Plus Doc Jane had announced that he’d saved her life. Which may or may not have been true—but given the drama, gratitude could make anyone feel something she wouldn’t have ordinarily.

Or maybe fan the flames of affection into a temporary emotion that was much stronger.

“Don’t have to say it back,” she murmured. “Needed you to know.”

“Selena, I—”

She held up her other hand, palm forward. “No need to go further.”

There was a resonant silence, but only in the room. In his chrome dome? His brain was live-wire spastic, all kinds of thoughts and images pelting his consciousness like his gray matter had gone monkey and was throwing poo all over its cage.

Refocusing on her, he told himself to get a grip and try to help her.

“Would you like to feed?” He held up his free hand, flashing his wrist. “Please?”

When she nodded it was a total relief, and he scored his flesh with his fangs before stretching up, bringing his vein to her mouth. At first she barely latched on, doing little but swallow. In time, though, she began to take some control, sucking at him, drawing what he had to give deep into her.

He got hard.

He couldn’t help it. But it wasn’t like he had any sexual drive. He was too distracted by worrying about her, wondering if, at any second, her body was going to give out again.

Stable, Doc Jane had told them. She was as stable as anyone could be a hundred and twenty minutes after total molecular collapse. But at least the second sets of X-rays had been nothing short of miraculous. Whereas in the first ones there had been all kinds of bone in what should have been the movable parts of her joints. Now, according to both Doc Jane and Manny, things were more “anatomically appropriate.”

No one knew where the bad stuff had gone. Or why it had left. Or when it would be back. What they did know for sure was that where there had once been no movement, now there was.

After quite a while, Selena’s lips grew lax and her eyelids sank low. Retracting his arm, he licked the puncture wounds closed and then rested his forearm on the mattress and put his chin on it.

“How did you find me?” she asked in a sleepy voice. “I fell when I was up in the Sanctuary. . . .”

“Someone came and got me.”

“Who . . . ?”

The Scribe Virgin, he thought to himself as she let out a soft snore.

“Selena?”

“Yes?” She tried to rouse herself, lifting her head and forcing her eyes wide-open. “Yes . . . ?”

“I want you to know something.”

“Please.”

“No matter what happens, I’m not going to leave you. If you want me around, no matter . . . where this goes, I’m going to be right by your side. If you want me to be, that is.”

Her stare roamed around his face. “You don’t know what you’re saying—”

“The hell I don’t.”

“I’m going to die.”

“So am I. But I don’t know when and neither do you.”

Her luminous eyes glowed with a complicated emotion. “Trez. I’ve watched my sisters go through this. I know what—”

“You don’t know shit. With all due respect.”

He got up and went to the base of the bed. Pulling the sheet and blankets out from between the mattresses, he looked under it at her feet.

“What are you doing?”

With a gentle hand, he tilted one of her ankles up so that he could look at the sole. “Nope.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t see any expiration date stamped on here.” He did the same with her other foot. “Not here, either.”

He put the covers back down. Retucked them. Stared up her body at her—and tried to escape the fact that the very flesh he coveted could potentially be what separated them forever.

Except then he remembered the news iAm had given him out in the hall.

Shit, it wasn’t like he didn’t have his own set of roadblocks.

“I’m not leaving you,” he vowed.

“Didn’t want to tell you about all this.” Her eyes watered up, the tears turning those blue irises into gemstones. “Didn’t want you to know and feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t feel sorry for you.”

“Don’t do this to yourself, Trez. Just . . . just know that I love you and let me go.”

He came back up to her. “Can I have your hand?”

When she turned stiffly on the bed and extended her arm, he took her palm and put it between his legs, on the rock-hard ridge that was punching out at his fly. The contact made him hiss, his fangs descending in a rush, his hips rolling.

“This feel like pity to you?” he gritted out.

Fuck, he had to step back. He’d pulled this crude move only to prove a point, but instead, he found himself ready to come, his body all zero-to-sixty in a nano.

“Trez . . .”

“I’m not saying we have to get sexual. Not at all. But I am not here because I feel sorry for you, okay?”

“I can’t ask you to stay.”

“You aren’t. I get to pick this. I get to pick . . . you.”

As he spoke the words, he realized, holy shit, that was true. For once in his life, he felt like he was choosing something—and in a weird way, that was good. Even though this was sad, sad stuff, it felt liberating to be all, This is mine.

This . . . situation . . . was something he was going to take ownership over for however long it lasted, wherever it took them both.

Assuming Selena wanted him here.

In the silence that followed, he looked around at the bare walls and knew he had to get her out of the hospital room. Sure, the place was close to the medical staff if she got into trouble, but it was hell on the mood, a depressing stretch of You Are Sick.

Trez refocused on her again. “Anything you need, I’m here for you, okay? If you want me.”

After a moment, she croaked out, “I want you.”

“Okay, then.” He exhaled in a rush, and then held up his forefinger. “One thing. No expiration date, deal? We go into this like you’re going to live forever.”

Her expression shifted into disbelief, but he just shook his head. “Nope. That’s my one rule.”

He wasn’t stupid. He’d listened to what those other Chosen had said, looked at the X-rays, watched over her contoured body. He had an internal conviction that he was going to lose her, and most likely sooner rather than later. But the gift that he could give her? The most important thing—hell, maybe the only thing—he could bring to this?

Hope.

And he didn’t have to believe she was going to be cured to have it, to share it, or to live it.

Be present. Love her until the end. Never her leave her side until the last breath.

That was how he was going to honor her with his heart and his soul, even though he wasn’t worthy.

“No expiration date,” he said. “We live each night as if we have a thousand of them ahead.”

Selena blinked away another round of tears. On so many levels, she couldn’t believe Trez was standing over her hospital bed, staring into her soul with a kind of purpose that suggested his will alone could keep her alive and healthy for as long as he wanted.

“I don’t think we have a thousand nights, Trez,” she said.

“Do you know that? For certain?”

“No, but—”

“Then why waste a moment of the time we do have thinking like that? What’s it going to get us? Seriously, how is it going to help—”

“Will you get in bed with me?”

He cleared his throat. “You sure about that?”

“Yes. Please.”

She admired how smoothly he moved, getting up on the high mattress, shifting around, helping her make room for him. And as if he read her mind, he arranged her in his arms so that she was on her side and her head was on his chest.

Ragged. Sigh.

From the both of them.

“I’m relieved,” she heard herself say. “I wanted you to know, but . . .”

“Shh. You need to sleep.”

“Yes.”

Closing her eyes, she could sense him on a different dimension now, his blood working its way into and through her system, strengthening her after the episode. In her mind, she calculated exactly when the last freeze had occurred. Thirteen nights. The one before that? Sixteen.