Shea came awake, slowly at first, like she was drifting up through a cloud, and then all at once. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up in a panic. Wings flapped in her face, and she had to apologize to Cruthú for startling her. The silly bird must have been sleeping beside her.

She was in Jesse’s bed, and wearing one of his T-shirts…and nothing else. Swinging her legs off the side, she stood too fast. Her head swam and she immediately sat down again. “Jesse?” She was impatient to find out what had happened, and what she was doing here. The last she had seen, it had been complete mayhem. She tried to stand again as Cruthú squawked her disapproval.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing? You need to sit, Shea.” Jesse appeared in the doorway, wearing only a loose pair of lounge pants with a towel thrown over his shoulder. His hair was wet. He must have been bathing.

Shea looked him over, allowing herself the pleasure of seeing him unharmed before it was ruined by the knowledge of what happened.

He dropped the towel over the back of a chair and came over to her, hooking a finger under her chin and lifting her face. His eyes darkened with concern. “You don’t look good.”

“I feel fine,” she lied. “What happened, Jesse?” She braced herself for the answer. It never came.

“You need to feed,” he said. “Everything is okay, Shea.”

“Luukas and Nik and—”

“They are all still alive.”

“Keira? Emma?”

“All fine. You’ll be seeing them tonight if you feel up to it.”

She nodded. She wanted to ask if he had carried through with his plan. She wanted to ask if Aiden had survived. But she was afraid she already knew the answers to those questions, and found she wasn’t ready to speak of it aloud. “Did you do this?” With a wave of her hand, she indicated her clean, barely-dressed self.

He gave her a strange look. “Yes.”

“Thank you,” she told him.

“You’re welcome.” He paused. “You need to feed,” he repeated.

But she shook her head. “I’m fine.” She said it without really thinking about it. Right now, she was more concerned with her friends than with herself.

She was afraid to ask what else had happened. Afraid to know if Jesse had finished what he’d set out to do.

Shea suddenly noticed that he had fallen silent. She looked up, and found him standing with his arms crossed over his chest. He wouldn’t look at her.

“What?”

He finally looked at her then, and she almost wished he hadn’t. “Are you ever going to admit that I am yours, Shea? And you are mine?”

“What?” She tried to think of what she’d said. “Jesse, I—”

“Still haven’t accepted me. No matter what the gods have decreed. Yes, I see that.”

She shook her head. “No, no. That’s not it. Not it at all.”

He turned away, and sat down at the small table. Leaning back, one hand played with her hair bands lying on the tabletop while the other rested on his strong thigh. “You must choose, Shea.”

Forcing her eyes away from his body, she frowned. “What do you mean?”

He looked at her then, and her body immediately responded to the heat in his gaze. “I mean, after all that has happened, do you still want to be with me?”

“Can’t you hear that for yourself?” She didn’t understand why he was asking. The guy could read her thoughts. “Feel free to barge on in there.”

“I want to hear you say it. Out loud.”

Though he put on a tough persona, Shea saw it now, the vulnerability that lay beneath the power and the icy exterior. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything; it was that he wouldn’t allow himself to. Behind the set jaw and the twisted smile, he needed reassurance.

But she wanted to do more than reassure him. She wanted to bring out the parts of him he kept hidden. Wanted him raw and exposed and vulnerable. Perhaps it was the hunter in her. Perhaps it was her own twisted needs and desires. But she never again wanted to encounter the iciness he had shown her earlier.

Pushing everything else to the side, she focused on the male in front of her. Her male. Shea rose from the bed, and walked over to stand in front of him, enjoying the way he couldn’t seem to keep his eyes from roaming over her from head to toe and back again. His pulse kicked up, just barely, and not enough that anyone else would notice.

But she did.

Grabbing the hem of his T-shirt, which fell to mid-thigh on her, she lifted it up and off and tossed it to the side.

“Shea, this isn’t what I—”

His words cut off when she came closer and knelt between his legs. She ran her hands up his lean thighs, enjoying the way the muscles went rigid beneath her touch.

Her words didn’t seem to do the job of convincing him how she felt, so she would have to show him.

