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Now I started worrying. “Is this about her? She hex you?”

“She doesn’thexpeople,” he said hotly. “She’s a healer, and she’s completely innocent, and she’s actually a really caring, loyal creature, and you should go back to sleep... you monster.” Seeing my disbelieving look, he quickly added, “She didn’t hex me. You’re not a monster.”

“Then snap the fuck out of it.” I seized my water cup and chucked it at him, dousing him in liquid.

He flinched and covered his torso, breaking into a fit of shivering. Glaring at me, he resembled a dripping wet cat. Not my tough-as-nails best friend.

Something was wrong with him.

All down the back of my neck, the hairs were standing on end.

I leapt to my feet, my heart thudding at the base of my throat. “Talk to me, Bradley. What’d she do to you?” I swiped a flashlight off the desk and aimed it in his eyes.

For an instant, they flashed red... before he shrank back like a cornered animal.

It could have been a trick of the light.

“Shh, go back to sleep, Jame Asher.” He backed toward the door, gaze shifting from side to side. “I’m just going to go.”

“Don’t you move a fucking inch,” I barked, shoving past him. The cage holding Lana came into view at the end of the corridor. “Whatever she did to you, she’s going to pay—”

The words died in my throat.

Inside the cell lay Brad’s naked, unconscious body, next to her discarded jumpsuit... shed like a snake skin.

No Lana.

“Shit,” I muttered.

I felt the creature’s hot breath on the back of my neck. Before I could turn around, something heavy and blunt slammed into my head.

Searing pain shot through my skull, then blackness.

Chapter 7

Lana

Asher’s body droppedto the ground with a dull thunk. I stood there for several seconds, shifting my weight.

Now was when I killed him.

A sick feeling curdled my stomach at the thought.

Daggers. I needed my daggers. Forged from steel mined from the deepest of our caverns and crafted by a weapons master specifically for my grip, the knives were my weapon of choice. I scoured Asher’s room, pushing aside the scattered papers he had lying about.

I didn’t see them anywhere.

I did, however, find a gun. I turned the human weapon over and over in my hands, then looked uncertainly at Asher. Already, I could see him starting to stir.

The gun felt foreign in my hand. Heavy. Dirty.Wrong.

Do it.

I hesitated. I didn’t even know how to use the weapon I held.

Asher groaned.

Do it now. Before he wakes.