My momentum slowed, as did my speed. I shook my head, certain if I cleared my vision, I’d realize this couldn’t possibly be my brother. After all, I’d seen his dead body all those years ago. That was perhaps my first mistake. I shouldn’t have allowed my speed to slow, for already I was growing tired again. I fought against it.

“Dare?” I said. My first instinct was to rush to him and wrap my arms around him as I’d done as a child. Atlanna’s words stopped me. My second mistake.

“That’s right,” she said. “My blood saved him, and in return I have his devotion.”

Devotion? My eyes narrowed. No, she controlled him with her mind. His features were blank. Unemotional. The same look Isabel had worn when she’d shot Dallas. Atlanna had controlled her as well, I realized. The woman’s sins increased with every minute that passed.

Dare didn’t spare me a glance, but watched Atlanna. “Are you hurt?” he asked her.

Even his voice was the same. Familiar, only slightly different from the loving laughter I remembered from fourteen years ago.

“Never.” Atlanna wiped a small trickle of blood from her lip. Already the wound was closing.

Dare finally glanced in my direction. Not a single spark of happiness touched his eyes. I stood frozen, wondering what to do, what to say.

“Shall I whip her?” he asked Atlanna.

I spied the three-pronged, bloodied whip draped across the edge of the couch and, without thinking, dove for it. I knew what I had to do.

“No,” Dare shouted, realizing my intent.

Before he could react, I was on my feet and advancing. I knocked him aside, kicked out my foot, connecting with Atlanna’s ankles. All in one motion. Atlanna tripped and launched to the floor, her back to me. As she screamed and tried to crawl away from me, I gathered every force within me and whipped her until the fabric of her gown was torn, until her blood flowed around her. Until Dare grabbed my arm and forced the whip from my grip.

Panting, I blinked down at the floor. Her body was slumped in unconsciousness. Disgust—for myself, for Atlanna—filled me. I’d only just found my mother, only just found my brother, and I’d lost them both. I swallowed back a lump in my throat. My hands shook, and I pressed my lips together.

Dropping the whip, Dare sank to his knees in front of her. “What have you done?” he said, brokenly. “The whip was laced with Erolan. Even Atlanna cannot withstand such a poison.”

I didn’t answer him. The war was over. Except for the missing children, the case was closed. I’d done my duty, just as I always had. Why didn’t I feel victorious?

Dare jumped to his feet. He glared down at me, but he didn’t say another word. He simply scooped Atlanna up in his arms and quietly strode from the chamber. I let him go. She was dead, no longer a threat, and I couldn’t bring myself to do more. Hopefully, in the coming days, Dare’s mind would clear from her monstrous influence, and he would come back to me.

Right now, I had to find my friends. My strength slowly draining, I moved from the room. Only two guards were stupid enough to try and stop me. Because of my loss of energy, one managed to knife a wound from my sternum to my navel. When they were unconscious from my chokehold, I battled past the pain and stanched the flow of blood with a scrap from one of the women’s gowns. I stumbled through the rest of the house, finding Jaxon and Kittie inside a cell. I disabled the lasers, and Jaxon was able to pick the lock.

They rushed through the doorway, then ground to a halt when they saw my blood-soaked shirt.

“Are you okay?” Jaxon asked.

“I’m fine,” I managed. “Someone else’s blood,” I lied. “Help me find Lilla and Kyrin.”

Ten minutes later, Kittie called, “In here. They’re in here.”

My footsteps were slow, but I made my way inside a bedroom. Lilla stood over a large, bare bed, staring down at an unmoving body. She slowly turned and faced me. Tears ran down her cheeks.

“He is dying,” she whispered brokenly. “Kyrin is dying.”

CHAPTER 25

Jaxon and Kittie dragged Kyrin outside to the vehicle where Ghost and Terrence Ford awaited us. Ghost had his thigh wrapped with cloth, and I knew he was going to be okay. But Kyrin…I was fighting to stay calm. I desired this man, this alien, maybe even loved him. Yet he’d been wounded so badly, he might not survive.

