Bowman took her gently from Cristian, cradling the mate he’d loved from the first moment he’d looked at her. Kenzie’s eyes, the ones that had arrested him from across the crowded, cold gym, opened, warming when she saw him.

“Did we get it?”

“You nailed it, baby,” Bowman said. “We kicked its sorry ass.”

“Good.” Kenzie smiled, the sexy, sly smile he adored. She touched her chest, over her heart, then put her hand on the center of his chest. “I feel it,” she whispered. “Do you?”

A burning sensation seared him where she touched. Bowman went utterly still as wild hope flooded him. “Yeah.” He pressed his hand, covered with blood, over hers. “I feel it, right here.”

“Good.” Kenzie smiled again, looking so happy that Bowman’s whole body hurt. She reached out her other hand and pulled Ryan to them. “Good,” she repeated, then her grasp went slack, and she fell, limp, against Bowman’s chest.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Kenzie peeled open her eyes. She took a breath . . . and spent a long moment calming herself down from pain. Her body pounded, her side burned, and her legs felt as though someone had broken them and glued them back together.

A quick downward check showed her lying in bed in a hospital gown, her bare legs free of any kind of splints, though bandages tightly wrapped her middle.

She opened her mouth to call out. Ryan—was he all right? And Bowman? What had happened to everyone? Her last memory was falling against Bowman, safe and content in his arms, but he’d looked as bad as she felt.

The only thing that came out of her throat was a groan. This was bad.

Something rattled. “Kenz?”

Her heart raced, which hurt, then settled into warmth. Bowman. She turned her head.

Bowman was in the hospital bed next to hers, the two of them separated by a few feet of space. Above each of them were machines that beeped, and tubes snaked from bags on stands into their arms.

The moment she saw Bowman and his stormy gray eyes, the quiet warmth behind her breastbone flamed into white-hot heat. It cleansed rather than hurt, humming like an electric current, filling the air with a clean scent like a breeze after a grueling storm. Kenzie gasped for breath, but found it flowing sweetly into her lungs, erasing the aches of the fight.

Along with those hurts went the despair of long years of watching, wondering if she and Bowman would ever be complete.

“Bowman,” she whispered.

Bowman gazed back at her, the quiet joy in his eyes matching her own.

She swallowed. “Ryan?”

Bowman nodded, answering in a low voice. “Is fine.” He grinned, which turned up the warmth, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “He looked after us while we lay on the floor in pools of blood. They cleaned him up, checked him out, and let him go home with Afina.”

Kenzie sank back in relief, ready to bask in the new feeling of contentedness. And yet it was more than contentment. A vibration deep in her body promised good things to come.

Bowman was here, whole. They were together. She thought about the way the two of them had shared thoughts during the danger in Turner’s lab, and excitement blossomed inside her.

Then she blinked, as Bowman’s words clicked, one by one, into place. “Let Ryan go home? Who did? Where the heck are we?”

Bowman’s smile grew. “Hospital. After you passed out, campus police and town police were all over us, but they were nice and brought us to the hospital instead of taking us to jail.”

“Jail?” Kenzie asked in alarm. “They wanted to arrest us?”

“They did arrest us.” Bowman lifted his left wrist, which was attached by a handcuff to his bed. That explained the rattling noise. “You were so far gone the doctors wouldn’t allow them to cuff you. They were afraid of circulation problems.” The look in his eyes showed her the worry that had caused him.

“So after they patch us up, they’re taking us in?” Kenzie asked. “Who? You and me?”

“Everyone. You should have heard what Cade called the officers who shock-sticked him into submission and shoved cuffs on him.”

“Crap on a crutch,” Kenzie said indignantly. She, Bowman, and their Shifters had saved the day, kept a dangerous creature from escaping, and got rid of a man who was a sociopathic nutjob, and they’d been arrested. “So after this . . . we go to prison?”

No. Kenzie needed to explore this new feeling, this connection with Bowman. She had to know . . .

“Maybe not.” Bowman looked way too calm as he lay back on his pillows. Bandages wrapped his abdomen, but he’d either refused the hospital gown or slung it off. The thin sheet was draped over his lower body in a way that made Kenzie regret all the pain she was in. If they both felt better she could slip out of bed, climb over him, move the sheet, and . . .

Not being able to jump her own mate made her restless. “Why not? What’s going on?”

“Your uncle Cristian is busy explaining everything to the police. Brigid is helping him.” Bowman glanced around the room as though looking for listening devices, and spoke carefully. “Cristian is telling them how Turner contacted Brigid, an anthropology professor from Romania, begging for her help. How she phoned Cristian, a Shifter she knew, who rounded up a group of Shifters to help contain Turner’s experimental creature. Unfortunately, Turner was killed in the melee, but we managed to put the beast down. Which was still lying dead in the hallway. Pierce’s sword had no effect. The newspapers are having a field day.”