Edge of Oblivion

She didn’t answer. He smelled the drug the doctor had given her, smelled the chemical harshness of it in her blood beneath the amazing, opulent scent of the Fever, and knew it wouldn’t last long. Her body was burning through it even as he knelt there.

He gathered the sheet around her, carefully slid his arms beneath her body, and pulled her against him, cradling her to his chest. He lifted her and stood up. Her head fell against his shoulder, she breathed a little, discontented sigh. Her skin was hot, so hot—

The fingers of one of her hands curled around the front of his shirt. Eyes closed, she burrowed against him, inhaling, breathing his own scent into her nose. Then she made another sound in her throat, but this one was purely erotic.

A shudder wracked him. He had to get her to that bed, and fast, and then he had to get the hell away from her.

Without another word to the doctor, he crossed the darkened gym, kicked open the doors, and headed toward the stairs.

Morgan was on fire.

Everything burned, everything hurt, her skin and her muscles and her bones. Even her thoughts —chaotic and disjointed as they were—scorched a painfully blazing path through her brain, pounding one word over and over.

Mate. Mate. Mate.

She’d never felt anything like this incinerating, elemental urgency before but supposed she shouldn’t have been so surprised; her own mother had her first Fever late, though not as late as this.

Once Morgan passed puberty without a sign of it appearing, then twenty, then twenty-five, everyone just assumed she was an anomaly. That possibly her powerful Gift of Suggestion came with a darker side. Infertility.

But no. She was fertile. Now she felt it to the very marrow of her bones.

And there was a male holding her. An Ikati male, not the human doctor that had tended to her since the first signs of the Fever hit. She smelled the difference between them, the power, the strength of this male carrying her in his arms. She smelled his lust, dark and deep.

Her lids were so heavy from the drug she couldn’t open her eyes, but she could inhale, and she took that heavenly scent of lust into her lungs. This close, it was thick and sweet like candy, delicious.

It sent a spike of heat straight down between her legs.

She made a little noise of longing in her throat. The male began to walk faster.

There came the sound of heavy doors being kicked open, then light behind her closed lids that hurt enough to make her turn, wincing, and bury her face in the hard chest she was cradled against.

Movement and breathing, her body swaying with his steps, the motion rhythmic and calming except for the pressure of her breasts against his body, the aching awareness of him and his beautiful scent like something she wanted to eat.

Yes, taste him, her mind urged, churning. Taste all of him! He is what you need!

She arched her back, slid a hand up around his neck, and opened her mouth over the column of his throat.

Salt and musk and masculinity, heat and rightness, the throb of his pulse beneath her lips. He stumbled and cursed, yanked his head away, but she wanted more, she wanted to run her tongue over all his smooth, lovely skin, and then she wanted to bite him and straddle him and take him deep inside

—

“Touch me,” she whispered, arching into him again. His arms tightened around her. He made a low, rough growl deep in his chest.

They kept moving.

Faster now, down a set of stairs, another, the male breathing hard and nearly stumbling several times as he hurried along. Her nose was in his hair, her lips were on his skin, her teeth nipped at his earlobe, his shoulder, the soft spot between his collarbone and neck. It sent shivers through his body, delicious ripples of hard muscle that drove her own need even higher. She heard the sound of another door being kicked open, then there was cool darkness and she was abruptly deposited onto a bed.

“Morgan,” a voice said, hoarse, and then she knew. His voice sent a wash of pleasure through her body, pure and sweet, like sunlit honey.

He would help her, help ease the pain. Though he despised her, it was his job to keep her alive and well. At least for a while.

“Xander.” She writhed against the mattress, reaching out blindly. “Please, Xander.”

A sheet was pulled over her body; her wrists were caught and pinned. She fought against it; she didn’t want the sheet on top of her. She wanted him on top of her.

“Morgan,” he said again, and this time he really sounded as if he were in pain.

She managed to open her eyes, and he swam into view, hovering above her with his lips pulled back in a grimace and a fine sheen of sweat glistening on his brow. His eyes stared down at her, searing, molten amber rimmed in black lashes.

He wants you! the animal inside her hissed, writhing to be set free. Take him!

He’d pinned her wrists against the pillow above her head, and she knew she couldn’t get them free. He was far too strong for that. So she didn’t bother to try.

In a single, swift motion, she arched off the mattress, stretched out her neck, and put her mouth on his.

He moaned against her lips but didn’t pull away. He didn’t move nearer either. He just allowed her to kiss him, to suck at his lips and slide her tongue into his mouth, all the while holding her wrists down so hard against the pillow his arms began to shake.

“I want you,” she whispered through frenzied kisses. “I need you.”

“It’s just the Fever,” he groaned, his brow furrowed, his eyes half-lidded, watching her. “It’s the hormones. And the drugs. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I need you,” she insisted, teasing her tongue in and out of his mouth. He turned his head away, panting, and she took the opportunity to put her lips against his throat again, to press her teeth into his throbbing jugular.

The snarl that ripped from between his clenched teeth was like nothing she’d ever heard and sent a thrill of exhilaration zinging along every nerve.

He surged against her, throwing the length of his hard body on top of her as that snarl kept coming, fierce and animalistic. He kissed her like an animal, too, all teeth and greed and rough intent, an Alpha taking what he wanted without restraint or apology, his hands all over her body, squeezing her breasts and bottom, tangled in her hair.

She moaned and stretched full against him, lost, no longer herself but someone else, someone consumed in flame and flesh and pleasure, in the pounding pulse of two heartbeats, in the roar of desire like the swell of the ocean cresting over her, tumbling, crashing—

And then with a horrified cry, Xander broke away.

She was left breathless, spinning, every nerve like an open wound scraped raw.

“Jesus,” he whispered, backing away toward the door. “I’m sorry, Morgan, I’m so sorry...”

“Please, Xander, don’t go, it’s all right,” she said, struggling to sit up. The room spun. She shook her head to clear it, but the drugs—the goddamn drugs—

“I’m so sorry,” he choked again, then fled through the door and slammed it shut behind him.

Morgan sagged back against the mattress, pain in her skull like needles driven through her eyes, in her body as if she’d been set to burn on a funeral pyre.

“But it hurts...” she whimpered to the empty room.

Then she passed out.