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My fangs lengthen, slicing into my mate’s arm without a second thought, and his blood is honey just like I knew it would be.

It’s so sweet. So rich. I feel like I’m drinking rare wine and I should savor this, savor him, yet every gulp I take becomes needier.

“Oh, fuck,” Helios moans, placing most of his weight on his arms that are on the countertop.

“I forgot. The bite feels good for mates. I’m just…I’m going to go…anywhere but here.” Soren spins around and disappears out the door.

“Oh my god.” Helios slaps his hand on the counter, gripping the edge to ride out the pleasure. “Ah, oh, fuck, Alaska. Holy shit. Oh my god, what are you doing? It feels so good. I’m going…I’m…you’re going to make me…” He grunts; the delicious aroma of his orgasm helps heal me from the inside.

Even near death, my cock hardens for him, from the smooth, velvety iron stitching my tissue back together.

I feel better than I have in about a year. The aches and pains in my muscles and joints fade away. My mind has clarity, as if a cloud has lifted. Even my vision is crisper.

And while this is amazing news for me, I just uprooted my mate’s entire life, his plans, his sexuality; anything and everything has changed because of me.

The moment I feel him weaken from blood loss, I let him go, licking my bite mark. The pinpricks heal in the next blink of the eye. No one will be able to tell a vampire bit him.

He falls onto the barstool, his hand still gripping mine through all of this.

I stare up at the ceiling, wondering how the hell I beat death again.

I’m not sure how long the silence hangs between us. Now that the bond has strengthened between us, I sense his emotions, and they are all over the place. There’s anger, happiness, confusion, and frustration. It pours off him and the air becomes hard to breathe.

“Are you okay?” I ask, turning my head to look at him, sweat still stinging my eyes.

I don’t know what I’ll do if he hates me now, if he wants to run away from me, if he wants to never look back. If he wants to mate and go our separate ways, that won’t work. We can’t be far apart. We will both go insane.

None of this is fair to him.

“Are you?” His tone is soft, mixed with exhaustion.

“I’m a lot better, thanks to you.” I use my hands to push myself up, groaning when a twinge of skin pinches in the middle of my chest. I’m not healed yet.

His blood did a lot for me, but not enough. I’m still dying unless we fully complete the bond. I don’t know how to break that to him now, not after what he did for me.

All I know is, from this moment on, I owe him my entire life and any space he might need.

“Don’t rush yourself, Alaska.” He is by my side, supporting my back with one hand while pressing his other palm into the middle of my chest, right where the arrow pierced me.

The round wound is pink, healing with every second that passes. In about five minutes, no one will be able to tell I got hit at all.

I wrap a hand around his wrist, keeping him against me. “I’m okay,” I try to reassure. “Thanks to you.”

The door slams open again, ruining whatever moment or connection between my mate and me. I growl in dismay, hating that we are interrupted. With his blood in my veins, I feel closer than I have with anyone in all my life. I’m stronger too, and I’m able to feel what he feels right now.

And it’s killing me more than that damn arrow did.

He’s so confused and a little hurt, even scared.

Is he scared of me?

“We fucking lost him!” Glenn yells, throwing his hat across the room. “Fuck!” He kicks the chair tucked under the dining room table so hard it flies through the air and smashes against the wall, breaking into unfixable pieces.

Great. Now, I need to make another fucking chair.

“That bastard hunter was able to get on our property somehow,” Soren explains with a more level and cool head. “How did they know where we live? How did they find us? When the fuck did hunters decide to make a comeback? I haven’t heard about them in…I don’t know, a century, at least.”

“He smelled familiar,” Glenn interjects, anger still clinging to his skin as he paces back and forth in the kitchen. “Kind of like you, Alaska.”