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I laugh, but it makes me dizzy so I close my eyes. He tugs me closer, and his lips drift over my forehead. His broad chest is quite comfortable, and it would be so easy to fall asleep right here. In fact, I think I do for a moment, but he jostles me awake.

“Drink up,” he says, as warm skin presses against my lips. “You’re half dead, ma petite cafarde.”

I lick my dry lips and bite his wrist immediately. Not his wrist, I realize. The taste and angle is all wrong. I open my eyes, realizing the pale arm is attached to someone kneeling behind my head.

“Hale?” I mumble, but I don’t stop drinking. I want Roman’s blood, but this will do for now.

“We’re taking turns to get you topped off without taking too much,” Roman explains. He caresses my face, callused hand gentle. I drink for long enough that I feel significantly better, and I’m worried I’m taking too much from my friend. Opening my eyes, I find Roman’s. I break away from Hale’s wrist and lick my lips, and I want to say something—anything—but I can’t come up with the right words.

Because Roman is here to rescue me even after a horrendous loss.

His eyes are glassy, and it takes me a moment to identify his expression because it’s so far from what I expect.

He’s reverent—almost happy. How, I don’t know. His brother is gone, and he’s had to play the hero. And yet he looks down at me with the same tenderness he did before I betrayed him. With the same soft smile as he did in the moments before his brother pulled the trigger.

It’s too much, and if I don’t ruin it, I’ll start to cry.

“Where’s Lord Farquad?” I ask Roman as I try to sit up.

“Who?”

“The bad guy from Shrek?” I offer. “Stupid hair?”

Roman’s eyes widen, clearly worried about brain damage. “Sorry, sweetheart. No idea what you’re talking about.”

“The witch.”

He snorts, then wipes away what I realize is blood on his lips.

“Caitriona is dead—a poor decision, if you ask me,” comes a voice that I realize is not Hale’s at all. I recoil, twisting in Roman’s grasp to see the man sitting beside us. My heart nearly beats out of my chest.

“What the fuck?” I shriek, and Roman holds me tightly as he tries to shush me.

Agnarr has both hands up where he sits, assuming a submissive position, but that doesn’t make any sense. He shouldn’t be here. He smells different, and he’s no longerwearing a fancy suit. His hair is long, when it was short only a few hours ago.

“Ketill, my brother, is the one who took you. We look alike,” Agnarr says, offering his arm once more, as if his explanation is enough to comfort me.

“He’s the one who brought me to you, Gwyn. He helped me,” Roman says, and his low voice rumbles in my chest because of how tightly I’m pressed against him.

“What if it was a trap to kill you too?” I ask. “What if they’re working together?”

“I assure you, I am not working with my brother. Although bringing another hybrid here was maybe short-sighted.”

“I don’t trust you. You almost choked me out when you woke up.”

“I’m sorry for that. I…recognized magic on you that shouldn’t have been there.”

I shake my head, realizing I’m focusing on the wrong things. “Another hybrid? Roman?” I shift to look at him.

“Did you decipher my messages? Did the dreams help you?” Agnarr asks.

I go still for a moment before I spin in Roman’s grasp once more to stare at the ancient vampire. “That was you? The freaky buried alive dreams were because of you?”

“It was his heart you were holding. You needed him. You needed the heart. And he held onto yours? Did you not understand?”

“Of course not! What do youmean?”

“We don’t have fucking time for this,” Roman says, and then he turns me in his grasp as he shoves his wrist to my mouth. I tug at my stupid hospital gown, realizing my lacy underwear is on display. After a moment of intense glaring from the most beautiful warm, brown eyes, I cave and bite him.