled. “Becca, part of what you feel is the blood bond. If you’re not sure—”
Becca thumped Jody lightly on the shoulder. “It isn’t chemistry holding us together, Jody. Chemistry or biology or, hell, Fate might have been what brought us together, but what’s keeping me here, and what will keep me here for as long as we have, is in my heart. I fell in love with a Vampire. I want you exactly the way you are.”
Jody rested her cheek against Becca’s hair. “My heart is yours.”
“All of you is mine.” Becca searched Jody’s face. She looked strong, healthy in a way she never had before, but her eyes burned with new fierceness. “You must need to feed.”
“I do, but you can’t so soon—”
“I know I have to replenish my blood, but I want you.”
“Once I feed again, I’ll achieve my full power. When you drink from me, you’ll regain your strength and more.” Jody kissed her. “I want you too. I want you to taste what you’ve given me.”
Want hit Becca hard. After almost losing her, she couldn’t get close enough now. She caressed Jody’s chest, down her abdomen, and lightly clasped between her legs. “Let’s feed you quickly. I can’t wait much longer.”
“I’ll need to call for hosts.”
“No, you won’t. There’s a line of Weres outside the door. Everyone knows what you did. There are more volunteers to host for you than I think I want to know about.”
Jody laughed. “Will you stay?”
“Just try to get rid of me.”