Fear tightened her stomach. She wasn’t ready.

Drake pulled her into his arms. “It’s going to be fine. You and I are going to kick some Synestryn ass tonight and find Kevin’s sword.”

Helen slid her finger under the luceria. “And this will come off?”

Drake stiffened against her and tightened his grip. “Yes.”

“What then?” she asked him.

“That’s up to you.”

Helen felt lost and scared. She had no idea what to do—no idea what would happen to Drake after tonight. “What happens if I don’t live through this?”

“You will,” he said, his tone stone hard, determined.

“But what if I don’t? We both know that’s a possibility.”

“I’m not going to let you die,” growled Drake.

“Please. Just tell me what happens if I do. I need to know you’ll be safe.”

Drake pulled in a deep breath that made his chest expand against her breasts. She loved the feel of his body against hers, so strong and hard and warm.

“As long as the colors in the luceria move, I’ll go back to where I was before I met you—in pain. Only a few leaves left.”

Helen lifted his hand and stared at the ring. She had to look hard to see any movement at all in the colors—the ring was almost completely solid red with only a hint of orange swirling around. “We’re almost out of time.”

“Yes.” He didn’t sound upset by that notion.

“What happens if I die after the colors stop?”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” he told her in a gentle voice.

“I’m going to worry more if I don’t know.”

Drake sighed.“When the luceria has chosen your final color, then the connection between us is permanent.”

“What does that mean? Exactly?”

Again, his voice was low and gentle. “It means that if you die, it’s almost certain I will, too.”

“That’s stupid!” raged Helen, pushing away from him and tugging at the necklace, which suddenly felt like a noose. “Make it stop.”

Drake gathered her hands in his and kept her from trying to rip the thing off. “I can’t. Neither can you. That’s the way it works.”

“Then you have to get it off me.” She felt herself start to panic and tried to hang on to her control.

“The only way to do that is to find Kevin’s sword.” His brown eyes glowed with golden shards of determination. “But I need to be clear, Helen. I don’t want you to take it off. Not ever.”

“But I’m going to die, you fool! You saw the vision. Even Sibyl said it’s going to happen.” Unless Helen chose another death first.

Damn it! Now she had to act fast. Her vision was coming to pass within days, according to Sibyl. Drake was nearly out of time and she could not take him with her. She would not be the cause of his death, too.

Drake cupped her face and slid his thumb along her cheek. Helen closed her eyes against the need to lean into him for support. “Don’t worry about what Sibyl said. Believe that things will work out. Trust me to protect you.”

But who would protect him?

Sibyl was right. Helen’s window of opportunity was narrow. She had to act now, and fighting with Drake wasn’t going to make her escape easier. She needed to lull him into believing she would go along with him. Fool him into thinking she would be willing to take such a careless chance with his life.

“I trust you,” she said. And she did. She trusted him to do exactly what Thomas had done and give his life to save hers. She couldn’t let that happen.

Helen’s time was up, but Drake’s didn’t have to be. She would go after Kevin’s sword and free him, but it had to be tonight and she couldn’t let Drake come with her. Sibyl said that going into battle together without fire would kill him. She had to find a way to keep him here. She had to find a way to give him a future.

Drake had said he believed there were other women like her out there and she had to believe it, too. She wanted to give him the chance to find one who wasn’t afraid of fire—one who wasn’t fated to die so young. He could still be happy and that’s what she wanted for him more than anything. He’d spent his life sacrificing so that others could be happy and it was time he got a little payback.

Helen took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down. She put a tight clamp on their connection so that he wouldn’t see her plans. Her path was clear. She knew exactly what she had to do.

Helen went up on her tiptoes and kissed him. His mouth opened under hers and she slid her tongue inside for a taste. Just one more taste.

Drake groaned, cupped her hips in his hands, and pulled her against him. She could feel his need for her heat the air around him. In the space of a few seconds, the kiss turned from a means of distraction to the beginning of something hungry and demanding. She loved the way he spiraled out of control with just a kiss from her. It made her feel powerful and desired. The potent combination went straight to her head and drove all the darkness away.

He grabbed her braids and tilted her head back, holding her in place while his mouth ravished hers. His slick tongue mimicked the thrust of his erection inside her, making her body liquefy and heat. This man robbed her of all sanity and made her love it. He scalded her skin with his touches and melted her bones with his kisses until there was nothing left but hunger and heat. She was burning alive with need for him and she didn’t care. This was what she wanted—what she craved. He made the world go away until there was nothing left but the two of them and the pleasure he wrung from her body.

“Need to get inside,” said Drake against her mouth.

Yes. Inside. Hot and hard and thick, just where she needed him to be. Helen’s hands went to the button of her jeans, frantic to get them off.

