Jax was dying.

Without hesitation, Marcus took her north to Clearlake, where he’d spent his troubled childhood. After he had come home from Afghanistan, he’d purchased a small cottage on the lake. It was where he went to decompress. No one, not even Lazarus, knew of its existence.

It was just before daybreak when he pulled up in front of the lake house.

He gathered her into his arms and carried her to the house, kicking in the thick oak front door and striding to his room. Carefully, he laid her down on the bed.

“Jax,” he called as he gently shook her. Her head listed to the right. Her skin had blanched white, and her breath was barely discernable.

After rolling up his right shirtsleeve, he sunk his fangs into the thick vein in his forearm. Life-saving blood sprang up. Giving the damning consequences of his action no thought, Marcus pressed his arm to her lips. “Drink, lovely,” he softly said. Her eyes fluttered open and, in their depths, he saw clear to her soul.

His skin chilled. She was in a place he could not reach, a place she chose to retreat to, a place she might never return from. Her eyelids fluttered closed. Urgency gripped him. “Drink,” he commanded.

She moaned, turning away from him. He grasped her head in the palm of his free hand and forced her lips to his blood. Still, she did not drink. “You’ re a coward, Jax Cassidy,” he hissed. He forced open her mouth, then squeezed the bite on his arm. Blood dripped in a thick stream into her mouth. She gagged. He forced her to swallow. She gagged more and he forced her to swallow again.

Her fingers brushed against his arm, then she clutched him to her and drank herself. Her need for his life-saving blood and, even more so, her acceptance of it filled him with a crazy sense of elation. It didn’t matter that he’d damned himself.

It was forbidden to willingly give a mortal this amount of immortal blood. The penalty? Death. Or, if his creator was feeling generous, perpetual torture.

He growled low. Damn Lazarus! Damn them all! Seeing what they’d done to Jax’s friend—seeing what he’d planned to do with her—had broken the chains that had bound him to his creator forever. He would never succumb to another’s command again.

Not even Rurik’ s.

Marcus looked down at Jax, who was still drinking from his vein. His heart, as much as he still had one, swelled with emotion. He hadn’t realized until she’d come into his life how dead he had been. Knowing her, wanting her, and having her only to lose her would be the worst form of eternal existence. She was worth his life or an eternity of torture. Gently, he brushed her matted hair from her now sleeping face. Color had returned to her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in deep, even breaths. He hoped his blood would be enough to sustain her ravaged body. Had she not had even the small amount she’d taken when she’d bitten him days ago, there would have been nothing he could have done for her. Now, he could save her, the way he hadn’t been able to save her fellow operative. Shane’s life was out of his hands now.

Tenderness for this tiny warrior filled him. Never had he felt such an urge to protect. Smiling, he imagined her reaction if he voiced his thoughts. Those huge green eyes would widen in surprise and she’d probably punch him.

She’d been a handful before she’d taken his blood. Now, with his blood surging through her veins, she’d be unmanageable. But, he let out a long, exhausted breath, she would be alive.

Her hands fell from his arm as she went completely under, falling into a deeper sleep than she’d probably know again. Good. She would need it.

Marcus rose, moved to the window, and pulled back the heavy drapes. The dark film on the glass buffeted by the thick plantation shutters on the outside kept the slightest rays of sun from the room. The rest of the house was exposed, but this one place, with the exception of an unused lamp, remained black.

It was unfortunate. The bedroom had complete lake exposure. The sunsets were one of his few fond memories of his boyhood here.

He gathered towels and warm water, then stripped Jax, growling at the harsh red and purple bruises on her belly. Several spots were raw. He cursed when he saw the slice to her upper thigh. Her upper lip was split, and she had a cut over her right eyebrow.

He shook his head. She was something else. And having taken out Gideon . . . Marcus cracked a smile. Good girl, Jax. But what amazed him more than the fact that she’d tended to Shane in this shape was the fact that she’d taken on Lazarus and survived. Twice. As if she’d really believed she could take down the North American coven leader with her special bullets and a stake to his back.

Marcus shook his head in disbelief. It would take more than her paltry armory to eliminate a vampire as old and as powerful as Lazarus.

Her naked body shivered in the cool morning air. He wrung a towel out and gently wiped the blood and dirt from her face, then the rest of her body. The cut to her thigh had stopped bleeding. He could not help but press his lips to it.

He closed his eyes as her essence filled his senses.

She moaned softly and moved. Marcus moved away and finished bathing her. When he was done, he pulled a sheet over her naked body.

Striding to the front of the house, he closed the door. The lock was destroyed, but he wasn’t worried about intruders. He’d smell them within one hundred yards.

He showered fast. When he came out, toweling himself dry, he smiled. She had not budged. He climbed into the large custom-made bed with her, gathered her into his arms, and closed his eyes. Taking deep breaths, he soaked her in, reveling in the fact that she lived.

