Huh?

I forced my sleep-sticky eyelids open. Disoriented and confused, my groggy mind tried to remember where I was. I didn’t recognize anything.

I was in a bed, a big bed with a canopy and curtains. A lightglobe glowed on a bedside table, and I could just make out a desk piled with papers. I dimly heard the crackle of a fireplace, but seeing it would mean moving or at least turning my head. Neither one was going to happen. My head felt like it weighed a ton; I couldn’t lift it off the pillow, and I didn’t want to.

My eyelids closed and I drifted some more, deliciously lethargic. I knew I should move; something about moving was important, really important. Not just moving—running. I needed to run from . . . from what? Why would I . . .

Reapers.

Shit! I gasped and my eyes flew open. No Reapers, just a strange bed. And a warm, hard . . . whoa . . . very male body pressed firmly against me. A muscular arm slid lazily around my waist, his hand stopping just below my breasts, pulling me even closer, lips nuzzling the back of my neck.

My mind screamed fight; my body muttered sleep.

“Raine?”

Mychael’s voice was deep and rusty with sleep.

I tried to speak, even one word would do, but my throat was dry; nothing would come out. I looked down where Mychael’s hand was and the word I was trying to say came out as a squeak.

My breasts were bare and so was the rest of me.

I was buck naked, wearing nothing but a sheet—and Mychael.

I swallowed and managed to get some words out. “Uh . . . uh, Mychael?”

“Mmmm?” He nuzzled closer.

“What are you doing?” Better yet, what had we done? The last I remembered, I was covered in Reapers. Now I was covered in Mychael. This went beyond not making sense.

Mychael sighed and shifted, and it was all too obvious that he wasn’t wearing much, if anything.

“Healing you,” he rumbled drowsily.

“Naked?”

“Bare skin works best.”

“For who?”

It took a few seconds, but Mychael propped himself up on one elbow and gazed down at me. His auburn hair was tousled with sleep and his face was darkened with his morning beard. His hand slid from the base of my breasts to the flat of my stomach. The sensation of heated tropical waters swirled and spiraled down from his hand into me, soothing burned skin, aching muscles.

Healing what the Reapers had done to me.

“Better for both of us,” he said.

Through his hand, the ebb and flow of magic spread from Mychael into me and back again, like the tide, like the waves in my dream. Soothing, healing.

Connecting us. Bonding.

I tried to sit up, but Mychael’s hand on my stomach held me still, gently, but firmly enough that I wasn’t going anywhere. Damn, I was still weak as a kitten. I did manage to pull the sheet up to restore some semblance of modesty, though he’d already seen—and probably touched—everything I had, so I didn’t know why I bothered. Maybe I was still delirious.

I took enough of a breath to get the words out. “Your bedroom?”

“It is. I brought you here because it’s better warded than almost any other room in the citadel.”

“You carried me here?”

“I did.”

“And undressed me.”

A corner of his lips quirked upward. “I certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else do it. Now, lie still.” His voice lowered. “I’m not finished healing you yet.”

Firelight gleamed on his smoothly sculpted chest and taut stomach—and on several dark, angry stripes running from his shoulder to his ribs. I instinctively reached out, but Mychael’s hand around my wrist stopped me.

“Try not to move,” he told me.

“Reapers did that to you?” My voice was barely a whisper.

Mychael nodded once.

I frowned at him. “Because of me.”

“No, because I wasn’t going to let them take you.”

“Still my fault.”

“You didn’t do it; they did.”

“You know what I mean.”

Mychael smiled, very slightly. “I do and I’m ignoring it. I’ll heal you, but if you want to argue, you’ll have to do that by yourself.”

My hand reached his chest before he could stop me. My fingers tentatively touching, gently tracing the burn across his chest. My hand tingled at the contact, and Mychael went utterly still.

“Who’s going to heal you?” I asked quietly.

“I can heal myself now that you’re out of danger.”

My fingers stopped. “How much danger?”

Something flickered in his eyes that I’d never seen in them before. Fear. “More than I ever want you to be in again.”

Fear of losing me.

If I’d been close to death, I really didn’t want to know how close. Regardless, Mychael had obviously drained himself to bring me back.

