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Ah, hell. She was melting him. She really was.

He cleared his throat. “Thanks. But it’s you I’m worried about. Mary, last night we were attacked in the park. You lost your purse, and I have to assume my enemies got it.”

Tension shot down her arm, traveled through her palm, and hit him in his chest. As her anxiety spiked, he wished there was some way of bearing the fear for her, taking it into himself.

She shook her head. “I don’t remember any attack.”

“I hid your memories.”

“What do you mean, ‘hid’?”

He reached into her mind and released the events of the night before.

Mary gasped and put her hands to her head, blinking in rapid succession. He knew he had to explain quickly. It wasn’t going to take her long to process everything and jump to the conclusion that he was a killer worth running from.

“Mary, I needed to get you home so I could protect you while I waited for word from my brothers.” Which still hadn’t come through, goddamn it. “Those men who attacked us, they aren’t human, and they’re very good at what they do.”

She settled onto the floor with no grace, as if her knees had given out. Her eyes were wide and sightless while she shook her head.

“You killed two of them,” she said in a dead voice. “You snapped the neck of one. And the other you…”

Rhage cursed. “I’m sorry that I got you tangled up in all this. I’m sorry that you’re in danger now. And I’m sorry I stripped your memories—”

She pegged him with hard eyes. “Don’t do that again.”

He wished he could make her that promise. “I won’t unless I have to in order to save you. You know a lot about me now, and that puts you at risk.”

“Have you taken any other memories from me?”

“We met at the training center. You came with John and Bella.”

“How long ago?”

“Couple days. I can give you those back, as well.”

“Wait a minute.” She frowned. “Why didn’t you just make me forget all about you before now? You know, take everything.”

As if she would have preferred that.

“I was going to. Last night. After dinner.”

She looked away. “And you didn’t because of what happened in the park?”

“And because…” God, just how far did he want to go with this? Did he really want her to know how much he was feeling her? No, he thought. She was looking totally shell-shocked. Now was hardly the time to come clean with the happy news that a male vampire had bonded with her. “Because it’s an invasion of your privacy.”

In the silence that followed, he could see her working over the events, the implications, the reality of the situation. And then her body let off the sweet scent of arousal. She was remembering how he’d kissed her.

Abruptly, she winced and frowned. And the fragrance was cut off.

“Ah, Mary, in the park, when I was keeping away from you while we—”

She held her hand up, stopping him. “All I want to talk about is what we do now.”

Her gray eyes met his and didn’t waver. She was, he realized, ready for anything.

“God…you’re amazing, Mary.”

Her brows lifted. “Why?”

“You’re handling all this shit really well. Especially the part about what I am.”

She tucked a piece of hair behind her ears and studied his face. “You know something? It’s not that big a surprise. Well, it is, but…I knew you were different from the moment I first saw you. I didn’t know you were a…Do you call yourselves vampires?”

He nodded.

“Vampire,” she said, as if trying the word out. “You haven’t hurt me or scared me. Well, not really. And…you know, I’ve been clinically dead at least twice. Once when I went into cardiac arrest while they were giving me a bone-marrow transplant. Once when I came down with pneumonia and my lungs filled up with fluid. I, ah, I’m not sure where I went or why I came back, but there was something on the other side. Not heaven with the clouds and the angels and all that jazz. Just a white light. I didn’t know what it was the first time. The second, I just went right into it. I don’t know why I came back—”

She flushed and stopped talking, as if embarrassed by what she’d revealed.

“You have been to the Fade,” he murmured, awed.

“The Fade?