Darkness. Pain. Darkness. Pain. Darkness. Pain. I couldn’t process anything around me except for those two things. One moment I was sitting in a truck, the next I was… holy crap, I was dead. I was hit by another car and was killed. In all my imaginings of what death was, this wasn’t one of them.

As a child, I pictured bright lights and angels swooping down to take me to the clouds. As a teen, I thought it probably would be less dramatic, but still pleasant. As a college student, I pretty much decided it was going to be like going to sleep but without the waking up. This pain and darkness, no this wasn’t at all what I had anticipated.

“Roll over,” Rhi called to me in a loud whisper. Maybe I wasn’t dead. That didn’t explain how I was here, in the dark, and in so much pain. I blinked rapidly hoping to adjust to the darkness quicker, but with no success. Wherever we were, it was dark, the kind of darkness we rarely saw in the city. “I said, roll over.”

“Dead?” I asked just to be sure. As much as a relief as the whole not being dead thing was, the pain and darkness had me instilled with just as much fear and anxiety. This was wrong. The entire scene around me was just plain wrong.

“No.” Her voice cracked as she spoke. That was not good. Not. At. All. “Not yet, but you need to get up.”

I wished I could see her to see if she was, as her voice indicated, crying. She often cried out of frustration and sometimes out of rejection, both of which I understood and could deal with. This, this didn’t sound like those kind of tears. These tears sounded like they came out of a place of fear, and that was something I’d never seen in my friend before.

“Rhi, what the heck happened?” I tried to roll as she asked, but the pain radiated beyond the massive headache and into my shoulder. Freaking perfect.

“About that. I kind of rammed into your truck.” If I had been close enough to her, I would’ve… I don’t know what I would’ve done, but rage was filling me to the point of surpassing the pain. Deep down I knew I had to keep her talking. I couldn’t move my arms apart, as evident with my attempt at rolling which meant I needed her, which sucked since she was the reason I was there. “On purpose,” she said the last part lower, probably hoping I didn’t quite here it. Not that I could blame her because if we were anywhere but this dark space with my arms bound, I had no doubt my hands would be around her throat.

“Wh-wh-why would you do that?” What I really wanted to say, and by the force of will power and self-preservation, somehow managed to completely avoid, was How the eff did I not know you were evil? Sure I knew she wasn’t like me in so many ways and she made far different life choices than I did, but that never lead me to believe she was evil. I felt bad for her, sympathized with her, and on occasion wanted to smack her, but never thought she was capable of doing something at all like this. She rammed into Knox’s truck, with me in it, on purpose. It made no sense.

“Long story short… my parents.”

I tried again to roll over, biting my lip as I did as to not scream out in agony. If she were whispering, there was a reason. A reason I now could name. Her parents. Unlike Rhi, I had thought of them as evil on more than one occasion. Mostly for how they treated their daughter. Mostly, but not all.

The first time I met them, they gave me the squeamies. Rhi and I were roomies, but hadn’t quite crossed into the friend zone yet, although I was questioning whether we had ever truly become friends right now. There was something off about them, almost slimy. I’d felt that feeling only once in my short life and it was with a fellow at the local library. Turned out he was a perve who preyed upon kids.

I assumed it was something similar with one of her parents and was glad they were only going to be around for one afternoon. Later on, I attested it to them being awful to their daughter. Now. Now I was guessing what I really sensed both times was evil. Freaking brilliant. If only I could’ve known that back then and could’ve avoided all of this, whatever this was.

“I’m gonna need the longer story.”

“Fine, but roll over here so I can get you untied.” So Rhi was as blind as I was and didn’t know I was even attempting to roll already. That wasn’t good.

“So you can what, try to kill me again?” I was only half joking. Part of me knew she wasn’t really trying to kill me. I hoped.

“No. So then you can untie me and we can save Knox.”

“Better get to that story.” I grunted as I rolled over again. If my ears were fully functioning, I had only a couple more rotations before we’d be in touching distance.

“I’m a witch.”

How did I not know this? I mean, I knew she was off and different. I also knew she sometimes did odd new age garbly gook as I had teased her for it, but part of me always knew it was more. True, I was blind to the paranormal world in many ways, never believing that dragons were a thing for instance, but I always knew there were witches. That was something my mother and Gran had mentioned in passing over the years and I just took as truth. In my imagining they were the gallivanting naked in the woods kind of witches, but their existence was still there.

“Rhi.” I gave my best teacher voice as I rolled once more. She couldn’t just say I’m a witch and stop there. There was so much more going on here than that, to be sure.

“No listen, I’m a witch by birth.” She misinterpreted my frustration as not believing her or thinking she was censoring her use of the word bitch. I took one last roll, unable to hold in my grunt as I did so. “To the left,” she directed, and I used my feet to help move closer to her. “So my parents are awful and made me.”

“Do not tell me your parents made you try to kill me because then I may just kill you instead.” I couldn’t believe she was using the parents-made-me-do-it defense. She often griped about things her parents made her do from which classes to take, to going home mid-week for what she deemed stupid family shit, but to blame them for her actions was too much, even for Rhi.

“No, at first they had me friend you, force my way into your life.” Looking back, that made sense. She seemed to all of a sudden be all places. At first it was annoying and gradually I got used to it, and then well, then we became friends, sort of, kind of. I thought we had become friends, but the whole trying to kill me thing had me reevaluating our entire relationship. “They said you were important and nothing would happen to you.”

