He forcibly withdrew his fangs and licked her skin until the bleeding stopped and the wound healed. The ache in his muscles was gone, but there was a new pain in his neck. He touched the area that hurt, but there was no injury.
“Did it work?” Kitty asked. She took his face in her hands. “How do you feel?”
Looking into her eyes felt like he was falling into an endless abyss. He could actuallyfeelher concern, like a gentle thrum pulsing from her to him through a shining, silver thread in his mind.
“The bond has formed,” Dr. Rysel said.
Cordon whipped his head around. “You.”
“Lord Grayson.” Dr. Rysel inclined his head. “I have good news.”
He tried to be furious at his physician, but Kitty’s relief poured through their bond and suffocated his anger like a blanket thrown atop a fire. His love for her was the only thing he wanted to feel.
“‘Good news’?” he asked.
Dr. Rysel clasped his hands together at his waist. “You should no longer experience symptoms of mate atrophy.”
“But she’s not a vampire.”
“That is irrelevant. I told you several times that love was the component you were missing. You were simply too focused on yourself.”
He closed his eyes. Now it made sense. He was still dreaming. This scenario was a product of his feverish mind. He squirmed out of Kitty’s embrace, then crawled beneath the blankets and pulled them over his head.
“Leave me be.”
A steady warmth thrummed through their bond and made Cordon’s skin prickle. She was happy. He wanted to reach across the thread and share in her delight, but doing so would only make him feel worse when he inevitably woke and realized he was more alone than ever.
“He needs rest,” Dr. Rysel said. “The bond should prevent his condition from worsening. If it does not…” Shuffling sounds. “You must contact me, and I will return at once.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Dr. Rysel was talking to her as if she were his betrothed. That was the proof he needed to confirm he was asleep. He closed his eyes and drifted back into the void.
When he came back to himself, his neck still throbbed with pain, but his head didn’t feel so full of sand. He pulled up his shirt. The bruise on his side was still terrible, but the dark purple had faded to green-and-yellow mottling. His head also wasn’t as hot. He stretched his limbs and found they didn’t ache nearly as much as they had the last time he’d been awake. That was odd.
“There you are,” Kitty said.
He searched the darkness until he found her sitting on a stool beside his bed.
“The doctor left instructions for further treatments,” Kitty said. “Should I prepare one?”
None of this made sense. Kitty urging him to drink from her. Dr. Rysel saying he was cured. None of it had been real.
Kitty rose, walked over to his desk, and picked up a wicked-looking dagger. She ran it along her upper arm, then let the blood collect into a glass.
The silver thread connecting them flashed to life, sending him an echo of the sharp pain. The bond was weak, hardly a strand of spider silk, but its existence filled him with hope.
“Treatment,” Cordon whispered. “You mean…” It couldn’t have been real. Five decades spent searching, and he’d succeeded.
“You should feel better after this,” Kitty said as she wrapped a bandage around her wound.
He stared at his palms. She was right. Already, he was stronger and more alert than he had felt in months. All because Kitty had helped, literally bleeding for him. And she was still human.
A cup was pressed into his hands.
“Drink,” she said.
What else could he do but obey?
