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M ist moaned, her hand going to her forehead as her eyelids slowly fluttered open. Her head was killing her, and her mouth tasted like cotton. She was so thirsty, but the need to use the restroom trumped the need for water at the moment.

Freaking hell, she felt as if she’d gone out and drank way too much and was paying for it the next day. But she knew that wasn’t the case, because she didn’t drink alcohol. Ever. It wasn’t safe to get wasted, not when you had charges to take care of. And even though she didn’t have any of her own right now, she stuck to her no-drinking rule just in case the Goddess decided she needed her.

Moaning again, her head pounding in pain, Mist dropped her hand to her side and lay there trying to get her bearings. Where exactly was she and how did she end up there?

It was quiet. She was alone, that she was sure of. What she didn’t know was exactly where she was. It was all slowly starting to come back to her. Her idiotic decision to go against the decision the coven had made and go out to have some fun. The one person she was hiding from showing up, because why wouldn’t he? It was the one thing that would happen in every damn book she read, but she’d walked right into it.

Letting out a groan at her own stupidity, Mist rubbed her hands over her face.

She remembered Darius snatching her from the book signing. The one place she thought she would be safe because there were so many people there. She also remembered reaching out to Aurora before the darkness took her. She had no idea if she was able to give the witch enough information to start looking for her, but she did remember feeling the other woman’s worry and fear. Fear for her . Because she cared. About her.

She’d honestly wondered how her coven sisters felt about her, but had been too afraid to reach out to them to find out. Were they mad they had to do extra work because they were now protecting what would have been her charges as well as their own? They’d never actually kicked her out of the coven like she originally feared, but did they want to? Did they still care about her? Still consider her family? Still love her like she loved them?

Well, at least she now knew for sure that not only did Aurora care, but she still thought of her as her sister. Which meant there was a chance the others felt the same way, but were just too busy to come see her. Damn, she really hoped that was the case. She missed them all so much.

Mist took a deep breath, pushing herself up into a sitting position. She squinted, opening her eyes just enough to look around the room, wincing at the pain it caused. Evidently, whatever Darius the douchebag had injected into her system was giving her some not-so-fun side effects. Headache, blurred vision, nasty tasting cotton mouth.

What a dick.

Slipping her legs over the side of the bed, Mist bit her lip, closing her eyes to try and get the room to stop swaying in front of her. After a moment, she pried her lids open and glanced around. There were two doors. One was open, one closed. Betting the open door would lead her to a bathroom that she desperately needed, Mist rose on shaky legs and slowly made her way across the room, sighing in relief when she saw that she was right.

Five minutes later, she was back in the bedroom, ready to find a way out of wherever the hell she was. Her mind was starting to clear some, although the pounding in her head hadn’t lessened at all. That was fine. She could work around it.

Standing in the middle of the room, Mist held her arms out to her sides and blinked. At least, she tried to. But instead of ending up at the Channings ranch where she’d been aiming to go, she found herself in the same place she’d been.

Stuck.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on an image of the beautiful home the Channings lived in. She’d been to it several times, and there were two places everyone always congregated. The kitchen and the living room. The living room with the warm fireplace was where she wanted to end up, because she was freezing where she was now. The heater in the house obviously wasn’t on.

After a long moment, she had to admit to herself that blinking wasn’t going to happen. Swearing softly, she decided to try to reach out to Aurora instead.

Aurora, it’s Mist. Are you there?

There was nothing but silence.

Aurora, can you hear me.

Silence.

Mist swore again, then tried another sister.

Luna, are you there? Can you hear me?

Not a word.

Dammit.

She tried the strongest coven sister she knew.

Zara. I need you.

Nothing.

Crossing the room, Mist reached out to try to open the door, crying out in pain when there was a strong zap to her hand when she grabbed the doorknob. It put her on the floor, pain flooding her body.

“Son of a bitch!”

There was a deep chuckle, and Darius suddenly appeared behind her. Rolling over onto her side so she could see him, Mist wrapped her arms around her legs, pulling them to her chest.

“The place is guarded by black magic. Your own magic won’t work here. You will never get out. Never leave me. You are mine, witch!”

“I will never be yours,” she gasped out, her body shaking as waves of pain still ran through her.

“You already are mine,” he sneered, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Soon, we will have a ceremony to bind us together, and you will see.”

Mist frowned in confusion. From what she knew about demons, that wasn’t how they mated. There was no special ceremony that bound the demons with their mates. Not that they couldn’t have one if they wanted to, but the binding happened automatically when they found the person that was supposed to be theirs. There had to be an emotional connection, one that she and Darius definitely did not have, because she wanted nothing to do with the prince.

“Why don’t you just bind me to you now?” she taunted, reveling in the look of rage that crossed his face. “It’s because I am rejecting you, isn’t it? I don’t want you, you bastard. I. Am. Not. Yours.”

No, she belonged to one of his brothers, and she prayed to the Goddess above that the prince she was fated to mate with wasn’t a twatwaffle like the one in front of her now.

Darius let out a roar, his entire body flooding with flames, his eyes glowing a dark red. “You are mine,” he snarled. He glared at her, before raising an arm and holding out his palm in her direction. A small ball of fire appeared, as his mouth turned up into an evil grin. “Or not.” With a dark laugh, he turned his hand over, letting the fire drop to the floor. And then he was gone, disappearing as if he were never there.

The flames began to eat at the old shag green carpet, growing quickly. Mist pushed herself to her feet, and held out her arms, palms up, calling for water. It was something she’d been capable of doing since she was a teenager.

There was nothing.

Shit. When Darius told her that her magic wouldn’t work in this room, he wasn’t lying.

Running to the bathroom, she looked around frantically for something to put the fire out with. There were no towels she could get wet, nothing lying around or in the bathtub. Nothing in the closet.

“Oh Goddess, please.”

Mist yanked open the door below the sink, and was surprised but thrilled to find an old bucket full of children’s bath toys. Quickly dumping them out, she filled the pail with water from the tub and ran back to where the fire was spreading across the floor.

She dumped the entire bucket on the flames, then ran back for more water, doing that same thing four more times before she finally felt safe to stop.

Sitting down on the floor, she scooted back to lean against the bed, her body shuddering in exhaustion and fear. That crazy son of a bitch claimed her, but then almost killed her. If that bucket hadn’t been under the sink, probably left there by whoever used to live in the old house, she could have died.

Tears filled her eyes, but Mist refused to let them fall. She was not a damn victim. She was a fighter. And she was going to fight, dammit. She just needed to figure out the best way to go about it.

“You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. I will get out of here. I will find you. And I will end you,” she vowed, as her eyes slowly drifted closed. She needed to rest for a minute first. Then she would figure something out.