He strode out of the elevator on the ground floor, and beckoned his teammate over with a curt motion of his hand. He filled Rafe in on the new development, then the pair of warriors headed out, ready to deal a lot of pain and death to Bowman and his rebel followers.
And all the while, Nathan's mouth still burned from Jordana Gates's unexpected, disturbingly unforgettable kiss.
The darkness was complete, inky blackness.
The void around her cold, silent, as Kellan drew away from both her and the blindness that enveloped her. She didn't know what he saw in her eyes now, only knew that the hideousness of her unseeing gaze had pulled him away on a violent curse.
"Kellan, I didn't want you to know," she murmured, anguished by his withdrawal. "I didn't want you to see me like this - "
"Can you see nothing at all?" His voice was wooden, edged with a fury she knew would be written across his handsome face, could her eyes find him in the dark. When she slowly shook her head, his breath left him on a groan.
Behind her, although Kellan hadn't moved, she heard the lock on the door slam home like a gunshot. She jumped, her other senses going hyperalert in the absence of her sight.
When Kellan spoke again, his voice was airless, a tightly controlled whisper. "Damn you, Mira. Damn us both, for how badly we've fucked everything up."
"Kellan, I'm sorry - "
"Don't." He cut her off shortly, but then his hands were on her upper arms, and his grip trembled, his fingers holding her tenderly. Achingly so. "Jesus, don't apologize for anything now. Not to me. I don't deserve it. Look what I've done to you."
She wanted so badly to see his face. She needed to know if the emotion she heard in his voice right now was sadness for her or the pity it sounded like. She swallowed, so afraid she was losing him - not because of the fate that threatened to steal him away from her, but because she was no longer whole in his eyes. She was broken and had no one but herself to blame.
"I can't let you live like this," he murmured, breaking her heart even further. "I need to fix it, if I can. You need blood, Mira. The bond might be able to repair this."
How long had she waited to hear him say his blood was hers to take? How many years had she pictured them together as a blood-bonded, mated pair? Now she felt his offer like a slap to her face. It stung. It hurt her so deeply, she rocked back, stricken and numbed by the blow.
"I don't want you feeling sorry for me," she managed to croak. "Don't you dare give me your charity, Kellan."
"Charity?" he murmured thickly. One of his hands came up to caress her cheek. "God, no. What I'm feeling isn't pity. It's regret. And fear. And love, Mira. So much love for you." He blew out a raspy exhalation. "I never imagined things could go so wrong for us. There were so many times I wanted to ask you to accept me as your mate. I should have, but I was terrified of the pain I would feel if I ever lost you."
"You were the one who left," she reminded him. "I stayed. I would've stayed with you, even knowing how it might all end."
"I know," he replied, remorse thick in his deep voice. "And I owed you that choice. I see that now." He scoffed quietly. "I see a lot of things more clearly now, when it's too late to turn any of it back. But maybe not this," he said, his thumb brushing gently across her eyelid as he continued to caress her face. "I might be able to fix this for you. And I'm asking you to give me that chance, Mira."
Tender, beautiful words. She could feel his affection in the quiet hitch of his voice and in the careful way he stroked her skin. He cared. He loved her, she had no doubt now.
But he wasn't giving himself as her mate. He was giving her a chance to heal through his blood bond. He wanted her whole again, but would he be offering this gift if she were looking into his eyes in this moment, seeing him as the man she loved, the male her heart was bound to, with or without his blood to seal it?
Her own blood must have betrayed her to him, because no sooner had she thought it, Kellan's touch slid down along her chin, lifting her sightless gaze up to meet his eyes. "When I imagined sharing this part of me with you, Mira, it was a sacred thing. A thing done in passion, in pleasure, with a promise of eternity ahead of us. It was never like this," he said, his voice rough, so gentle. "It was never supposed to be done with you suffering and afraid and me helpless, desperate, ultimately damned to lose you. And never less suited to be the one you bound yourself to than I am in this moment."
"There's no one else I want, Kellan. There never has been." She reached out to him but struggled to find him, touching only air and darkness. Frustration boiled up in the back of her throat, erupting in a small, broken cry.
Then Kellan's hand found hers, took it into his strong grasp. "There," he said, pressing a kiss to the center of her palm. "I've got you, Mouse."
"Yes, you do," she replied, her love for him swelling inside her until she felt her heart might burst from it. "You won't let go, will you, Kellan? That's what you promised me. You won't let go."
His curse was a whispered oath. Then his mouth was on hers, claiming her in a possessive yet achingly sweet kiss. When he broke the contact a long moment later, she felt him moving his arm. She heard a soft, wet sound, smelled the spicy-dark scent of his blood.
"Open your mouth for me, baby," he whispered, placing his wrist against her parted lips.
Mira took him into her, the first sip of his blood like a lick of fire on her tongue. She swallowed, then drew another sip into her mouth. And another.
She hadn't been prepared.
How could she have ever been prepared to know the roar of heat and power that was Kellan's bond?
Mira drank him down in fevered, greedy gulps. As their blood bond completed, she could only hold on to him and give herself over to the rush of light and strength and something even more intense - something that defied all description - pouring into her every muscle, bone, and cell.
He was hers.