My surroundings are blurring past me faster than my eyes can follow, and my stomach churns. I pinch my eyes shut, just to make the world stop moving.

“Lower us to the ground!” I shout the command.

Selene? Memnon’s voice cuts in. Are you…in the sky?

He must’ve overheard some of my thoughts.

Not for much longer.

My magic seems to trip over my command, weakly pulling at the broom. In response, the broom pauses in midair, then it begins to simply fall, taking me along with it.

What does that mean? The alarm in his voice pairs well with the screaming in my head.

Blessedly and through no attempt on my part, the broom seems to remember it’s enchanted to fly. Abruptly, it stops falling and levels out.

I grit my teeth as the action yanks at my shoulder joints, but it’s my hands I’m worried about. My palms have slickened with sweat, and my grip is sliding off the wooden handle, and fuck, fuck, fuck⁠—

“Seal my hands to this broom!” I command in Sarmatian, channeling my power down my arms and into my palms.

Despite invoking the dead language and funneling my magic to my hands, nothing happens. My power doesn’t leave my flesh, and the incantation doesn’t take root.

The spell fails entirely.

I’m coming! Memnon says. Just hold on.

But holding on is the one thing I can no longer do.

My fingers slip off the sweat-slickened handle, and I fall.

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CHAPTER 33

Selene. Selene.

Selene!

Damn all the gods… Roxilana, answer me, my love!

I sigh out a breath, a pinch of pain blooming at the action, and I blink.

Memnon? I say, my brows coming together.

Thank the fucking stars. Are you hurt? I’m coming for you. Just keep speaking to me.

I blink again, staring at the cloudy night sky above me, which still appears to spin. Am I hurt? There’s something warm and wet at my back, and it’s hard to breathe…

I move a little, and holy mother goddess. Agony radiates from everywhere.

Yes, I gasp down our bond, choking back a sob that might further jostle my body. I’m hurt. I think…I think I fell.

It comes back to me then, the terrifying broom ride, the loss of magic, the fall.

I must’ve blacked out on impact, but now, unfortunately, I’m awake—as is my pain. White-hot sparks of it radiate from my legs. One leg in particular feels exposed, as though if the wind picked up, even its light caress would send shooting pains through me.

I have old memories of open wounds. I know the sensation of my insides kissing the air.

Assess yourself, est amage. Tell me what is injured.

I lift my head and glance down the line of my body. It takes several extra seconds to stop my surroundings from spinning. In the dim light, I can make out a white bone sticking out from the mess of my left leg. I bite back a whimper.

It’s hard to tell in the darkness, but my right leg looks twisted at all the wrong angles. And my back…

I pinch my eyes shut and swallow down my rising sickness.

Legs are broken. One is…it’s a compound fracture—I can see my bone.

Between the pain and the knowledge, I nearly retch, and the only thing that stops me is the sinking awareness that I cannot move. I’m already lying in a pool of what I’m pretty sure is my own blood. I don’t want to add vomit to the mix.

Should’ve just gone with Kane, I think despairingly.

I don’t know what the fuck the shifter has to do with any of this, Memnon says darkly, but I will make sure to skin the dog alive and mount his pelt to my wall at the first chance I get.

This wasn’t…his fault…

Unless he spiked my drink of course, but I find that incredibly unlikely. That’s the sort of shady, cowardly shit alphas fight against.

Never mind about Kane, Memnon commands. I’m going to press my magic into you. Take what you need, and heal yourself as best you can. I’m tracking you right now. I’ll be there soon.

How are you tracking me? I ask dazedly.

Heal those wounds, he says gently. Then I’ll tell you.

Focusing inward, I reach out and try to grab hold of Memnon’s magic. Maybe it’s the pain, or maybe it’s something else, but even grasping it proves to be more difficult than usual. And when I try to shape his power into a spell, it doesn’t respond to my will the way it has in the past.

My breath is coming in faster and faster pants, which is setting my chest ablaze. Broken rib? Punctured lung? Internal bleeding?

I drag my attention away from the pain and focus on my own coiled power. It’s there, living inside me, but now, it’s as though I can no longer channel it.

I cry out in frustration and pain.

It’s not working.

What’s not working? Memnon demands.

My magic—and yours. I can’t use either of them to heal myself.

You…can’t use it? He sounds as though the thought is inconceivable.

Two thousand years ago, when supernaturals were not nearly so unified and our magic not so specialized, something like this was largely inconceivable.

Someone…drugged me…I think.

His fury breaks through our connection, that someone would dare do this to me.

I swear to you, est amage, once you are safe, I will find them, and they will pay.

I think of Olga, who gave me the drink. Olga, who I hadn’t suspected a thing from. I pinch my eyes shut to keep from crying. I wasn’t supposed to trust my coven sisters, but I did.

I was a fool, I admit. I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.

Somewhere in the distance, a car drives by. I’m near a road. That’s…that’s good, I guess.

Trusting people doesn’t make you a fool. Just an optimist. It’s one of the things I love most fiercely about who you are in this life. The world hasn’t broken your faith yet.

Yet.

I think that’s the key word. Because every violent altercation whittles it away little by little.

That might be one of the kindest things you’ve ever said to me, I say.

Pain is dulling your memory, my love.

My heart pangs at the endearment. Don’t call me that.

Fine, he says. Then how about my fierce queen, my exquisite mate, mother of my future children.

I grimace. Definitely not that last one. Need to get my hands on some contraceptive potion to make it so.

You’re giving me so much ammunition to use against you the next time I’m teasing your pussy.

Memnon, I say, horrified. I know he’s saying this to distract me from the pain, but crap, it’s working a little too well. You wouldn’t dare use that against me.

I feel his amusement, though it’s tinged with worry. If only I were an honorable man…

Memnon!

In the distance, another engine rumbles on the road. It sounds like it’s moving slowly, and instead of zooming by the grassy hill I’m on, it slows, then idles.

I hear a door creak open, then the heavy tread of feet against the roadside gravel.

Is that you, Memnon?

I’m not there yet.

Fuck.

Someone is, I say.

And the odds of them being a good Samaritan are vanishingly small.

On the other end of the bond, I feel Memnon’s alarm. Then it’s gone, pulled back so quickly that the sorcerer must be deliberately shielding it from me.

Do you have any weapons on you? he asks. This is something he used to make sure Roxilana had on her.

No, I say softly.

He shields me from whatever reaction he has to that news.