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Memnon laughs low. “That’s not the reason you gave when I peered in your mind.”

She opens her mouth, but when she tries to speak, nothing comes out. Her shoulders curl inward a little. “I can’t talk about it.”

I frown. That doesn’t exactly scream innocent to me.

“Please,” she says to me, her eyes beseeching, “let me go. You know this is wrong.”

Yeah, this is definitely wrong,I say down my bond.

“Tell her why you cannot talk about it,” Memnon says.

“I c-cannot talk about that either.”

Memnon looks over at me.

Is that supposed to mean something?

Doesn’t that sound like a magical compulsion?he says.Because it is.

My eyebrows rise as Memnon says to Lauren, “Where’s your phone?”

The witch’s eyes dart briefly to a purse sitting nearby. Memnon walks over to it as the witch fights her restraints.

He withdraws her phone and holds it up to her. “Unlock the device.”

Before she can resist, her phone recognizes her face and unlocks on its own. The sorcerer glances down at it, then taps on a few buttons. He takes a picture of something, taps a few more buttons, then I hear the phone in his pocket buzz.

Tears begin to slip down the woman’s cheeks as Memnon returns her phone to her purse. She looks first to my mate, then to me. “You don’t understand,” she says softly. “Thank the Goddess you don’t.”

“But I do understand,” Memnon says dangerously, moving back over to her. “You were there that night Selene was attacked, weren’t you? You helped attack her.”

She shakes her head. “I had no choice.”

The sorcerer looks pityingly at her. “I doubt you did. And you leave me with no choice now either.”

Memnon steps into Lauren’s space and grasps the sides of her head. The woman begins struggling anew.

“Memnon,” I say, a note of alarm in my voice, “you will not hurt her.”

He inclines his head toward me, but that’s the only sign he gives that he’s heard my command.

To Lauren, he says, “You never saw us, and we are not here now. You are going to grab your things and go home.”

He releases the witch and backs up.

Lauren stands, looking somewhat baffled to find herself here. Her eyes sweep across the room, passing over me and Memnonwithout really seeing us. Her gaze catches on the still-exposed doorway to the persecution tunnels, but only for a moment. She turns, grabs her purse, and heads out the door she tried to escape from minutes ago.

I wait until the sound of her footsteps fade completely.

There’s a bitter taste at the back of my throat. Something about this is off—more off than having my mate pry secrets out of witches.

“I have bad news for you,est amage,” Memnon says, still staring at the door.

I glance his way. “What is it?”

“That woman?” He jerks his head in the direction Lauren departed. “She’s bonded.”

CHAPTER 13