“Thank you,” I said simply. My voice was raspy and raw. I dimly recalled screaming while covered in Reapers. Mere thanks wasn’t nearly enough, didn’t even begin to be enough for all the sacrifices Mychael had made for me since we’d met.

He sat up and leaned over to the bedside table where there was a pitcher and two glasses. He poured me a glass of water. I winced and eased myself up on the pillows, pulling the sheet up with me.

“Careful,” Mychael cautioned, gently holding the glass to my lips. “Drink slowly.”

I took a sip. The water was cold, nectar- of-the-gods cold; I resisted the urge to gulp.

When I’d finished, Mychael took the glass and turned to put it back on the table.

That was when I saw the lash on his neck. It was worse than the ones on his chest, much worse. Dammit. He could claim otherwise, but if it hadn’t been for me, none of those burns would have been there, and his very life wouldn’t be in danger from mages who not only wanted him removed as paladin; they wanted his head removed from his shoulders.

And every last bit of it was my fault.

Mychael had stood steadfastly by my side from the very moment the Saghred had sunk its figurative claws into me. While nearly everyone else wanted to kill me or lock me up, Mychael had fought to save and protect me. He knew who and what I was—the Saghred’s bond servant and a Benares, a name synonymous with criminal. He was the top lawman in the seven kingdoms. I was trouble of the worst kind for him in more ways than one. He knew it, and he didn’t give a damn.

He was willing to take that risk, take it and not look back. Saving my life more than proved it.

Mychael and I had a link, a magical bond of the most intimate kind. Just over a week ago, with a single touch of his hand, Mychael’s magic had merged with mine. My magic had surged forward to meet his, matching him, and for a few intensely intimate, breath- stopping moments I had been keenly aware of his every pulse, every muscle, the surging of blood through his veins. Two people with one body, and magic pulsing like a single heart that we shared.

He had been just as aware of me—all of me. We didn’t know what had caused it, and right now it didn’t matter.

Not with what I was about to do.

“Mychael, healing me . . . like this. What did it do to our link?”

“Probably made it stronger.”

That was what I thought. “Is that a good idea?”

“I think it’s the best idea.”

“I don’t see how that could possibly be good—especially for you.”

“The Saghred has nothing to do with our bond,” he told me. “I think that the closer you are to me—and the closer we are to each other—the better you’ll be protected from the Saghred.”

“Or the better the Saghred can get its hooks into you.” I hesitated. “Mychael, right now I am the Saghred. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“And you won’t.”

Mychael regarded me with calm, confident eyes. He had no doubts, no fears. He didn’t need any; I had enough for both of us.

“Raine, I’ve only felt myself being drawn closer to you. I haven’t sensed the Saghred at all.”

“Nothing?”

“Whatsoever. Just more of you.” In the firelight, his eyes had darkened to the blue of ocean depths. “And I think that’s a very good thing.”

Protecting Mychael from the Saghred was an even better thing. The stone’s presence had been like a weight behind my breastbone since it’d bonded itself to me. I didn’t know if it was Mychael’s healing, the Reapers’ attack, or something else entirely, but right now I had no sense of the Saghred at all.

If I was going to do this, I needed to do it now. My pulse quickened at the thought of what I was about to attempt. No, not attempt. Do. I didn’t know how it would affect me, but I wanted to do this for him.

Mychael noticed a burn remaining on my right shoulder. He reached out once again, to touch me, to heal.

I caught his hand in mine, quickly curling my fingers through his. The power he held in readiness to heal me thrummed through my skin and raced up my arm and into my body. I gasped with the sheer strength of it. I took one deep breath, then another, holding his magic tightly inside of me as my own awakened and responded, spiraling upward from the deep core of me where it ran like molten heat.

Mychael knew what was happening and tried to pull his hand away, but our magic had already fused us.

“Raine, no.” Mychael’s voice said no arguments.

For once I wasn’t going to argue with him.

I was going to heal him.

“I can’t do them all, but I can do one.”

“Raine, you’re not—”

I gave him a small smile, confident and sure. “I’m stronger than you think.” My voice dropped to an intense whisper. “Mychael, please let me do this for you. Your knowledge, our magic. I don’t want you hurt because of me any more.”

I didn’t wait for a response. I placed my hand on his neck, my palm flat against his pulse point. Our combined power surged out of me and into him, and now it was Mychael’s turn to gasp.