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I shove my bare wrist directly against his lips, trying not to cry. I can’t fall apart now.

"Bite me," I command, my gaze flicking between the vampire fending off Kirk, who’s wooden jaws are locked on his neck, claws raking down his race. The owl dive bombs him, and I know time is running out.

Lachlan’s temple twitches. His eyes widen in dim, horrified recognition, and even while he’s actively suffocating on his own poisoned blood, the five-hundred-year-old Highland martyr instinct kicks in.

He turns his head away, pressing his mouth firmly shut, his neck muscles locking like iron. "No..." he chokes out around the bile. "The venom... in my blood... it will burn you..."

"Lachlan, open your goddamn mouth. Don't you dare go noble on me right now, bite my arm or I will punch you in your naked ribs."

He stubbornly clenches his teeth tighter, his brow furrowing.

"Oh, you stubborn Scottish bastard," I snarl.

I grab him by his beard with my left hand, wedge the heel of my right hand against his chin, and dig my fingers into the soft hinge of his jaw, prying his mouth open exactly like I watched my third foster mom do when her eighty-pound golden retriever refused to swallow a heartworm pill wrapped in deli meat.

"Open up, you stupid fucker, or I’ll kill you again," I grunt, putting my entire body weight into it. “We don’t have a lot of time, okay? Just do it.”

Kirk crashes to the floor, and the owl lets out a deafening screech as it dive bombs the vampire again.

His jaw yields just enough.

Before he can snap his teeth shut again, I jam the fleshy underside of my wrist straight into his mouth, right against the elongated, razor-sharp point of his upper canine.

And then I slam my forearm down.

The tooth punches through skin and vein like an icepick through leather.

A flare of agony shoots straight up my arm, but before I can even pull in air to scream, the pain is swallowed whole by a shockwave that silences me completely.

Lachlan’s predatory instincts take over before his human brain can stop them. His jaws clamp down tight, locking like a bear trap. His tongue curls against the wound, drinking deep, pulling the hot, metallic surge of my unmaking blood straight into his throat.

The power explodes.

The flickering ends of the Celtic knot whip around our wrists, drawn together by an invisible magnetic gale. They collide, twisting into a seamless, unbroken loop that sinks straight through the dermis and fuses, white-hot, into the bone. The midnight-cyan fire of House Midnight and the molten gold of Clan MacTavish weld shut in a flash that illuminates every inch of darkness around me.

A sound like an iron bell rings through the foundations of the house.

Centuries of ancient Highland magic crashes into my bloodstream.

No headache. No nosebleed. Nothing at all.

Just power, and the sense that something in me is completed, like a piece that’s been missing is suddenly whole again.

We’re mated.

The power can rush all it wants; this foundation isn't moving.

"Well now," a smooth, drawling voice drifts lazily through the ruined front entryway. "Isn't that just touching. The little stray playing nurse to a dying animal."

The sound of slow clapping echoes across the marble.

I slowly pull my wrist back. Lachlan’s grip on my arm slips away, his breathing suddenly deep, clear, and rattling with the violent biological work of his body purging the silver rot. The bite mark on my arm is already gone—sealed completely, leaving behind an unbroken, solid braid of gold and cyan that pulses with a calm, terrifying heartbeat.

I stand up.

I am a hot fucking mess. My sweater is torn at the shoulder, soaked in sewer slime, and splattered with whatever the fuck juices vampires up. My jeans are shredded at the knees, my socks are squelching inside my sneakers, and my hair is hanging down in damp clumps around my face.

But around my knuckles, the air is beginning to bend.