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“But I don’t like wasting what time we do have. I love being with you, I love feeling you inside me…” I sighed as my body trembled, the mere idea of trying to have sex right now exhausting it.
Ajax cupped my cheek with one hand, kissing me gently before tugging away. “I don’t need to fuck you to enjoy being with you,” he said. “If I could pause time and live in this moment with you forever, just holding you and watching the stars fall, that would be more than enough of a paradise for me.”
Tears welled in my eyes, and Ajax kissed them away, nothing but pure love radiating down our bond. I rested my head against his chest as we continued to watch the sky light up, convincing myself this is what the afterlife would look like—just a slice of bliss with Ajax beneath a midnight sky.
17
AJAX
“As you can see,” Gabriel said, pointing between the two different scans up on the lighted board in the infirmary. “Unfortunately, it’s advancing.”
No. No.No.
I could have denied it all I wanted to, but the evidence stared me in the face. The tumor wasn’t just advancing, it was conquering.
My throat threatened to close and I locked my jaw to keep from cursing, stroking my thumb over the back of Grace’s hand as we sat in the chairs Gabriel had brought out for tonight’s meeting—the chairs we’d needed because Grace was rapidly losing her ability to keep her balance for any length of time.
“That’s why…” Grace swallowed. “The words…” The stricken look on her face would have brought me to my knees if I’d been standing.
“Yes.” Gabriel leaned back against the exam table. “That’s why it’s harder for you to find the right words.”
“And her balance?” I asked, doing everything I could to choke my feelings down for Grace’s sake. I felt her terror through the shimmering bond that linked us, and forced my lungs to suck in a deep breath.
Rage swept through my veins, all-but overwhelming my common sense.
Vampire males were biologically programmed to slaughter any and everything that threatened our mates. Had it been Gabriel with a dagger at her throat, I would have ended him in less time than it took a heart to beat.
But it wasn’t Gabriel threatening to take my mate. It was fucking cancer, and it wasn’t like I could slay a disease.
“About the balance.” Gabriel sighed, gesturing to scans he’d taken yesterday. “There are two new lesions.”
Breathe.You have to breathe.
But how the fuck was I supposed to breathe when there wasn’t any air?
“New ones?” Grace asked in a small voice.
Gabriel nodded. “Here and here.” He glanced at me, then quickly looked back to Grace. If I looked as dangerous as I felt, I couldn’t blame him. “I’m so sorry.”
Grace forced a smile and shrugged. “It’s what I…” She blinked once. Twice. “Expected. It’s been over two...” Her smile fell. “Blocks. Things. Time.” Her head swung toward mine and the panic in her gaze cut through me like a knife.
“Months?” I suggested.
“Months.” She agreed. “They only gave me three to start with.”
Which meant I had less than a month left. She was going to die.
“You already knew that,” Grace said to me.
“Stop reading my thoughts.” I snapped my shields down.
“Not my fault that you’re pretty much blaring them my direction.” She turned back to Gabriel. “So I have what? Weeks left?”
Gabriel glanced at the scans. “I’m sorry to say that I’m going to have to agree with the original prognosis, especially with these new lesions. Weeks are a best-case scenario, and if you seize…”
Grace straightened her shoulders, and I pulled my shit together. If she could handle this, then so would I. The last thing my mate needed was to be comforting me when she was the one…dying.
“What can we expect?” I asked after clearing my throat.
