At first, I thought I was dead.

That was the only reason why an angel would hover over me.

When I blinked a few times more, my vision cleared and I understood who I was looking at.

I reached for her, touching her smooth cheek. “Molly?”

“Who else? Do you spend a lot of time with women in caves?”

“Do you want an honest answer to that question?”

I tried to work my way into a seated position, but a pair of hands pushed against my shoulders. She couldn’t possibly have held me back if I was determined to get up, but it wasn’t worth fighting.

“You have to take it easy after what just happened. I thought I lost you there.” She sighed. “Do me a favor.”

“What?”

“Don’t do that to me again.”

“I’ll try,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “I would rather not do it again for my own sake, frankly.”

“How’s your head feeling?”

I hesitated. There was no way to explain why the wound had already fully healed without admitting who I truly was. “It’s sore,” I lied, touching gentle fingers to it. “What’s this?”

“Oh. I put a gauze pad over it,” she shrugged.

“Did you wash it?”

She nodded. “With alcohol wipes.”

I stared at her in wonder. “Thank you.”

“What, did you think I wouldn’t? That’s what First Aid kits are for.”

“I know, but…” I had no way of explaining how rare it was for a human to care for one of us. Unheard of, in fact. Those of us with human mates, such as the ones in the cave at that very moment, were the exception. “It was good of you to make an effort.”

“No worries. I’m just glad you woke up.” She chewed her lip, frowning. “Can I ask what happened? Are you prone to seizures?”

“Seizures? Is that what it looked like was happening?”

“Yeah. Your eyes rolled back, and you dropped like a rock. It was so sudden.”

“It must have frightened you, lass. My apologies. I wouldn’t frighten you for anything.” Yet in spite of that fear, she’d taken care of me. I’d never so wished I could reach out and hold someone.

And that would be only the beginning if I had my way.

“So? Was it a seizure? Did you feel anything? Hear anything?”

“I touched something in your bag and it…” I shook my head. “I wish I could explain it.”

“Something in my bag? What in the world? There’s nothing in there that could hurt you.”

I tried my best to recall what had happened. “I was reaching in for water, wasn’t I?”

She held the bottle before me. “Yeah. Here you go. You never did get any.”

“Thank you.” I gulped some of it and tried again to get my thoughts together. “I don’t remember anything after reaching into the bag. A burning sensation? I seem to recall that, but it was brief.”

“Burning? There shouldn’t be anything in my pack that would make you feel that way.” She frowned down at me, and this time skepticism clouded her once-clear, bright eyes. “Exactly what were you doing up at your friend’s house before you found me?”

“What?” I laughed. “Nothing. You can’t be suggesting I took something or did something which would result in this.”

“I can’t think of another reason why a healthy person with no history of acting this way would suddenly blink out,” she argued.

“I’ve never touched drugs. The small amount of alcohol I drink on occasion only extends itself to a beer or two during football games. I can’t believe I’m defending myself to you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Am I being demanding?” She stood, her back to the fire.

With the light surrounding her as it did, with her glaring down at me as she was, she might have been a demon shot straight from the mouth of Hell. And I had just mistaken her for an angel.

“I don’t have the energy for this,” I muttered, which was the truth.

While my head was no longer a problem, I felt very much like a battery with no juice. A sponge that had been wrung completely dry. Whatever happened, it had stolen my strength.

“You don’t know what it was like, thinking you were dead,” she hissed, emotion touching the edges of her voice. “I thought I was out here all on my own and you were dead, and I didn’t know what to do or how to get help for you. Should I go looking for your friends? Should I call out for help? It was bad enough when I thought I was gonna die out here all alone, but watching somebody else die?” She dragged a hand over her cheek with a bitter laugh. “I had no idea how much worse that would be.”

My heart softened. And she had done so much to care for me while I was unaware. “It seems as though I’m always apologizing for my bad behavior,” I murmured, feeling like a jackass. “I’m not accustomed to needing others to take care of me. I’ve always been one to do that on my own.”

“So, what? You take it out on the person who did what she could to help? That makes a lot of sense. It’s a wonder you have anybody left in your life. Like those friends of yours, up on the mountain. Maybe you should be on your way back to them now.”

