Free Jace by Sarah McCarty

stole her voice. He took it as something else.
    “It’s going to be a long time until night, Miri.”
    “So?”
    “So you can spend it making me pay, or you can spend it sharing memories of your daughter with the one person in the world who’s as desperate to hear them as you are to share them.”
    Desperate? “Don’t you think that’s laying it on a bit thick?”
    “I’ve been looking for you for a year, Miri. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, and then I find you covered in blood and our daughter missing. If you think I’m anything close to stable, you’re in for a surprise.”
    “You left.”
    “No, I didn’t.”
    Anything that she would have said to that was lost as the burning agony spread through her. All she could do was dig her talons into his muscle. The coppery aroma of fresh blood scented the air. She had to be hurting him. He didn’t say a word, just held her closer as she rode it out.
    “Is it supposed to be like this?” she gasped.
    His gaze never wavered. “I don’t know. I’ve never converted a wolf before.”
    “Weres don’t convert.” The elders always hammered that fact to the young of the pack. It was an absolute.
    “They apparently do something. I just wish I could control it.”
    The scent of blood grew stronger. His, hers—there was no sorting it out anymore. The pain twisted deeper. “Oh, God, I want to scream.”
    Jace placed his palm over her mouth. “Scream away.”
    She shook her head, the darkness pressing in as his shadow fell over her. She couldn’t make out anything around her, but she knew he could see her and she wouldn’t scream in front of him. She bit his hand instead. His cheek dropped to hers, the skin sliding on her tears and his sweat. “Tell me about our baby, Miri.”
    She had to wait a minute to get her breath. And then she had to wait to get past the agony in her soul to bring the memory forward. “She was so little. I only had a few minutes to get her out.”
    His mind touched hers, asked permission, entered. “What did she look like?”
    “Like a…red, wrinkled version of us.”
    He kissed her cheek. “She damn well better look like you.”
    “She has black hair and my mouth, but…your eyes.”
    Even with him taking most of the pain from her, it was bad.
    He jerked. “There’s really something of me in her?”
    How could he doubt it? She felt his mental probe and was helpless to refuse the need within him to know something of his child. She mentally shared with him her first glimpse of her daughter’s face, her first impression of her personality, the one touch she’d allowed herself of that super-soft skin, the one kiss she’d permitted herself before she’d sent her away.
    As he pulled the image she gave him into that fierce well of emotion she could sense seething beyond the calm he gave her, she stroked his neck, sliding her fingers around the back to his nape, stroking the spot she knew soothed him. “Judging from the way she fussed when she wasn’t held the way she wanted, she got a lot of your personality.”
    He flinched away. His hand caught hers, but not before she felt the irregularity. A scar? “What happened to your neck?”
    “Nothing to worry about.”
    She yanked her hands free of his and scooted up. He blocked her with an arm across her shoulders. Her back scraped against something spongy. The scent of wet wood overcame the scent of blood and—she leaned closer—burned flesh. “Oh, my God!”
    He’d been burned. And only one thing burned a vampire like that. “You were in the sun.”
    “For a bit.”
    For a bit. As if that was nothing. Any sun was devastating to a vampire. How long had it taken him to find this spot “How badly are you burned?”
    “I’ll heal.”
    “That wasn’t what I asked.”
    “I know.” He folded her arms against his chest, holding them with one hand surrounding hers. She wiggled her thumb free, checking the back of his hand. The skin was rough there, too. She’d assumed