Wyatt had to take control or he was going to lose her. “Look at me, Pepper. Only at me.” He poured command into his voice. “Eyes to me, now.” He waited until the strange, dark purple eyes jumped to his face. He could see the fear finally. It was there in her eyes. This wasn’t going to be a picnic. She’d been through it before and knew what was coming.

“I’ll get you through this. We’ll take care of the little one, that’s a promise. Nonny’s goin’ to find a bottle and give her somethin’ warm to help her sleep. And then she’ll be right in the other room rockin’ her.”

Pepper nodded. She didn’t try to talk. Her face was slowly becoming paralyzed. He could see the evidence. Her breathing was very shallow.

“Malichai will find the kit. The nasal spray is new, but it works. In the meantime, I’m goin’ to try somethin’ else.” He explained, keeping his voice low and gentle. “You’re goin’ to feel me inside you. Open your mind to mine as best you can.”

He laid his hand over the wound, not quite touching, but only a paper width from the bite marks. He had healed this way before, but wounds of the flesh, wounds that needed repairing from the inside out. He’d never tried to stop a fast-acting toxin from attacking the nervous system.

He knew he would leave a little part of himself behind in her – and take a part of her with him. Mind merging was intimate and far different from telepathy. One was a phone call. The other was…

He forced his mind to the problem at hand. Letting go was the most difficult part. He had things to hide. He wasn’t a perfect man. No one wanted anyone to see who or what they were deep inside. Still staring into her eyes, he poured himself into her mind. He felt her shock. Resistance. He pushed past the barriers and immersed himself in her.

There was terror. Sheer terror. But she had nerves of steel. She didn’t flinch or fight. She waited. His hands grew warm. Hot. His arms. His body. He felt the familiar fire, the one that had consumed him from the time he was a child when he’d needed to heal. It was a gift – a great gift.

He “saw” the venom moving like a slow lava through her body, extending toward her heart, but branching out to reach for her brain, her lungs, her throat. The venom was the enemy. To him, it appeared a white, thick stream. She stayed very still, not trying to hide from him, and he was aware she saw what he did. Just as he felt her terror, she felt his determination to save her, and that steadied her.

His hands followed the path of the venom, that stream he visualized in her body. Neurotoxins disrupted the function of the nervous system as well as the brain. He couldn’t allow that to happen. The venom could cause lack of muscle control and paralysis, as well as interrupting the signals sent between neurons and muscles.

He didn’t close his eyes as he normally would have done, instead he fell into hers. The strange midnight purple eyes with fantastic diamond starbursts that took him in, until he felt as if he might be free-falling through space.

He wasn’t alone. She was right there with him, and he knew he would never feel alone as long as she was close. They could ride through the stars, into the galaxies and visit the Milky Way, but they wouldn’t be alone ever again. They were tied together now, by the scorching heat he transferred to her body, by the way the merging of their minds made them one.

He had always felt different from those around him. He was a little wild and he knew it. He needed the bayou and the outlet of the waterways and swamps. Now, with his psychic enhancement and the cocktail of DNA he’d been given to make him into a supersoldier, he felt edgier than ever, more alone. Until this moment. Until this woman.

The heat he generated slowly turned the toxin from a white, almost crystalline stream to a glowing orange. The toxin began to separate into individual strands. Strands he could deal with. Strands he understood. He worked at incinerating each component, choosing the deadliest first. Neurotoxins were working to bind themselves at a rapid rate to the receptors in her muscles, preventing the muscles from contracting.

Even as he poured the healing energy against the neurotoxins, he became aware that Pepper’s blood contained molecules that worked to neutralize the cobra venom. While the receptors on her muscles appeared the same, they weren’t – at least not all of them, some of them contained an amino acid that differed from the rest. She was feeling the effects of the cobra bite, but the receptors the neurotoxins sought were covered with a bulky sugar molecule, preventing the neurotoxin from attaching itself.

“I’ve got the snakebite kit, Wyatt,” Malichai announced. “Do you want me to use the nasal spray on her?”

Wyatt heard the voice as if in the distance. He was completely caught up in the way her body was fighting off the effects of the bite. She’d been enhanced with a cocktail of DNA, and clearly someone had tried to use her body to develop an antidote for snake venom – and it wasn’t only cobra.

He pulled his mind from hers and immediately felt the loss. He had never felt so empty or alone. He sank back on his heels and lifted his hand for the spray. For some reason it was important to him that he care for Pepper himself. Malichai put the canister in his hand.

Malichai was staring at Pepper with the same stunned look on his face that his brother had. His breathing changed subtly and his eyes swept over her almost possessively. Wyatt stepped between them, trying not to snarl. This woman was going to get someone killed. Her scent was potent, yet it shouldn’t be. She should smell of sweat and blood and toxins, not jasmine and rain.