He leaned back to give me an unimpeded view of his gorgeous, sculpted chest, marred only by the four long claw-mark scars that had brought him into our world, and into my life. Those old scars had an oddly fresh look now, smeared as they were by my blood. “If I survived this, you’ll survive that.”

I blushed and glanced away, ashamed of whining over a relatively minor injury. Hell, Jace had been shot three months earlier and had recovered just fine.

“You’re right. I’m a wimp.”

“Nah. You looked pretty bad before the doc got you cleaned up. I saw all that blood, and at first I thought the bastard nearly ripped you in half.”

“I don’t think he meant to hurt me.”

Marc’s gaze flicked to my stomach, then back to my face. “What he meant to do doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t you think it should?” But I wasn’t thinking about the stray. I was thinking about myself, and the fact that I hadn’t meant to infect Andrew. And the possibility that Marc was right—whether or not I meant to wouldn’t matter in the end.

But instead of answering, he dropped his gaze to my bare stomach, and a grin tugged at one side of his mouth as I heard his pulse jump. “You know, you’re lucky he didn’t rip that thing right out.” He nodded at my navel ring, and I flushed to realize he was really looking at it for the first time.

Ethan had taken me to get it done less than a month earlier, and had spent the entire time flirting with the multipierced girl behind the glass counter, in spite of the fact that he had a long-term girlfriend, for the first time ever. Well, if three months could be considered long-term…

My brother had pronounced my new—and only—piercing “awesome.” But I hadn’t done it for him. I’d done it on a whim, when the display in the shop window reminded me that Marc had once said he found belly-button rings sexy.

I’d worn skimpy tops for a week, trying to get a response out of him, but he’d never even looked at my pierced navel. At least not that I’d seen. Evidently putting a single hole through my stomach wasn’t enough to get his attention.

Though four of them did the job nicely…

“Do you like it?” I asked, fully aware that my bloody gashes marred the view.

“Um, yeah. I do.” His voice went hoarse with yearning, and I smiled.

My eyes roamed Marc’s chest, taking liberties because I hadn’t been invited to look in quite a while. He was beautiful; I’d always thought so. Even when we were both children. Even now that he was covered in my blood.