He gripped the arms of the chair, and she ran her hands over the hard muscles in his arms. She loved the feel of him, something she’d imagined so many times while he’d kept her here. This time, she was determined to enjoy the fact that she could touch him. And she was going to touch him everywhere.

Cupping his face in her hands, she felt the roughness of stubble. She let it scrape her palms as she slowly lowered her hands down his throat to the soft hair in the middle of his chest. She followed it down over hard muscle, the ridges of his ribs and stomach.

By the time she reached the waistband of his pants, the air was heavy with lust and emotion. Shea lifted her upper lip off her fangs, fighting the need to pierce his skin. Jesse’s moan turned to a sharp intake of breath when she gripped the material of his pants and tore them in two, exposing his cock to her hungry gaze. He was hard and long and thick, and Shea leaned in, inhaling his masculine scent before tasting him with her tongue.

“Ah!” His hips jerked, thrusting toward her mouth.

But she pulled back, and held him still with a hand at the top of each thigh. When he stilled, she again ran her tongue over the tip, before taking him into her mouth and grazing him with her fangs.

His head fell back, but he lifted it again almost immediately to watch her. “I’m going to come if you do that again, vampire.”

He was breathing hard, and Shea enjoyed the sight of his stomach muscles tensing. But she wasn’t going to give him his pleasure so soon. No. She wanted more.

She leaned away, and he reached out to touch her breasts. Shea let him, loving the feel of his rough palms against her tender skin. Her nipples stiffened and he teased them harder still as they stared at each other.

Let me in, Jesse.

Whether he heard her or not, she didn’t know. Taking him in her mouth again, she teased him with her tongue, licking his length and even his balls. Drops appeared at the tip, and she tasted his essence, her moan of pleasure mingling with his.

But she wanted more.

Backing off again, she kissed his inner thigh, licking the pulse there, before—with a hiss of need and warning—she reared back and struck. Jesse cried out in pain and pleasure as she sank her fangs into his inner thigh. His legs fell open wider, and his dark, wicked blood flowed into her mouth. Shea drank eagerly.

“Ah, gods! Yes, love. Drink.” His hands tangled in her long hair, holding her head to his thigh. When she removed her fangs, he pulled her up to kiss her.

Shea moaned when his lips took hers. The kiss was not gentle, but a claiming, much as she had just done to him.

Breaking it off, she pushed him back against the chair and struck his throat. As his blood flowed into her, her body lit up with a fire only he could handle. His hands caressed her back, then moved down to massage her ass. He tried to pull her up into his lap, but Shea released him from her bite and again went to her knees.

“Shea, I want to be inside of you.” His voice was rough with longing and his eyes burned with need, and she knew the fire was inside him, too.

But she shook her head and took him into her mouth. Only this time, she was done teasing. Running her tongue around the wide head, she sucked him in as far as she could, over and over, until he was calling her name and his hips moved with her rhythm as his hands again wrapped themselves in her hair.

Shea lifted her head and licked his length. He was hard as a rock, the blood pulsing though the veins. A low growl started deep in her core, rumbling to the surface as she flashed her fangs at him. She looked up to find him watching her with eyes gone bright as the sun.

“Yes,” he gritted out.

She hissed her pleasure, and took him in her hand, holding him steady.

“Do it, Shea.”

Fast as a snake, she took him in her mouth and sank her fangs deep into his engorged shaft. Jesse cried out, pulsing hard in her hand as he came. She drank it all, and when he finished, she licked him clean and lifted her head.

He stared down at her with his soul in his eyes. Raw. Exposed. Vulnerable.

Shea let her own emotions show. “I choose you,” she told him. “I choose you, Jesse. Just as you are.”

Reaching down, he tilted her face to his and kissed her like a man starved. She returned the kiss, letting everything he felt wash over her. Her fang pierced her bottom lip, and he groaned when he tasted it. She let him drink, strengthening the bond between them.

Jesse was the one to break off the kiss this time. Holding her face in his hands, he just looked at her for a long, long time. “I choose you, too.”

And then he kissed her again, and took her down to the floor.