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His arms tightened around me before he released me with a sigh. “Don’t be fucking stupid, Baby. I love the shit out of you. It’s always been you, and it’ll always be you. I’m not as romantic as the others, but fuck. When this is over, I want to be able to call you my wife. To have you call me one of your husbands. Normally, I would fucking serenade you with candles or some shit, but you’ll have to settle for this. Us naked in bed after we had both been kidnapped. Addie, Baby, will you marry me and make me one of your seven husbands? Enemies for life and all that.”

I snorted even as fresh tears sprang to my eyes. Happy tears. He loved me. He wanted to spend his life with me, even if it meant he had to share me. And, more importantly? He saw a future outside of these walls. A future where we weren’t hunted, where the world wasn’t being submerged into the fiery pits of hell. He saw a happy ending, and fuck, if I didn’t melt into a puddle.

“Yes. Fuck yes. I’ll marry you, Callie. You’re mine, now and forever.” At my proclamation, my ownership of him, he pulled me into a long, passionate kiss. It only reconfirmed what I already knew: I was his as surely as he was mine.

We became silent once more, my hand once again resuming its tracing of his soft, sweaty skin. Why were guys always so much sexier after sex? Not that Calax wasn’t sexy normally, but damn. He looked good with a post-sex flush and his hair disheveled.

“Did you know what they told me? Calax, my blood holds thecure. We might be able to stop this. I might be able to save the fucking world.” It felt surreal even to say, as if I was looking in through a distorted funhouse mirror. The girl I saw wasn’t me. At the very least, it didn’t feel like me. The Addie I knew was gone.

Calax tensed beneath me, and I lifted my head to read his expression. His jaw was clenched so tightly I was afraid it would break, his teeth gnashing together. He shook with barely suppressed rage.

“Baby…”

I gave him a look.Thiswas why we were mortal enemies. He thought of me as fragile when I was anything but. If I didn’t love him so much, I might’ve hated him.

He took a deep breath, arms tightening around me. They were iron bands. I couldn’t break free even if I wanted to...which I didn’t. I was content to stay in his arms for the rest of my life.

He was alive.

He was safe.

And he loved me.

I may not have believed in happily ever afters, but it felt like I was one step closer to having my own. I just needed to find my other six men.

And, you know, not dying would be an added bonus.

“Lucian lied to you,” Calax bit out scathingly.

“Huh? No, Big Guy, I saw my blood work. I saw it save that Rager-”

“He didn’t lie about that. Your bloodisable to expel the worm, but you only have a ten minute timeframe.”

He was making no fucking sense.

“Calax-”

“Once the worm, parasite, Arctic enters your bloodstream, you have ten minutes to inject the blood. Actually, you have nine minutes and forty-seven seconds. Anything after that, and your blood would do nothing. The Rager you apparently saved? I have no doubt he was injected with the parasite mere seconds before they administered the blood. He was a demonstration. And if he was to get infected again by the parasite, they would need to injectanotherdose of blood into him. Addie...Baby…maybe they will be able to study your blood and create a cure or an immunity, but at the moment, Lucian only wants to use you for profit. He wants to rule the fucking world, and what better way to do that then selling the blood someone needs to carry on them at all times? Only you have an immunity. Your blood isn’t capable of giving others the same permanent immunity, at least from what I gathered. And Baby, Lucian plans to drain you completely.”

His words slammed into me like an aircraft carrier being shot out of the air and hitting land. A proverbial explosion followed that declaration.

I was numb, shaking, replaying Calax’s words in my mind and comparing them to what I knew of Lucian.

My blood…

If what Calax said was true, it would be turned into a product for sale. A hot commodity.

Notthe savior of the human race.

The rich and powerful would buy my blood in spades, for it wouldn’t grant them an immunity, and they would need to inject themselves each time the parasite entered their bloodstream. The normal, everyday human would suffer exponentially.

Wars would start.

All because of my blood.

“Shit,” I whimpered, the full implications choking me. And not in the kinky way Tamson would.

Nausea swirled in my stomach, and I just barely threw myself off the bed before I vomited. Calax was there in an instant, pulling back my long hair and wrapping it around his wrist. I threw up until I felt like I was empty, both mentally and physically.