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“Blood poisoning, that’s what it is.”

Blood poisoning. It seemed both fitting and ironic for me to be killed by the very blood that was supposed to save my people.

My people...

“It’s not of my world,” I said weakly. “My magic doesn’t work on it.”

Asher swallowed as he stared into my eyes. “Lana,” he said, and now his voice was as gentle as I had ever heard it, “you’re going die if we don’t fix you.”

I swallowed thickly. “I already tried fixing me. It didn’t work.”

Asher cursed. He pulled out his phone, his eyes flicking over to me every few seconds, like he couldn’t help it. “Then I’m going to.”

A moment later, he announced, “There’s a pharmacy close by. We’re going to get you antibiotics—medicine that will make you feel better.”

He pulled back onto the road.

Human medicine. Asher wanted me to put it in my body. The proud part of me revolted at the thought, but the dominant part of me, the instinctual part that desperately wanted to survive, it was willing to give the medicine a try.

“Why bother saving me?” I mumbled.

My enemy was demanding that I live when he could just let me die. It would be easier. Asher had the information he needed. A wily human like him could track down the portal from here. He didn’t need me.

I felt his gaze on me, burning, burning.

“Why?” I said louder, straightening in my seat. Even my eyes ached, but I forced them to focus on the hunter next to me.

The engine of this metal beast screamed as we flew down the highway.

Asher’s muscles strained beneath his skin and his jaw was locked, his brows sitting heavily upon his eyes. “Live and I’ll tell you.”

I stared at him for a moment longer, something soft and delicate unfurling in my stomach even after another wave of chills swept over me.

“I’m holding you to that, Jame,” I said softly.

He looked over at me, a lock of hair falling across one of his worried eyes before he nodded and faced the road once more.

I’d been sick a couple times before this. Blood colds as we called them. They were mild, gradually setting in and quietly leaving.

There was nothing gradual or mild about this.

I groaned as we took an exit turn far too fast, my earlier car sickness rising from the momentum of it. My left arm was stiff and painful, and every second that went by, I got hotter and hotter until the car seemed as though it was smothering me.

“Air,” I whispered.

Asher’s gaze was on me. I could practically feel his icy resolve, forbidding me to die.

A moment later, the windows rolled down, and a cool breeze blew over my feverish skin.

I closed my eyes, savoring it.

Maybe I nodded off, maybe I didn’t.

A dense thump sounded as some large object fell onto the roof, and my eyes snapped open. I looked up at the dented metal roof above my head.

“They found us,” I breathed.

Asher’s upper lip curled, and he yanked his gun from its holster.