“Not in the hall, love,” growled Drake in a lust-roughened voice. His body shifted against hers and a moment later, the door to the suite swung wide. Drake backed her inside, half carrying her. He tossed his keys and the items Nicholas had given him on the table and looked down at her with naked passion glowing in his eyes.

Helen knew that same look was in her eyes as well. She needed this. She needed him with a ferocity that frightened her.

“I want you naked,” she told him in a voice that sounded nothing like her own. It was thick and husky and the words came out in short, sharp commands.

Drake’s eyes narrowed for a moment as if he was going to ask her a question, but she’d stripped her shirt and sports bra over her head, and whatever he’d been ready to ask evaporated in the heat of his gaze on her naked breasts. “So pretty.”

He reached for her, but Helen stepped back. “Naked,” she ordered. “Now.”

Drake’s jaw bunched and his cheeks darkened, but he obeyed. His sword belt came off first, invisible until it hit the floor. Then he reached back, grabbed a fistful of T-shirt, and pulled it off over his head.

Helen kicked off her shoes and slid out of her jeans and underwear while she watched Drake do the same. His eyes never left her, taking in each new swath of bare skin as it was revealed. When they were both naked, he reached for her with shaking hands.

Helen stepped out of his reach, knowing that as soon as he touched her, she’d be lost, unable to think clearly. She wanted to look at him, to take in the masculine beauty of his body and appreciate the way the light played across the muscles of his chest and arms. The way the leaves on his lifemark swayed in time with the breeze outside. The way his erection twitched in anticipation of filling her. He was beautiful and strong and hers.

Drake’s hands were fisted at his sides as he waited for her to look her fill. The tight set of his jaw and his rapid breathing told her how impatient he was and she couldn’t make him wait any longer. She couldn’t wait any longer.

Helen pressed herself against his chest, letting him feel her tightened nipples sliding over his ribs. She threaded her fingers through his dark hair and pressed wet kisses along the branches of his tattoo. Drake sucked in a breath and the leaves shivered under her lips. She could feel them move, smell the fresh scent of forest on his skin.

Drake let out a shuddering breath and his hands slid over her back. One cupped her bottom and the other cradled her head. “Give me your mouth,” he said.

Helen felt the rough rumbling of his voice vibrate against her lips and it made her smile. She could feel him holding back, trying to maintain control, and she didn’t want that. She wanted him to let go and give all of himself to her. She wanted nothing held back. No restraint.

A siren’s smile curved her mouth as she kissed her way down his chest, over the intricate trunk of the tree, lower to where the roots fanned out over his abdomen. She knelt before him and her hands slid over the smooth flesh of his erection in a slow caress.

Drake sucked in a breath and his fingers tightened around one of her braids. He looked down at her and the golden shards in his eyes blazed with tempered lust. His body was shaking as he fought to maintain control and a fine sweat made his skin glow.

Helen held his gaze as she took him in her mouth. Drake let out a ragged sound, his eyes rolled back into his head, and his hands tightened in her hair.

The thrill of feminine power coursed through her as she saw and felt what she could do to such a strong man. She loved him with her fingers and mouth and it brought him to his knees.

Drake was panting and his hands moved uncertainly against her hair as if he couldn’t decide whether to pull her closer or push her away. She felt him gather his will, felt a hot pulse of determination flow through their link, and a moment later, she was pushed away and laid out on the soft rug on his living room floor.

His hot body came down on top of hers, pinning her legs wide. Her skin sizzled as his hand slid up her ribs to cup her breast, and with a near snarl, he nipped the skin just above her luceria. Sparks of pleasure shot along her limbs and pooled between her legs, leaving her aching and empty. She wanted him to fill her and drive the emptiness away, over and over until she could never forget the feel of him inside her.

“Not yet,” he murmured against her sensitive skin.

His hand slid over her belly, leaving a trail of shivering heat in its wake. She arched into him and clawed at his hips in an effort to bring him closer, but she couldn’t budge his heavy weight. His fingers found her slick and ready and he filled her with them.

Helen let out a gasp of pleasure. His fingers were thick and skilled and drove her to the edge of climax in seconds, Drake knowing exactly how she liked to be touched. She hovered there, at the edge, and somewhere in the pleasure-fogged recesses of her brain, she found the strength to hold back. “Now,” she begged him.

She felt Drake’s powerful body shudder and then he was surging inside her, filling her the way she wanted—the way she needed him to. Helen held on to him, pulled her legs close to her body, and let him set the pace. He knew what she needed now better than she did and he gave it to her, holding nothing back.

He loved her. She could feel his love shimmering through their link. He didn’t try to hide it, didn’t try to deny it. He let her see it—forced her to feel it so she would know it was real.