With a scream of pain, Petra yanked her arm away from the male and stumbled back. Clutching her stinging wrist in her hand, she watched with wide, horror-filled eyes as Brodan rushed toward the male and plunged a long needle into his neck.

What-?

What the hell had just happened here?

Her gaze cut to the male's face, looking for answers, for some kind of reaction. But apart from his eyes, he was deadly silent and still now. Fire-ravaged face and dark eyes strained with pain, his gaze locked onto hers. Petra felt her breath catch in her throat at the confusion and feral hunger that registered there. But it was his lips, stained red with her blood, that truly stalled her breath, and had her backing up another foot.

Her blood!

With a quiet whimper, she pressed her palm harder against the wound on her wrist, making sure she was stopping the flow. What had he done? And why? Was he angry with her-shit, she'd saved his life!

But she would get no answer from him. Not today. On the raised pallet before her, the male's body went limp and his eyes fell closed.

"He's out." Brodan was at her side in seconds, immediately reaching for her wrist. "He bit you, broke the fucking skin." His gaze lifted to her face and he looked furious, looked near to shifting into his bear. "I should kill him right now."

Her wrist stinging, Petra shook her head. "No. No. He didn't know what he was doing." Why was she protecting him still, after what he'd just done?

"I don't give a shit, Pets. Whatever he is, he's rabid." He hesitated, exhaled heavily, seemed to be trying to get control over himself. "Thank the gods you won't suffer further for that bite. With all the testing I've done on this male, there's been no sign of disease, so at least we're covered there. Are you all right?"

"Yes," she said honestly, finding that the pain and stinging were easing. It was only the fear and confusion that remained. Well, that and this insane drive she had to keep the male alive, find a way to heal him.

"He has incredible strength," Brodan remarked, grabbing a chunk of cotton and wetting it with soap and warm water. "And a powerful bite. Perhaps even quicker and more powerful than our Shifter males."

"I wouldn't know," Petra said with a forced and nervous smile. "No Shifter has ever bitten me before."

"Not yet." Brodan cleaned the wound and bandaged it, then offered her a gentle smile. "Only mated couples bite one another, from the canine and the feline breeds. And we know he's not any Shifter breed."

She caught Brodan's gaze. "Please don't report him."

"Dammit, Pets." He sighed, searched her eyes, then shook his head. "Fine. Maybe you're right, maybe he didn't know what he was doing. The drugs, the pain."

Relief poured through her.

"But," he continued. "I can't have you near him again."

"You're giving me an order, Brodan?"

"No. I know better than to tell you what to do. What I'm giving you is a choice." His chin dropped and his voice grew deadly serious. "You want me to heal him, keep him hidden? I will. I'll do that because you asked me to. But only if you're somewhere else, somewhere this male can't get to you."

His words made absolute sense, and yet Petra couldn't stop the struggle within her. The male had just bitten her. He'd looked at her like fresh kill, and yet she didn't want to leave him. There was so much she wanted to know. What if she never saw him again? Who was he? Who was the female that had turned to dust in the sun?

And the most dire and secretive reason of all. He shared a trait with her, something she'd never encountered before in the rainforest.

A lack of heartbeat.

Realizing Brodan had the upper hand, and that if she put up any amount of fight she was jeopardizing her chance to find out the truth, she nodded. "Fine. I'm going home. I promised to have main meal with my family anyway."

"Tell them I send my good wishes."

She pointed at him. "You can tell them when you stop by to give me an update later. I won't come near him, but I want to know how he's doing."

Brodan's mouth formed a grim line. "Your keen interest in this male's recovery, though admirable, is starting to concern me."

Join the club, she thought. "I saved his life, Brodan."

"Are you sure that's all it is?"

Her skin prickled. Brodan, like everyone else in the Shifter community, knew nothing about her lack of heartbeat. She gave him a confused shrug. "What else could it be?"

His eyebrow lifted. "Attraction."

Her mock confusion died and she glared at him. "Get serious. He's unconscious and he bit me."

"He marked you."

She didn't like this conversation, didn't like where it was leading. "Okay, I'm going home now. And I think you should get out of here. Take a break, maybe get some sleep."

But Brodan's eyes continued to track her. "Maybe."

Petra glanced at the male one last time before she rushed out the door, ripping off her bandage as she headed down the hallway.

Marked her.

Brodan was acting like a jealous male instead of a concerned doctor. It was a bite, a moment of madness, nothing more, she assured herself as she brushed her thumb against the skin of her wrist. A soft gasp of shock escaped her as she felt only smooth, unharmed skin.

Her gaze dropped. The bite marks had already healed.

