Ah, screw it.

Reaching up, I closed the miniscule distance between us, our lips meeting with a soft groan; his or mine, I had no idea. With one swift move, O’Shea picked me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist, jacket dropping to the floor. His arousal throbbed against me as his hands worked my shirt off. With a frustrated growl, he yanked my shirt over my head, eyes full of desire. For me, not for Milly. I was so focussed on the sensations, the desire, the play of his hands on my skin, I didn’t hear the knock on the door.

He pulled away from me and I whimpered. I actually f**king whimpered.

“Yeah?”

“We are ready for Rylee now. Bring her out. And don’t bother putting your clothes on, Rylee. We need you na**d. There is a robe on the back of the door.”

Great. My face heated and I stared at the ground in an attempt to get my body under control. Slow even breaths helped, but when O’Shea, Liam, began to strip me out of the rest of my clothes, my heart picked back up.

“Stop, I can do this myself,” I said, giving him a half-hearted push away. He grinned up at me and nipped the skin on my side. A shot of adrenaline zinged through me. “I mean it.” Gods, my voice was breathy, this was ridiculous.

Laughing softly, Liam stood, and even turned his back to me. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you in your bare skin before.”

“Not the point,” I said, stepping out of my jeans and stripping down to the buff. The only thing I left on was the fire opal, the stone nestled in the hollow of my throat. Liam shifted to let me reach past him for the robe, his eyes tracing my body.

“Damn. Timing sucks,” he said, his voice husky.

Laughing softly, I slipped on the robe and cinched it around my waist. “You’re telling me.”

15

“You must choose someone to go with you. Someone you can trust.”

Crap, I’d forgotten about that part. It was bad enough I needed the Shamans to help me, bad enough that Doran was sitting off to the side, smirking at me in my thin robe, his opal hanging from my neck.

“I’ll go with her,” Liam said, and before I could say yes or no, he shrugged out of his coat and pulled his shirt over his head.

Doran gave a low whistle, eyes dilating as he stared at Liam’s bare chest. “Lucky girl.”

“Shut up, Doran, you are here only because you must be,” Louisa said, her voice firm and calm, but her eyes flashed. With her powers back, she was no longer the meek woman who’d sat crumpled on her back porch. Now she was the Shaman I remembered: tall, imposing, and in control.

Doran smiled, a glint of fangs at the edge of his lips. “Remember you called me, Louisa.”

“Only because you must be here to help Rylee. No other reason.” She said, glaring at him.

Louisa directed the other Shamans to the four points of the compass around the lodge that, by the smoke billowing out of it, was heating up nicely. Her instructions were all in Navajo, so I turned to Doran. “What should I expect?”

A flash of fangs as he smiled at me did not soothe my worries. “Pain, a lot of pain.”

Well, that sounded absolutely fantastic.

The male Shaman continued to smile as he spoke. “After the venom is lanced, you will sleep for some time. We will leave you on your own until the fires die down.” He beckoned to Liam and handed him a cut glass flask.

“Here, you will need this to collect the venom.” Liam took the flask without a word.

Louisa came back to stand with Doran, singing a chant under her breath as she waved eagle feathers over my face. Smooth, like silk, they slid over my bare skin, tickling and tracing designs. Finishing her chant, Crystal took her place, and sang her chant over me, stroking me with feathers as well. Each of the Shamans did this until they were all back where they’d started, at the four points of the lodge.

Doran stood at the doorway, hands clasped behind his back. With a mocking bow, he gestured for me to go through the hide door. “When you’re ready.”

“Aren’t you going to sing for me?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.

His face was serious for the first time since I’d met him, and he gave me a slow answer. “When it’s time, I will sing.”

I took a deep breath; not afraid, but anxious. There was the possibility this wouldn’t work. Why would I think that? Because that’s life, and rarely do things go as planned.

With his hand held out to me, I knew what Doran wanted. The fire opal.

Reluctantly, I reached around to untie the knot in the leather cord, holding the stone for a moment in my hand before dropping it into the Shaman’s.

The cold hit me like a hammer blow, but before I could fall to the ground, Liam scooped me up and pushed through the doorway into the sweat lodge.

The heat, as intense as it was, as suffocating as it felt, barely touched the cold lancing through my body. Shivering violently, it was more like a seizure than being cold. My limbs flailed, body bucked as if electricity passed through it. Liam laid me down on a plush pile of robes, the scent of incense and sage floating up around me. A hint of wolf mingled with them and I stared at a grey pelt beneath my shaking fingers.

“Stay with me, Rylee,” Liam said, stretching out beside me, his presence calming me even as I shivered hard enough to make my eyes blur.