“I called for backup and medical,” Ghost admitted weakly. “Be here any time now. Told Jack the whole story.” His gaze zeroed in on my stomach. “Mia? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. Trees and sky swam before my eyes. Concerned faces faded in and out, and their voices seemed so far away. For one brief moment, flashing lights and sirens penetrated my senses.

I collapsed.

I don’t remember the drive to the hospital. I just know that when I opened my eyes, I’d lost my clothes, and several doctors were standing over me, examining my abdomen.

“You’re going to be okay,” one of them said.

“I hurt like hell,” I said, my voice raspy.

He grinned, causing his mustache to twitch at the corners. “Understandable. But you’re healing faster than anything I’ve ever seen.”

Within the hour, they had me stitched up. I refused pain medication. I needed my head clear. “Take me to see Kyrin,” I said. I had to see him, had to know how he was.

The doctors and nurses ignored me.I refused to be ignored. I screamed profanities at the top of my lungs until one of the nurses ran to get me a relaxant. Before she returned, Jaxon rushed into the room. Dallas followed, his progress slowed by a cane. His light blue eyes still gave me pause. If anyone else had noticed, they hadn’t said anything to me.

“Is everything okay?” Jaxon demanded, weapon drawn.

“Hell, no,” I said. “Where’s Kyrin?”

“Is that what all the commotion is about? He’s here,” he answered, putting his gun away.

“Is he alive?” I probed, my hands clenching, my stomach twisting.

“Yes,” he evaded.

Everything inside me relaxed, rejoiced. I couldn’t help but smile. “Take me to him,” I said. “Please.”

He gulped, looked away. “Maybe—”

“Please, Jaxon, Dallas. I’m begging you here.”

Jaxon glanced at Dallas. Dallas glanced at me, those lines of tension still firmly etched around his mouth. “You’ll be happy to know Ghost is healing nicely,” Dallas said.

Fine. They didn’t want to take me, I’d take myself. With my wound shrieking in protest, I ripped the IV off my arm, shoved myself from the bed, and plopped into a nearby wheelchair.

“Stubborn as always,” Dallas said. “Help her out, Jaxon, before she kills herself.”

With a sigh, Jaxon grabbed the handles of the wheelchair and ushered me to Kyrin’s room. Dallas hobbled beside us.

Jaxon said, “Damn, I’m glad this is over.”

“Me too,” I whispered. “Me too.”

As dread and hope mingled inside me, we entered Kyrin’s room. I glanced around, noticing that Kyrin was the only patient. He lay stomach down on the bed, his chin tilted toward the door, toward me, his eyes closed. Lilla stood vigil beside him, just as she’d done at Atlanna’s.

A tear—my own freaking tear—slipped down my cheek. I hadn’t cried in so long, the single drop stung my tear duct. God, it felt so good to see him alive. I’d thought all my tears dry, but now, seeing him, I was unable to stop the torrent of emotion that flooded me. Relief. So much relief. Happiness. So much happiness.

“There’s something you should know, Mia,” Jaxon said.

“Don’t,” Dallas said, cutting him off. “Not yet.”

Lilla said softly, “She has a right to know. He’s dying, Mia. Kyrin is dying.”

My joy instantly shriveled, but I gave no outward reaction to her words. I didn’t believe her. I wouldn’t believe her. This man, my man, was not going to die. I wouldn’t let him. Slowly I rose from the wheelchair and hobbled to the bed.

“Leave us,” I said to the men, not even glancing behind me.

Dallas patted my shoulder, then limped from the room with Jaxon at his side. They shut the door behind them. My tears trickled free at last.

“What are we going to do?” Lilla asked. “I cannot live in this world without him.”

“He’s not going to die,” I said through clenched teeth, gazing down at him. His skin was pallid. His cheeks were hollow, and there were blue shadows under his eyes.

“Look at him, Mia. How can he survive?” Lilla caressed his brow with loving fingers. “When we were children, it was he who cared for me. He who taught me how to use my powers. His love has always given me strength.”