Within the rainforest community there were four factions, all existing together: the Avians, the Mountain Beasts, the Land Dwellers, and the Water Lords. Petra worked within all four and had grown quite close with certain families. It was a strange closeness, as each faction tended to work, hunt and breed with its own kind. Of course, there was a common bond being Shifters, and much was traded and shared between them, but the factions couldn't help but form their own tight communities.

Petra's family-her pride-were Land Dwellers. They lived in a sprawling one-story home with six bedrooms and a grass roof on a stretch of flat land near the river. It was the largest dwelling in the area, as her father and two brothers were the law enforcement.

"I was starting to get worried about you."

Petra's mother, Wen, stood in the doorway, her blond hair loose to her ankles, her blue eyes concerned, but her broad smile happy.

"Nothing to worry about, Mom," she said, passing through the door and into the hallway where she dropped her bag on a chair.

Wen followed her into the kitchen. "Okay, I'm sorry for pushing and prying, but you said you'd be here an hour ago." She rounded on Petra and gave her a wicked smile across the cutting table. "Please tell me it was a male."

Oh, it was a male all right.

There wasn't much she kept from her mother and closest friend. Besides the grand secret of her non-Shifter lineage, there were the small crushes she'd had and the danger she sometimes faced at work. But mostly, she liked to share her day-to-day life events with the female. This, however, seemed different. Problematic. Telling her mother, her family, about the male she'd rescued from the sun, the male who had no heartbeat like her, and the male who had bitten her . . . well, it seemed like a bad idea.

She gripped the table, still feeling shaken up inside. The last thing she wanted was for her family to know all that had gone down at the clinic and all she was feeling regarding the male's physicality and behavior. If they did, they'd make damn sure she didn't see him ever again.

"I was with Brodan," she said simply, truthfully.

Shit. Brodan . . . She was going to have to intercept him. If he came to the house tonight he might very well say something he shouldn't.

Her mother's smile brightened as it always did when Brodan was mentioned. "A good male, handsome too." She shrugged demurely. "Your father and brothers would approve. And I suppose I can forgive him for being a bear Shifter if you really care for him."

"Thanks, Mom." She leaned across the table and kissed the female's cheek. "That's really generous of you."

Wen laughed, showing off her brilliantly white teeth. "Help me set the table, Pets? Your father's off dealing with some infraction with the Avians, but your brothers will be home soon."

Soon? How about now? Petra grinned as she heard movement outside the house. "Did you have to invite the boys to lunch? They'll eat everything in sight. And their table manners. Disgusting. Like animals."

"No," her mother corrected. "Like lions, dear."

Two raucous roars followed those words, and Petra turned to the open doorway with a mock scowl. Lions crowded the wide archway. Two massive, beautiful creatures stood with manes as gold as the sky at day's end and eyes as black as the ashes in the fireplace to their right.

"Lions eat with far finer grace," Petra said, her eyes flashing, her mouth twitching. "I would say you two should've been pig Shifters."

Behind her, their mother's tinkling laughter filled the air, and Petra couldn't help but join in. She watched as the lions shifted back to males. Gorgeous blond, blue-eyed, tall as trees, smirking like cats, males. They grabbed jeans from the hooks on the wall and yanked them on.

Petra rushed at them and let each one lift her high in the air, then toss her to the other. It was their ritual, had been since they were young, as were all the good-natured insults.

But today, for some reason, Sasha appeared surly as he placed her back down on the ground. In fact, he growled at her, his eyes narrowing.

"What's with you?" Petra asked. "Did the lioness down on River Three dump you again? I swear I told you to stop using that hideous scent."

"It's not my scent that's the problem today," Sasha returned, his nostrils twitching in her direction. "What the hell is that?"

Petra went instantly on high alert. "What?"

"Yes, I scent it too," said Valentin, inspecting her with his gaze, his own nostrils flaring. "Are you bleeding?"

Oh, shit. The scent. Not her scent. Panic rushed her like a sudden wind. But instead of answering them, she backed up a step.

Gods, she was an idiot.

Sensing her reticence, knowing how she acted when holding onto a secret, her brothers pounced.

"Tell us now, Pets," Sasha said through gritted teeth, stalking toward her. "Has someone harmed you?"

"We will find out," added Valentin, beside him.

Nervous and worried about what it would mean if they managed to get this information for her, Petra had the urge to fight back, tell them to back off, to get out of her face-leave her the hell alone. After all, she'd managed to say those words at least once a day for the past twenty years.

"Hell, yes indeed," Sasha continued, his lion flickering in and out of his features. "And we will be obliged to rip out his heart and watch it cease beating."

But Petra didn't fight back, or couldn't. In fact, when she opened her mouth all that squeaked out were the two most ridiculous words on the planet.

"Too late."