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Pain stung through her hind end, and she jumped to the side in surprise, then looked around for danger, but all she found was Cash, kneeling by the basement door, a tranquilizer gun aimed at her.

Shocked, and betrayed, she glanced back at her tingling right leg. There was a dart with red feathers on the end. Jess roared and tried to reach it with a tight circle, and when she couldn’t, she scraped it off on the bars.

“I’m sorry,” Kade said again.

No, no, no, he didn’t get it. She hadn’t figured out a way to tell him about the depth of the curse yet. She couldn’t go to sleep! She had to tell him so they could come up with a plan together!

Kade, please. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t tell him.

Jess tried to stay upright, but her hind end had gone numb, and she hit the ground in a sitting position. She dragged herself toward him. Kade, Kade, Kade.Bum, bum, bum, bum…

Her ribs were numb now, and her shoulders were tingling, and her eyelids were getting heavy.

Kade, please! Make it stop!

She hit the cement floor and blinked slowly, trying so hard to keep her eyes open.

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.Faster. It was going faster now, filling her entire head with that damn throbbing vibration. Each beat ticked off the seconds of Kade’s remaining life, and she wasn’t done. She hadn’t figured out a way to save him yet.

Kade…an animalistic moan escaped her throat, but it was so soft, and her eyelids weighed a thousand pounds.

Kade…please…

And she thought the forbidden words. She didn’t know why she betrayed herself like this, but she thought the forbidden words, because she was so damn scared that she would never see him again. She wished he could understand her heart.

I love you.

Kade flinched and dropped the locket, as if it had burned his hand, and she could see it there on the floor on the other side of the cage bars.

The sky blue had turned to a deep indigo hue.

Kade…

She understood her mother at this moment. Jess understood why she’d spent her life trying to escape her own mind after what she’d done to Jess’s father with her love. She hadn’t been able to find a way to save her mate. This same thing had happened to her parents, and Jess knew she wouldn’t be okay either.

She would never be okay again.

Bum, bum, bum, bum.

Bum, bum…

Bum…

Chapter Eighteen

“And then what did he say?”

“That he’s happy he chose me,” Misty said in the mushiest voice Jess had ever heard from her.

Jess grinned at the screen in her car. It said Misty’s name on the caller ID. She dragged her attention back to the road. The land around Sister’s Edge was flat in general, but she was an hour away and on a mountain road that dropped off steeply on the right side. The shoulder was only a few feet wide. This road had always given her the creeps for some reason, and driving at night made it worse.

“Do you think that discussion will make things easier on your relationship now?” Jess asked. Misty and Samuel had been fighting like cats and dogs lately but for reasons she didn’t understand. It was all over small, petty things, and Misty had been leaning on her for support.

“I think it will make me want to try more again,” Misty said softly. “I was ready to leave. Your brother…well he’s not the most empathetic.”

Jess pursed her lips and nodded as she rounded another curve. “I think that happened in the years he was separated from me. He wasn’t like that when we were younger.”

“He also won’t talk about the time after you two were put in different homes, so it’s hard to understand. Most of the time, he just feels mean, and cold, and uncaring.”