“You’re kicking me out of your campsite?”

She sighed. “No. I’m telling you to go back because there might be something wrong with you, and there’s nothing I can do about that on my own. If it happens again, we’re both screwed. I don’t need your protection that much. Besides, what good are you to me if you’re unconscious? I was never a fan of the idea in the first place, but you insisted.”

“Och, aye,” I growled, sitting up this time.

She didn’t try to stop me.

“Aye, I forced my way over here and dragged you, kicking and screaming. It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do, convincing you to allow me to stay.”

“Oh, shut up,” she spat. Now she was good and angry, arms folded, still balanced on one leg to keep her bootless foot off the ground. “You don’t have to be so nasty.”

“You’re the one telling me to shut up, lassie.”

“Enough with the ‘lassie’ stuff, too,” she sneered. “You turn it on and off at will, and it’s ridiculous.”

“I do not either turn it on and off! What are we even fighting about?”

“You acting like a jerk when I was scared half to death over your unworthy ass!”

“I’m sorry I frightened you, but to chalk this up to something I did, as if I’m at fault—”

“Look.” She held up her hands, head tilted back that she might look at the sky. “Look. I’m not trying to turn this into an all-night thing. But I do think you need to go now. I appreciate everything you’ve done, and I mean that. But I can’t have you going in and out on me when I don’t have the strength to move you, and I don’t know how to find your friends.”

“I’m not asking you to help me, and if that were to happen again, I still wouldn’t ask for your help. There. You’re absolved.”

She stared at me, her mouth falling open. “You’re kidding. You think that’s enough? That you can just sit there and say hey, don’t worry about it if my eyes roll back in my head again and I fall over and hurt myself on the way down. Don’t even sweat it when I start twitching after, and my eyes are rolling around.”

“You didn’t say anything about that.”

This seemed to take her by surprise. She faltered, the arms once so firmly crossed now loosening. “Oh. Right. Just before you woke up, you sorta had a fit. Not a long one, nothing violent or anything. But your eyes were rolling around behind your eyelids, and you said, ‘the treasure.’ That’s it. The treasure.”

“The treasure?” I could have been dreaming at the time, my subconscious riled up by her speaking of the legends her father had passed down. “Was there anything else? Did I say more?”

If she’d heard me speaking of dragons, I would be done for.

“No. Why? Are you secretly a serial murderer? And you wanted to make sure you didn’t give yourself away?”

“My, you’re full of snappy comebacks, aren’t you?” I barely had it in me to continue this repartee, though it kept me alert and aware when I wanted nothing more than to return to sweet, dreamless sleep.

Which worried me more than I could say. It was unusual, to say the least, for me to feel this way. We enjoyed perfect health, all of my kin, health which only failed us while in the presence of iron. We would weaken when bound in iron. The ability to shift was lost to us.

Even then, I’d been inoculated against the metal’s effects. We all had, along with a follow-up shot on arriving at the cave. That antidote was the only reason we’d been able to escape our confines in the research lab.

I should have been impervious to everything, then. Instead, I might as well have been mortal. Weak, tired, even a bit foggy-headed.

I’d spoken of the treasure. Why? I hadn’t dreamed of it…

But I had touched metal in her pack, hadn’t I? Yes!

“There’s something metallic in here, isn’t there?” I reached for the pack.

“Wait!” She reached it first, pulling it beyond my grasp. “No way. You’re not going through my things. I don’t appreciate any of this.”

“I don’t recall asking whether you appreciate a damn thing,” I snarled, swiping an arm in her general direction. I was so tired. “Just let me see it, please. I believe something inside did this to me.”

“You’re deluded,” she snapped, holding the bag close. “And I’m seriously starting to regret spending so much time with you tonight. This is nuts. You’re a total stranger, and you’re acting like a weirdo. There’s nothing in here that could possibly make you do what you did, and I don’t want you pawing through my things. Just… go away now.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I mean!”

I lunged forward, half in a crouch, and managed to wrap my hands around the bottom of the backpack.

And just like that, somebody turned out the lights.

No burning this time.

Just darkness.

Again.