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His heart turned over at her concern. “I’m completely healed. You don’t have to worry about me.” It was the truth, except for the few times pain lanced up his right calf to his thigh as they walked.

She gave him a long, searching look. “The effect of the mating bond goes both ways. I’ll stop worrying about you when you stop fussing over my eating habits.”

Marek didn’t respond as the car pulled up. He opened the door for Olivia and inhaled deeply. Her floral vanilla scent settled inside his soul, soothing the jagged edges of his need. Being this close to her yet unable to claim her was a hundred times worse than being staked to the ground.

He slid in the backseat beside Olivia until his thigh touched hers and ordered the car’s autopilot, controlled by Tristan, to take them back to the Secondary Tower.

“Rowan said there was an explosion and you saved them. You bought them time to escape,” Olivia said, the quiver in her voice stabbing needles into him. “Does this happen a lot? You risking your life?”

“Yes.” He couldn’t lie to her, not about this. He wished to gather her up in his lap and kiss away her sadness, but he made do with holding her hand in his, his fingers tracing the curve of her knuckles. “I’m sorry. When you were stuck in the SUV, it almost destroyed me. You’re right, the mating bond goes both ways. I know how much it must have hurt for you to see me injured. If I can, I would spare you from that pain.”

“But you won’t. This’ll happen again and again.”

“I cannot forsake the CDI, or any vampires captured by the Organization. You saw what happened to them. It’s a fate worse than death.”

“And you must save them all. You and no one else.”

Marek bristled. “I cannot change who I am.”

“But you want me to give up my life’s work.” Her tremulous voice and the pain etched onto her lovely features drove his vampire crazy. “I can’t do this. We’re too different. The universe made a mistake.”

“The universe doesn’t make mistakes,” Marek said, seized by an unfamiliar desperation. The gulf separating them was widening. He was losing her. Locking his fingers behind her nape, he smashed his mouth against hers, infusing the kiss with his love.

For he loved her. Her unending dedication. Her unswerving loyalty. Her tender heart.

Olivia made a needy whimper in the back of her throat. She tasted like the sun and hope and joy and everything that made life worth living. Her body molded against his perfectly. His world shrunk to only the two of them, his body hard with built-up hunger.

He wanted her, needed her more than plants needed light to survive.

“Marek, we can’t…” Olivia pulled away, her breath hitching as Marek trailed a kiss along her jaw. He clamped his arm tighter around her and nibbled his way down to the curve of her throat. His fangs dropped down, and her low moan was all the encouragement he needed to scrape his teeth against her skin.

Her fingers gripped his shirt tighter, and her hips jerked. He was drunk on her, on her scent, on her shallow breaths.

Mate. Want mate,his vampire shrieked.

“Tell me,” Marek growled between licks of his tongue. “Tell me, has anyone made you feel like this before?”

He pressed his fingers against her core, and Olivia threw her head back with a groan, her lids half-closed.

“I… It’s…” She paused to catch her breath as Marek applied pressure with his hand in rhythm to the movement of her hips. “It’s more…than…the physical…”

“Is it?” Marek placed her hand over his hard length, for if he went without her touch any longer, he might expire right there. Her heat cleaved through him like lightning, erasing his last shreds of control. He captured her chin so she couldn’t look away, so she witnessed him serving his heart on a platter.

For her.

“Seven-hundred years I waited for you, for my mate. My heart beats only for you; my blood flows for you; my soul is yours to command.” He kissed her again, taking her mouth in a ravenous frenzy. “The universe doesn’t make mistakes,” he repeated, baring his fangs to strike.

Her eyes narrowed. An angry buzz along his skin. Then he was thrown back, as far away from her as the space allowed. His back protested from hitting metal, his survival instincts kicking into high gear. Marek leaped forward, hissing, and stopped short at the sight before him. Olivia’s brunette hair blew wildly around her face with a magical wind, green light roiling in turbulent waves around her body, her eyes glowing with determination.

She looked like a goddess. His goddess.

How had he gotten so lucky, to be mated to someone as incredible and stunning as her?

You don’t deserve her.

“Don’t come closer,” she said, her voice sharp. “I will throw you out of the car.”

Marek struggled against the vampire’s need for vengeance, for self-preservation. He closed his eyes, stopped breathing, and shut down his sense of smell. The hammering of his heart was harder to control, his heartbeat being so new after centuries of silence.