Something wet trickled down Shea’s forehead and over her nose. It gathered at the tip for a second before it fell, landing in the dirt beneath her cheek. Shea spit grass and leaves from her mouth, ran her tongue over her gritty teeth, which hurt, and tried to lift her hand to wipe away the stuff on her face. A burst of red-hot pain shot through her shoulder and upper arm for her efforts. Trying the other hand instead, she rubbed clumsily at her face with stiff fingers. They came away covered in blood. Her blood. For a vampire, this was an unusual way to wake up.

With a moan, she gathered her legs and one good arm beneath her and attempted to haul herself up onto her hand and knees. After a few tries, she managed to stay there. Her hair, pulled from her braid, hung in her face to skim the ground beneath her. Shea spit blood and dirt out of her mouth.

Throwing her weight to one side, Shea landed on her bum. Even that small feat had her catching her breath. The air was warm and humid, and hard to breathe. She peeled her sticky hair from her skin and shoved it out of her eyes, glanced around, and quickly took in her surroundings with eyes that were still sharp despite the unusual amount of pain she was in. When she registered nothing but trees, and heard only the sounds of small nighttime creatures hunting for their next meal, she turned her attention to her right arm. A piece of bone stuck through the skin halfway between her elbow and her shoulder, and the limb hung awkwardly from her shoulder joint.

Fuck me. Fixing that is gonna hurt.

With another quick scan of the area around her, she lurched to her feet and took a moment to test out her legs before she tried to walk. Other than some deep cuts that were well on their way to healing, but still stung, they seemed to be working fine. One boot was lost somewhere in the brush, and her jeans looked like Freddy Kruger had tried to pull her down through the dirt, but otherwise her bottom half felt okay.

She only stumbled the first few steps as she weaved her way to the nearest tree. Bugs swarmed around her face, attracted to the blood, and Shea shook her head to dislodge them. Gripping her limp wrist with her opposite hand and clenching her jaw, she yanked down. A scream of pain tore from her throat despite her efforts to repress it. Holding her broken arm steady, she repeatedly slammed her shoulder into the trunk until she managed to knock her joint back into the socket. Sagging against the rough bark, Shea took in oxygen as she squinted out of the corner of her eye for something to use as a brace and a sling. She wouldn’t need it for long; her injuries would heal pretty fast. Just long enough to keep everything in place while her body it did its thing. When she didn’t see anything offhand that would work, Shea used her good arm to pull off her shirt. She clamped the cotton material between her teeth and ripped until she had enough homemade bandages for what she needed, then carefully put what remained of her shirt back on. It was now an uneven crop top, and an ugly one at that, but it covered her breasts, so it would do.

Setting her broken arm was a little more difficult. It had already begun to heal, and lining up the edges of bone was an experience Shea hoped to never have to repeat. As a matter of fact, Shea had to stop twice to avoid passing out again while she did it. When she finished, she was panting, and sweat ran in rivulets down her back. Orange spots danced in front of her eyes that stung from sweat and blood, making her nauseous, but somehow, she managed to stay conscious. Once the feeling passed, she wrapped one of the bandages around the broken area, and made a sling out of the rest.

Immediate needs taken care of, she wiped at her eyes and tried to get her bearings.

Jesse.

Flashes of the crash hit her hard and fast. Jesse’s face when he realized the pilot had lost all control of the plane. The horror and frustration in his golden eyes as he looked at her, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Though he’d tried. Shea vaguely remembered hearing words in a language she’d never heard before leaving his lips. Words he’d screamed louder and louder as nothing happened. Finally, he’d fought with the buckle of his safety belt, the chanting replaced by curses. Shouting at Shea to stop as she’d done the same. She’d gotten her belt off first, just as the plane hit the tops of trees.

Lurching away from the rough bark, Shea began to search the area around her. “Jesse!” Her voice was rough and hoarse. From screaming? But she kept calling out for him anyway. “Jesse! Where are you?” In a full-blown panic now, she broke out into a run, covering as much ground as she could. Branches scratched her face and arms through what was left of her sleeves, but at least the gash in her head was healing and the river of blood had slowed, allowing her to see.

However, she saw no sign of the dark warlock.

Fear curled its icy fingers around her heart. Not for herself, but for the male who had managed to make her feel like a woman again for the first time in a long time, without even touching her. The threat to her own life if he hadn’t survived the crash never even crossed her mind as she staggered in circles around the area where she had landed, widening the circumference with every pass. She stopped every few minutes and called for him, but never heard so much as a rustle of leaves to give her a hint as to his whereabouts.

