She took a long, ragged breath and lay still in his arms.
“Matthias,” Albert said quietly, “it’s over. She’s gone.”
“No!” He tore at his wrist again, drawing more blood, and pressed it against her lips. “No! I won’t let her go!”
Robertson fought his own despair, knew Matthias was on the verge of losing his mind. He started to reach out to Matthias when he saw Taz’s lip twitch.
Matthias looked, dropping his forehead to hers. “Drink, you have to drink, you have to. Please, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, you can’t leave me. I love you.”
They watched her lips move, and Matthias squeezed his arm with his other hand, trying to force more blood into her mouth. “That’s it, you can do it, Taz, you can do it.”
It was blood! She looked around, knowing she had to find the source. She backed away from the door, and it disappeared.
She heard Matthias’ voice in her mind, stronger, pleading. “Drink, you have to drink, you have to.”
She turned to look for the figure and—
Her eyes flew open as she gasped for air. It hurt like hell, her lungs on fire, every breath an excruciating effort. Suddenly, her mouth was full of Matthias’ blood, and she was so thirsty, thirstier than she’d ever been in her life.
Albert and Robertson grabbed each other. They watched Taz working at Matthias’ wrist, and he rocked her, encouraging, begging. She managed to bring a hand to his and press his wrist against her mouth, her fingers clutching at him.
“That’s it,” Matthias sobbed. “You can do it.”
Her eyes closed again, and she sank her teeth into his flesh, moaning in pain. He closed his eyes and didn’t care if she stopped in time or not. She was taking him, she would be okay, she would heal.
He tried to hold on to consciousness, but he heard Albert and Robertson’s voices spinning down behind him as the world went grey then black. Before he lost consciousness he heard her voice in his mind.
“Matthias.”
Matthias’ limp body was sprawled on the trail. Taz tried to sit up, disoriented, shaky. Robertson pulled her into his lap while Albert tended Matthias.
“What happened?” she asked.
Robertson ignored decorum and ripped open her shirt, found the slug, misshapen and mushroomed, caught in the fabric of her sports bra, next to her skin. There was a hole in her shirt, a hole in her bra, and everything soaked with her blood. But the pink welt in her skin was already fading to white before his eyes.
She looked at him. “What happened?” she asked again. Then she saw Matthias.
He was pale and still, his wrist torn and bloody. She threw herself at him, pushing Albert out of the way. “What happened?” she screamed.
“You were dying.”
“Matthias!” She grabbed the front of his shirt, shaking him. “Why won’t he wake up?”
“He fed you,” Robertson said.
She pulled Matthias to her, listening. His breath was shallow and weak. “Did I take too much?” she sobbed.
Albert nodded. “He was too distraught, too panicked. There wasn’t time for him to prepare.”
“Do something,” she screamed at them, and Robertson shook his head.
“We can’t.”
She looked around. A uniformed Park Service volunteer watched them, his jaw slack with disbelief. He had a Leatherman tool holstered on his hip, and she threw herself at him, ripping it from his belt before he could react.
With trembling fingers she tried to open it and fumbled. Robertson took it from her, and while Albert steadied her wrist, Robertson made the cut for her. She pressed it to Matthias’ mouth.
“Please, please, please—”
“Please, please, please,” she begged with her mind. “Drink!”
His lips moved, tasting, and she sobbed with relief. She collapsed against him, feeling him take back what he needed.
Then her world went black.
Again.
She woke up alone in the back of a speeding Land Rover. Behind the wheel, Robertson glanced at her in the rearview mirror when he realized she was awake.
“Where is he?” She noticed Moe in the front seat next to him.
“He’s okay, Taz. They’re behind us. We had to get you out of there before Park Service Police showed up. He made me take you out first, wanted you safe in case any other daemon pulverem showed up.”
Taz sat up and spied the other Land Rover following a short distance behind and gaining ground. She rested her head against the back of the seat and sobbed.
“I know what they are,” she said. “I saw what they did.”
“What?”
“I saw it, before they shot me.”
When they reached the cabin, she ran to the other Land Rover and pulled at the door, crying when she saw Matthias. He stumbled into her arms, and they leaned against the car, trembling and relieved.
“I saw him, I know what happened, I saw him—”
He held her at arm’s length and looked her in the eye. “Calm down,” he said firmly, trying to steady her despite his own shaky legs. “Tell me.”
She couldn’t talk. She sent the thought to him, and his eyes narrowed as he pulled her to him and buried his face in her hair. “Okay. We’ll take care of it.”
The guards checked their room before Taz and Matthias went in and collapsed on the bed. He pulled her ruined shirt off and ran his fingers over her chest, touching the fresh scar, ripping her bra off and kissing her, ensuring she was okay—
“My beautiful, beautiful love.”
Exhausted, they fell asleep clutching each other.
Matthias panicked when he awoke and she wasn’t beside him. He found her in the shower, sobbing, trying to scrub the dried blood off. He pushed into the shower with her, clothes and all.
He kissed her, apologizing, grateful she was alive.
Finally he looked at her, his hands on her face. “Please don’t ever scare me like that again,” he whispered.
“I promise.” She threw her arms around him, and suddenly he was out of his clothes, had her pressed against the shower wall, and was inside her. His hands pulled her hips against him, her lips on his, both of them moaning.
“Matthias, I love you, I love you, I love you,” she chanted in his mind. When he came, she supported him until he got his breath back and could stand again.
He shut the water off, scooped her up, and took her to bed. He trailed kisses down her stomach to taste her, assure himself she was alive and well. In a few minutes she was cresting her own climax, her fingers wrapped in his hair, trembling from the power of the sensation.
He folded his arms around her and pulled the blanket over them, wanting to hold her, feel her, protect her.
She pressed herself against him, still shaking. “You saved me,” she whispered.
He kissed the top of her head, pausing to smell her hair, savoring her scent. “I cannot lose you. I will not lose you. Not like that.”
“I understand,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I meant to ask you back in Florida, after I…you…” She shuddered. “When I was recovering, you told me Rafe”—it was hard for her to say his name—“might not have been able to save you, but I could because of my heart, and because you couldn’t refuse me.”
He kissed her again. “Yes.”
“I understand. I heard you. I had to come back.”
He tipped her face so he could look into her eyes. “You have my love, Anastazia. I give it willingly, even back then.”
“I felt you calling me back, trying to keep me here.”