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was saying something about restarting her heart the moment before the lights went out.
    * * * *
    Blade paced the infirmary in long, restless strides, staring at the transparent tube that contained Elyn's regenerating body. Clouds of pink fog billowed in the tube, concealing her from view. Daven had damn near gutted her before Blade had time to kill him.
    She’d almost given her life for him. Never mind that he'd sensed the attack. Never mind that he'd been turning even as Urthar rushed him. Caught between two vampires, he could have easily ended up dead.
    Elyn had saved him, and damn near died doing it.
    He remembered the way she looked moving under him, all heat and passion. When he thought about how he would have felt if she died, his stomach twisted and he felt hollowed out, just a shell with a hole where his heart should be.
    Why had she risked herself for him?

Chapter 5


    Elyn woke lying in an infirmary bed. Her body had that achy, logy feeling she associated with a session in regeneration. That meant she’d come damn close to getting killed, as vampires healed most injuries just fine. Anything bad enough to put a vamp in regen would have killed a human outright.
    A thought had her jolting upright despite her exhaustion. “Blade? Where’s Blade?” They’d come so damned close to killing him. What if— He rose from a chair beside the bed. She hadn’t even seen him sitting there.
    “I’m here.” His dark gaze was surprisingly tender. “How are you feeling?”
    Elyn blew out a breath. “Much better now that Daven and Urthar are dead.” A sudden thought made her frown. “They are dead, right?”
    His smile was savage. “Oh, yeah. Between the two of us, they’re most definitely dead.”
    “How did Station Security feel about us beheading a couple of vampires?”
    Blade lifted one broad shoulder in a half-shrug. “I had death warrants on both of them, so Security didn’t kick too hard.”
    Elyn considered that. He would have had to go to court to prove the two men were involved in the murders of Arden Galen and Blade's team of bodyguards. Considering the amount of blood and DNA the vampires had left on the scene, she wasn’t surprised he’d been able to get warrants.
    A new thought made her eye him warily. “Do you have a Death Warrant on me?”
    “No,” he said shortly. “I didn’t seek one. You weren’t involved in those killings. You were with me.”
    Elyn lifted a brow. “But I was still an accessory.”
    “Anything you did was not by choice.” His gaze searched hers. “Are you ready to get out of here? Because I don’t mind telling you, I hate infirmaries.”
    “Too much time in them?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Then I’m ready to go.”
    * * * *
    They walked out of the infirmary into one of Kring Station’s corridors a few minutes later. Elyn was still moving slowly. She felt weak as a fledgling before her first feeding, and her hands had a distressing tendency to shake.
    Blade studied her as they walked along surrounded by a jostling crowd of travelers, ships’ crew, and station workers. “You need blood.”
    She couldn’t hold his gaze, looking off at a triddie advertising budget tours of Earth. “They gave me a transfusion.”
    “But you need more than bottled blood.” His eyes blazed hot. “You need me. And I need you.”
    He was right, of course. There was psychic energy in feeding from a donor that you didn’t get from a medical process.
    “Yes.” She could barely get the word out through her tight throat. Her eyes flicked to the pulse in his throat, then across the width of his shoulders and down to his big hands.
    Blade lifted his chin as if offering his throat. Right there in front of everybody.
    Shame stung her. “You’re not just a blood source to me.”
    His gaze didn’t drop. “If I had been, you wouldn’t have risked your life for me.”
    Elyn stiffened. “I don’t want you out of duty.”
    “Duty has nothing to do with it.” Heat blazed in