“Jesse.” His name came out on a sob as she stopped to take a closer look at a piece of metal from the plane. She had no idea what part it was. She was just searching for something—anything—that would give her the slightest hope that he was still alive. Pushing her hair out of her face again, she turned in a circle. In the distance, about a hundred yards from where she stood, she saw something glinting in the moonlight. Something large.

Busting her way through the fallen trees, she came upon what was left of the cabin. There was no way of knowing if it was the front or the back. She called his name as she peered through the broken windows. There was no sign of him. Shea scaled the side of the jet with a strength she didn’t know she possessed in her weakened state, and made her way over the top. She dropped down to the other side, and found herself standing in what used to be the aisle.

The smell of blood was strong. Jesse’s blood.

The other half—where she had been sitting—was completely gone. A few of the seats were still attached, seat cushions scattered about, but most were ripped from the floor and either in pieces or gone completely. She took her best guess as to where Jesse had been sitting. A wave of numbness washed over her. The seat was torn nearly in two, the top half hanging into the aisle by one armrest.

A single tear cooled her hot skin, and Shea wiped it away distractedly. His body wasn’t there, which meant he may be all right. Maybe, somehow, he’d gotten his belt off and had walked away from the wreckage and was out there looking for her.

And maybe tiny pieces of his body are lying scattered around this fucking forest.

Shea picked her way through the wreckage until she was outside the body of the plane and standing where the cockpit used to be. Only now there was nothing there at all.

She backed away from the crash site, and continued to walk in no particular direction. A vague thought came to her that she needed to find shelter before the sun came up, but it was there and gone before she could fully comprehend it.

Planting one foot on top of a half-burned, fallen tree, she lifted herself up and fell to the other side. Her legs gave out when she landed, and she caught herself on her one good arm. Something to her left caught her attention. A movement. She cautiously turned her head, thinking maybe an animal had found her.

A long branch—the width of a broom—stuck up at an angle from the forest floor, it’s large, green leaves waving in the light breeze that did nothing to relieve the mugginess of the night. It didn’t seem natural, the way it swayed. Shea wondered why it didn’t fall over. Relieved it wasn’t an animal, she followed the length of the branch down to its base.

The end of the branch impaled a body through the gut. A body lying prone, covered in leaves and dirt, causing it to blend almost perfectly with its surroundings. A body wearing pants as dark as the night and a shirt the same color as the forest around it. Shea couldn’t even see his face. It was covered by the fallen log. The one she’d just jumped over.

Her stomach lurched. She’d just put her weight on the tree that was crushing Jesse’s face. She forced one foot forward, followed by the other, her eyes never leaving the body lying there as still as death. “Jesse?” The name that passed her lips was no more than a breath.

Sinking down to her haunches beside him, she reached out for his hand. But before she could make contact with his skin, she pulled hers back with a hiss of frustration and anger. A scream of rage started low in her lungs and forced its way out, startling the creatures sleeping in the trees around them. Without thought, her good hand shot out and slammed into the log, knocking it off him with one strong push.

But just as fast as it had come on, the rush of adrenaline left her. Afraid to look, but more afraid not to, Shea slowly turned her head to find out how bad the damage was. When her eyes landed on his perfect face, marred only by a few scrapes and one small gash above his right eye, she nearly sobbed with relief. His head was not crushed as she had feared. And when she checked out the log again, she saw why.

Right where it had covered his face and head, there was a natural curvature in the trunk.

Shea scooted up by his head and held her hand in front of his mouth. She felt nothing but the heat of the night. So, she leaned down as close as she could to his chest. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm herself enough to listen.

And then she heard it. Faint, but there. The sound of his heartbeat.

Thank the gods.

Relief flooded through her, so hard and fast she became momentarily lightheaded. If his heart was still beating, there was a very good chance that she could save him. She just needed to pull the branch out of his stomach, and get him to feed from her before his heart stopped completely. Her blood would heal him if she got enough in him before he bled out. If by chance she missed that window of opportunity, she would have to turn him without his knowledge to save his life. And she would be doing it without permission from Luukas. Or more importantly, from Jesse.

“Hang on, Jesse. Just stay alive. I’m going to save you.”

