Meanwhile, the stranger below me is climbing up the mountainous incline, wild grass crunching beneath their shoes.

Call on your magic again, Memnon orders me, sounding like the warlord he once was. While there’s no compulsion in his voice, I’m bending to the order without question.

I reach for my power, even as those footsteps draw near. It’s there, swirling beneath my skin, but I am utterly disconnected from it. And despite magic being semi-sentient, it’s showed no interest in healing me all on its own.

It’s still not working, I say to Memnon. I try to suppress my growing panic.

Hold fast, Empress. I’m coming.

There is nothing I can do but hold fast. I have no usable magic, no weapon, and no mobility.

Wait—

I wiggle my fingers and test my arms. They both feel pretty banged up, but my right arm can move okay if I hold the rest of my body very still.

Cautiously, I grope around for anything I might use to defend myself with. Even the slight movements of my arm tug at my side, and I have to bite my lower lip to smother a cry. But my fingers brush a rock partially embedded in the soil. I dig my nails into the earth to work it free.

The action causes the grass to rustle, and I have no magic to mask the sound. I almost give up then in favor of staying quiet and still.

If they’ve come this far for you, they’re going to find you, I remind myself.

So I yank on the rock until I pry it free. It’s no bigger than my palm, but it’s rough and has a sharp side to it.

Good enough.

Now the only thing to do is lie in wait.

Those ominous footsteps make their way over to where I lie on the coastal hillside, drawn to me like I’m a beacon. When I first catch sight of the figure, all I can make out is a dark, hooded shape.

It steps in closer, and I get a glimpse of a humanoid face and a pair of unseeing eyes.

I jolt in surprise.

I thought I had annihilated you back in the Everwoods.

The clay creature, the one I shattered apart with a spell only a few weeks ago, is whole once more, and now it’s returned for me.

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CHAPTER 34

For several seconds, the creature stares down at me, and I’m curious what it’s thinking—if it even can think. That head of its was hollow when I crushed it beneath my foot.

Maybe it’ll do the same thing to me; stomp my face into oblivion now that our roles are reversed.

Eventually, it bends down, its hands reaching for my body.

I wait until it’s close enough, and then I lunge forward, swinging the stone in my hand, a pained cry ripping from my throat as the action makes my injuries scream. As soon as the stone connects with the monster’s cheek, I hear the sound of pottery breaking.

The creature rears back a little, but that’s the extent of its reaction. Then it’s reaching for me again.

My torso is on fire, but I pull my arm back and swing a second time, aiming for the being’s wrist.

The appendage snaps off a split second before the creature’s other arm comes around me and drags up.

Seven hells, the pain!

It’s everywhere—my ribs, my legs, my back and neck. Clouding my vision and ripping me open anew.

The monster grips me the best it can, crushing my torso to its and heightening my agony. Then it begins to walk.

A ragged scream bubbles up as my broken legs drag against the ground, the agony overwhelming. The darkness at the edges of my vision now swarms in and blessedly, I black out.

Selene! Memnon bellows down our bond. Selene! Answer me, please, my queen! Thick, coagulated fear presses in with his words.

I barely have time to register it when the agony returns.

I can feel your pain! Memnon continues. What’s happening?

Abducted…there’s a creature…

Bile rises faster than I can stop it, and I just have time to turn my head away from the creature dragging me to retch.

The monster doesn’t slow, and my broken, bloody legs trail over the hillside, the wild grass we pass sticking to my open wounds, the sensation making me vomit again.

Hold on, my fierce queen.

I don’t think I get a fucking choice about that. I have to endure this, whether I like it or not.

I think I’m sobbing, writhing. I feel like the pain is consuming me. And maybe it is because the night darkens once more…and then it swallows me up entirely.

PAIN!

I wake to it. I am engulfed in it. Perhaps I’m dead. Perhaps I’ve gone to hell and I’m bathing in its fiery halls.

I force my heavy eyelids to open. I’m swaying, spinning, slipping as the world moves.

Am I still flying?

But no, there’s a drop ceiling above me and something cupping my back and thighs.

A chair, I realize.

I try to move my arms, but they’re restrained at my back, the angle of it pinching my shoulder blades.

My mangled legs droop from the chair, and the position I’m now in places so much pressure on them, the pain is relentless.

Think I’m going to retch again…Even my thoughts come sluggishly.

Selene!

My eyes flutter closed to stop the room from spinning, and I swallow down my rising sickness.

Memnon? I say dazedly.

I’m right here, he says. Stay with me.

“Look who I’ve found,” says a feminine voice in front of me, drawing my attention away from my mate. “A broken little witch lost in the woods.”

That voice sounds vaguely familiar.

I’m about to open my eyes when something presses into my wounded leg.

I scream, then I do lean over and vomit as the fiery agony consumes me.

Down my bond I can hear Memnon bellowing my name.

“Look at me,” the voice commands, and there’s magic woven into the order.

My face is forced back to the woman speaking. She has rich brown hair and soft, Bambi eyes that give her face an air of innocence. The woman is lovely—lovely and familiar, and maybe I could place her if my body weren’t bathed in agony and whatever drug I’ve been given.

“Do you remember me?” she asks, echoing my thoughts. “Because I remember you.”

My leg makes a wet sucking noise as she removes her finger, the digit now bloody.

I shriek from both pain and horror.

SELENE! Memnon’s voice booms in my head. Whatever is happening, stay with me, he pleads.

Can’t…talk…

“Towel,” she orders, reaching out a hand.

From the shadows, the humanoid creature steps forward, its face and hands whole once more. In one of those hands, it holds a white cloth, which it gives to the woman.

She takes it without looking at the monster, meticulously wiping the blood from her finger before tossing it aside.

It’s all so practiced. The readied towel, the chair, the bindings, her steady, sure, familiar presence.

I notice now what I didn’t before: she commands the creature, just as the high priestess commanded the creature the night of the spell circle. That’s who this is. The high priestess.

My eyes snap back to the woman too fast, and the room spins.

“Did you think you’d never see me again?” she asks.

I try to sharpen my mind, because this is important, but the pain and the blood loss and whatever I’ve been drugged with disorient everything.

This must be what the high priestess gave the shifter girl, Cara, before she tried to bond her. It must affect our magic.

“Ever since that night, I’ve been looking for you,” she says.

She wants you, one of the witches who attacked Nero had warned me.

Who? I’d asked.

Lia.

I stare at the high priestess, putting a name to her face. Lia. More than surprise, I feel…dread.