Kissed by a Dark Prince(52)

Olivia sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked around her. “No. I can’t be here. I have work to do.”

Loren shook his head. “You will rest, Olivia. You were asleep at your desk. I do not think that constitutes working.”

She frowned at him and went to leave the bed. Loren caught her shoulders and held her in place.

“Please, Olivia. Rest.” He could see what she was going to say. “I do not desire this because I hurt or am tired because of our bond. I desire this because I am worried about you.”

She blinked at him, her eyes lingering on his, a distant look in them, and then relaxed. She dropped her gaze to her hands where they rested in her lap and picked at the bandage around the two injured fingers on her left one.

“Do they still hurt?” He sat beside her on the pale covers and she went to shake her head and then nodded. At least she was learning that there was little point in lying to him when he could sense things in her.

Loren took her hand, closed his eyes, and focused on their bond. He had read all about the link between eternal mates and the benefits, but knowledge was vastly different to experience, and he wasn’t sure this would work when the bond was incomplete.

He let himself fall into the connection and experienced a strange sense of flowing through his body and into hers, travelling from her heart to the broken fingers of her left hand. He willed the bones to fuse, his own aching in response as he transferred the injury to himself. Olivia gasped and Loren grimaced as the bones in his fingers shattered.

“Stop it! You’re hurting yourself.” Olivia pulled her hand free of his but her act of compassion came too late.

Loren looked down at his fingers. “I may need to borrow your cradling device until I can source some blood.”

Her right hand went to her throat, her eyes wide.

“I will not take yours, Olivia. I have done enough to hurt you already.” Loren straightened his two broken fingers, biting down on his tongue to hide his pain from Olivia. She gave him a dark look that reminded him that there was little point in him lying to her about this sort of thing too. She could feel his pain echoing in her own fingers.

“Why did you do it?” She removed the bandage and plastic cradle from her left hand, marvelled as she flexed her healed fingers, and then frowned as she moved closer to him.

A hot shiver bolted up his arm when she took hold of his hand and it had absolutely nothing to do with pain.

“I naturally heal faster than you. What would have taken you weeks to heal, will take me barely a day. A day of discomfort is preferable to weeks of watching you suffer in silence. That pains me more.” He studied her hands as she set about bandaging his fingers, her actions gentle, and slowing.

Her hands lingered on his. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I would take all your pain if I could.” He lifted his head and looked at her as she stared at their joined hands, her brown eyes reflecting the hurt he could feel in her. He didn’t know the source of her feelings and suspected he never would unless he did as Sable had suggested and asked her. “Olivia?”

“Hmm?” She looked up at him, her gaze distant again. She was miles away from him, as lost in thought as he had been on the roof. He wanted to divine her thoughts. He wanted to know the woman behind the white coat.

He kept hold of her hands with his injured one and used his other one to push back the right sleeve of her white coat. She started, trying to pull away from him, but he caught her bare wrist, refusing to let her hide anymore.

He would know his female.

She would not deny him this.

He carefully turned her arm so he could see the underside.

His blue eyes widened and turned purple, his fangs descending at the sight of the marks on her wrist.

“Who bit you?” They were unmistakable. Twin puncture wounds, ragged and vicious, as if someone had ruthlessly torn at her flesh with fangs. Further up her arm was a long thick ridge of scar tissue that cut diagonally from inside her elbow down towards her wrist. His gaze locked on the bite mark though, fury burning through his blood, causing the points of his ears to extend.

Olivia tried to pull her arm back and cover the scars.

“Who did this, Olivia? Tell me.” He wouldn’t let her go and he couldn’t take his eyes off the marks on her pale skin.

Sable’s words echoed in his head, taunting him. Everyone at Archangel had a reason they were there. Olivia’s was branded on her wrist, a vicious scar from an attack that had no doubt left her wounded psychologically as well as physically.

And he had bitten her.

Olivia managed to twist her hand free of his grasp and held it against her chest, shrinking away from him.