Chapter 4

• A loud sound startled me awake. Half-rolling, half-falling off the couch, I scrambled up and stumbled to the bedroom. Leone was awake and laying there with his hand over his face. The sound that had woken me was the leg of the small bed collapsing.
• “What the hell,” he murmured and rubbed his hand over his forehead, “am I hurt?” Holding his hand over his face he flexed it a few times. “Where am I? Was there an accident? Raf? Michael?”
• I stood froze in the doorway, not sure if I should answer his questions or just tiptoe back out before he noticed me. “You’ll be okay.” I said quietly. “The drugs are probably making your head a bit wonky.”
• He turned his head and squinted at me. “Drugs?” Squeezing his eyes shut he blew out a breath. “For what?” Sitting slowly, he clutched his head between his hands and rested his elbows on his knees.
• I opened my mouth to tell him, and then shut it. Probably not a good idea to explain that part. “Would you like some water or… something?” He continued to sit there, not moving or speaking. “Leone?”
• His head snapped up and dark eyes glared at me. He blinked and then shook his head and looked at me again. He’d just discovered the voice that had said his name a thousand times in his head, wasn’t a hallucination.
• “I’m a real live girl.” I nodded at him.
• The look of confusion faded, and his dark brown eyes locked on me with hatred, very plainly at me. “What the hell is going on?”
• A shiver of dread moved down my spine. “I can explain.” I offered, not sounding nearly as confident as I’d hoped to.
• Moving cautiously, he turned and swung his legs off the bed. He must have been dizzy, because he paused and didn’t stand. “You can explain why you’ve been fucking around in my head every day?” Hate-filled eyes looked to me again. He examined me from head to toe. “I don’t know you.”
• I shook my head, not feeling as if there was anything I could say.
• He exhaled slowly and braced his hands on his knees and stood up slowly.
• I raised my hands from my side, just in case I needed to buy myself some time if he came at me. Pausing, I looked at them. Why couldn’t I feel my magic? It dawned on me the mages hadn’t used their power on him but had wrestled him instead. Whatever they’d done to this room to keep him here must block magic too. Well crap. I backed up a few feet when he stood to his full height.
• His chest rose and fell a few times as he adjusted to being upright and then he looked at me again. “Answers.” He snarled. “Now.”
• I stepped back again when he took a few test steps toward me. Looking to my left, I tried to gauge how far the protection worked. “Just-just go slow. If you go down, there’s no way I can get you up.” I motioned up and down my small form. “I don’t know what they gave you.” He kept moving in my direction. I shuffled back further. I was almost past the bathroom door now.
• “They? Where are we?”
• His tone sent goosebumps all over me, not the happy kind but most definitely the run-away kind. “I don’t know.” I checked to see if my magic was back, it wasn’t. I stepped back again.
• “What side are we on?” He glanced to the watch thing on my wrist.
• I stepped back two steps. “I don’t know.” Still no magic.
• “When are they coming back?”
• The drugs must have been wearing off fast, he was at his full height now. At least a foot and a half taller than I was. “I-I don’t know that either.” I felt a familiar tingle in my hands and almost cried in relief.
• He stopped and braced a hand on either side of the wall. He probably had the spins. That stance made him look even larger. I couldn’t reach both walls along the hall at the same time. “What do you know?”
• Leone looked down at me and I froze, unable to think for a moment. The past few weeks, no months, suddenly seemed like the dumbest plan I’d ever had in my life—and I’d had some pretty stupid moments. “They’re going to trade you…”
• He growled out like a wounded animal and smashed his fist against the wall. The sound of cracking plaster and crumbling followed.
• Shit.
• “Son of a…” He looked back to me. “Move,” he growled between clenched teeth.
• I stepped back and hoped, like really, really hoped that Herman guy knew his stuff, because if their magic didn’t stop him, there was no way on earth I was going to even try. I loved Erin, but I was attached to being alive almost more than as I was to her.