Bryony studied Wyatt as he stared at her. The expression on his face told her everything. She actually was in some serious danger, even though she'd dodged her own funny vision that night by fleeing the scene, so to speak.

Naturally, she didn't feel any real fear at the thought. This was part of her talent, too. Being almost stupidly fearless in the face of what most people would consider to be terrifying. Even when she had taken the nasty spill that broke her leg, while she definitely felt the massive pain, she hadn't felt an ounce of fear even when she'd gone bouncing and tumbling down the mountain completely out of control. No, what she'd felt had been more along the lines of, Oh, shit. This is going to ruin the rest of my season.

Clearly, Wyatt did not possess the same lack of fear about this particular situation. She wondered if she was being carelessly brave. "Tell me," she urged him. "I remember about the demon. Khain, right?"

Slowly, he nodded. "What else do you remember about what I told you back then?" The low rumble of his voice sent a heated flicker through her core. She'd been faintly aroused ever since he burst into Renata's store like an avenging warrior ready to defend what was his from some unknown enemy.

Ready to defend her. Which meant that he somehow thought that she was his? Bryony frowned. The idea sizzled along each nerve ending, and it felt good...but she wasn't entirely sure she liked the idea of being some sort of possession he thought he needed to take care of. Was it amazing to see him again, to have been kissed by him so thoroughly the other night she could still feel it branded on her lips, to know that he was still the same fascinating, exciting person she'd been remembering he was in the back of her mind all these years? Yes, that part was all amazing.

It was just the thought of a guy acting like he could claim her that pushed her buttons. She forced herself to take a breath. No matter what, though, she owed him the courtesy of listening to whatever he was about to tell her. She wanted to know anyway.

Besides that, she admitted to herself with another tingling thrill that blasted through her body, she really wanted to hear him keep talking. His deep timbre thrummed along her nerves in all the right ways.

"You remember what I told you about what he did to my mom, and to all the other female shiften. Including wolven, like me." He watched her carefully as he said that. They had touched on it during their stroll after dinner last week, but they hadn't discussed this part quite so boldly.

Bryony nodded, feeling held by the intensity of his bright blue eyes. Just as carefully but very clearly, she responded. "That he murdered all the female shiften in the world, like your mom,” that part, she said very softly, “so that no more full-blooded shiften could be born. What he did tore apart your own family, and made your dad the way he is. Made you the way you are," she added more hesitantly.

Wyatt visibly shut his mouth on whatever words he had been planning to say. He crinkled up his face at her. "The way I am? How am I?"

She paused, assessing him. He could take it, she decided. Besides, they'd sworn a literal blood pact as kids to never lie to one another. Even though she'd been only ten years old, she'd taken it seriously back then. She still did. Lying to Wyatt, even by omission, wasn't something she'd ever want to do anyway. For some reason, she couldn't bring herself to ever be false to him.

“You,” she started slowly, dragging out the word as his brilliant eyes seemed to try to pierce into her soul, “are guarded, too. You never really shared all of yourself with me, you know. I know we told each other everything, but you held back on me.”

He drew breath to speak, his brows lowering, but she shook her head and went on more quickly. “No, hear me out. I don't believe you ever lied to me about anything, Wyatt. Never,” she said as firmly as she could. He relaxed a fraction. “But,” and he tensed again, “you weren't completely there. Never. You trusted me with your secrets, but not everything. I could still tell that, at dinner the other night. What is it that you're still not telling me, Wyatt? I think now, after you just told me someone will kill me, I deserve to hear it all.”

Holding her breath, she waited. But it seemed Wyatt hadn't been a cop for years, not to mention a boy who'd grown up with a man who didn't show much affection or emotion over anything, to not have learned things. Instead of telling her, he neatly turned the tables on her.

“Tell me first,” he said in an equally careful yet firm voice, “about what you saw that night that made you run away from me. The real reason.”

Dammit. She fidgeted under his unbreaking blue stare. He'd called her several times after that night last week, asking what had happened. Texted her, too. She'd hung onto her annoyance that he'd lunged after that random guy who'd wandered too close and stared at her too long, using it as an excuse to not call him back, to reply by text that she was fine but it wasn't a good idea to see him again.

Now, though, she couldn't hide behind the excuse of his temper being the reason to not tell him the truth. Taking a breath, she walked over to the window of his living room. It looked out onto the street, where she saw the cars that Mac and the rookie cop had driven over. The kid sat inside his vehicle, seeming very serious and alert. Mac paced the sidewalk outside Wyatt's house, talking into his phone and gesticulating all over the place. He looked like a wall of doom, with his fierce expression and huge muscles. Just like the wall of doom inside the house with her now, she thought as she turned to look back at Wyatt. Whatever was going on, he was determined to protect her from it.

The problem was, she didn't think he could.

"You know how it works with me," she began softly. "I can see what's going to happen immediately next, in terms of what's literally, physically going on with me at the moment."

Wyatt nodded, his eyes shadowing.

