She rose and slammed her hand against the invisible boundary, growling as she did so. Kara wanted to kick it, too, but having a broken foot wasn’t any more appealing than a broken jaw. She stumbled back in frustration. It’s not like she really expected to escape, but she had to at least try. And she’d keep trying.

  Kara’s feet began to walk backward without her say so. What the…? She huffed as she crossed her arms in front of her, trying and failing to dig her feet into the ground. She was like a helpless robot. Her body was forced to turn around until she faced the three men. Rage filled their different-colored eyes as they glared at her. “You do understand that I had nothing to do with that, right?” Kara pointed behind them at the destroyed compound. “Because you three are looking at me like I was the one that set the freaky blue fire and barbecued your little gingerbread house.” If they hadn’t been planning on killing her before, she was pretty sure they might have just changed their minds. Kara didn’t fear death. She’d learned in her short life there were worse things than dying.

  “Perizada,” Alston said. “She’s the only one who could wreak such destruction. She always was a little rash when she let her emotions control her.”

  “Why are you so calm?” Cain spat. “Our entire compound has been wiped out.”

  “Because despite the fact that she has landed us a painful blow, Peri will no longer be a problem.” Alston glanced back at the blue fire.

  “Why is that?” the elf king asked.

  “Because in order for Peri to perform such magic, and she would likely be the only one powerful enough to do so save myself, the cost would be her life. So, you see, despite this mess”—he pointed toward the destruction—“we are now rid of one of our biggest threats.”

  His voice, and the sounds around her, became muted as Alston’s words sank into Kara’s mind. Peri was dead? “No,” she whispered out loud before she could censor herself. Kara shook her head, and her hands fisted at her sides. “No,” she said again. Memories of the high fae filled her mind. The woman’s sharp tongue, her unbending will, her determination to do anything to protect those she loved. Kara had never met anyone like Perizada. She was her own brand of crazy, but she was also one of the most selfless people Kara had ever known. Peri couldn’t be dead. She just wasn’t. The high fae was indestructible, or at least that’s how Kara had begun to see her. Nothing could destroy Peri. Even as the thought filled her mind, Kara knew it was a lie. No being was truly immortal. Only the Great Luna had that title. She was the supernatural creator. The rest, though long lived, could be killed. No matter how much Kara didn’t want to admit it, Perizada could be killed.

  “You can say no all day long, little healer,” Alston purred. “It doesn’t change the truth. Your champion is gone. Your mate bond is gone. You are at the mercy of the Order. Though that’s an oxymoron. There is no mercy here.”

  Kara could hear his words, but they weren’t making any sense. Nothing made sense. How could this have happened? Where was the Romanian pack? Where was Fane, the alpha who’d been blessed by the Great Luna to rule over all alphas? Why hadn’t he protected Peri, or at least talked her out of this suicide mission? How could they have lost someone else so soon after the devastating blow of Cypher, Vasile, and Alina? And while Kara was having a mental breakdown, attempting to process what she’d just been told, another question arose. How in the hell had Alston severed her bond with Nick? Their bond wasn’t complete, but it had been strong. Had their recent arguments somehow weakened it? Had Kara’s stubbornness to push Nick into completing the bond somehow made her more vulnerable? She nearly kicked her own ass at the question. Of course, it had made her more vulnerable. She’d let her temper take over her good sense. Her insistence on jogging alone, refusing to be guarded like a child, had put her within the grasp of Alston and his two lunatic partners.

  She’d become that idiot girl in the horror movies who went running headlong into danger. How many times had Kara yelled at those stupid characters? And now she was one. Kara bit her lip, refusing to let herself cry. She had to keep it together. She needed all her wits about her if she was going to make it through this. Becoming an emotional wreck wouldn’t help. Just for kicks, even though her gut told her it wasn’t going to work, Kara tried again to reach Nick through their bond, pushing all of her thoughts and emotions toward him. Nothing. She couldn’t feel him. Where once there had been a cord that attached them, now there was only emptiness.

