Running at top speed out of the forest, I immediately spotted Kit where she stood in the middle of the road, speaking to someone. It almost looked like… No, surely not; her luck can't be that bad! Fuck, it was. It was Simon, that slimy motherfucker that had tortured Kit's mind back at Blood Moon.

Rage surged through me as I pictured my hands wrapped around his scrawny neck, my fist plowing into his face over and over and over… In my distraction, I almost didn't see the asshole mercenary trying to haul an unconscious wolf over to his truck, but he tripped on something and loudly swore.

“Hey!” I snapped, grabbing his attention. “Drop the fucking wolf!”

The man sneered at me and aimed his gun, but I knew they were only packing tranq darts. Anyone with a decent level of target training knew the speed and trajectory of tranq darts was bullshit compared to bullets, and judging by where this dude was pointing his gun, it wouldn't even hit me.

Idiot.

Closing the gap between us in two fast steps, I swiftly lashed out, decking him and sending him crashing to the pavement. Pausing for a second, I checked that he was in fact unconscious before making sure the wolf was okay. He seemed to be still breathing and his pulse was strong, so I dragged him behind a hedge in the hopes no other mercenaries would find him an easy target to load into their truck.

“Where's Kit?” my twin demanded, panting as he skidded to a halt beside me. He always had been slower than me. Well, in most things.

Turning back to where I had seen her with Simon, my heart stopped as I heard the distinctive pop of a real gun, then watched the beautiful red-haired girl crash to her knees, dropping face first into the concrete.

“No,” I breathed, horrified. Caleb was engaged with another armed man, and I didn’t think he had seen what had just happened or he would be losing his mind right now. Hell, I was losing my mind. The balls of my feet pushed hard into the ground as I started to sprint towards her broken form. At the same time a huge-ass, motherfucking dragon landed on the road in front of her. If I hadn't already known about Cole and Vali's newfound supernatural abilities, I would have thought I was losing my mind. Who knew fucking dragon shifters were a real ass thing?

Another mercenary was dragging a fighting half-formed wolf shifter not far from me, and I hesitated. As badly as I wanted, needed to get to my princess, these people needed our help. With a furious, frustrated growl, I detoured and engaged the bad guy.

Faced with a new threat, he dropped his hold on the fighting shifter, who drunkenly helped me immobilize the man. Based on the unsteady balance of the shifter, he seemed to have been just clipped with a traq dart and was using his shifting ability to try and work the drug through faster. Good for him.

“You going to be okay?” I asked, and he gave me a tight nod, no longer capable of speech as his mouth morphed into a snout.

Satisfied with his response, I left him to it and once again ran towards Christina. She must’ve not been too bad off because as I approached, Cole-the-dragon gave me a snort of arctic wind as he took off into the sky, flying towards the mountain road where the already-loaded trucks were heading. After his little display on the plane when he’d started shifting and Christina had to calm him down and after Vali had explained his own shift, it’d become clear that they were different sorts of dragons. While Vali was fire, Cole was ice.

“Hey, princess, we doing okay?” My voice was shaking as I skidded to a halt beside her and took in the pool of blood she was lying in. She sure as fuck did not look okay.

Her body was belly down on the concrete, her face turned to the side where dragon-Cole had just been crouched, so I ducked around to that side of her and swept her hair off her cheek. Her skin was so pale it was almost translucent, and a sheen of sweat covered her forehead. Panic flooded through me, seeing her eyes closed, and I gently patted her cheek to try and wake her up.

“Princess, hey!” I coaxed. “Come back to me, baby. You're supposed to be immortal, remember? Surely a pissy little human-made bullet can't take you down?” Fuck, I hope it can't.

She had already been so exhausted after that ridiculous fight and from trying to heal those metal-laced claw marks, and really, we had no idea of the limitations of her abilities.

“Come on, princess. Please don't do this to me, please wake up. You can do it, baby girl. You can heal this, remember? You saved Cole and Vali from worse than this; you can do it for yourself too.” My whispered words were trembling, and I knew I was close to losing it.

This fucking girl. She had been nothing but goddamn trouble and heartache since the day she’d stepped into our lives, but fuck if I hadn't loved every second of it.

My shaking fingers stroked through her hair, the silky red strands mixing and blending with all the blood beneath us, and my heart pounded so hard I thought it might jump straight out of my body. There was no sense in trying any normal first aid here; if she was going to survive it, it had to be through her magic.

“Stay with me, baby; stay with me,” I pleaded, checking her pulse and finding it fluttering, faint, but still there. “Come on, princess…” As I muttered these words, her pulse beat a little stronger under my fingers and her lids flickered just a little bit.

“That's right, come back to me. You're okay; you can do this. You're too strong to give in to a measly bullet wound.”

Lying down so I was on her level, I slid my hand into her hair to clasp the back of her head gently. My cheek was pressed to the ground in front of hers so I could see when her eyelids finally fluttered open again.