"It's like—it's like a choreography that I can see actually happening in front of me.” She always struggled to describe it. Not that she'd ever told anyone else but Wyatt. “Like a movie. It's only ever me and the other person or people, though. And only what's happening right at that second, or rather about to happen. Never about anyone else or the world at large. I'm not a soothsayer."

"I know." Wyatt's voice was as soft as Bryony's. "I remember."

She gave him a faint smile for his acknowledgement that he remembered just as much of what she had said as she did about him.

Holding his gaze, and that was kind of hard, she continued. "Standing on the river walk with you that night, feeling you touch me, hold me, kiss me, I suddenly could feel the little zap that meant I was about to have one of my things. Everything kind of melds into one moment." She could hear her voice going kind of dreamy as she replayed what happened that night, but kept her gaze firmly locked with his. "The breeze, the moonlight, the smell of you."

His mouth quirked and he raised an eyebrow. She let a slow, appreciative smile unfurl on her lips.

"Yes. You smell like wild forests and big ancient trees. Like the night itself." Just describing his scent, which naturally she could smell right this moment, Bryony felt shivers whispering over her skin. Wyatt's eyes darkened even more. "It all blended, and intensified, which means I'm still in the present moment but I'm also leapt forward to the next few possible moments, kind of like two realities on top of one another, making them stronger than just one."

He stood unmoving, his sexy dark beard contrasting perfectly with the cobalt of his eyes that, even as they darkened, were still brighter than any blue eyes she'd ever seen in her life.

"And then I was standing there with you, wrapped in your arms, being kissed like I've never been kissed before—"

Wyatt's scent deepened into something wild and hot that was beginning to make her dizzy. In a very good way.

"—and then suddenly I leaped ahead and could see what was going to happen.” She paused to swallow hard before going on. “You were going to lead me to your home, to this place actually, and take me to bed. It was going to blow my fucking socks off." She could hear her own voice dropping as she spoke, could feel the delicious chills of anticipation billowing through her now even as she shared her vision of what had been going to happen but that she had stopped so that it never existed.

Yet, that is.

"I saw every single second of it. It was the most amazing connection of my life. A bond between us.” She knew she sounded startled, though her voice stayed soft. “Then you—you bit me. On my neck. By my tattoo.” She reached up and felt her tattoo, even though she couldn't really feel it. Then, shocked, she yanked her hand away.

The skin on her left shoulder throbbed and heated with something so intense, so alive, that she gasped. Wyatt's eyes darted to where her hand had strayed, then snapped back to her face. He looked like a smoldering volcano, ready to erupt with the same deep, heated passion she felt stirring in her.

Swallowing a few times against her suddenly dry throat, she went on. “I knew it had something to do with you being a wolfen and me being your mate, and I understood that because you explained that concept to me years ago. Of course back then you weren't talking about us. And then—" she broke off as the memory of the future that had not happened suddenly became ugly and tainted.

Wyatt spoke, his voice low and gravelly and brimming with the molten heat. That, and an emotion she couldn't quite pinpoint. "You're safe here. Whatever it is, we won't let it happen. Tell me."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. She blinked once but still didn't take her gaze from him. "And then, I had a sensation of something awful. Something huge and burning, raging hot. Horrible hot, the kind of hot that burns your skin off, melts your eyes.” She shuddered. “And the smell," she wrinkled her nose even now. "The smell was terrible. It smelled of death, of destruction, of such vile nastiness. Then I was suddenly covered in blood. My blood," she added very quietly. "It was my blood. All over me. I could feel my heart slowing, my body getting cold. I was dying, Wyatt," she said simply, her voice barely above a whisper.

She had been dying, and she could feel every moment of it in her future vision-reality.

“It startled me so badly I just pulled away and ran from you. I'm so sorry I did that,” she added, meaning it. “I wasn't afraid of dying, necessarily," she went on slowly, feeling her way through the emotions she'd had during her vision. "But that doesn't mean I'm ready to die yet. I still have a lot of living left to do." She paused. "I've been trapped here for the last many months, recuperating, feeling like I'm in a cage, and slowly…" She paused again, uncertain about saying this part.

Wyatt just looked at her, silently encouraging her by his solid, strong presence.

She took a breath and tried. "Slowly going crazy, maybe. Every now and then I hear this ugly little voice in my head saying mean, nasty things.” She frowned as a small shudder traveled down her spine. “And I've had the weirdest feeling about not being connected to my body as much as I used to be." She glanced down at her now whole, healed leg. "I've always been very aware of my body space. Of what I'm doing. It's less so, lately. Ever since I came back to Serenity."

Wyatt nodded, suddenly smiling again. "You were always athletically gifted as a kid. It was amazing, Bry.” The sheer admiration in his voice made her feel suddenly flustered. “You could ride a bike, dribble a ball, go climbing up the quarry, play cops and robbers in an abandoned house or in the woods, and you picked everything up like you'd been born knowing how to do it. Nobody had to teach you anything." He shook his head as if still stunned by it. Then his voice lowered. "As it turns out, you all have a special ability. When we were catching up the other night I should have realized that. But I didn't think about it at all. A one true mate was something I never thought existed, let alone something I thought I might have myself."

