I was too late.
“I’ll never be able to heal again.” He stared down at his curled hands. “I’m useless. Worse than useless. You want to know what the worst part is?”
She took his hand, silently. His fingers were cold as ice in hers.
“The worst part,” he said, his voice low and savage with self-loathing, “is that losing my power isn’t the worst part. All the people I won’t be able to help anymore, and all I can think about is myself. Because it hurts, Ivy. The wound in my horn…I can’t let my energy out, but everyone else’s energies are coming in. I can’t block them out at all anymore.”
That’s why he’d flinched away from Dai, why he’d been so desperate to escape the crowd at the crime scene. “Oh God. Your sensitivity is worse?”
“A thousand times worse. Even Ash felt like a knife in my skull, and he’s been celibate for decades.” He turned his head, staring blindly through the wall. “And I’m picking up on energies from much further away. Even now, I can still feel the people in the houses nearby scratching at my mind…I feel like I’ve been flayed. Like my skin’s been turned inside out.”
“Then—then we’ll go somewhere else.” She had to find a way to ease his suffering, she had to. “Somewhere there aren’t any people. We’ll go right now.”
She tried to stand up, but he pulled her back down again. His expression was hollow and defeated, drained of all hope.
“What’s the use?” he said. “Even if we go to the ends of the earth, what’s the point? I can’t heal, I can’t be your mate…I can’t do anything for you. And this is never going to get any better.”
Her breath caught.
Because there was something that she could do for him.
“Hugh.” She took his bowed head in her hands, turning him to look at her. “It can get better.”
“My unicorn knows we can’t heal from this, Ivy. Don’t cling to false hope.“
“I’m not. There is a way to take away the pain, Hugh.” His eyes widened as she leaned in. “And you know what it is.”
Her lips met his.
She closed her eyes, tears welling up at the sweet heat of his touch. His mouth opened, and she deepened the kiss, fiercely, stifling his half-formed words.
What she needed to tell him now couldn’t be said with words. With her lips and tongue and hands, she needed to show him how much she loved him. How much his touch still healed her, despite the loss of his power. How much she needed him.
How much she needed him to accept this gift.
He made a low, despairing sound deep in his throat. His hands tangled in her hair as he kissed her back, his mouth hungry and desperate—but then he broke off, turning his head to one side.
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “Ivy, no. If I—if I do lose my unicorn, I won’t be immune to your venom anymore. I won’t be able to touch you.”
“We can’t touch now.” She straddled his lap. His muscled thighs tensed underneath her own, but he didn’t push her away. “This might not even work, if your dad is right. But in that case, at least we can be together, somewhere far away from anyone else.”
His hands clenched into fists as though he was having to prevent himself from reaching for her. “But if he isn’t right—”
“Don’t worry about it.” She pulled his shirt out from his dress trousers. “I have a plan.”
She did have a plan, albeit a desperate, last-ditch one. Hugh would never agree if he knew about it. To distract him from asking more questions, she ran her palms among the smooth, rippling lines of his abs, under his shirt. His muscles hardened under her hands, his eyes going wide and dark.
“You can’t go on like this, Hugh,” she said softly, bending down to him. “We can’t go on like this. Whatever happens, it has to be better than the way things are now.”
He captured her mouth again, tongue thrusting past her lips in desperate need. Now she was the one making noises, gasping as desire pulsed between her thighs.
Blindly, she jerked his shirt apart, craving the feel of his hot skin against her own. She dug her fingernails into the hard planes of his chest, claiming his body even as he claimed her mouth. More, she needed more. There were far too many clothes still between them.
As if reading her mind, he ripped her jacket from her shoulders. She sat up, fumbling to pull off her layered tops. She got briefly stuck in the layered garments, but Hugh freed her, impatiently tossing the torn clothing aside.
She threw back her head as he bit at her bared throat. He worked his way down, feverishly kissing her collarbone and the soft curve of her breast.
When his hot mouth closed over her nipple, through the thin cotton fabric of her bra, she lost all control. She clutched at the back of his neck, pushing her breast further into his hungry mouth. Helplessly, she ground herself against his rigid length as he sucked and licked.