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  “Wait a minute, partner.” Holt's voice had a funny sound to it that made him look up at the sapphire eyes that were narrowed in concentration. There was a tiny tickle in the back of his brain, something like hope.

  “What? What are you thinking?” He grabbed Holt's shoulders and all but shook the taller man. “Tell me, Holt, what?”

  “It's a long shot, but … Remember how we healed her hand?”

  Blake's hopes deflated. “You think I didn't think of that? That was a little cut on her hand, Holt. This is life or death. Probably death.” His shoulders slumped.

  “But what you said, about feeling her inside, feeling her die. Blake, I do too. I feel her too, in here.” Holt pressed the back of his neck the same way the dark detective had a moment before. “I think it's the start of a bond, Blake. Not a strong one, not yet since we haven't actually … you know. But it's there, inside us, waiting to grow. If we can feel her the way we feel each other then maybe we can heal her. Come on…”

  Chapter 12

  “She's so cold,” Blakely said worriedly as he laid the precious bundle gently on the king-sized gelafoam bed back in their ship.

  “First thing to do is warm her up,” Holt said with more conviction than he felt. He wasn't sure if what they were about to try was going to work or not. He only knew they had to try. What he had told Blakely in the Medi-tech's station was no lie; he was beginning to feel for Sadie too. No, say what you mean, Holt, he told himself sternly. I'm beginning to love her. But Goddess, how can I help it?

  He kept re-living that horrific moment when Xavier had pushed him into the roiling blackness, feeling the cold-iron bands of the daemon's tentacles wrap around him and realizing, too late, that he had seriously underestimated its strength. He should have known better; Snuggly had tried to warn him. The daemon had been feeding off of Xavier's pain and shame and hatred for weeks, growing stronger and stronger from the intoxicating brew of extreme emotion. And Holt had simply walked into the room and put his back to it, ignoring it, as he always had in the past.

  The back room of The Slice had always been a convenient place to conduct private conversations without fear of being overheard because of the daemon's presence on one side of it. Holt and Blakely had used it before knowing that if you just ignored the malevolent hunger that pervaded the room's atmosphere and the itch of ravenous red eyes on the back of your neck you'd be fine. Only this time it had been different. It wasn't until the daemon wrapped him in its ice-cold coils immobilizing his arms before he could go for his blaster that Holt realized he had made a mistake. Probably the last mistake he would ever make.

  He knew that Blakely would feel his danger through the T-link and come for hi m but by the time he got to the back room of The Slice it would almost certainly be all over. He'd had time for a last thought, Sorry, partner, and then that double row of razor teeth descended over his throat and knew this was it…

  And then someone had been beside him in the darkness, shouting his name in a clear, high voice. Blake? But it couldn't be. He knew instinctively through their link that his partner was still only halfway there, fighting the crowds desperately to get to him. And then there was the odd sensation of another presence in the link, faint at first and then growing stronger; there was an indefinably feminine flavor to it … Sadie! He'd realized it about the same time he saw her honey-colored hair whip past his face as she plunged the pitifully inadequate shardi-knife into the daemon's bulk.

  The daemon had howled, a soul-ripping noise that Holt heard inside his head rather than through his ears, and turned, full of inhuman rage on Sadie. The moment it caught a taste of her fear it dropped hi m in favor of the sweeter meat. Holt had been surprised and dismayed but Sadie was scared to death and terror was a much tastier emotion than shock.

  She was terrified and yet she had come after him into the daemon's lair armed only with Blakely's old pocket knife and a determination to save him or die trying. No one else in the whole solar system, hell, the whole galaxy would have done that for him. No one but his partner, Blakely, the other half of his soul. And now Holt was wondering if he would have to count his soul in pieces of three instead of halves in the near future. If we can just pull her through this, he told himself grimly.

  “Help me undress her,” he directed Blakely. The dark, curly-haired detective nodded shortly and they began stripping the sweatpants and shirt off her slender form. Her skin, Holt thought, was creamy white—too white with the unnatural pallor caused by the daemon's venom coursing through her system. Somehow they had to neutralize the effects of the daemon's bite and bring her back.

  “Now what?” Blakely asked, a look of worry still filling his indigo eyes.

  “Now we get undressed too and lay on either side of her,” Holt directed, hoping he was doing the right thing.

  “Holt,” Blakely objected even as he stripped off his jacket and shirt and shoved down the ragged work pants. “We're not gonna … not gonna do her now, are we? I mean look at her, she's barely breathing.”

  “No, not unless there's no other way,” Holt said, pulling off his own clothing as fast as he could. Sadie's respiration was shallower by the minute as Blakely had pointed out; there was no time to lose. “First we'll warm her up, then we'll worry about what to do.” He got into bed with her, facing the beautiful, still face and gathered her into his arms, pressing his naked warmth against her cool flesh. Blakely climbed in on the other side and cuddled close to her back, throwing muscular arms around both Sadie and his partner.

  “Come back to us, Sadie,” Holt heard him whispering in a low, urgent voice. “Come back, baby, we need you…”

  “Sadie,” he whispered himself, looking down at her sweet face so still on the pillow before him. Despite the fact that her body was beginning to warm he could still feel her life-force ebbing away through the weak, barely-there bond they had formed with her. Would it be enough to bring her back? Only if they strengthened it somehow, Holt decided. This wasn't the time or the place to bond fully, to form a Life-bond. They would need Sadie's complete cooperation and willingness to be penetrated by them both for that to occur. But there were other ways to strengthen the fledgling bond. Gently, he bent his head and began to press his lips to her cheeks, laying delicate kisses over the golden fans of her eyelashes and the arch of her brows. “Kiss her … touc h her,” he whispered to his partner before going back to work, covering her beautiful face in light, butterfly kisses.

  Holt felt Blakely's hands moving over Sadie's sides and his own, caressing, touching, trying to convey a love so deep it couldn't be put into words. He waited anxiously for the T-link to open between them, to widen to a river of pleasure that would carry them all away but it didn't happen. Sadie was silent and cold in their arms. They were still losing her. No, not yet … you can't go yet. Not when Blakely and I have finally found you. Not when I'm just beginning to love you the way he does.

  “Sadie, please,” he begged softly. Then, acting on an impulse he couldn't explain, he dipped his head and took her soft, pliant mouth with his own. Covering the sweet pink lips, he forced his way inside, pressing his tongue in to caress hers, giving her the kiss of life the only way he knew how…

  Sadie took a soft, shuddering breath and he felt her stir in his arms. Encouraged, he kissed her again, feeling the flesh that had been as still and cold as marble begin to warm and awaken against him, between him and his partner. “Sadie … Sadie,” he murmured her name like a prayer between kisses. Her eyelids fluttered open at last and Holt looked

  into the honey-amber depths to see confusion and pain.

  “What…?” The question forming slowly and whisper soft on her lips.

  “Hush,” Holt said tenderly, tilting her chin to kiss the terrible necklace of bites the daemon had left on her pale throat. He could feel the T-link beginning to stir between them and he knew Blakely was feeling it too. Just a little more, he thought. He knew just what to do now.

  Rolling her unresisting body over so that she was l