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If Eryn and Lexi were confused by the strange words demon hunters exchanged, they didn’t say. Vann had explained the process, and Eryn wasn’t daunted.

She’d wanted Lexi out of there, in case Tisiphone learned of the plan and tried to stop them, but Lexi refused, claiming sisters didn’t miss each other’s weddings for anything. Especially when there was an evil bitch on the loose who was trying to steal hers.

The moment they said I do, Astrid, baby Isla, and Lexi would leave for Montana, fly straight into the home of the werewolf pack, to keep Lexi far from the fight. Safest place on the planet, and where he wished he could send Eryn.

As he’d been taught, the moment their lips met, power flowed from him into her.

Intense and altering down to the DNA, it could be painful if he wasn’t careful. He balanced the flow and took the burden of pain.

She began to entwine his soul with what was left of hers.

Instead of the natural, shared flow, a lurch tore at him.

Like hitting a block of ice, part of her was shackled.

Rigid. Impenetrable.

Eryn flinched and gripped his hands. “I… I don’t want to hurt you.” She shivered as if coated in ice that was on the verge of shattering. “I don’t know what, I don’t know how, but I can’t seem to let you in… without…”

Instinct swelled in his mind.

He pulled her close and lifted her hand to his face, as she often did to comfort him, to kiss him, or to break bad news to him. And how she’d connected with Bennett to feed on his soul.

“I’ll be okay. I can handle it.”

Eryn’s chin tensed as she fought a quivering bottom lip.

“I trust you.”

Holding his gaze, she nodded and palmed his cheek, brushing her thumb over his lower lip. “I’m sorry,” she said, and melted the barrier she’d erected.

Power surged between them. She didn’t feed; she connected.

Ice filled his veins, knowledge and fury, and he knew it was only a fraction of what Eryn endured every breath of every day. How had she lived with the pain of it, alone, without letting on how gutting it felt?

Balancing the chill and the raw ache of fury that flowed from her, he poured his own abilities into her. Supplementing her healing with his. His energy and his warmth to counter the fury’s traits. Filling the void where parts of her soul had been drained.

Exhaustion was short-lived. The room was silent, save for the rain spattering against the curtained glass.

A feast was ready for consumption, and Eryn was ravenous.

Vann had paled during the exchange.

If only they’d had more time. They didn’t have the weeks, or even the months, that he needed to heal. They didn’t have two days.

She’d nearly stopped, but he came back with a surge of energy.

An unfamiliar rush of swirling energy ignited in her veins. Air streamed in and out of her lungs. Eryn laughed with an odd sense of relief. The fury was still there, undiminished, but she felt invigorated.

Vann smiled at her, a new gleam in his gaze that was delicious, and a little bit wicked.

Energy surged lower and heated deep in her belly.

Arousal spiked hard and hot and fast.

She whimpered and bit her lips, halfway to orgasm from a single shared look.

One side of his mouth twitched. His breath quickened. He looked at her like she was a feast, and he was famished.