The Warrior Vampire(44)

Ronan had hidden them inside the crate to take shelter from the sun.

He’d protected her. Held her in his arms. He could have left her if he’d wanted, but he didn’t. Naya chanced a look back to find him as still as death. The only indicator he was still alive—or was it undead when dealing with vampires?—was the fact that his chest rose and fell with his breath. Something tugged at her center as though a length of string connected them and she’d reached its limit. Perhaps she couldn’t leave him any more than he could leave her.

Gods, what was wrong with her?

Outside, water lapped against the pilings. The sound put her at ease. It was rhythmic. Peaceful. Nothing like the deafening screech that had assaulted her ears as she’d fought the mapinguari last night. Without Ronan’s help, it would have killed her.

Naya returned to his side, remembering the wound she’d felt just below his shoulder. Though her knowledge of vampires was nonexistent, she had a feeling that he should have healed quickly. All supernatural creatures did. She knelt beside him, her gaze drawn to the way the shadows played against the angles of his face, sharpening them. A rush of breath left her chest and her heart pounded as she brought her fingers up and traced the square line of his jaw, rough with stubble, and up to his forehead. She plunged into the thick locks of his hair, reveling in the silky texture as she brushed it off his forehead, down his opposite temple and back across his jaw, her gut clenched as the pad of her thumb brushed over his lower lip. As if she couldn’t help herself, Naya leaned into him and brought her mouth to his. The kiss was soft; a feathering of contact, and a tingle of sensation traveled through her, settling low in her core.

You’re practically molesting an unconscious male. Gods, Naya, get a grip!

She didn’t want to be tied to a mate. Didn’t want to be nothing more than a sock or earring—something meant to finish a pair. She wanted her own identity and the opportunity for an existence outside of her pod—her tribe—and the responsibilities that weighed her down. The world was more than a series of trails she was meant to track and police. And she was more than the magic that sang to her.

Did Ronan, like Paul, consider her to be nothing more than an object whose sole purpose was to complete a matched set?

Naya shook herself from the maudlin thoughts that weighed down her soul. Instead, she focused her attention on the unconscious vampire, snoozing the day away beside her. The gash on his arm looked pretty nasty. At least two inches wide and six or seven inches long, it had yet to scab over.

The magic that infected him lay dormant, so trying to extract it without killing him wasn’t possible. She could try to heal the wound for him, though. Or, at the very least, encourage it to begin to close so that it wouldn’t get infected. From her boot Naya drew a short knife. She chewed her bottom lip, worried that she’d lost her dagger during the fight. Paul would pitch a fit and Santi wouldn’t be much happier. The weapon was thousands of years old. Not exactly something you could run down to the corner market to replace.

Naya sliced the steel blade across her thumb and waited for the blood to well. She murmured an incantation under her breath and willed her own magic to the surface until the crimson staining her skin shimmered with flecks of gold. Warmth radiated from the cut as she swept the pad of her thumb across the gash on Ronan’s arm. This was a dangerous game she played, joining not only her blood but also her magic with his. Inescapable bonds were made in such ways, and in using her blood and magic to heal him she’d be enmeshing her life’s essence with his.

He’d had her blood twice already. Did a few drops on his skin matter that much more?

Ronan’s eyes came open with a flash of bright silver. Naya started as his hand whipped out with the speed of a viper’s strike to take her wrist firmly in his grip. His nostrils flared with an intake of breath and his lip pulled back to reveal the razor-sharp points of his fangs. A wildness accented his features as his feral gaze lit on the blood running from the pad of her thumb down her wrist.

“What are you doing?”

Voice rough with gravel, a crease dug into the middle of his forehead as though in pain. His jaw squared as it clamped down and he drew in several ragged breaths through his nose.

“Y-your wound.” Naya swallowed down the fear that rose in her throat. Even when he was a captive, chained to her bed with no recollection of his past, she’d never seen him so on edge. His limbs shook, the intensity of his gaze burned through her, and though he held her wrist in an iron grip, he didn’t hurt her. “It hasn’t healed,” she continued to explain. “So I thought I should heal it for you.”