I must have slept longer than I thought I had when I was kidnapped. I should have had another day before I needed to worry about Dev’s potion wearing off, but as I sat there, feeling the headache grow stronger and stronger, I knew how wrong my calculations were. I needed to get out of there. Fast.
“Is everything okay, little queen?” Alec whispered in my ear seductively, making me stiffen.
I peered up at him out of the corner of my eye and frowned.
“I’m fine,” I told him and tried to appear merely tipsy, all while trying to find a way out. “Just too much wine.”
“You’ve barely had two glasses,” he chuckled against the shell of my ear. “Supes don’t usually have that kind of reaction to alcohol, especially so little. Are you sure it’s the wine?”
He pulled away and gave me his trademark, panty dropping smirk. What was he playing at? Just as that question rolled through my mind, I saw him quickly peer around me to Ironshot then back to my face. He wanted his boss to watch him flirt with me. What the?
“Yeah, well, I’m special, aren’t I?” I replied a little too loudly. “Besides, when you’re only given a little bit of food every day for days, your ability to process alcohol drops. Basic science, Alec.”
A sharp crack whipped through my brain and I winced, bringing my hand up to my temple. My mom looked over at me, concerned, and she immediately pulled her mate close to whisper in his ear. He looked from Alec to me then sat upright in his seat.
“Emelia, if you’re not feeling well, maybe it’s time you retire,” Ironshot said to me, his voice hard.
I felt my mom’s gentle touch on my elbow as she began helping me up from my chair. Alec also began to rise but I stopped him with a hand. There was no way in hell I wanted him anywhere near me at the moment.
“I’ll take care of her, Alec,” Lucia smiled down at him and helped pull me up.
I did my best to keep my eyes open and smiling as I gave Ironshot and the others my thanks but the light made it so much worse. Lucia had one hand on my waist and the other on my elbow as she steered me through the dining room and into the hallway. Dixon and Kenny fell in step behind us like I imagined they would as I did my best to walk upright. The pain was becoming debilitating as it moved from my eyes toward my ears, making them lightly ring.
My mother was talking to me all the while she led me down the hall. “You’ll feel better with a good night’s rest,” she said and I knew she was planning to take me back to the bedroom. I needed to be near Ronan.
“My cell,” I whimpered.
“No, you’ll be more comfortable in a bedroom.” She pulled on my arm again but I shook my head.
“Please, Mom.”
She looked at the agony on my face, and the fact I called her ‘Mom’ spoke volumes.
“Okay.”
She led me toward the basement door and waited for one of the guards to open it, letting us in and down the stairs. Ronan jumped up from his mattress when he saw the state I was in and grabbed the bars of the door.
“What happened? Is she alright?”
He was shouting questions at my mom, at the guards, everyone, in hopes they would answer. I waved him off as my mom lowered me onto the dingy mattress. She knelt over me, brushing the hair from my forehead and it felt like I was a girl again. She looked at me with such love and concern, like a mother does.
“Thank you,” I told her and swallowed back the tears.
“I don’t like leaving you here, especially like this.”
“I’ll be fine. I promise.”
She looked from Ronan back to me and nodded her head. My mom leaned over and kissed my forehead then rose to standing and walked out of my cell, wiping tears from her face. She looked at me for just a little bit longer then touched the arms of both the guards, telling them to follow her, which they did just in time.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I waited for the sound of the door closing behind them before I groaned in agony. Pressure began to build more and more behind my eyes, in my ears, and out of the top of my head until it began to move down my neck. My head was still throbbing, but it had begun to spread downward into my body.
I writhed on the dirty mattress as the torment continued to move into my chest and torso, then out toward my arms and legs. And I thought the last time my mark added to itself was bad. The night my mark was complete, it felt like my skin was burning for hours on end but at least my entire body wasn’t on fire like it felt in that moment.
I could see Ronan calling out to me out of the corner of my eye, his hands stretched through the bars that separated our prison cells with tears streaking down his dirty cheeks and into his beard. I wanted to comfort him but I couldn’t even comfort myself.
I closed my eyes tightly and prayed that this torture would end quickly and that he wasn’t going to watch me die. I decided I didn’t care if I ever got my magic back as long as he didn’t have to watch me suffer and perish that way. He was suffering right along with me and I wanted to take it all back and deal with it in silence so he wouldn’t have to go
