“Dara, please tell us what happened. We need to know so we can help.”

Jolie’s soothing voice breaks through my panic. I focus on her face, then look around. My warriors and Elijah are surrounding me.

“James has Kayla - my best friend from Earth. I don’t know how he got to her, but he’s keeping her in a cell. He… ” I choke on the words I’m about to say. “He’s going to torture her like he tortured Blair.” Fresh tears stream down my cheeks. “She won’t survive that.” My voice is nothing but a hoarse whisper now, and I begin to sob.

“Declan, get in contact with Alaric,” Harlan says. “I want a full update on what’s happened so we know how to plan our next steps.” Declan steps away from the group with a nod.

“How?” I ask quietly. “How could he have brought Kayla here? I thought you said it’s impossible to bring a human here to Silvia?”

Harlan runs his hand through his short hair. “Honestly, Dara? I have no idea. Full humans normally can’t travel through the portals. He must have done something to her so that she could travel through. We will work out a plan, but Topaz is our priority. How did you go with that? Do we have a solution?”

I sit there trying to process what Harlan has just said. How are we meant to move forward and retrieve the next stone when James is torturing Kayla?

“This really throws a spanner in the works of retrieving the next stone,” Blair grinds out. “It’s exactly what James would want though - a distraction.”

Of course, he’s right. This is the perfect distraction. I hear Jolie filling the guys in with what happened with our interaction with my father.

The thought of James torturing my best friend makes my blood boil. Kayla doesn’t deserve to be dragged into this. She should be back on Earth living a healthy life. It's my fault that she is caught up in this mess and I will be doing everything I can to get her back to me. To keep her safe here.

When I see Declan coming back towards us, I get up from the ground with Oliver’s help.

Declan clears his throat. “Alaric has confirmed that James does have Kayla. He’s holding her hostage and he wants Dara to surrender herself for Kayla’s release. He’s going to keep us updated on what’s happening.”

“I’ll do it. Let's go.” I try to walk off when someone grabs my arm and stops me. I whirl around, smacking into Blair’s hard body.

“Over my dead body,” he growls. “You’ll not give yourself up. James will kill you. You’re our only chance at defeating him, Dara, and I will not let you go.”

I turn around and start frantically punching Blair’s belly in frustration. Too soon, I’m worn out and drop to the ground, tears flowing down my face. Blair crouches down beside me, pulling me into his arms and holding me tightly.

I look up towards the sky and scream as loud as I can. I’m the one that James wants. Why must everyone else suffer because of me? “There has to be a way.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he says, pressing a kiss to my hair, lingering there. “We’ll get her back.”

I try to take comfort in his words, I couldn’t help but think that not only did we have the mission of getting Topaz back, we now had to rescue my best friend, too.

Nothing’s ever easy for us.