  “Unless you’re planning on roasting marshmallows,” Cain’s voice broke the eerie silence, “I suggest we move to our second location. Peri might be dead, but who’s to say she doesn’t have allies waiting to take out anyone who hadn’t been in the compound when she went nuclear?”

  “He’s right,” Ludcarab said, his voice tight. Her eyes shifted to the elf king, and Kara sucked in a breath at the hunger that filled the man’s eyes. “We’ve been still long enough. It’s time we make a move.”

  Alston held out his hand to her, and once again Kara’s feet were moving. Her arm lifted, and she placed her hand in his, even though she was trying to force herself to stay still. His power was stronger than her will, which really pissed her off. Kara hated feeling out of control. She despised being at the mercy of someone stronger than her. She’d been vulnerable all of her life, until she’d met Perizada, the other healers, and Nick. Since meeting them, she finally began to feel like she had some sort of say in her life. Now, she was at the mercy of the Order, and as Alston had pointed out, mercy wasn’t really their thing.

  “Are you going to kill me?” she asked. She was surprised that her voice was so steady because inside, she felt as if she was crumbling to the ground. Like the earth that had been consumed by the blue fire, the ground beneath her feet was gone. There was nothing solid to stand on. Uncertainty enveloped her. She would give anything for that uncertainty to be replaced by Nick’s arms, his strength, and the safety she felt when he was around.

  Alston laughed. “Why on earth would I kill you?” He shook his head and held out his arm to the two other males. “No, I’m not going to kill you. In fact, considering the significant blow that Peri has dealt us, I think we must use you to send a message to her allies.”

  “Don’t you think kidnapping me is message enough?” Kara asked. She imagined by now that Nick knew she was gone. Everyone on team Peri would know about her disappearance. Anna, Heather, Stella, and Jewel would know she was missing. It would be devastating to Kara if she found out one of her friends had been taken by the Order. She’d be on a warpath to get them back. Kara could only imagine her friends would feel the same way.

  “No. You see, we’ve kidnapped a healer before. It’s sort of a ‘been there, done that’ kind of thing.” Alston smirked. “We even got the healer to betray her true mate and almost mate with someone else. Her bond was complete and quite strong, and she was still no match for us. How do you think you will fare against my power without a completed bond?”

  Kara frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Sally believed she was falling in love with another male. She gave herself to someone other than her mate.”

  Kara shook her head. No true mate would willingly allow another to touch them. Nick would lose his mind if she even considered it. And if Nick allowed another female to touch him, Kara would beat him with one of the female’s limbs—limbs that Kara would rip from her body. Okay, so perhaps being a true mate made her a tad psychotic. It was a price she’d willingly pay to be with Nick.

  Alston’s lips widened, his smile looking way too much like the Cheshire cat’s for her liking. “But you, I think we can do better than that. I don’t think we need to remove your memories like we did hers. I think we can convince you to want to be a part of the Order.” He rubbed his hands together; eagerness and confidence in his words practically radiated from him. “In fact, once you’ve spent some time with one of our special members, I’m certain of it. She can be quite persuasive. Thank god I’d sent her on an errand. You will soon realize the man you thought was your true mate was simply a case of first love. Intense, but fleeting, as many first loves are.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” Kara said through clenched teeth. “I will never willingly choose the Order. And Nick is my true mate, always will be.”

  Alston shrugged. “Saying it doesn’t make it true.”

  “You’re right,” Kara agreed. “But you attempting to deny it doesn’t make it untrue. There is nothing you could do to make me choose the Order.”

  The fae clucked his tongue at her. “Oh, little healer, I won’t have to make you choose. You will do that on your own. I won’t even have to threaten you or those you love. You’ll willingly give yourself to another. You will want him with a passion you never thought you could possibly feel for another, especially considering all the times you’ve been betrayed in your life by people who should have taken care of you, an orphan with nothing.”