“I once had the same type of relationship with my brother,” I said. “His name is Dare, and he loved me when no one else would. He played hide-and-seek, rescued me when my dad became abusive. When Dare died, I wanted to die with him. And now I discover he’s alive, but it’s as if I’m dead to him.”

My tears splashed onto Kyrin’s chin, then trickled onto his neck. I buried my face in my hands and wept for all I had lost. And all I might lose.

“Please don’t die, Kyrin. Don’t die.”

Two days dragged by, feeling more like two years. Every moment I grew stronger, Kyrin grew weaker. I’d been back to Atlanna’s house, looking for any lead as to where the halfling children were, but the home had been ransacked, everything taken. Whether it had been done by Atlanna’s underlings, by A.I.R., or by some other government agents, I didn’t yet know. But I planned to find out as soon as the chaos in my life settled.

Lilla and I continued to talk to each other. Ironically, I found comfort in sharing my feelings with her, feelings that I was only now beginning to understand. She shared her own feelings with me. We’d formed a tentative sort of friendship.

I couldn’t come to terms with Kyrin’s approaching death. I needed to fight for him, but I didn’t know how. Helplessness consumed me as I stared down at his thinning body and pallid skin.

“I love him,” I said to Lilla. Each of us occupied a seat beside his hospital bed. “He has brightened my life. I’m different when he’s around. With him I’m a…woman. Not a huntress.”

She sighed. “I wish there were something we could do. But the poison is slowly destroying him.”

I asked her the same question I’d asked her a thousand times before. “Is there no antidote?”

“No,” she answered raggedly, the same answer she’d given each time.

The next day, I hadn’t slept properly, and my brain felt like it had gone on sabbatical. I plopped myself next to Kyrin’s bed, meaning to steal a quick nap. If only he had normal human blood, I thought wearily. Then I straightened. Shit. Shit! Hope sparked inside me and erupted like wildfire. That was it. That was the answer.

As Atlanna had said, the poison was binding and destroying the healing properties of his blood. What if his blood was replaced with average human blood?

Risky, I thought. Extremely dangerous—but he would die if we didn’t try something.

I pitched my idea to the specialist in charge of Kyrin’s care, and at first he refused. With a little persuasion—in the form of bodily threats—he decided to test my theory. He used a blood sample from Kyrin and a human, and studied both under a microscope.

“My God,” he said incredulously, “this just might work.”

That was all the encouragement I needed. I couldn’t ask Dallas; he now had the same type of blood as Kyrin. So I called Jaxon from my cell phone, because he was the first that leaped into my head, and explained what I needed.

“Darling,” Jaxon said, “for you, I’ll do anything.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Since Jaxon and Kyrin were of different species, blood compatibility tests were unnecessary. We knew they wouldn’t match. The doctors drained all of Kyrin’s blood that they dared, then hooked him and Jaxon to a connecting tube. I watched the crimson blood flow from Jaxon to Kyrin. Would it work? My eyes widened as Kyrin’s color slowly returned. Then…his heart monitor stopped.

A voice I didn’t recognize sounded, “Code blue. Room four-one-nine.”

“He’s rejecting the blood,” someone said. More doctors and nurses rushed inside. One man pounded on Kyrin’s chest, while another wrapped his legs in a thermal blanket. No, I screamed silently. No!

“I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave,” a nurse said to me, trying to usher me to the waiting area.

“You can ask,” I growled. “But I’m staying.”

She left me alone after that, and I remained exactly where I was, watching Kyrin through horror-filled eyes. This was his last chance. His only chance. If he didn’t make it—

The monitor beeped. Then beeped again. And again. And again. Finally steadying out.

Someone laughed. “He’s going to be okay.”

I collapsed to my knees in a relieved heap. I covered my mouth with shaky hands, halting my cry of happiness. He was going to be okay. I knew it. Felt it. He was going to live.

When he regained consciousness the next day, relief and happiness consumed me.

Kyrin’s eyes were feverish, but he managed to clasp my hand. “You did well,” he said, as if we were still at Atlanna’s and not a single day had passed since. “You defeated her. Something no one else has ever done. I know she is your mother, but—”