screaming.
Suddenly they were floating, coming to a halt. Riordan placed Juliette on the ground, her back against a tree. Her eyes widened with horror as he stared at his hand, his fingernail growing to a lethal-looking length. Juliette drew in her legs, stifling a gasp as he tore a long cut in his own wrist. Blood dripping, he flung droplets in all directions and took off running with blurring speed, away from her, winding through the trees, spreading the scent along the leaves and shrubbery over a long distance.
Juliette held her breath for a long moment, waiting to be certain she was alone. For some reason, Riordan shocked her by abandoning her to the vampire. He was clearly using her as bait. She dragged herself to her feet. So much for sexy, brooding heroes. Obviously the more tortured, the less heroic. 'Maybe you weren't really all that sexy after all,' she muttered out loud, furious that he would leave her. Her legs were wobbly and she was dizzy, the ground tilting and rolling. It didn't matter. She was not going to wait for the vampire to descend from the clouds and find a helpless victim. If she had to crawl, she would find a way to escape. She let go of the tree and took two tentative steps. The ground rushed up to meet her. Before she hit the ground, a strong arm circled her waist and she was dragged up against Riordan's hard body.
Chapter 3
'What are you doing?' Riordan hissed the words at her, clearly annoyed.
Juliette glared at him. 'I thought you left me.'
'I am your lifemate. Your protection and health must be placed above all things. I would never leave you.'
If she weren't so tired, she would have rolled her eyes in exasperation. She did the mental equivalent just to let him know he was an idiot for not explaining things she had no hope of understanding on her own. She glanced down at his wrist. The jagged tear was closed but looked raw and angry. 'You laid a false trail of blood for the vampire, one stronger and fresher, didn't you?'
'Of course. It will hopefully delay him long enough for me to regain more strength and remove the poison from my body.' He gathered her into his arms. 'He will attack the skies blindly in hopes of finding us. You must remain silent.'
Juliette was becoming annoyed at being hauled around like a sack of potatoes. 'I'm not exactly a cringing baby. I got you out of that place, didn't I?'
For the first time a faint smile flitted across his face. It nearly stopped her heart. 'That was before I showed you my teeth.'
'Is that a little vampire humor?' she asked, but her stomach was doing a curious little flip. He looked so weary. She might have given in and put her arms around him to comfort him if she weren't so certain touching him was dangerous.
He bent his head to hers, his breath warm against her skin. When he smiled, she could see no signs of his incisors, but it didn't stop a small shiver from running down her spine. Unexpectedly her womb clenched. She didn't think that was a good sign. There was definite chemistry between them and it seemed to be growing. It wasn't logical and she just wanted to get away from him.
'The vampire will try to attack us in the air. He will not really know where we are, but he will hope to score a hit. It is essential you remain quiet. It will be very frightening.'
She snorted derisively. 'And you aren't? Let's get out of here.'
He took to the skies again with dizzying speed. She felt him stirring in her mind, an attempt to reassure her, but she wanted to keep him out. Mind-to-mind contact was far too intimate. He could read her thoughts and even, possibly, her strange attraction to him. It bothered her that she was susceptible to him. There was no way to tell whether it was physical attraction or whether he was manipulating her in some way. She definitely had no intention of sticking around long enough to find out which it was.
Without warning the clouds rained sparks, red-hot embers, slivers of molten fire that fell like raindrops in a steady barrage. Riordan bent his body protectively over Juliette, cursing that he wasn't at full strength and couldn't provide the shelter they needed as they streaked through the sky. Despite his best efforts, several slivers penetrated her arm and burned through her skin nearly to the bone. He heard her gasp, but she turned her face against his chest, against the terrible burn marks there, and remained silent. The embers burned his back and shoulders, raised welts and stung like angry bees along his arms. He was infinitely weary and wanted desperately to go to the healing ground in the way of his people, but Juliette could not do that, and he would not leave her unprotected while human and vampire enemies searched for them.
She was an unexpected gift, drawn to him by their connection, two halves of the same soul. She didn't want the connection, but it was there and it was explosive. In spite of the relentless pain, he was all too aware of her soft, generous curves and the heat and scent of her body. It only added to his physical discomfort and raised the level of her wariness. With her face nuzzling his bare chest, his insides were turning to mush. She had no idea how much faith and trust she showed him with that simple gesture.
Riordan took them lower into the comparative shelter of the jungle canopy and made his way toward the small forest stream where the plants he needed grew in abundance. Lightning slashed the night skies, lighting up the forests in flashes, sending animals scurrying for shelter. He moved through the trees until he found the darker, overgrown spot he needed for safety.
'If we are lucky, the vampire is weaving his way through the forest miles from here. Let me look at those burns.' Riordan set her down and crouched beside her, drawing her arm straight out to examine it.
'You're hurt worse than I am,' Juliette objected, her heart pounding. It was the way he was looking at her wound, his black eyes moving over her skin as if he took it as a personal affront that she'd been scored by the slivers of fire. 'I can live with it.'
'I cannot,' he said simply and bent his head so that his dark hair, wild and tangled from the journey through the sky, cascaded around him, hiding his face.
She felt the warmth of his breath first. His lips, featherlight, a mere brush so that her heart quickened and her body tensed. His tongue swirled over the blackened welt. Electricity sizzled through her entire body. The breath went out of her lungs and her mouth went dry. She jerked her arm in reaction, but he held on firmly.
'I am sorry if this hurts, but I have a healing agent in my saliva. It should remove all pain. Just relax.' He didn't just say the words, he breathed them against her skin. She felt his voice crawling through her pores, winding around her heart and lungs and every other vital organ.
Juliette closed her eyes against the waves of heat coursing through her bloodstream. Bloody and torn, swaying with weariness, Riordan was still the sexiest man she'd ever encountered. There was his voice, his eyes, the way he looked at her, the way he turned his head, his hard, masculine body, but most of all, the danger emanating from him. He was a powerful predator and it showed, yet his touch with her was amazingly gentle, almost tender.
She swallowed hard. 'It isn't right that you're trying to heal me when your body is so torn up. I can wait.'
'I feel your pain beating at me.'
She made an attempt at finding humor when her body was stirring to life and her thoughts were turning to things better left alone. 'See why we shouldn't share minds? It would be so much easier if you didn't have to feel my pain on top of yours.' She frowned. 'I'm in your mind, why can't I feel your pain?' She could feel how tired he was, but he had to feel pain with all the lacerations and burns.
His tongue swirled a second time. Then a third. 'I am shielding you.'
He could rob a woman of sanity. Juliette couldn't look at his gorgeous face without wanting to wipe away those terrible lines. His touch was beyond gentle, was causing her stomach to do flips and somersaults. Beads of sweat trickled down the valley between her breasts, and she was certain it had nothing to do with the humidity. The small burns miraculously stopped stinging under his ministrations. When he finally lifted his head and looked at her with
