Page 22 of Alien Devil’s Prey (Vinduthi Stolen Brides #1)

C old.

That was the only thing I knew. A deep, final cold that had extinguished the pain in my side and was now pulling me down into a quiet, starless void. I could feel my own heartbeat stuttering, a weak, fluttering rhythm like a dying bird's wings.

Then, through the encroaching numbness, a sharp, bright point of pain. It was not cold, but a searing jolt of pure energy that shocked the numbness from my bones. For an instant, it was the only thing I could feel in the entire universe.

Then the heat came.

It started at the bite, a wildfire racing through my veins, chasing away the cold with a ruthless, cleansing determination.

It was a storm of sensation and change, consuming and rebuilding me in the same breath.

I felt my body responding, my very cells reorganizing themselves according to new, non-human blueprints.

My heart, which had been struggling, suddenly surged with a new, powerful strength, each beat a thunderclap in my chest.

But it was more than just physical. Something else moved through me, foreign and overwhelming.

His presence, somehow, threading through my thoughts, weaving into the fabric of my being.

It wasn't like he was reading my mind—this was deeper, more fundamental.

A connection that rooted itself in the most primitive parts of my brain.

I knew him then, in ways that had nothing to do with sight or sound.

I could feel the fierce, desperate protectiveness that drove him, the crushing guilt he carried for what he was doing, the overwhelming relief that was flooding through him as my body responded, as my life force rekindled.

His emotions bled into mine, the boundaries blurring until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.

The transformation was not gentle. It was a violent unmaking and remaking. The person I had been dissolved in that fire to make room for something new. Something that could survive in his world. Something enhanced. Claimed.

His.

The thought should have sparked rebellion, should have made me fight. Instead, it settled into my bones with a sense of rightness that defied all logic. The bond, I realized, worked both ways. Just as surely as I was his, he was now irrevocably mine.

The intensity began to ebb, the wildfire settling into a steady, warm burn. Exhaustion pulled at me, but it was the healthy tiredness of a body that had fought a great battle and won. My breathing had steadied, my heartbeat was strong and sure.

I felt Talon's hand smooth over my hair, his touch gentle now that the crisis had passed. His relief was a tangible thing, flooding through the new bond between us with an intensity that made my chest tight.

"Sleep," he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. "Let it finish."

I wanted to open my eyes, to tell him that I understood. That I wasn't angry. That the choice he had made for me was one I would have made for myself, had I been strong enough.

But the darkness was calling again, and this time it didn't feel like an ending. It felt like a beginning.