Her smooth warmth felt good against his skin. Her soft breath fluttered against his chest. He closed his eyes and just experienced her in this quiet state. Even as the euphoria of having her in his arms surged, he accepted it couldn’t last.

He would die bringing Lazarus down, but he would do it. Only he could. There was too much at stake if he didn’ t.

Marcus kissed the top of her head. She snuggled more intimately against him. His blood flared in his loins. His fingers tightened on her skin. He closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

It was going to be a long night, but he would enjoy every second of it.

Jax woke to black.

Her first realization was that she was alive, but how? . . .

She tried to move but couldn’ t.

Where was she? Had Lazarus locked her up in a dungeon?

It took several minutes for her senses to adjust. She smelled Marcus before she heard his deep breaths. She was wrapped tightly in his arms.

Her heart rate picked up as her sense of security returned.

He had come for her. Fought Lazarus and saved her life.

She reached out and touched his hand. It was warm. It warmed her. He’d come for her. Despite everything, he’d come for her.

No one had ever come back for her before.

The blackness in the room diffused. She could see as if it were daybreak. The black curtains over the window, the oak nightstand, the lone lamp atop it. The large bed she lay upon. It was morning. She could smell the dew. She sat up, and the events of the last twenty-four hours flooded her system.

“Shane!” she whispered. Hot tears stung her eyes.

Strong arms once more wrapped around her naked body, drawing her close. “Shhhh,” he soothed.

“Shane. Is he—?”

“I don’t know.”

Jax broke Marcus’s hold, flinching at the pain in her belly. “You left him there?”

Marcus scowled and raised up on an elbow. “I was a little busy fighting my maker, who was pissed beyond description, and trying to save your life. Your buddy was the last thing on my mind.” He reached up to her cheek and rubbed his knuckles across her skin. “But, because I’m not a complete monster, I called 9–1–1 and gave them his location. He’s probably at Highland Hospital in Oakland.”

She swallowed, trying not to remember the feel of Shane’s blood on her hands. “What happened to Lazarus?”

Marcus shrugged. “I gave him a good ass kicking, he returned the favor, then I managed to buy a few minutes and get us both out of there.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, brought his lips to hers and kissed him. “Thank you,” she murmured against his lips.

His body swelled and hardened. His arms tightened around her. “You’ re welcome,” he breathed, then pressed her back into the pillows.

Jax’s body responded, but her brain would not shut down. “Marcus,” she breathed, breaking their kiss. “How is it I’m not dead?”

He hesitated, then said, “I gave you my blood.”

She stiffened. “Am I—?”

He shook his head and smiled a soft smile. “No, but once your body has absorbed all of my blood, you will feel like you did at twenty and have five times the strength.” He kissed her nose, then said, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

She laughed. For a while, she snuggled in his arms, then looked up at him. “I need to know if Shane’s alive.”

He sighed. “The hospital won’t give you that information. And besides, there is nothing you can do for him now.”

Shaking her head, she urged him to understand. “I can call my people. They need to know where he is, they need to know I’m alive.”

After staring at her for several long moments, Marcus nodded, then reached over to the nightstand to grab his cell phone and hand it to her.

“Thank you,” she said and called Godfather.

“Black,” Godfather said, his voice clipped.

“It’s me,” Jax said.

“Jesus Christ, where are you? We found your GPS in an abandoned meat packing plant in Oakland. Have you had contact with Donovan?”

“I’m safe. Lazarus got ahold of Shane. He . . . should be at Highland Hospital in Oakland. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”

Godfather paused. When he spoke, his voice was even harsher. “Did you eliminate Cross? What’s the status on Lazarus?”

“No, and I don’t know.”

“Cassidy, give me your location. I’m sending in a team.”

Marcus took the phone from her hand and gently held her down when she tried to fight him for it.

“This is Cross. Jax won’t be available until later this evening, at which time she will contact you.” He hung up.

Openmouthed, she stared at him. “What did you do that for?”

“You’ re staying here. Where it’s safe. No one knows of this place. Once you’ re at one hundred percent, you can give your people a full update. Until then, Jax Cassidy, you, are all mine.”

Narrowing her eyes, she studied him. The worry in his eyes. She caught her breath. The raw burn mark around his neck. Gently she touched it with her fingertips. “I’m so sorry.”

He grasped her fingers and kissed them. “I forgive you.”

She reached up, pressed her lips to his wound and licked his skin. He stiffened. “I thought I was going to die, Marcus, and never see you again.”

“As long as I have breath in my body, Jax, I will always protect you.”

“Tell me everything is going to work out.”

He smiled and gathered her into his arms. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her nose and finally her lips. “Everything is going to work out.”

She sank back into the smooth sheets, bringing him closer against her heart. “Make love to me, Marcus.”

She gave herself up to him, inviting—no, demanding—

his touch.

