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I glanced past her, saw Monty running toward us, then nodded and strode on.

“Should we expect any more of her creatures to hit us?” I growled, glancing at Maelle.

She smiled her horrid smile. “One should always expect more, but not necessarily creatures that belong to the opposition.”

I glanced at her sharply. “Meaning?”

“Nothing more than what I said.” She waved a hand toward the flickering, foul mage fire that burned through the trees. “We should hurry. My victim and your lover await.”

I increased my speed and did my best to ignore the continuing sounds of fighting behind us and the multiple flashes of spells being created and countered. There was at least one dark mage or a witch back there somewhere now, but their magic wasn’t overwhelming anyone, and probably wasn’t meant to. Distraction was the intent here, not death.

Not yet, anyway.

The closer we got to the mage fire, the more my skin itched and the deeper my dread became. I didn’t want to go into that clearing, and given the choice, would have cheerfully pushed Maelle inside and let the two of them fight it out until only one—or even none—stood. But Aiden lay staked within it, and he would pay with his life if I made so much as one wrong move.

Katie lifted the curtain of wild magic to allow Maelle through.Be careful in there.

I nodded. It was all I could do because, a heartbeat later, I was stepping through the mage fire. It was thick and gelatinous, filled with tiny fingers of flame that danced across my skin with sharp little claws that dug and tore at my skin. My inner wild magic flared to life, creating a barrier of magic just under my flesh, preventing anything more than superficial cuts.

We came out the other side of the barrier into silence. Utter silence. All sounds of fighting, and all feel of magic, had been completely cut off. The rivers of wildness no longer ran undermy feet; the ground here was as dead as the air felt. Worse still, my connection to Belle was no longer active, though I suspected the cause was the pulsing wall of wild magic surrounding this place more than any of Marie’s spells. I glanced down at my hand and tried to construct a repelling spell. Nothing. My native magic had been curtailed; thank God she hadn’t known about my inner wild magic.

I stopped just beyond the wall of flame, just as I had in the dream. Blood trickled down my bare arms and across my chest, but I paid it no heed. Marie stood on the other side of the clearing, and in the center between us lay Aiden. He was naked, and he was staked by a thin rod of silver through his left shoulder and right thigh. The red lines of silver poisoning were already creeping out from the wounds, and sweat dotted his forehead and body. I couldn’t see any signs that Marie had dined on him, though I couldn’t see the far side of his neck yet, either.

Every instinct within wanted to run over, drop to my knees, and rip the silver from his skin. But that was what Marie wanted, what she anticipated, so it was the very last thing I could do. At least for the moment.

My gaze rose to hers. I’m not sure what she saw in my eyes, but uncertainty flickered through hers.

I think, in that moment, she finally realized she might have underestimated me. Then her natural confidence and self-belief returned, and she smiled. “Thank you for being so predictable, Elizabeth, though I am surprised you managed to convince Maelle to reveal my location. She knows that doing so is a breach of contract.”

“So was killing Roger and taking my daughter as a lover,” Maelle said evenly. “Though I did not breach the contract by revealing your location, it is, as far as I am concerned, void.”

“The contract cannot be voided unless I directly attack you, as you are well aware.”

“I believe you to be wrong, but shall we put it to the test?” Maelle replied. “It is the only way to see who might be right, after all.”

“The usual rules?”

“That sounds ideal.”

“Before you get into any of that,” I said, not quite able to believe how polite these two were being. “How about you release Aiden? I’ve played my part and brought Maelle here.”

Marie laughed, the sound falling like death around me. “Child, I never promised to release him. He is, in fact, hostage for your good behavior. Once I deal with my wayward fledgling, you and I shall discuss the matter further and come to some arrangement.”

“Arrangement” being code for blood donor, I suspected. I glanced at Aiden again. His eyes were open, and though they were little more than blue slits of pain, I felt the fury in him. Fury aimed at himself for putting me in this position.

“Fine,” I said. “Do what you have to do, but leave Aiden and me out of it.”

“Ah, the innocence of youth. Were we ever that naive?” Marie didn’t wait for Maelle’s answer—not that she provided one—her gaze instead coming back to mine. “You will not be able to free your wolf, because he has been well anchored. But on the off chance that you do manage the impossible, you will not be able to leave this clearing. Not until I release my shield.”

I didn’t say anything. The moment I’d stepped through that barrier it had become damnably obvious that the only way I was going to leave was by her death or mine.

“Shall we begin?” Maelle said.

“I believe we should. But first, my dear Maelle, you must prove yourself a worthy opponent, now that you are without your demons to draw power from.”

And with that, Marie waved her hand, and dozens of different critters appeared out of nowhere and ran straight at us. Maelle laughed and raised her arms; the bracelets on her wrists came to life, slithering free and dropping to the ground, their forms growing, thickening, and lengthening, as they went right and left to attack the nearest creatures.

Then Maelle launched into the fray.