Robin woke to the scenic view of a sterile brown and tan carpeted van roof. Her head had been cushioned on something hard, and every jostle of the van—every pothole, bump, or turn—deepened the throbbing, bone-deep pain in her belly. The last thing she remembered was being shot and falling from the sky. On the way down, she’d believed it wasn’t serious. This pain, however, said otherwise.

Someone lay beside her in the back of the van and, with effort, she turned her head to the right. Her breath caught. Nik, so still that he looked like a corpse. What had happened? Who was driving?

“Archer?” Robin tried to sit up, but couldn’t. All she accomplished was the sight of her own blood-soaked body. Shit.

“Hey, Robin.” Archer’s voice seemed to float from the front of the van, and Robin realized her grasp on consciousness was not as strong as she’d thought. “Don’t move around back there; you’ve lost a lot of blood. I’m getting us to Penton as fast as I can. Can you take a blood infusion from a human or another breed of shifter?”

“Never mind me. Is Nik alive?” Why was he not breathing? In theory, Robin knew vampires didn’t have to breathe to be alive. In practice, she’d never seen one not breathe, and the sight of a Nik whose lungs weren’t working scared the hell out of her.

“He’s alive, but we don’t have much time. And it was my own fucking fault,” Archer said. “I thought Marianne was unconscious and left to get the van while Nik cleaned up the scene and brought you to a rendezvous point. You were unconscious, but turns out she wasn’t. Somehow, she got her hands on a vial of vaccinated blood and injected Nik with it.”

With effort, Robin rolled her head to the side again so she could look at Nik. The puncture wound just below his left ear had turned an angry red—that bitch had gotten him near the carotid artery. “What can we do for him?”

“I don’t know. Soon as I got you guys in the van, I texted Aidan and he said get back to Penton immediately. Well, Atlanta traffic doesn’t do immediately. And Cage has been calling me every few minutes. I’ll let him know you’re awake.”

Robin wished she could mentally communicate with Cage the way the master vampires and their mates could do. They’d done it a little, but not enough, and not so far. He’d be able to tell she was hurt, though, and it would frighten him. He’d been through too much already. “I want to talk to him. Where’s my cell phone?”

“You don’t need to move, Robin. We’re fifteen minutes out. Just hang on.”

She raised her voice. “Where’s my fucking cell phone?”

“I don’t know, and you aren’t getting mine. Settle down. Cage will kill me if you hurt yourself worse. Can you take a blood transfusion from me?”

“No, only another avian shifter, but it doesn’t have to be an eagle.” Robin took deep breaths to slow her racing heart. “What happened to me, anyway? I didn’t think I’d been hurt this bad.”

“Nik and I were looking for you when we heard a shot. Marianne had found you and shot you point blank while you were unconscious. I’m just thankful she heard us coming and took a fast shot to the gut instead of the head.”

Yeah, that made two of them. “That bitch has a lot to answer for.”

“Can’t argue with that, and she got away.”

Robin closed her eyes and didn’t realized she’d slept, except that when she opened them again, Nik had disappeared and Cage knelt over her. “Hello, little bird,” he said, his voice soft. “Trying to one-up me on injuries?”

She smiled up at him, wanting to cry and laugh and kiss him and feel him inside her. She wanted their life back. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered.

“Actually, you are. Archer has taken Nik inside, and our friend Will is here to carry you down to the subsuites. Your mate seems to have misplaced his arm. Inconvenient, that.”

He grinned at her, and Robin felt her heart expand to the point of bursting from her body. Her Cage was back. If it took her getting hurt and scaring the shit out of him to make him able to joke about his own injury, it was worth every ounce of blood she’d lost.

“Out of the way, you freak.” Will climbed in the van to take Cage’s place. “You are a mess, woman. You’re gonna get blood all over my pretty new sweater.”

“Fuck you.” Robin didn’t think she sounded very fierce.

“No, that’s Randa’s job, not yours. Sorry. You’ll have to make do with the English asshat.” Will slid arms beneath Robin’s shoulders and knees, and lifted her out of the van more smoothly than she would’ve thought possible. “You realize that between Cage and me, we have three good arms and three good legs?”

Robin tried to think of a comeback, but wit was beyond her. In fact, she thought consciousness might be beyond her.

Suddenly, Krys was standing above her and she recognized the subsuites. She was on a bed. Krys’s image wavered in and out but finally stayed. Yay for consciousness.

“How are you feeling?” Krys placed a cool hand on her forehead.

“I’m feeling…not a damned thing.” Robin raised her head but saw nothing of her midsection but a mass of bandages. “Just tired.”

“You’re going to join me in daysleep shortly.” The bed moved beneath her, and Cage settled in. “Krys just gave you enough morphine to put a rhino to sleep. Archer is calling in some favors to see if he can get some avian blood.”

“I’ll heal….own.” No wonder her head felt stuffed full of cotton. Morphine. “Nik?”

“They’re getting him set up now for treatment.”

Cage ran his fingers lightly down her cheek and turned her head toward him. “He’s in a spot of trouble, but Nik is strong. They know what to do for this and he’s lucky Shay is a doctor and can keep his treatment going during daysleep.”

Robin frowned. “Research’r.”

Cage smiled. “Yeah, but she can handle an IV. And you should see her face. She is not going to let him die.”

Robin liked Shay. Nik liked Shay. If Shay liked Nik, that was good.

And when Robin got well, that evil bitch Marianne was going to pay.