Aiden’s jaw flinched, his right eye crinkling the tiniest bit before he wiped all emotion off his face.

“We’ll be in the waiting room.” He kissed the top of my head. He and Penny left the room, but before exiting he exchanged heated glares with Dorian.

I tried to sit up but every bone in my body felt like it’d been broken and glued back together. I hoped the doctors had better luck with me than the townsfolk did with Humpty Dumpty.

I brought my attention away from the pain ricocheting throughout my body and looked at Dorian again. His arms were across his chest, and his head was hung as he studied the floor.

“Thank you,” I began, swallowing around the dryness in my throat.

“Don’t,” Dorian snapped, looking up.

I was taken aback by the abruptness of his comment. “You saved me,” I said like some grateful damsel who’d been rescued from her distress. “I mean…thanks.” Every word came out sounding unintelligent as I stumbled over my tongue for the right words. When someone saves your life it kind of warrants a fantastic “thank-you” speech: one that shows the savior just how grateful you are. Dorian was getting gypped.

“Do you have any idea how close you came to dying?” Dorian’s words were cold and clipped, unlike the normal smooth masculine tone I was so used to. I couldn’t speak so I just shook my head.

“You lost a lot of blood from the cut on your arm. If it’d been a quarter of an inch deeper it would have hit bone.” He pushed off of the wall and stood at the foot of my bed but kept his eyes looking anywhere but at me.

“I don’t know what he did to you, but you had blood on your skull plus a fracture. Your face looks like it was used as punching bag and your clothes were coated in so much blood the doctors thought you were dead when they brought you in.” Dorian curled his fingers around the footboard and squeezed so that his fingers turned white.

“You were knocking on Death’s door and I didn’t even hear it,” he mumbled. “If it hadn’t been for Eddie…you’d be dead.”

A bottomless pit of unease opened up in my stomach. If I had caught Eddie and ordered him away then I would be dead. I swallowed around the lump in my throat and looked down at the arm that had been slashed. A row of stitches ran from my elbow and stopped two inches before my wrist. The skin was raised in red puckers from where the doctors had pulled the skin tight. I ran my fingertips over my face with care. My right cheek was swollen so much that I could see its puffiness when I looked down. I couldn’t imagine what I looked like.

“Are you saying that you couldn’t see my name on your death list?” I wasn’t sure how Dorian’s job worked: if names of the people about to die just popped into his head or if it were something more complicated. He didn’t talk about that aspect of his life very much.

“You’re blocked from me,” Dorian said, almost in awe.

“Why?” So much for having Death on my side…

“I have no fucking clue,” Dorian snapped, turning around as he began pacing the room. I watched as he walked back and forth staring at the ground. I assumed he was so angry because this had never happened to him. He wasn’t used to not having the upper hand in the fate department. The thought that I was the exception to the rule did nothing to help my unease.

“Hey,” I said and Dorian stopped to look at me. “I’m okay. I survived and it was because of you.” I smiled. “Whether you saw my death or not, you still saved me.”

Dorian snorted, a smile replacing his scowl. “It’s just like you to try and get Death to look on the bright side. The only silver lining I’ve ever seen is…” Dorian didn’t finish his sentence. Instead he stood there and stared at me, allowing his silence to speak for him.

A hard knock brought our attention away from each other. Aiden stood in the doorway, looking from Dorian to me.

“I’d like to speak with Gwen,” he said.

“Too bad,” Dorian said matter-of-factly.

“Dorian, it’s okay,” I told him.

Both men glared at each other. The tension in the room was so thick it was suffocating. My already sore muscles tightened.

“I’ll be right outside the door,” Dorian warned as he passed Aiden.

“He’s pretty protective of you,” Aiden noted as he walked over to my bed and sat in the chair. I nodded, unsure how to respond. “That’s the only thing I like about him.”

A nervous laugh escaped my lips, and Aiden smiled. Reaching his hand out, he clasped mine and squeezed. I noticed his skin was a lot warmer than it had been before.

“Gwen, I want you to drink from me,” Aiden announced, causing the smile to fall from my lips. “You’re still not out of the woods. You have a fractured skull that’s causing bleeding on the brain. The doctors are waiting until the swelling goes down to make a decision on whether you’ll need surgery. They’ll offer you vampire blood, but all of their donors are young vampires. My blood will heal quicker.” Aiden took a deep breath, his eyes burning into mine. “Please let me do this for you.”