Puzzled, Bryony cocked her head at him. "A one true mate? What does that mean?"

He abruptly looked somewhat nervous, an incongruous expression on his naturally bold, self-assured features. She pounced. Time to turn the tables back on him. "Aha. Now we go back to what you have not told me. What you need to tell me. I told you what happened that night. Now it's your turn. Tell me we're doing here in your house right now, guarded by Mac and that kid out there. Out with it, World Wide Web." She let a smile curve up one side of her mouth. She hadn't thought about his silly old nickname for years now, but just saying it made her feel oddly comforted.

As if she had truly come home.

Which was a crazy thought.

Wyatt swallowed hard but nodded. "One true mate. For the shiften.” The words seemed to resonate in the room for a brief second. “There was an angel, Bryony. An angel who fathered hundreds, I don't know, maybe thousands, of one true mates all around the world. Your sisters,” he added, looking at her carefully.

Sisters? Something in her jolted with excitement at the thought. She'd always wanted a sister, actually.

Carefully, still watching her, he continued. “Mates for the shiften males who are left. To ensure that we will have children. To ensure that we will continue to exist.”

His voice was rough and soft at once as he said that part. She felt a shiver down her spine at the weight of those words. But his next words were the ones that truly shook her.

“I think you're one of them, Bryony. I think you're a one true mate. There's a prophecy, and this is what it says.” His voice now taking on the cadence of one who has something well memorized, he easily launched into words she'd never before heard.

In twenty-five years, half-angel, half-human mates will be discovered living among you.

This is how you will rebuild.

Warriors, all, with names like flora.

Save them from themselves, for they will not know their foreordination.

They will not be bound by shiften law, but their destinies entwine so strongly with their fated mates, that any not mated by their 30th year will be moonstruck. Those who are lost may be dangerous.

A pledged female will have free will that shiften know not. Never forget this or it will cause grave trouble.

Her body may respond to any, until she is mated in a ceremony of her choosing, then she will acknowledge only one male, as he becomes her one true mate, and she, his one true mate. He shall be sworn to her in her life’s purpose, to rebuild the shiften race, so that they may fight the evil Matchitehew and protect the humans from him, until the day he draws his last breath.

His low voice rumbled through her as she listened, soaking in his words with a feeling that was a mixture between a wild, deep knowing that they were true and a shattering sadness that they were not.

Sadness. Bryony started. Sadness? Yes. The thought of not being his one true mate made her feel genuine sorrow. What on earth did that mean? She was still Bryony, badass adventure guide, independent woman, about to get out of Serenity and run full tilt at life again. Wasn't she?

Then how come she was suddenly feeling an enormous, see-sawing pull yanking her in two different directions?

A sudden realization rocked her enough to shove the see-sawing right out of her head for a moment. She looked at Wyatt in more dazed wonderment. "Wait. An angel for a father." The truth surged up at her, so strongly that she blinked. "You're saying an angel fathered the one true mates?"

Wyatt's jaw worked in sudden understanding. "Oh. Right. You already have a father." His voice was flat. "You can't be one of them.”

The hope she'd sensed in him deflated so suddenly it hurt her. As if she could feel his pain herself. So softly she almost couldn't hear her own voice, she said, “But he's not my biological father, Wyatt.”

Thunderous silence descended, so loud it made her ears ring. Wyatt stared at her with mingled shock and hope leaping back onto his face.

She nodded, slowly smiling. “I found out in high school. You were already gone, moved away, and we'd lost touch. They told me—my mom and dad, I mean—they told me that my mom was already pregnant when she'd met my dad. She was always sort of secretive about who my bio dad was. She just told me he was a one-time thing and that I was his gift.” Bryony laughed, suddenly delighted. “She always said he looked like an angel. I wonder if she possibly knew?”

Wyatt's bright blue eyes danced with sudden mirth and something she thought might be joy. “Could be your mom was keeping a lot of secrets.” Before she could say anything, he added in a low voice that was almost rough with its certainty, “I know one thing is true, Bry.”

Feeling weirdly breathless, she looked back at him. The zap of electric tension sizzled between them, making her skin tingle.

“You're my mate. I know that in my bones.” His eyes bored into hers. Branding her already, claiming her already, although she still barely knew what it really meant. “There's one more thing I know for sure."

She swallowed at the sudden darkness on his face. “What's that?” she whispered.

He took a short step toward her. Close enough that she could almost feel the heat radiating off his body. "That there's another part of your vision that scares you. Scares you more than anything else."

His hungry expression almost took her breath away. “Which part of my vision?” Her voice was unsteady.

“The part,” he closed the last bit of distance between them, “where I bit you and claimed you as mine.”

Then he caught her chin in his big hand, tipped her head back, and kissed her like a drowning man who'd just found salvation.