"So after they patch us up, they're taking us in?" Kenzie asked. "Who? You and me?"
"Everyone. You should have heard what Cade called the officers who shock-sticked him into submission and shoved cuffs on him."
"Crap on a crutch," Kenzie said indignantly. She, Bowman, and their Shifters had saved the day, kept a dangerous creature from escaping, and got rid of a man who was a sociopathic nutjob, and they'd been arrested. "So after this . . . we go to prison?"
No. Kenzie needed to explore this new feeling, this connection with Bowman. She had to know . . .
"Maybe not." Bowman looked way too calm as he lay back on his pillows. Bandages wrapped his abdomen, but he'd either refused the hospital gown or slung it off. The thin sheet was draped over his lower body in a way that made Kenzie regret all the pain she was in. If they both felt better she could slip out of bed, climb over him, move the sheet, and . . .
Not being able to jump her own mate made her restless. "Why not? What's going on?"
"Your uncle Cristian is busy explaining everything to the police. Brigid is helping him." Bowman glanced around the room as though looking for listening devices, and spoke carefully. "Cristian is telling them how Turner contacted Brigid, an anthropology professor from Romania, begging for her help. How she phoned Cristian, a Shifter she knew, who rounded up a group of Shifters to help contain Turner's experimental creature. Unfortunately, Turner was killed in the melee, but we managed to put the beast down. Which was still lying dead in the hallway. Pierce's sword had no effect. The newspapers are having a field day."
"Oh." Kenzie relaxed again. Uncle Cristian had a silver tongue; he was the best negotiator she'd ever met. The fact that Bowman lay here, confident, letting Cristian handle it, told her better than words that everything was going to be all right. They'd made it through another crazy week in Shiftertown.
Kenzie reached for him. The movement took way too much effort, but Bowman stretched his hand toward her as far as he could in the cuff. Their fingers touched.
The contact sparked all the way up Kenzie's arm to her heart. Heat blossomed in her chest, and she swore she felt her wounds start to close.
"The touch of a mate," she said softy.
Bowman's smile warmed her again. "And maybe the mate bond?"
Kenzie caressed Bowman's blunt fingertips, loving their familiar roughness, his strength. "Do you think so?"
"I felt you," Bowman said, his smile dying. "When you were in the mists, when you were so far from me." His Adam's apple moved with a swallow. "I heard you calling out, in my dreams."
"I heard you." Kenzie remembered the clammy touch of the mists, her fear, her anger, her need to be next to Bowman. Then she'd heard his voice, shouting her name.
"And then we could talk to each other, in Turner's lab," Bowman said, his deep voice awakening every need inside her. "We could speak without words."
"Can you hear my thoughts now?" Kenzie asked.
Bowman stilled a moment, then shook his head. "No. But it's different now."
"I know," Kenzie said softly.
Their touching fingers brushed each other's again, a tingle of warmth. Kenzie had expected an explosion of incredible emotion when she and Bowman finally found the mate bond, but this quiet awareness was no less intense.
They were bound together. Bowman glanced from their caressing fingers to her face, and Kenzie caught the storm in his eyes.
She wet her lips, longing to spring across the chasm that separated them and into his arms.
"Is it real?" Bowman asked quietly.
"It's burning me all over," Kenzie answered, her cheek pressed to her pillow as she locked her gaze with his. "What do you feel?"
"Fire," he said. "And love. The most incredible love for my hot, golden-eyed, kick-ass goddess of a mate. It hurts with every beat, but damn, it's the best thing I've felt in my life." Bowman's look turned dark, a feral smile spreading across his face. "And I can't stop thinking how amazingly sexy my mate looks in a hospital gown and nothing else."
Kenzie closed her fingers around his middle one, letting her fingertips dance suggestively. "If I could, I'd get out of this bed, pull down that sheet, take you in my mouth, and show you what I want to do when we get home."
"Yeah?" Bowman leaned down and licked across her fingertips, his tongue hot and wet. "And if I wasn't handcuffed to the bed, and could actually move, I'd be pushing you back into that bed. Maybe turning you over, because that gown ties in the back. Wouldn't even need to take it off you for what I have in mind."
"Mmm." Kenzie flicked the tip of his tongue with her finger. "I'm starting to feel better."
"Touch of a mate," Bowman said.
"We'd heal much faster if we could touch each other all over," Kenzie pointed out.
"We should make them push our beds together." Bowman's eyes sparkled. "And see how much we can touch with me cuffed. Might be fun."
"Sure, challenge me, Bowman." Kenzie gave him a saucy look as her heart cried out in gladness. "See what you get."
"Little devil." He drew her finger into his mouth, suckling, and heat squeezed deep in Kenzie's body.
A cleared throat made her jump. Bowman's teeth closed on her finger, not releasing her, as he shot an irritated glance at the intruder.
"I'd tell you to get a room," Gil said. "But . . ."
Bowman pretended to ignore him, but Kenzie looked limply at the man. She was still angry with Gil, but too wrung out from the fight, and much too interested in reveling in the mate bond, to bother.
"I see you two have finally figured it out," Gil said.
Bowman released Kenzie's fingers and turned a growl on Gil. "I want to know why you're the only one not chained to a bed," he snapped.
Gil shrugged. "I'm a police officer. I was investigating Turner's activities and happened to be on the spot when everything went down." He winked at Kenzie.
"Shit." Bowman sank back to his pillow, but he captured Kenzie's fingers again and didn't let go of her. The touch made Kenzie's strength grow.
Kenzie skewered Gil with her gaze. "How do you know about the mate bond? What was all that shit about me feeling it for you? I still want to gut you for that."
Gil approached their beds, and Kenzie wondered how she'd ever thought him simply a human cop. There was an ancient air about him, of a being who'd seen much, suffered much, and become wise instead of broken.
"I don't know," he said, losing his smile. "I felt something, Kenz." He pressed his hand to his chest. "I'd been feeling it for a while-a long time-seeking the other side of my heart, I guess. And the first time I saw you, I saw the mate bond in you." He put his hand in the air between Kenzie and Bowman, near their joined hands. "Very faint, but it was there. When you sat in the patrol car with me, you almost glowed with it."
Kenzie stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about? I didn't feel it until later, and only figured it out when I was trapped in the mists."
Gil shook his head. "I'm sometimes amazed at the things I can see, but I've stopped letting it bother me. I wasn't completely sure what I was looking at when I saw the sparkling threads coming out of your chest. When the warmth inside me built . . ." He again pressed his hand to his chest. "I thought about how you and me seemed to connect so well, and I let myself believe . . ."
"Oh." Kenzie had been wanting to gut him for making her think they shared the bond, but her anger turned to sympathy. Remembering the anguish she'd felt, she could imagine Gil's dismay when he discovered he'd been mistaken.
Gil's eyes held a sadness. "I saw the threads in Bowman too, when I met him. But neither of you seemed to notice, so I let myself believe. A thousand years is a long time to be alone."
Bowman had gone silent, but Kenzie looked at Gil in compassion. "When did you figure out you were wrong?"
"When I saw Bowman after you got trapped. The threads around him were-I don't know-desperate. They were stretching out, looking for you, crying out for you. It was heartbreaking. I knew then that you two had always shared the bond-that you had a powerful and profound connection. It was such a natural part of you that you didn't even know it." Gil shook his head. "It took both of you being in terrible danger for you to realize it. You two were trying so hard to feel what ordinary Shifters felt, that it didn't occur to you that the pair of you are extraordinary."