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I wake to it. I am engulfedinit. 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. “BecauseIrememberyou.”

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,familiarpresence.

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’swho this is. The high priestess.

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