Break the Day - Lara Adrian Page 0,52
throat from the moment she saw him back in that warehouse. “I’m pulling over somewhere safe that you can rest.”
“No. Can’t slow down.” Agitated, he shifted abruptly. His wounded hands moved aimlessly in front of him because he couldn’t see. He groaned, a sound of frustration and agony. “I need to stop Cruz. Those crates . . . gotta be stealing that shit for Opus.”
“You’re not going anywhere right now. You need rest. You need healing.”
Against his growled protest, she parked the sedan under the flapping plastic sheet that draped down from the top of the repaired bridge. Swiveling toward him, she drew in a shallow, worry-filled breath. His pain terrified her. It shattered her.
But if she lost him now, because of Cruz and LaSalle?
If she lost him because of Opus Nostrum . . .
No. She refused to think it.
She refused to allow even the possibility that they could take him from her too.
“Let me help you.” She reached over to him, laying her hands gingerly on his chest.
She had barely begun to pull his healing ability into herself when she realized it wasn’t going to work. His body was depleted, rallying all of its energy into combatting the damage from the ultraviolet exposure. He was fading in and out of consciousness already. She could siphon his psychic ability, but it would mean draining him of the last of his strength. She wasn’t sure she could push it back into him fast enough to save him.
And failure wasn’t an option she was willing to risk.
She severed the connection, drawing her hands away.
“You need blood, Rafe.”
She glanced out the windows, seeing nothing but deserted roadway and construction around them. Not a single human anywhere to be found, and no time to race around searching for a blood Host for him. Not that she wanted to see him feed from someone else. Not even under these circumstances.
Especially not then.
Human blood was an inferior solution, anyway. His body would need something far more powerful to boost its recovery.
Her blood.
There was hardly anything purer.
There was nothing in this world that would heal him faster.
But if she gave it to him, she could never take it back. The bond would remain long after he healed. It would be unbreakable. If she fed him even one sip, he would be fused to her forever through that bond—a gift he might view as a curse.
She didn’t take that understanding lightly.
He might come to hate her for it, but at least he would be alive.
Devony brought her wrist to her mouth and bit into the veins that pulsed there. Blood dripped onto Rafe’s scorched skin and into his beard as she lowered her hand to his parted, blistered lips.
He moaned at the first drop that slid onto his tongue. His big body twitched as the steady patter continued to flow. He licked at it, then his mouth fastened over the punctures and he drew deep from her. As he swallowed, a low rumble built in his chest.
Abruptly, his eyes peeled open. Fire blazed in the tormented pools of aquamarine.
“Devony.” Her name was a threatening snarl.
“Drink,” she whispered.
And he did.
CHAPTER 18
He was burning up.
Lightning in his veins. In his muscles and bones.
In every depleted, thirsting cell in his body.
And he couldn’t get enough.
The full-body, overwhelming agony that had dropped him on the floor of the warehouse and nearly scorched the life out of him now gave way to something infinitely more humbling.
Devony Winters.
Her essence rushed into him with every hungry gulp he took from her veins. Bold, intense, sweet . . . intoxicating. Unforgettable.
Life-altering.
She had been all of those things to him even before this moment, but now she lived inside him through his link to her. He felt her strength and power feeding his ravaged body, restoring the damage that surely would have killed him if she hadn’t defied his instructions and come looking for him tonight.
His extraordinary partner.
He owed her his life.
God, he owed Devony so much more than that.
And he still owed her the truth.
He lifted his eyelids and found her watching him with tender relief as he fed from her. “It’s working, Rafe. Keep drinking. Your skin is healing. The burns . . . they’re starting to fade.”
He groaned against her wrist, feeling like the worst kind of bastard as all of her emotions flooded into him at once. Her fear over the gravity of his injuries fading now, replaced by a bright, rising joy over seeing him on the mend.
The astonishing depth of her