But she couldn't stay.

"I won't ask it of you now, Dylan. But I want you to know that's what I want, to be with you, always. It's what I'm willing to wait for."

Joy erupted inside her at the tenderness of his words. "You'll wait..."

"For as long as it takes, I will wait for you, Dylan." He smoothed a strand of hair from her cheek, and hooked it behind her ear. "You remember I told you I would try to find a way to help your mother once we came back here to the compound?"

"Yes."

"That's why I needed to speak with Tess. She is Dante's Breedmate."

Dylan nodded. "She helped me clean and bandage my cheek the other day."

"Right. She's a healer. Before her pregnancy, Tess was gifted with the ability to heal open wounds with her touch alone. She's healed internal ailments as well. There's an ugly little terrier running around the compound that's alive only because Tess was able to cure about half a dozen things that were killing it. Including cancer, Dylan. I didn't want to say anything to you about this until I had a chance to talk with Tess and Dante first."

Dylan wasn't breathing. She stared at Rio in astonishment, not sure she could trust her ears. "Tess can cure cancer? But only in animals, right? I mean, you're not saying that she could possibly help..."

"Her gift doesn't appear to be limited to animals, but there is a complication. Since her pregnancy, her skills are diminished. She's not sure it could work for your mother, but she told me that she'd be willing to try - "

Dylan didn't let him finish. A hope so bright it was a blinding burst to life inside her as she launched herself at Rio and threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. "Oh, my God! Rio, thank you."

He peeled her off him with gentle hands. "It's not a guarantee. It's only the slimmest possibility, and even that is being optimistic. The odds are very good that Tess won't be able to help."

Dylan nodded, accepting the idea that it was a long shot, yet elated that there might be even a glimmer of a chance to save her mother.

"She would have to be brought here, to the mansion. Dante won't risk letting Tess travel now that she's expecting. And we can't risk letting your mother know where we're located or what was done to her, so if this is what she wants, it will mean scrubbing her memory of the entire thing once it's finished. And that's still no guarantee that her cancer will be cured."

"But it's a chance," Dylan said. "That's more than what she has now. Without that chance, she probably only has a few more months. And if Tess can help her..."

Then that miracle would likely buy her mother years, even decades. At sixty-four and in good health, it wouldn't be unreasonable for her mom to live another twenty-five or thirty years.

At what point would Dylan be willing to abandon her for her own slice of happiness back here with Rio?

She looked at him and saw that the question was one he'd already considered too. He was willing to try to help Dylan's mother because he knew Dylan couldn't bear to lose her, even though he also knew it could mean pushing what he wanted that much farther out of his reach.

"Rio..."

"I would wait," he said solemnly. "Until you're ready, I will wait for you."

She closed her eyes and felt his love pour over her like a balm. That he would give her such a selfless gift - the gift of hope - made Dylan adore him all the more. She kissed him with all the devotion she felt in her heart, needing to be close to him...to feel him inside her in every way possible.

She thought of the bond he'd mentioned - that of blood, something to be shared as his mate. She wanted that. Needed to feel linked to him in that very primal, exclusively Breed way.

"Make me yours," she murmured against his mouth. "Right now, Rio...I want you to make me yours through blood. I want to be bonded with you. I don't want to wait for that."

His low, approving growl made her tingle with anticipation. "It's unbreakable. Once done, it cannot be undone."

"Even better."

She nipped his lower lip and was rewarded with an answering graze of his fangs as he rolled over with her and pressed her down beneath him on the bed. Sparks of amber crowded the smoky topaz color of his irises. His pupils were razor sharp, fixed on her in desire. He kissed her, and Dylan let her tongue play at the tips of his long fangs, dying to feel them piercing the fine skin of her neck.

But Rio drew back, bracing himself over her on his fists. He looked so powerful poised above her, so beautifully, nakedly male. "I shouldn't do this to you," he said softly, reverently. "If you take my blood into your body, Dylan, then I will always be a part of you...even if you decide to live your life without me. You will always sense me in your veins, whether you will it or not. I should give you more freedom than this."

Dylan stared up at him without the slightest reservation. "I want this, Rio. I want you to be a part of me always. My heart will know you forever, whether or not we bond by blood right now."

He cursed softly, shaking his head. "You're sure this is what you want? You're sure that you want...me?"

"Forever," she told him. "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

His breath rasped out of him raggedly as he straddled her waist and sat back on his knees. He brought his wrist up to his mouth. With his hot amber stare fixed on her eyes, Rio curled his lips off his fangs and sank the sharp points into his flesh.

Blood began a steady run down his forearm, the punctures pulsing with each hard beat of his heart. Very gently, he raised Dylan's head and shoulders up from the pillow and held his wound out to her.

"Drink from me, love."

She felt the hot, wet liquid against her lips, smelled the spicy dark scent of his blood as she drew a breath and covered his bite with her mouth.

The first brush of her tongue across his open vein was electric. Power crackled through her entire body at the first tentative swallow she took from him. She felt her limbs tingle, fingers and toes prickling with a strange, enjoyable heat. The warmth spread, into her chest and stomach, then into her very being. She was melting with the intensity of it, desire starting a swift, steady burn in her core.

And God, he tasted so good.

Dylan drew from him, lost in the pulsing heat he fed her from his veins. She glanced up and found him watching her, his look one of raw need and pure masculine pride. His cock stood fully erect, larger than ever.

Dylan reached for him, stroking him as she suckled hard at his wrist. When she spread her thighs and guided him toward her, Rio threw his head back and hissed, the cords of his neck as taut as cables. He dropped his head back down and she was blasted with amber from his passion-swamped eyes.

