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“I felt it.” Her whisper was so quiet that even with his superior hearing, he wasn’t sure he heard her correctly. “I felt it,” she repeated, stronger this time. Her eyes, liquid with tears, held his. “I felt it when you were shot. When you were hurt. On your hand, and on your arm.”

Shock froze Julian’s insides. No. It couldn’t be. Only fully mated couples with a mating bond could sense each other’s injuries. He hadn’t claimed her. They were not mates yet, their souls not intertwined. Gods, he didn’t even have a soul. Yet, somehow, their connection had grown strong enough that he’d projected his pain onto her. Leah, a human with no mental shields, had had no protection from him.

He sank down in the chair next to her. Neither of them had noticed when Bryan left minutes ago.

“Why? Why did that happen?” Leah touched her chest again, her other hand reaching for him, where his wound still throbbed. Her touch was light and burned through him, chasing away the pain to rekindle the embers of desire within him. “Why did I feel your pain?”

He almost broke down and confessed at her soft, questioning look. There was no judgment. Even the fear he’d seen earlier was gone. No, he couldn’t tell her. Refused to. Though he wanted her with every fiber of his being, he refused to bow down to fate. To claim her as he was meant to.

More importantly, he didn’t want this life for her. This life of violence. Of never-ending battles. She deserved more than that.

Would you rather I’d left her be? Leave her to the Organization’s clutches and have her brutally murdered fighting for their cause?

Alistair’s words haunted him. If he let her go, would she return to the Organization? Was that her fate without him? Did she have any other choice? He wouldn’t claim her, but he couldn’t allow her to return to her old life either. More than anything, he wanted to ask her about her past.

“Julian?” Leah’s voice brought him back to the present.

“I don’t know,” he lied, not meeting her gaze. Frustrated and torn between what his mind wanted and what his instincts yearned for, he stood up to leave. “I’ll be right back.”

“No, don’t go!”

Leah gripped Julian’s hands, an emptiness worse than the physical pain consuming her at the thought of him leaving. Ever since she met him, she’d been irresistibly drawn to him. She may have blamed it on the vampires’ innate sexuality, but no other vampire had had the same effect. Not Devon. Not Felix. It was all him, Julian Blackmore, the man, not the vampire, who captivated her.

Now, somehow, she’d felt it when he’d been shot, when he’d been injured. Even though he wouldn’t give her a straight answer, she didn’t want him to leave yet. The past hour had brought back awful memories from her childhood, memories that she’d buried deep. She needed him, needed his solid and warm presence, even his overbearing confidence, to chase away the unthinkable past.

After what seemed like a lifetime, he turned back to her. Her pulse quickened, and her blood warmed at his heated gaze, his blue eyes twin orbs of fire. He bent over her, cupping her face with his large hands. “I need to feed. Then I will come right back.”

Leah felt small but safe under the cocoon of his chest. Safe. That was a feeling she hadn’t had for a long time, not even after the social worker had saved her from the streets and definitely not when she’d moved to the Compound, where she was always under the watchful eyes of the instructors, the students, and Dmitri.

Perhaps it was that feeling that had her say, “Drink from me.”

Just don’t leave. Not yet.

Red rolled over his eyes. But she wasn’t afraid. His expression was anguished and his gaze tortured when he shook his head. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Leah sat up further and pulled his head toward her. Shivers racked her body when she felt his lips on her neck. Not of fear, but of anticipation. Unlike many of her comrades, she’d never been attacked by a vampire, had never been fed on. Humans had always been the monsters in her life.

When his fangs nibbled her skin, warm pleasure flooded her. Her hands skimmed his back, savoring the strength of his hard muscles. Desire rose within her like a wave, and she welcomed it. Though she’d suffered the worst pains of her life in the past hour, she didn’t think this would hurt, not if Julian was the one to do it.

His body quivered under her hands like a tightly strung bow. He was holding himself back. Why?

“Do it,” she urged, her breathing shallow.

Instead of biting her, he tore himself away from her with the force of a tornado.

“No!” he roared, his face a terrifying mixture of lust and fury. Then he was gone, leaving Leah blinking in stupefied shock at the closing door.

The rejection was a punch to the gut and hurt more than any bullet. Her vision blurred. She blinked back the tears. No, she wouldn’t cry. What if he didn’t want what she offered? Did he think she waltzed around offering her blood to every vampire? Her hands clenched the sheets. He’d already left her high and dry once tonight, yet she wanted to go after him. Scream at him. Throw a tantrum.

Screw this. Screw him.

He couldn’t just leave her like that. Not again.

Leah slid out of bed despite her body’s protest. Though she no longer felt like dying from white-hot agony, there were still parts that hurt, especially her chest. It was the physical pain from earlier, not because he’d rejected her. Again.

“Tristan, where is Mr. Blackmore?” she asked, hoping the AI would help her.