The supernatural towns kept a supply of vampire blood on hand to heal severe cases but needed the patient’s approval to administer it. Once the vampire’s blood was running through a person’s veins, that vampire could sense them. I couldn’t imagine how many emotions the donating vampires felt with their blood coursing through multiple people’s bodies.

I thought about whether it was a good idea or not. There wasn’t any harm in drinking from Aiden. It wouldn’t form a bond like I shared with Ian, but I was still wary. And I would be drinking blood. I could barely look at the stuff without fainting.

Aiden must have noticed my discomfort because he said, “I can mix it in with tea or something to help hide its taste.”

“I think you should do it, Gwen.” Dorian stepped into the room. “I don’t trust this bastard for a second, but his blood would heal you. The quicker you’re on your feet the safer you’ll be.”

It didn’t surprise me he had been listening to our conversation. What surprised me was that he agreed with Aiden. Had the world been knocked off of its axis? Was up down and down up?

“Jealousy is an ugly trait,” Aiden said to Dorian. Once again they were in a glaring match and all was right in the world.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it. I don’t want to spend the next week in the hospital, not when more thugs might be coming after me.”

Aiden looked at me and smiled. “I’ll get something to put it in.”

“No, I’ll drink from you.” If I thought about it too long then I would change my mind. The faster we got it over with the better.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Aiden unbuttoned his cuff and rolled his sleeve up to his elbow. Dorian walked around to the other side of the bed and crossed him arms like some bad-ass sentinel. I tried not to pay attention to him too much. Drinking blood from a vampire tended to be a bit sexual, at least for the vampire. Having Dorian witness such an intimate moment between Aiden and me made a blush heat my cheeks.

I tried to sit up so that I could lean over Aiden’s wrist, but my body screamed in protest. I sucked in a sharp breath as I waited for the agony to subside.

“Just lay back, my Gwen.”

Slowly I lowered my body back onto the mountain of pillows, closing my eyes for a moment as the last waves of anguish disappeared.

“I want to see myself,” I said, and both men looked at me with confusion. “I need to see the damage. I want to remember how close I came to the coffin so that next time I’ll fight harder to keep it from happening again.”

The stitches on my arm weren’t enough. Though the gash was extensive in itself, I knew that seeing the abuse my head had taken would shake me to my core. Aiden opened the drawer to the small table next to my bed and gave me a handheld mirror. I squeezed the handle with both hands, the pressure turning my fingers white, before raising it up to see my reflection.

I’d been right about being shocked. All I could do was stare at the stranger looking back at me. She couldn’t be me. She was weak, defeated and broken. Her long dark hair hung in limp, stringy strands and her skin was almost as white as the sheet covering her. Purple and blue bruises decorated the right side of her face like grotesque body paint. Her cobalt eyes were lifeless and lost, brimming with tears. I couldn’t hold her gaze without her hopelessness consuming me. A long red band circled her neck where the blade had taunted her life, digging deeper and threatening to end it all.

I chucked the mirror across the room to get rid of the broken girl trapped within it. It crashed against the stark white wall as shards of glass rained onto the floor. Tears splashed against my swollen cheeks.

“Give me your wrist,” I said with a harsh whisper. I would not be defined by the sad girl in the mirror. My life was teetering on the edge and I was going to do everything in my power to not fall.

“Gwen—”Aiden began and I glared at him. I didn’t want to be consoled into thinking everything would be all right. It wouldn’t. Not until I took Holly and her followers down.

“Wrist,” I said through clenched teeth. The first step to gaining the strength I needed was in Aiden’s veins. I’d drink as much as he would give; relish in the newfound power of his six-hundred year old blood coursing through my body.

Aiden’s fangs descended, glinting in the light like pearl daggers. He bit into his skin, not flinching as his fangs pierced his wrist. A glint of desire burned behind his eyes as he held his arm out to me. A thin rivulet of crimson trickled down from his mouth. He was a walking, talking, macabre masterpiece. Not wasting any more time, I gripped his arm and held it firmly, closing my lips around the twin puncture wounds. The coppery sweet tang of his blood hit my tongue. It wasn’t horrid but it wasn’t delicious either. Putting the thought out of my mind, I began to suck against the wounds with greed. Aiden grunted softly, his hand balling into a tighter fist. I locked eyes with him, flashes of our times together floating through my mind. He watched me with such want I found myself absorbing his hungry emotions. The fact that he was turned on, and that I was the cause of it, sent a rush of heat cascading through my body.