At the sound of her voice, his eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open. Shea opened her mind, trying to reach him that way, but she couldn’t hear anything but the thudding of her own pulse.

She stood up, and took a deep breath. Though there was blood, it didn’t appear the tree had gone completely through. That was good. She only had two hands. Placing one booted foot on his chest, she gripped the branch with her good hand. It would have to be pulled out in one try. He would begin to bleed out right away, which meant she would have mere seconds to get her blood into his system and help his body heal itself.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Adjusting her grip on the trunk, she added the hand from her bad arm as leverage, and with a grunt, yanked the offending thing from his stomach.

The delicious scent of his warm blood rose up through the muggy air and surrounded her, and Shea growled low in her throat. Tossing the sapling to the side, she dropped to her knees beside him. Blood rushed from his body like a gurgling stream, soaking the ground where she knelt. Raising her wrist to her mouth, Shea bared her fangs and ripped open a large wound. She immediately held it over his mouth as she clumsily tried to lift the bottom of his shirt and pack it into the wound without touching him.

Her blood dripped onto his closed lips and ran down the sides of his jaw.

Shea’s eyes widened in horror. “Jesse! Open your mouth! Open your fucking mouth!” But her words fell on unconscious ears. Leaning over, she listened for his heartbeat. She heard nothing. “Jesse!” Without thinking, she gripped both hands together and brought them down hard onto the center of his chest. She listened again.

His heart gave a weak thump.

“Yes!” Ripping open the wound in her wrist again, she pried her fingers between his teeth and opened his mouth, then pressed her wrist against it, forcing it to stay open. As her blood finally made its way into his mouth, she again gathered his shirt together and held it over the wound. Then she watched and prayed to any god who would listen.

Seconds ticked by that felt like years. And still, she watched for the smallest sign. With a frustrated sound, she pulled her wrist away from his mouth only to tear it open again. When she noticed her blood pooled inside, she started massaging his throat to make him swallow, and pressed her wrist back between his lips. “Drink, damn you. Drink!”

His throat moved beneath her fingers. Or had it?

She pulled her hand away, pressing it to his stomach again. Her eyes were glued to his throat as she ripped open her wrist for the third time and offered it to him again.

A moan, weak with pain and barely audible, rose to her sensitive ears. She felt suction on her wrist. Not much, but it was there.

“Yes. That’s it. Drink, Jesse.” A sob escaped her as emotions that had been running so high she had to shut them down to do what she needed, suddenly came rushing back. She kept pressure on his stomach wound with her hand on his shirt, and watched as he drank from her with more strength every second.

With eyes filled with tears, Shea looked over the entire length of him, searching for more injuries. When she returned to the site of her wrist on his lips, she froze.

Her wrist was on his lips.

Touching them.

Touching them directly.

Startled, she jerked it away from him. Then immediately put it back. He needed more blood to heal from such a grave injury.

I can touch him. I can touch him.

Shea crouched beside Jesse’s blood-soaked form, one hand holding his bunched-up shirt bottom to the hole in his gut, and the other pressed to his lips.

Good gods, I can fucking touch him.

Small tremors overtook her, gradually building until she was shaking so badly that she could barely hold her wrist steady as he drank with weak pulls. She lifted his shirt from his wound. The hole in his gut was shrinking, the sides knitting together. It would probably be safe to stop now. She couldn’t afford to lose too much blood herself while her own body was still healing. She could stop now.

But she didn’t want to.

If she didn’t, he would know.

Jesse’s eyelids fluttered. With a hiss of frustration that she hoped would be mistaken for pain, Shea pulled her wrist away before he became fully conscious again. Falling back to sit on the wet leaves, she patted his stomach with his shirt. It was nearly healed.

She watched his face. His tongue touched the blood on his bottom lip, and he moaned. He would wake up soon.

Scooting a few inches away, she crossed her legs and waited. Her hands curled into fists in her lap as she remembered the softness of his lips on her skin. Her eyes drifted down to his stomach. The muscles had felt firm and hard, even injured as they’d been. She wished she had taken the time to touch the skin that covered them. It was smooth and hairless, except for the small trail that led down to his manhood, she remembered from their day in his room. She wanted to trace that trail with her fingertips. And perhaps her tongue.

She reached for him with trembling fingers.

Shea pulled her hand back into her lap and twisted her fingers together before he woke up to find her molesting him like some innocent virgin. But she kind of felt like one. It had been so long since she’d touched a male, and since she’d felt the roughness of a male’s palms on the most sensitive parts of her.

