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Only then did Tilda Corentine’s emerald eyes lock with his, silent understanding passing between her and her closest friend, her most trusted adviser, as she whispered her answer. As she begged for his help.

And then, with their heads bent together, they came up with a plan.

Present Day

Chapter One

Kiva Corentine was on fire.

Flames scorched her body, and blood boiled inside her veins, causing her to moan and thrash and shove at the hands holding her down.

“She’s burnin’ up,” came a gruff male voice. “Get her some water.”

The smell of vomit overwhelmed Kiva’s senses, close enough to make her realize it was hers, causing her to gag anew.

She was sick.

No — not sick.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she wasn’t suffering from an illness.

A haze of memories came to her: blue-gold eyes and kiss-swollen lips, deadly shadows and broken glass, caramel dust and iron bars. But then her thoughts scattered, the images seared from her mind, the unrelenting heat all that she knew, all that shewas.

“Gods, she’s a mess,” said a female voice, full of disgust.

A wooden tumbler was forced between Kiva’s lips. Water trickled down her parched throat and sloshed over her chin.

“She is,” agreed the man. “And she’syourmess. I don’t got time for the dead.”

The hands holding Kiva disappeared. She tried to sit up, but flames twisted around her torso. Her eyelids fluttered open for the briefest of seconds, but she could see no fire. It was her — the inferno wasinsideher.

“She’s not dead,” argued the woman.

“Give it time,” said the man, his voice further away, as if he was leaving. “She’s had too much of the good stuff to survive without it. Bestleavin’ her to her fate. Or give her a mercy killin’, if you can stomach it.” A snort. “I doubt you’ll have any issues doin’ that.”

“You’re the prison healer,” the woman said angrily. “It’s your job to help her.”

Another snort from the man. “No one can help her now.”

Kiva barely heard his departing footsteps over the pounding in her ears. Her heart was beating unnaturally fast.Dangerouslyfast.

Part of her knew she should be concerned about her state, but that part couldn’t do anything, couldn’t eventhinkbeyond the all-consuming agony blazing throughout her body.

A stream of curse words penetrated her pain, followed by a calloused hand snaking behind her neck and hauling her roughly upward, the tumbler pressing to her lips once more.

“Drink,” ordered the woman, forcing water into Kiva’s mouth. “If you want to live, you need to drink.”

Kiva tried to follow the command, choking on the liquid, all the while wondering why. If this was living, surely she was better off dead. A mercy killing, the man had said. Kiva wanted that — a quick end to the flaming hell, the gaping hole in her heart gone forever.

A hole she knew had nothing to do with her current state.

Blue-gold eyes flashed across her mind once more, the fleeting image spiking a different kind of torture, before it was gone again.

“Damn it, Kiva,drink,” came the angry female voice.

But Kiva couldn’t drink any more. Shivers began to rack her frame, fire warring with ice. Sweat coated her skin even as she trembled from the sudden cold, but when a blanket was thrown over her, she whimpered and begged for it to be taken away.

Too hot.