“Hey, princess,” I whispered, seeing a tiny crack of her ice blue iris between her dark lashes. “Can I do anything to help? You usually heal so much quicker than this…”

Her soft lips parted slightly, and a small sound whimpered out, but no words. Her lids lifted a little further, and the raw agony shining back at me from her eyes made my gut clench and twist in pain.

“You're okay, baby girl; you're doing good. Just give it a few minutes. You're already doing better.” My encouragement wasn't just hollow platitudes; her pulse really was stronger when I checked it again, and her face wasn't quite so pale anymore.

“Keep touching me,” she whispered, so faint I barely heard the words, but even when I did, I didn't really understand.

“Like this?” I frowned, using the hand in her hair to rub little circles on her head. She made a tiny nod and sighed, closing her eyes once more and causing my anxiety to spike.

“Hey, don't close your eyes! Princess, wake up!” I panicked a little, thinking she was passing back into unconsciousness, but she cracked her lids open again, this time looking a bit stronger and steadier.

“I'm not asleep, you asshat,” she muttered. “Just trying to focus.”

“Oh,” I grunted. “Fair enough, then.”

“Touching you seems to help,” she whispered, giving me a tiny, amused smile. “I noticed it earlier, after the fight. When River held me, my healing worked faster, flowed a bit easier.”

“Oh, um. Must be a magic thing.” No fucking shit, Aus. Talk about Captain Obvious. “So do you need me to, ah, move closer?” I sounded like a fucking teenager with his first girlfriend.

Jesus fucking Christ, this girl kills me.

“It would help.” Even half-dead as she was, she managed to sound sarcastic. Such an admirable talent.

Holding my breath, I have no idea why, I shuffled closer so our bodies were touching along the length of us, and I slid my other arm under her neck to cushion her head.

“Is that better?” I asked a little breathlessly, and she nodded, her nose brushing against mine lightly.

“Much,” she smirked, definitely looking better. “Give me just a minute or two, and we should be good here.”

“Hmmm,” I murmured, for some reason her little smile making me feel playful. “So touching people helps you heal faster, does it?” She nodded again, her gaze now steady and holding mine in an unblinking stare. “Sort of like how you used to need sex or danger?” Another nod from her, and this time a suspicious narrowing of her eyes. “So, in the interest of speeding things up so we can go rip Simon's head off…”

Before I could talk myself out of it, I closed the short gap between our mouths and pressed my lips to hers. Quivers of excitement and panic rolled through my gut, but when she didn't push me away or slap me, I took it as her approval and pressed in harder. Of course, she may not have been able to slap me yet, but she definitely wasn't pulling away as her lips parted and she sucked a small gasp. I took the opening and slid my tongue forward to meet hers. With painstaking patience, I gently caressed her mouth with mine, tracing the shape and contours of her lips and committing them to memory. Who knew when she might be close enough to death again to give me another opportunity to kiss her?

“Kit! Austin! What's happened; are you two okay?” My fucking dickwad twin brother's voice cut across our frozen moment, and I broke away from Christina's luscious lips with a growl of frustration.

“We're fine, bro,” I muttered, sitting up but being careful to keep my hands in contact with my princess's skin. After all, she did say it was helping her heal…

“Just got shot again,” she said, slowly pushing herself up off the pavement with a pained groan.

“What?” Caleb exclaimed, crouching in front of us. “What the hell? How did I miss this? Are you okay? Is it healing? Why was Austin just kissing you? Ugh, never mind; we can deal with that later. Are you okay, Kitty Kat?”

“I'm fine,” she assured him, giving a small smile. “Almost better.” She unzipped the leather jacket and pulled the neck of her blood-soaked sweater down to reveal a shallow, visibly healing wound between her breasts.

Fuck, Aus, stop looking at her breasts, dammit. She just almost died; now is not the time!

“See?” She grinned, picking the bullet out of her flesh as it closed and knitted itself back together. “Nothing to worry about here.” She tugged her clothing back into place and held her hand out to Caleb.

“If you're sure…” he murmured, a heavy frown on his face as he pulled her up to her feet.

“I am.” She looked down at me, where I was still sitting on the ground beside the massive pool of her blood. “Thanks to Austin.”

Awkwardly, I ducked her intense gaze and coughed. “Right, well. We better get going and save these shifters. I saw Simon was here with them, so we can't let him get away.”

“What?” Caleb screamed. “How did I miss that?” He reached out and pulled me to my feet as well, and I just shrugged, pulling my mask of unaffected asshole back on.

“You were busy fighting these kidnapping fucktards. Whatever. Princess was fine without you riding in on your white horse to save her.” I dodged eye contact with both of them, deliberately pushing a sneer into my tone to help build my crumbled walls back up. “Let's move it. Those scaled assholes probably need our help.”

Without waiting for either of them to respond, I took off at a jog in the direction that the dragons had gone but couldn't stop the sharp stab of jealousy when I saw the gentle kiss Kit laid on my twin's lips before they followed.