Just two days after Greta proposed her theories about jolting August out of her coma with a mating bite, Graeme was standing on his deck, staring vacantly out into the woods. When he returned to August’s side, he noticed her skin was flushed and beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead. Her expression looked pained, and she was whimpering. He took her temperature. It was 107.

After a quick phone call to his sister, Greta appeared.

She took note of August’s dangerously high heart rate and checked her temperature again. It was now 107.5. Graeme started pacing waiting for Greta’s direction. He could feel the heat radiating off of August from where he was, and she was breathing hard.

“Okay… big brother?” Greta grabbed both of his arms and shook him lightly, glaring at him, “You have to listen to me. I’m going to unhook her from everything, and you’re going to do this now! You have to trust me. She’s getting weaker. She needs her mate!” She began disconnecting all the lines and wires.

“Wait, wait, wait…” Graeme objected. “Why are you unhooking everything?”

“Well it’s a good thing you decided to add that crazy elevated pool, because her temperature is still rising. She needs it down now.”

Suddenly August started convulsing, and Graeme’s face blanched. “What’s happening?!”

“She’s having a seizure,” Greta swiftly turned August onto her side.

Graeme rushed over, “What can I do? Tell me how to help.”

“Mark her. This is the worst episode yet. I don’t know how much more she can take of this. Her heart rate and fever are dangerously high.”

“But wait, what if…”

“No more waiting. We keep waiting and she dies,” She was calm but firm and fixed Graeme with a glare.

Panic started rising in Graeme’s chest. “What if I hurt her? What if it makes this worse?”

“She’s having a febrile seizure, Graeme! At this point, it’s worth the risk. She needs you,” she said sternly. “As soon as this seizure is over, get her quickly to the pool.”

Graeme gulped. There was no more arguing with his sister. Once the convulsions stopped, he scooped August up and rushed out onto the deck, wading into the cold pool water with her in his arms. The lacy green of the forest dwarfed them and reflected off the pool’s surface as Graeme lowered her into the water. Her hair fanned out around her flushed face with an expression that seemed to indicate she was in pain. She looked like a child having a bad dream.

“It’s time,” Greta nodded to him from the doorway. “Before this episode is over.”

He glanced back at Greta and then down again at August who had started shivering in his arms. Seeing her so vulnerable and in danger of dying in his arms once again was undoing him. He wanted to switch places with her—or enter her dream and kill the creatures that hunted her there. But he couldn’t do either of those things. It was time to try the last thing he was capable of.

Graeme had tried to touch her as little as possible these last three weeks, because he didn’t know what she would see or feel if he did. But now the thought of losing her overwhelmed him and he caressed her face. Her skin was soft under his hands, which were rough from a life in the wilderness.

He still couldn’t believe she was here, this girl who had dropped like an anchor into the forest that day. Now he was hopelessly tied to her. He could feel the pull she had on him just by being near her, but touching her face now closed the distance that had loomed between them, and her skin ignited something under his fingertips that spiked like electricity up his arm. He wanted to protect her now like he hadn’t been able to with Marius.

With these thoughts swelling inside him, he bowed to their weight with his forehead touching hers. “I promise to be here for you always, August. Please forgive me,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “You are mine and I am yours, my love,” he whispered, tracing her bottom lip with his thumb before kissing her lightly there.

Graeme raised her slightly out of the water and kissed her delicately on the curve of neck, closing his eyes to pause and breathe in her scent, which was now scattering in ripples throughout the pool and on the breeze. He imagined this signature of her being carried on the air, twirling between the trees like white fluffy seed pods in the spring and falling like morning dew on the leaves. Regardless of what happened after this moment, August would live on in the forest forever.

Graeme let out the breath he had been holding and suddenly recalled when he and August had locked eyes before Marius bit her arm—how her eyes burned with a fire and a strength he hadn’t anticipated. They had embraced wordlessly in that moment and everything else, all the horror, fell away.

With this memory flashing in his mind, he pressed his lips lightly against her neck. She was hot against his mouth, and he started trembling involuntarily as he parted his lips with his teeth on her skin.

You are mine, and I am yours, he promised her silently this time. Before sinking his teeth in to secure their bond, he was startled by a hand on his arm. A small gasp escaped his lips as he drew back and found August’s eyes squinting open against the light.

“G-Graeme?” she whispered hoarsely, squeezing her eyes shut again and wetting her lips. He had forgotten her voice after all this time, having only heard her speak briefly before. His name on her lips was everything.

“August,” he breathed a sigh of relief.

Greta jumped into the pool by their side, eyes wide now in surprise. She put a hand on her brother’s shoulder and leaned over to touch August’s forehead, noticing that her brother hadn’t actually marked the girl after all.

August opened her eyes again, looking up at both of them. There was gold sparkling in her irises like a crown of stardust dancing around her pupils. It was mesmerizing. When August locked eyes with Graeme, the effect intensified. He smiled radiantly and caressed her cheek.

“Welcome back,” he said softly.

She looked up at him in awe. His dark, bristly face was beaming down at her, emotion overflowing his eyes, and a translucent mist was orbiting him and radiating off his skin. She could feel its prickly coolness penetrating her and dancing in her chest, in her stomach, in her bones. He was penetrating every cell, jolting her to life. ‘How is he doing this?’ she wondered. Leaves were dancing above him as witnesses, encircling them both.

“You’re real?” she whispered the question to hear him respond with a light laugh, and she closed her eyes that were sensitive to the light.

“I’m going to get her a towel,” Greta said before disappearing.

Graeme let out another heavy sigh of relief without taking his eyes off of her as if she might fall unconscious again. He was caressing her face and smoothing her hair like a parent with a newborn while wading to the edge of the pool where he hoisted himself out of the water with her in his arms.

August was curled in his lap shivering when Greta returned with the towel. Graeme draped it over her back and pulled her close to his chest, resting his chin on her head and rubbing her with the towel for warmth.. She let herself relax into him quietly, gently clutching his wet shirt where she somehow felt safe.