Fire Mate. Her Fire Mate. Where was he? Was he looking for her? Could he feel her like she felt him? Was that part of the magic of which he spoke?
Ari.
She sensed him, or what she thought was him—strength and danger and ancient heat and a feeling of weightlessness.
“I can destroy the magic binding you to him.”
Derek’s declaration came back to her, cold and confident. She swallowed, the thought of severing the connection making her sick. Which was ridiculous, given how freaked out she’d been when it had first consumed her.
“If only I could really understand what the hell was going on,” she muttered, opening her eyes to glare at the ropes binding her wrists.
“You don’t need to understand, Jilly,” Derek said, his voice calm.
She looked up to see him standing before her, before turning her glare on the glass in his hand. “I’m not drinking that.”
It looked like water. She didn’t need to taste it to know otherwise.
Derek smiled, smoothed his palm up her throat and cupped her chin with firm fingers. He drew his head down to hers. “Yes,” he whispered. “You are. Trust me. It will make everything the way it’s meant to be.”
Before she could digest the threat in his statement, Derek dug his fingers into her cheeks and pried open her mouth with painful pressure.
She thrashed on the seat, flinging her head from side to side as much as she could.
“Stop it, Jilly,” he admonished, his grip on her chin growing tighter, more painful, until she couldn’t move her head at all. He pressed his knee to her belly, pinning her to the chair. His breath fanned her face in hot pants. The room’s cold air filled her mouth. “This will save you.”
He lifted the glass, his gaze moving to her lips.
She stared up at him, tears stinging her eyes, and fought to seal her lips together.
Oh God, please don’t, please don’t. Oh God, Ari, help, help…
“I love you, Jilly,” Derek whispered.
Warm liquid flowed into her mouth, over her tongue, down her throat. A steady trickle of vile, bitter fluid.
She gagged, writhing between Derek’s knee and the chair. Her stomach lurched. Tears burned her cheeks.
“And soon,” Derek drew his head closer to hers, shifting his grip on her chin to slam her mouth shut, “you’ll love me the way you’re meant to.”
He shoved her head backward, holding her that way.
She struggled against him, even as the foul drink flowed down her throat.
Ari! she cried out in her head.
“The way I want you to,” Derek murmured against her temple, pinching her nostrils closed.
No. No, no.
She writhed. Choked. Shook her head, desperate for air. Her lungs burned. Screamed for oxygen.
Until, incapable of stopping herself, she swallowed and sucked a swift, deep breath into her mouth when Derek allowed it.
“That’s my girl,” he praised with a happy chuckle, dropping his fingers from her nose. He released her chin, smoothing his hand down her throat, over her chest to her right breast.
Jilly’s stomach churned. Her body reacted to the alien liquid inside it. Icy-cold beads of perspiration broke out over her skin. She began to tremble. Cold. She’d never felt so cold. So cold and empty…
“My girl,” he whispered, raining a slew of nibbling kisses along her jaw, up to her ear.
Her head swam. Her eyes fluttered closed, the eyelids too heavy to keep open. The room lurched. The air flowed into her burning lungs like freezing mist.
Ari, she thought. I’m…I’m…
Derek’s hand grew bolder on her breast. His lips moved to the side of her neck.
She groaned, trembling still. This wasn’t right…this wasn’t…
“I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you, Jilly.” Derek’s voice scratched at the icy fog enveloping her. His fingers traced the edge of her neckline. Dipped beneath it. Found her nipple. “And I so desperately wanted you to love me back. I knew you would, one day. If I just waited.”
She whimpered, every molecule of her existence recoiling from his touch.
And yet, at the same time, wasn’t this the way it was meant to be? Wasn’t—
Ari.
The name floated through the coldness in her mind, a single point of inexplicable heat.
Ari? Why would she think of that name? She didn’t know anyone called Ari.
Did she?
“I couldn’t understand why I was drawn to you,” Derek murmured against her temple, fingers exploring her breast, “until I researched your blood line. I’ve always preferred thin girls.”
Jilly’s stomach lurched again. A ripple of heat razed her chilled flesh. There and gone just as quickly. She whimpered again, giddy and disorientated.
Where…what was…
Fingers plucked at her nipple, and she gasped, her gaze focusing on Derek.
Derek, her best friend, touching her…
He pulled away from her a little, his smile earnest. “When I discovered your line was once joined with my own,” he inched the neckline of her dress to the side, until her breast fell free of its confines, “when I discovered our ancestors were once bound by ancient magic,” he touched her lips with shaking fingers and cupped her breast completely in his hand, “I knew I needed to bind us together again. But still, I waited, hoping it would happen naturally. And then the fucking dragon came, and I couldn’t wait any longer. But I took care of that problem, didn’t I?”
Jilly stared at him, foggy and dazed.
He smiled wider, lowered his head to her breast, and touched his tongue to her flesh.
The second he did, Jilly’s head erupted in a choir of chanting.
Furious, powerful chanting.
“No!” she screamed, thrashing against the ropes, against Derek. “Get off me. Get the fuck off me!”
He staggered back, face twisted in stunned disbelief. “Wh-what? I don’t…why aren’t you—”
“Touch me again, druid,” Jilly snarled, the ice shattering from her mind, her body, “and I’ll show you how the Nordic pagans dealt with rapists!”
He stared at her, his face a mask of confusion.
Jilly leaned toward him, straining at
