They’d found Piotr at the helm of the boat, which Miles took back from him as soon as everyone was aboard. Miles steered into the next cove, then he and Carson launched the raft again to go pick up Eoin’s and Dylan’s Shifters who’d retreated to that beach.

Zander closed the door of Rae’s cabin, laid the Sword of the Guardian on the cabinet by the bunk where she lay, and knelt on the floor.

Rae’s wound was bad. Healing her was going to hurt like a bitch and knock him out for a long stretch, and Zander didn’t give a shit. He’d take the pain of death itself to keep Rae alive.

The boat listed as Miles took them into deep water. Zander’s worries about the feral Shifters, and the deep dread that had bitten into him when the human had called him Battle Beast—the Fae’s name for Shifters—receded and vanished.

Nothing was more important than saving Rae.

Zander peeled away her tattered clothes, carefully lifting them from the wound. She’d shredded much of her shirt and jeans by shifting in them and Zander was able to simply slip the fabric from around her. Rae’s eyes remained closed, her face wan, her chest moving with shallow breaths.

Outside, he heard Rae’s brothers in the hall, followed by the rumble of her father. “Open the door, Moncrieff,” Eoin commanded. The handle rattled.

Carson’s voice followed, firm and angry. “No. Let him do what he needs to.”

Mason’s Lupine voice joined his. “Zander’s a healer. He’s the only one with a hope of saving her. But you have to leave him alone. Trust me.”

Mason had seen what happened, knew what Zander had to do. Zander was silently grateful to his friends as the voices in the passage faded and were gone, a clank telling him they’d closed the outer door to the cabins.

Zander put his hands on Rae’s bare and bloody abdomen. He started to close his eyes but jerked them open again. He wanted to look upon her face. If this didn’t work, Zander didn’t want Rae slipping away while he wasn’t watching.

He knew how to put himself into a deep meditative state without closing his eyes. But when he tried to clear his mind, which was a riot of fear, grief, and loneliness, the quietude didn’t come.

I can’t lose her, I can’t, he thought desperately. He knew that the heat wrapping around his heart was the mate bond, the mystical joining of a Shifter and his mate. The fact that the woman lying before him was his true mate put a different spin on things. If Zander couldn’t heal her, he might as well die with her. A broken mate bond was devastating—many times the Shifter never recovered.

I’ve only just found her! he shouted silently to the Goddess. I haven’t had any time with her. No time . . .

Zander was supposed to relax and begin his chant to the Goddess, picturing something calm and beautiful, but the only images that came to his mind were of Rae. Rae climbing up into his boat for the first time, resentment in her gray eyes. Rae’s dark head bowed over his finishing line as she untangled it with deft fingers, the scorn in her sideways glance that had made Zander want to laugh.

Rae standing up in her underwear, screaming when Jake the Snake made his presence known in her bed. Her clumsy swings of the sword when Zander had started to train her, then her eyes going soft as he’d kissed her for the first time. Rae’s terror when she’d had to drive the sword through Ezra’s father’s heart, her silent plea for Zander to help her slide it into the right place.

Next, her laughter as she won the drinking game, Rae throwing up her hands and shouting her victory. Then her sudden rage and dismay when the man in the bar tried to shoot Zander, her courage in running to his rescue. Her courage again when they’d floated through the Graveyard, her fearlessness when she’d stood up to Carson and made him let Zander out of the cage.

She’d come to Zander at the resort cabin, uninhibited and unashamed, letting her mating frenzy match his. Rae had loved him wholeheartedly, rising to his thrusts, drowning in her joy and pulling him down to drown with her.

Zander couldn’t lose her. He’d die a thousand times in his heart every day if the Goddess took this little wolf away from him.

The chants, the prayers wouldn’t come. “I can’t,” Zander whispered, his hands curling on her belly. “Don’t leave me, Little Wolf. I love you too fucking much.”

Rae’s eyes opened a crack. “Love you too, Zander.”

It was a mumble, but her little smile, the warmth in her eyes, suddenly removed all doubt.

“Goddess, mother of us all, lady of the moon,” Zander began in a rapid voice, which grew louder as he went on. “I beseech thee to get your ass down here and fill me with your holy goodness and all that crap, and Let. Me. Heal. My. Mate!”

The words exploded into the room and the Sword of the Guardian tinged faintly in response. Zander trailed off to a growl, and all was silence.

Total silence—Zander didn’t hear the rumble of engines, the slap of water on the hull, the voices of a dozen alpha Shifters in a confined space with a problem on their hands. Nothing.

The air in the room took on a sudden freshness, erasing the diesel smell. A breeze brushed Zander’s cheek and he thought he heard the faint note of feminine laughter. Then a man’s voice, a low vibration of it. The little wolf cub is all growed up, isn’t she? Heal her and then heal my sword, bear. They’re both very special to me, but Rae is the most special of all. Take care of her, or you’ll hear it from me when you finally cross over.

Daragh, Zander realized. People from the Summerland were talking to him now. Shit, he really was insane.

“Rae,” he whispered. “I love you. Before the Goddess and in front of witnesses—okay, one witness who is in the Summerland—I claim you as mate.”

Rae’s eyelids flickered again, the gleam between them weak before it faded altogether.

Zander bent his head, sent every bit of concentration he possessed to his healing gift, and willed Rae to live.

* * *

Fire flared through Rae’s body, hotter and with a fury more painful than anything she’d felt in her life. She screamed but nothing came out of her mouth.

Her abdomen was searing, her blood hotter still. Rae jerked and found a weight holding her down. She had to get away, run, escape this agony.

Rae peeled open her eyes to find herself on a bunk in a cabin that was pitching and moving. She clutched the bunk, pain unceasing, and realized that the weight on her was Zander.