Somehow, though she’d never have thought it was possible, she let it all go. Lazarus. The pain. Even her worry over Shane. She reveled in the way his big hands stroked her skin to fire. The way he touched her as if she’d been fine china that, if handled too harshly, would crumble. The way he made her feel like the only woman on the planet.

His tenderness quickly turned to fiery passion. She responded with an appetite for him that she feared would never be sated. Their impatient bodies wanted to connect. To become one. Now, forever.

She arched into him as he entered her, oh so slowly, and oh so deeply. Jax closed her eyes, letting her head fall back and his hands catch her. Everything about him excited her.

His power, his passion, his smooth skin. And his eyes? His soulful eyes, so full of pain and glory. He made her feel things she had never felt in her life and instinctively knew she’d never feel again, no matter how long she lived.

He was her other side. The dark, demanding, passionate side. There were no words to describe what he was to her. Lover was so inadequate. She didn’t love him. No, what she felt, what she knew, was beyond that. They hung suspended, connected, heart, blood and soul. She fought back tears as emotion overcame her.

She didn’t know why it was him, a tortured and immortal soul, who’d given her back what she had lost so long ago—her hope, her willingness to open her heart again and to trust another being with it.

They were doomed, she knew it. He was dead and she was alive.

Still, it was perfect.

He moved slowly and tenderly in and out of her, and Jax gave herself up completely. “Marcus,” she breathed. “Don’t ever stop.”

He pulled her tighter into his arms and kissed her so deeply, so profoundly, that tears leaked from her eyes. Her words and his actions were triggers for them both. The fire that he ignited within her exploded into a maelstrom. Jax cried out as she was overcome with sensation. As she came, she watched his beautiful, dark face. How it tightened in passion, how he fought his overwhelming desire to bite her. God, she wanted him to do it.

She arched, exposing her neck. “Take it, Marcus. Take my blood.”

“No,” he whispered against her sultry skin, “you have lost so much already.”

“Do it,” she breathed.

He moaned and scraped his fangs along her jugular. Her body spasmed with anticipation. The sensation was like an infusion of aphrodisiacs. Her muscles clamped around him, making him groan in pleasure.

“Jax,” he hoarsely said, “I’m sorry.” He sunk his fangs into her. Jax screamed, the erotic pain so profound that she nearly fainted from the overwhelming pleasure of it.

If it was possible, he held her tighter to him. His possession of every part of her was terrifying in its magnificence.

As he drank his fill of her, his body drove into hers. She felt his quickening, then, his release.

Long moments later, feeling as if she could run a marathon, Jax rolled over and propped her hands on Marcus’s chest, her chin on her hands. “Tell me how it happened.”

His hooded eyes closed.

“There is nothing romantic about it.”

“I want to understand you, Marcus. How things are for you. Why it happened.”

He opened his eyes and ran his fingers through her mussed hair, gently untangling the snarls. “I was in Afghanistan. My squad had one purpose there: Eliminate the Taliban chieftains one at a time. We were very good at our job. We’d rotate missions. It was mine and my spotter, Benny Melgoza’ s, turn. It took us three days of looking like rocks on a hillside to get to the caves, but once we got a lock on our target, mission accomplished. Then we hightailed it back. We were about three hundred meters from our DZ, but we had the misfortune to run straight into a camel train of opium smugglers.” He closed his eyes and sighed. “They got Benny. I narrowly escaped. But they came after me. Eventually they got me. I was full of holes. I could hear the chopper coming in for me. They opened fire and it headed back to camp.” He opened his eyes. “I was dying, Jax. And I was pissed off about it. My entire life had been a clusterfuck. I wasn’t ready to go. The colonel showed up out of nowhere. Beside him was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She looked so exotic and smelled like flowers. I knew I had died and gone to heaven. But I was still alive, though barely, and on Earth.”

He ran his fingers along her fingertips. “Lazarus offered me a different life. Aelia, the woman, explained I would walk among mortals. I would be limited in the mortal world but blessed with untold power in the immortal world. I was desperate to live, Jax. Lazarus cut open his chest and I drank from it, but for some reason my body rejected his blood. It was only after Aelia opened her vein that I was able to tolerate Lazarus’ s.”

“Did you die?”

“Yes, and no. They waited until just before my last heartbeat. Only then would my body accept the transfusion of their blood. It took three days for my body to make the complete transition. It was torturous. I wanted to die. But I survived it, and thrived.”

“Do you regret not dying as a mortal?”

“No.”

Jax leaned up and kissed him. “Me either. Had you died that night, I would not be here in your arms.”

“Jax, I’d do it all again to be here with you.”

His words warmed her. She gazed into his eyes and asked the question she was afraid he would answer. “What’s going to happen to us?”

“I can’t promise you a future, Jax. It’s not that I don’t want a future with you. I want that more than anything, but right now there are complications, complications that cannot be ignored.”

“What kind of complications?”

He smiled a slow, tired smile and kissed her nose. “Get some sleep and we’ ll talk later.”