Would it be so bad for him to know she could touch him? What would he do?

He would overwhelm her. She’d barely survived their one night of not touching with her heart and soul intact. She would never be herself again if he knew.

But what would it feel like to have him kiss her, run his hands over her? To feel his weight pressing her down into the ground, to feel him inside of her….

It had been so long since anyone had been inside of her, at least not with something that wasn’t made of plastic and ran on batteries.

Shea shook her head. Her brains must be rattled from the crash. He was her mate, yes. A great joke from the gods, that they chose this male among all the billions on earth to be hers. He wasn’t good, or kind, or even a normal human. Deep down inside, he was evil. He did horrible things. He’d tried to kill Luukas, for gods’ sake. The others—her only family—wouldn’t understand, would never accept him. Being with him would allow her to live, but would ruin her life. She’d never be able to go back to her home, to the ones she had come to love as her own during all the years they’d lived and fought together side by side. Nik and Aiden and Christian—they were like brothers to her. Even Dante, ornery as he was. They were her very own dysfunctional family.

Jesse would never respect her like that. He craved her, yes. Wanted her body. But he didn’t respect her mind, or her fighting skills, or—

“You’re wrong, love.”

The words were spoken so quietly, she never would have heard them if she wasn’t the supernatural creature that she was. Fear shot through her veins, immobilizing her where she sat, and she immediately emptied her mind of everything she’d just been thinking. Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet his.

They were dull with pain and disappointment, but they were open. And he was alive. Shea allowed a small feeling of relief in.

A tiny smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “Thank you for saving me.”

“You’re welcome.” He stared at her until she frowned down at him. “What?”

“You look beautiful.”

The dude had completely lost his mind. “I seriously doubt that. I’m filthy and covered in blood and dirt. I look terrible. As do you.”

His smile widened, then slowly fell. “I thought I would never see you again, Shea.”

She had no smart comeback for that one. For a little while there, she thought she would never see him again, either. It had terrified her to the point she’d had to shut down her emotions to save him.

He tried to sit up, and Shea automatically reached out to help him, but stopped before she forgot herself and touched him. Agitated, she drew her legs beneath her and kneeled beside him, ready to jump away at a moment’s notice. He couldn’t know that she could touch him. She wasn’t ready for that yet. “Maybe you should just rest for a bit.”

Using the small saplings around him, he hauled himself up. He gave her a strange, sideways look as he caught his breath. “We don’t have time.” Feeling for his phone and not finding it, he started looking around in the leaves. “Have you seen my phone? I need to make a call.”

“No, I haven’t. I was a little busy keeping you from bleeding to death.”

Jesse stopped patting the ground around him and reached for her. Shea nearly let his fingers graze her cheek—she ached to let him—before remembering to pull away. His hand stayed there for a few seconds, suspended mid-air, as though daring her to change her mind, before it dropped back down to the leaves. He had a strange look on his face, one Shea didn’t want to analyze too closely. Clearing her throat, she rose to her feet none too gracefully. Closing her eyes, she waited for the head rush to subside. When she opened them again, Jesse stood beside her.

“You need to feed, Shea. You gave me too much blood.”

She stepped back. “I’m fine. Just a little woozy. You need it more than I do right now.”

Again, he looked at her strangely. Shea stared back at him, not wanting to give him any reason to think anything had changed. She would analyze her feelings more when he wasn’t so intent on reading her, for she could feel him probing around in her head, much as she was trying to keep him out.

Finally, he looked away. “All right, we need to move. See if we can at least find some water, and shelter before the sun comes up.” Those golden eyes, brighter every moment, flashed back to her face. “You will tell me if you get too tired. Or if you need me.”

The double entendre wasn’t lost on her. “I’ll tell you if I need to feed.” Glancing up at the stars, she started walking in the direction the plane had been heading as she adjusted her homemade sling.

Jesse was suddenly beside her. “Shea.”

She kept walking. “Yes?”

“Thank you.”

She gave him a tight smile. “Don’t get too full of yourself. I need you around if I’m to survive now. Let’s not forget that.” She paused, then forced herself to say, “I wouldn’t have saved you otherwise.” The lie lay heavy on her tongue. But she didn’t take it back. She couldn’t. If she did, she would be accepting him as hers. Accepting what he was. And what he had done. And what he may do in the future.

And that was something she couldn’t do.