Chapter 1

The red on the pavement looked too bright to be real.

People crowded in from every direction, a dark, shifting mass. Noise rolled in waves. Some shouted. Some sobbed. My stomach churned, and a hard dizziness pressed behind my eyes.

In the middle of it all lay Josephine Elwood, the woman Maxwell Gallagher never got over.

She was sprawled in a pool of blood. One of her hands bent the wrong way, twisted at an angle that tightened my throat. Thick blood spread beneath her.

I looked down at myself. It should have been nothing. Scrapes, maybe a cut or two. The kind of injuries that stung and then healed.

But the blood did not stop. It poured from my wounds in steady streams, warm as it ran. My skin went cold anyway as the world tilted. Years of anemia caught up with me in one brutal second. My vision narrowed, then snapped to black.

I went under.

Voices drifted in and out, muffled and distant. I could not move. My eyelids felt as though weights had been sewn into them.

Somewhere close, I heard Maxwell.

Another voice followed, tight with tension. "Dr. Gallagher, the bus and the truck collided at the bridge entrance. These are the patients brought in for emergency treatment. The way this woman is bleeding is strange."

I tried to open my eyes. I pushed until my temples ached. Nothing happened.

Still, I felt him near me. The air shifted when he moved, a rush of motion charged with urgency.

"Push both of them into the OR," Maxwell said, crisp and controlled. "They are both Rh-negative."

Someone answered hesitantly, "Dr. Gallagher, the hospital does not have enough plasma for surgery. The blood bank can send more, but it will take time."

A pause followed. Papers rustled.

The same voice carefully continued, "Miss Josephine Elwood appears more seriously injured. But Ms. Cassandra Vesper's superficial wounds will not stop bleeding, and she has already lost consciousness."

I recognized that voice. It was Dr. Simon Quinn, his partner.

"You want us to treat Ms. Vesper first and wait for the plasma before surgery?" Simon asked.

Maxwell drew in a tight breath. I heard his teeth grind.

"Time does not wait," he said. "Delay could cause complications."

Then he spoke the words that cut straight through me. "Cass' injuries are lighter. Use her blood."

"But Dr. Gallagher—"

"No," Maxwell snapped. "There is no 'but.' I am the lead surgeon. And I am her husband."

He ignored what was happening to me. He did not hesitate. He made the decision as if it cost him nothing, and he began taking my blood.

I felt it like a tide pulling away. It was not pain, at least not at first, but something worse: a hollowing sensation. My body seemed to turn into an empty shell, while whatever made it "me" was dragged out, second by second.

My awareness thinned and drifted. The life in my body weakened, fading by degrees.

Maxwell led his team through Josephine's operation with single-minded focus.

"Josie, I will fix this. I will heal you," he murmured.

He sounded shaken. Fear and concentration tightened his face. Even in that distant, weightless state, I felt my chest splitting open.

I looked at myself on the other table, pale and still bleeding, slipping away. I tried to go back, forcing myself toward my body with everything I had, fighting as though sheer will alone could drive me back into my own skin. It failed. No matter how hard I struggled, my soul would not lock back into place.

The last threads of warmth in my body thinned, and sharp despair slid through me.

The next scheduled point for leaving this world had not arrived yet. If I died before then, my soul would be erased.

"Dr. Gallagher!" Simon shouted suddenly. "Ms. Vesper's blood pressure is dropping below normal!"

Maxwell paused for the briefest moment. He did not look at me. He did not turn his head. He did not change course.

Josephine's surgery had reached a critical point. If he stopped now, if he pulled away at the wrong second, the damage could be permanent. She could spend the rest of her life disabled.

That was what he chose to protect.

I closed my eyes and let the truth settle in. Maxwell had beaten me completely.

As the last trace of life in my body was about to vanish, the operating room door pushed open.