It took only the barest flex of her hips to seat him at her core. He entered her on a long, hard thrust, stretching his legs out with hers as he covered her with his body.

"You are mine now, Dylan."

His voice was thick below her ear, not quite his own now, but sexy as hell. He rocked against her as she drank from him, her climax already screaming to a peak.

As she shattered beneath him in that next blinding second, Rio buried his face into her neck and bit down into her vein.

Chapter Thirty-one

It was damn hard to watch Dylan get showered and dressed that next morning, knowing that she was leaving.

But Rio didn't try to stop her. She was going somewhere he couldn't follow - into a daylight world that would probably keep her away from him longer than he wanted to admit. Maybe longer than he could actually bear.

The hours they had shared in his bed, forging a bond through mingling blood and promises that this wasn't really good-bye, had to be enough for him. At least for now.

He couldn't keep her from the life that waited her outside, as much as it killed him to walk her to the compound's elevator and ride the long distance up to the Order's fleet garage above.

They paused together as they stepped out of the elevator. Rio held out the keys to one of his cars. Not one of the sports coupes with the barely legal engines, but a nice, safe Volvo sedan. Hell, he would have put her in an armored tank if he had one to give her. He clicked the remote lock entry button and the Volvo five vehicles back responded with a little chirp.

"You call me every hour and let me know you're okay," he said, putting the keys and her cell phone in her hand. "The encrypted number I programmed into your phone comes directly to me. I want to hear from you every hour, just so I know everything's good."

"You want me to risk getting a ticket for operating a motor vehicle while talking on a cell phone?" She smiled and arched a brow at him. "Maybe you want to plug me with a GPS chip before I go too?"

"The car's already equipped with GPS," he said, glad she was keeping it light, especially since he was feeling anything but. "If you wait here for a second, I'm sure Gideon or Niko could come up with something for you as well."

Dylan's quiet laugh was a bit hollow. She reached up and smoothed her fingers into the hair at his nape. "It's killing me to leave you too, you know. I miss you already."

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. "I know. We'll figure this out, work it all out somehow. But I wasn't joking about having you call me every hour from the road. I want to know where you are, and that you make it back safely."

"I'll be fine." She shook her head and smiled up at him. "I'll call you when I get to the hospital."

"Okay," he said, knowing he was being unreasonable. Concerned over nothing. Just making one weak excuse after another to cover for the deep need he had to hold her close and keep her there. He released her and took a step back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his loose jeans. "Okay. Call me when you get there."

Dylan came up on her toes and kissed him again. When she tried to pull away, he couldn't resist wrapping his arms around her one more time.

"Ah, hell," he swore harshly under his breath. "Get out of here before I take you back to my quarters and shackle you to the bedpost."

"That could be interesting."

"Remind me later," he said, "when you come back."

She nodded. "I have to go."

"Yeah."

"I love you," she said, and pressed a tender kiss to his cheek. "I'll call you."

"I'll be waiting."

Rio stood there, fists thrust deep into his pockets as he watched her head for the car. She climbed in and started it up, then slowly rolled the car out of its parking space in the hangar. She gave him a little wave, too smart to slide the window down and give him more time to try to talk her out of leaving.

He hit the button on the hangar's automatic door, and had to shield his eyes from the light pink wash of dawn that filtered in through the estate's surrounding thicket of trees. Dylan drove out into the daylight. Rio wanted to wait until the taillights turned the bend in the property's long drive, but the glare of UV rays was too much for him to take, even for his late-generation Breed eyes.

He punched the keypad again and the wide door closed.

When he got off the elevator back down in the compound, Nikolai was coming up the corridor from the weapons range like hell on wheels. Rio could practically see steam pouring out of the vampire's ears, he was so furious.

"What's going on?" he asked, meeting the cold blue eyes.

"I just got fucked," Niko replied, and evidently not in a good way.

"By who?"

"Starkn," he hissed. "Turns out the Director of the region's Enforcement Agency was just blowing a lot of smoke up our asses. When Chase and I met with the guy last night and told him that we suspect these are targeted hits, he assured us he would put the word out to all the known Gen Ones in the population. Well, guess what he didn't do."

Rio scoffed. "Put the word out to all the known Gen Ones in the population."

"Right," Niko said. "My Gen One contact, Sergei Yakut, says he hasn't heard shit out of the Agency in Montreal where he's living now, and neither have any of the other first generation inpiduals he knows. To top it off, this morning we got word out of Denver of another killing. Another Gen One beheading, Rio. This shit is getting critical fast. Something big is going down."

"You think Starkn could have a hand in it somehow?"

Nikolai's shrewd blue eyes were icy with suspicion. "Yeah, I do. My gut is telling me the son of a bitch is dirty."

Rio nodded, glad for the distraction that could take him away from feeling sorry for himself over missing Dylan and put him back into the Order's business. His business, his world.

When Niko headed off for the tech lab, Rio fell in alongside him, just like old times.

It took about five hours to make the drive from Boston into Manhattan, which put Dylan at the hospital around one in the afternoon. She'd called Rio from the car as she waited for the parking attendant, assured him that she was safe and sound, then she headed into the lobby to grab an elevator to the cancer ward.

God, to think this could be one of the last days her mom might spend in this place. One of the last days she'd be sick. Dylan wanted that so badly, she was almost giddy with the thought as she stepped off at the tenth floor and walked through the swinging double doors that led to her mother's wing.

The nurses on duty were dealing with some kind of printer malfunction, so she just walked past the station without stopping to ask for an update or any news on the biopsy. Dylan paused outside her mom's room door, about to hit the hand sanitizer when she saw that a nurse was just coming out. The woman was carrying an armful of half-empty IV bags. When she saw Dylan, she gave a little nod and a rather sad-looking smile.