I couldn’t answer him, could only concentrate on the ice spreading through my limbs, making it hard to breathe as it crushed my chest in its vice-like grip. Outside the lodge the chanting grew, rising and falling, but ever growing to the point where I could no longer hear my teeth chattering, or my heart beating.

The women’s voices blended, harmonizing as they laid their spell on the venom, drawing it out of me, forcing the demon to relinquish its hold. Fuck, it hurt!

Liam’s hands stroked my face, my shoulders, my back as I writhed on the robes, the fire burning hot beside us as he added more fuel, but still, it wasn’t enough to chase back the frozen ice flow in my blood. The scent of fresh cut wood overpowered the sage and I breathed deep, groaning as the air escaped me. Never had I felt pain like this. It exploded through me, bombs set over nerve endings to incapacitate me. Through it all, Liam held me, speaking to me, lips moving, though I couldn’t hear him; the chanting all my ears could handle.

In a sudden arc of sound, the women’s voices were joined by a man’s deep baritone, rumbling through their higher notes. Doran was adding his power to Louisa and the other Shamans. Like taking a knife, his voice stabbed into my chest, dug around and drew out the venom. The combined flow of strength cut through the cold, and the venom fought back, using my body as a battlefield. Sharp icicles jabbed my insides, stabbing at my lungs, heart, stomach and kidneys. I bit down on my lower lip to stop the building screams, focusing on the chanting I could still hear. Rising in crescendo and depth, the Shamans continued to pull on the venom, but it was if they were tugging on a piece of me, pulling my body inside out.

The venom roared within me, cracking through my pores, freezing over my thighs as if they were chunks of wood. Doran’s voice changed in pitch and intensity, anger flowing through him into me; a pure fight between the Shaman and the demon. A new sound split the air, shocking me. My screams overpowered everything and my body arced into a perfect curve, heels and the top of my head the only things touching the robes I lay on, as Doran’s voice rippled through me, seeking the venom, forcing it out. Seconds drew into minutes as his voice pierced through the venom, unhooking it from my body and making it do his bidding. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have been impressed.

The cool edge of the flask was against my breastbone—Liam doing his job—the ice pouring out of me in a viscous black and blue stream. Throat raw, I whimpered as the last of it slipped out of my body, the mark of the demon still on my skin, though its venom was gone. The perfect black snowflake clung to me, a reminder of what had almost happened.

A soft breath of relief escaped my lips, my body collapsed into the robes, and I passed out.

Rylee slumped into the robes, her skin flushing pink almost as soon as he corked the cut glass flask. Putting the last of the wood on the fire, O’Shea lay down beside her, his hands tracing over her shoulders to her lower back, tugging her close.

His neck and shoulders were tense, and the chanting was still coiling around him, like a rope tightening. Ducking his head, he tucked his face into the hollow of Rylee’s throat, breathing in her scent. Notes of jasmine, sage, and wolf musk mingled on her skin, and he let out a low rumble in his chest. Unable to stop himself, he put his lips to her skin, flicking his tongue out along the beading sweat. Groaning, he closed his eyes and tightened his hold on her.

Images flashed through his mind, scenes he’d never seen, moments he’d never lived. Blood, snow, moon and stars, torn flesh and the roar of a beast hovered just under his skin. Swallowing the images down, he struggled to understand what was happening. His fingers traced the nearly invisible scars the Guardian had inflicted on his hip. Was that what had happened? Was he becoming a shifter? His eyes flashed open, staring at the top of the lodge.

No!

He was human, not some freak of nature. This was nothing more than a virus, some weird hallucination from the herbs that were in the sweat lodge. That made sense. Of course it did. His heart ceased its sudden frantic pounding, and again he closed his eyes, though the distant howl of the wild sung to him in his dreams.

Sleep eased from me, like a blanket being drawn off my na**d body. I was warm all over, my breath easy in my chest and the heavy weight of a man’s arm slung over my waist. I didn’t have a single ache forming from the expulsion of the venom. In fact, even the wounds Jensen gave me had healed. Now that was a sweet deal.

Rolling to my side, I stared down at Liam, his eyes still closed, his breathing even. He’d stayed with me the whole night. My heart jumped and I looked over my shoulder to see the coals were still hot, a flame flickering here and there.

The Shamans had said I needed to stay in until the fire went out. Well then, I’d just have to find some way to spend the time productively.

A wicked sense of naughtiness stole over me, and I scooted my body closer to Liam. Using just the tips of my fingers, I swirled a path down his chest to the tops of his thighs and back up again. He let out a moan that made my muscles clench in anticipation.