  Kara hated that Alston knew so much about her. It made her feel naked, all of her deepest secrets laid bare before these males who had no right to know such things. She started to speak, but before she could do so, they vanished and reappeared in a huge room with stone walls at least twenty feet high. Torches hung on the walls, bathing the room in warm light.

  “Where are we?” she asked. Alston released her and she stumbled back.

  “My home,” Ludcarab was the one who answered. “And now yours as well.”

  “I already have a home,” she spat. “This is my prison.”

  “Then it’s only fitting that you have cuffs.” Alston stepped in front of her, his hands moving so fast she didn’t even have time to flinch. His fingers wrapped around her wrists, and he whispered something under his breath.

  Kara felt burning and looked down. Around each of her wrists where his hands had been were metal bracelets. They lit up with a soft red glow, heating her skin to the point of nauseating pain. She watched in horror as the bracelets began to sink into her flesh until they simply looked like a black tattoo wrapped around each wrist. The burning continued, and Kara bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. She was not about to give the sick fae the pleasure of seeing her crumble under his magic. “What are these?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “Insurance, until you can spend time with Tenia. She will be your…” He paused and seemed to search for the right word. “…mentor.” Then he turned to Ludcarab. “You got it from here?”

  Ludcarab turned his eye on Kara, and she took a step back. The hunger in his hard gaze had returned. “I think I can handle her.”

  “I will send Tenia tomorrow, when she returns from her errand. Once the fae does her thing, get it done as quickly as possible,” the fae male said. “Cain and I will deal with the fallout of what Peri has done. You have one job right now, elf king. Don’t screw it up.”

  Ludcarab bared his teeth at Alston.

  “I’m pretty sure screwing is in order for his task.” A chuckle rumbled from Cain.

  Alston scoffed. “What are you? Twelve?”

  The vampire shrugged. “I have to find humor somewhere, especially since nearly all of our army has been destroyed.”

  “A good point, Cain.” Ludcarab walked over to Kara and wrapped an arm around her waist. His touch made her want to puke. “You two should move along and deal with the massive blow we’ve taken. I will take care of our newest member.”

  Alston held out his arm to Cain, and the vampire rested his hand on it. Then he held out his other hand, and a bottle of red liquid appeared in it. Ludcarab leaned forward and took it from the fae. “The bracelets will ensure the bond remains severed. Give this to her twice a day,” he told Ludcarab. “It will do two things: ensure she is able to conceive and help make her mind even more susceptible to Tenia’s power.”

  “How do you know this will work? The first attempt failed,” Ludcarab said.

  Alston appeared thoughtful as he looked at Kara. “We didn’t use Tenia the first time, which I will admit was my mistake. And it will help that she doesn’t have a completed bond. Just reinforce everything with positive stimuli. Tenia’s power, thus far, has proven to be permanent. But it’s always good to be cautious. The past few years have been filled with exceptions to rules we’ve believed set in stone. Keeping negative impacts to her psyche to a minimum might be helpful. The mind is more receptive to kindness than cruelty, at least when it comes to changing a person’s beliefs and will.” Then he and Cain were gone.

  Kara’s mouth dropped open. She pushed herself out of the elf king’s hold. She’d heard everything Alston had said, but her brain was stuck on one word. “Did he just say conceive?”

  Ludcarab looked down at the bottle in his hand and then back at her. “As Alston mentioned, you were what humans call an orphan, and therefore a foster child, correct? We looked into your background. After all, it’s smart to know about the person you will bind yourself to. You bounced from home to home, with people who didn’t love you, didn’t care whether you lived or died. You were simply a paycheck.”

  She ignored the whole “person you will bind yourself to” statement. If she even considered what he was implying, she might jump at him like a rabid cat and claw his eyes out. But why was she trying to control herself? Because he could kill you in an instant. The next thought that hit her was the fact that though Alston and Ludcarab knew a lot about her, they didn’t know she couldn’t conceive. Kara had sacrificed that ability in order to defeat Volcan. At the moment, she wasn’t sure if she was happy about that or scared out of her mind. What would they do to her if they found out she couldn’t get pregnant? Would that make her useless to them, and in turn, disposable?

  “Okay, so I was an orphan. So what?” she asked Ludcarab. “What does that have to do with that bottle?” Her heart was beating so hard she felt it might come through her chest. Part of her wanted to scream at the top of her lungs that they wouldn’t get what they wanted from her, couldn’t get it. The idea of sharing her body with anyone besides Nick was sickening. The other part wanted to keep it a secret for as long as possible to see if she could escape before Ludcarab could put his plan in action.

  He held the bottle up and tilted it, watching as the water swirled around. “You’ve known what it is to feel unwanted, unloved. No matter how you came to be in this world, it wasn’t your fault you were an orphan in need of someone, anyone to take care of you. Do you know how you came to be?” He lowered the bottle and looked back at her.

  “I think I know how babies are made,” she muttered, though she knew that wasn’t what he was really asking. “And if you think I’m just going to lay down for you, or anyone else and let that happen, you’re even more deranged than I thought.” Ludcarab wanted to know if she knew why her mother gave her up. She never bothered to ask her social worker about her past. Kara didn’t want to know how she ended up in foster care, or why. What was the point of knowing for certain someone didn’t want her?

  “Are all children worthy of love, Kara?” Ludcarab asked, his voice almost gentle. “Regardless of whether they were conceived by choice, happy accident, or tragic circumstance? Do they deserve to be cared for?”

  Kara narrowed her eyes on him. “Of course. They shouldn’t be punished for how they came to be. It wasn’t their choice.”

  “Would you love your child, no matter who fathered it, or how you became pregnant with it?” He took a step toward her. “Would you do anything to protect the helpless babe, regardless of whether you wanted it or not? Would you give up everything in order to make sure your child was taken care of?”

  Her breathing increased. She considered the fact that she would never have the opportunity to give a child that kind of love. Though she and Nick had talked about adoption, with everything that had happened, she couldn’t imagine bringing a child into their world, no matter how badly she wanted one. Even so, she knew the answer to the question. She didn’t even have to think about it. Kara would do anything, absolutely anything, to protect her child, no matter how she became pregnant or how that child came to be in their lives.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and willed herself to keep her emotions in check. Now was not the time to consider the fact that Ludcarab was essentially telling her that he planned to impregnate her. He would be unsuccessful, thank goodness. Regardless of not wanting to die, it would be better than being raped. Regardless of what Alston had said, she would never willingly give herself to anyone but Nick.

  “You don’t have to answer,” Ludcarab said, his voice filled with satisfaction. “I can see the answer written on your face. You are a healer after all. Only the pure of heart are blessed with such a gift.” He stepped closer to her and lifted his arm. His fingertips brushed gently across her cheeks, his eyes filling with a tenderness that seemed so incongruent to the evil she’d seen in him up to this point. “It is in your nature to give everything you can to those who need help. It is not simply something you choose to do. It’s in your very DNA. The light inside of gypsy healers is unique to only your kind.” Ludcarab continued to stroke her face. Kara was so horrified by his words that she couldn’t move. Her feet felt like concrete encased them, and she couldn’t lift them in order to get away from the delusional elf king no matter how badly she wanted to. “Bestowed upon you by the Great Luna, it would be physically impossible for you to leave someone hurting if you could help them. And that need will be magnified tenfold in regard to your offspring.”

  His hand wrapped around the back of her neck as he continued to stare. His eyes were green. Even with the sharp angles of his facial structure, he was still handsome. His long, platinum hair, which she hadn’t paid attention to until now, could make him pass for a fae. But the sharp, pointed ears gave away his elf blood. At the moment, Kara saw no cruelty on his face, and that made her more wary than if he’d been looking upon her with murderous rage or the lustful hunger she’d seen earlier.