She sounded like she really believed them, at the time anyway. Which was all well and good if it weren’t for the fact that she tried to kill me an hour ago, or had it been longer? Crap, I didn’t even really know what day it was. The darkness and odd silence kept my senses from working properly.

“And you listened?” I scootched a tiny bit closer, cussing to myself as the pain shot down my spine this time. When I got out of here, I was going to need more than a few aspirin.

“You know my parents. They’re actually much worse than you’ve seen, as hard as that is for you to believe.” I bumped into her arms as she spoke and I felt her fingers grappling at my wrists. She was at least working on freeing me like she promised. That was when it hit me. Why was I, the injured one, the one moving? Before I could ask, she continued with her answer, which was probably more important at the moment. I hoped. If not, I could be making a huge mistake. “I had no choice, and after all, what harm could there be in becoming your friend. And then I did. I did become you’re friend.”

“Which is why you tried to kill me.” I only sort of, kind of teased. For some reason, I wasn’t scared of Rhi in the moment. She felt almost as much of a victim as I was, which my brain knew was complete and utter bullshit, but there it was.

“To be fair, it wasn’t really me.”

“Bullshit.” Although it didn’t sound like complete bullshit. How freaking powerful were her parents?

“Bulltrue.” Her fingers kept working at my wrist as she spoke and odd pauses seemed to occur when they were unable to do what she was asking. “My parents are powerful and I know you believe me on the witch thing because you haven’t even pretended not to.”

My wrists snapped free and I automatically went to rub them. They were going to hurt later, but for now, the freedom surpassed the feeling of rawness on them.

“True,” I conceded as I made quick work of her knots. Unlike mine, hers were in front and… crap, they didn’t start that way. She didn’t come to me because she brought her bound hands to the front and knowing her shoulder issues, that meant she probably dislocated it along the way. I worked as gently as I could, cringing the few times she let a grunt out. “Here. Don’t make me regret this.” The warning wasn’t needed.

“I won’t, I promise.” I pulled to sit up and helped her do the same. I still didn’t know where we were or how we were getting out, but having our hands free felt like a huge victory. “So my parents took control over my body when I refused to help them.”

“Help them do what exactly?” I would deal with the whole your parents can possess people like freaking zombies thing later.

“Kidnap you.”

“Why would they want to… Knox.” At that moment, all too much became clear. They wanted Knox. Somehow they, like my Gran, knew he was to be mine or in this case not mine. Stinks. This was worse than I thought and I was thinking pretty freaking grimly. “They know.”

“They do. They knew before I even met you.” She took a deep breath. “You are a mate to a dragon and not just any dragon, the Alpha. It gives you power in their eyes.”

“I have no power. We are not even together. He dumped me.” Out of all of this, that was the part that hurt the worst. He dumped me. Which in the scheme of things really shouldn’t seem that important. I had a best friend who was a plant in an evil plan which I still had no full comprehension of, I was in an accident which was more of a kidnapping plot than a true accident, and I was trapped someplace dark with the person who hit me, yet my heart was still hung up on Knox. I was a cluster to be sure.

“That’s not possible.” She gave me a push to rise and I did before she tugged on my pant leg with what I knew was her good arm. She needed help up, and for all the regrets it might lead to later, I helped her up. It took her significantly longer than it should’ve, telling me her injuries were far worse than I guessed. I had been there when she dislocated her shoulder before. It stunk, but nothing like this. What kind of parents were they who could leave their child like that. “If he rejects you, he will go into Mate Craze.”

“Mate Craze?” I wrapped her good arm around my shoulder, knowing she was going to need it.

“That can wait, the important thing is we need to get to the clearing without my parents knowing so we can save Knox.”

“But I’m the one kidnapped.” I looked around hoping for a glimpse of light and was overwhelmed with relief to see a sliver of light to the left. I began to lead Rhi there one hobble at a time. I would know more once I got out, but from her hobble I guessed her ankle was hurt badly. Not good, especially if we needed to get someplace and fast.

“And they only needed you for your blood apparently. You living was of no consequence to them.”

And things just got worse.

“My blood?” I wasn’t really asking. I didn’t want to know. Did they already have my blood? Was that why my head pounded so or were they going to drain me later. Nope. That was not going to be a thing. I was Kallie, mate to Knox or would be mate to Knox, and I wasn’t going down without a fight. He needed me and that was more important than all things, including my homicidal roomie.

“Your blood. They used it to mask themselves. They are up at the clearing now, waiting for Knox to show. He won’t see them, he’ll see us. He will try to save you, and as he does, they will put him down.” She spoke the words so fast I could barely make them out.

“Why? Why would they do that?” I spoke more to myself than her. Their reasons were irrelevant. They were out to hurt my mate. Mine. Whether he accepted me or not made no difference in the fact he was mine and I was going to save him from the evil I brought to his door.

A few more hobbles later and we met a door which was thankfully easy to open. I reached for the wall hoping to find a light switch, which I found easily enough. The light was almost blinding and I felt my eyes clamping shut again. A few moments, which felt like hours, my eyes adjusted enough so I could look around the room, or more accurately, the hallway, which lead to a stairwell. Looking to my side, I took in Rhi. She was in worse shape than I thought. I wasn’t sure how much of it was from the accident and how much was from her parents, but she was a hot mess. She had two black eyes, her arm fell limply to her side and her right leg was covered in blood. This was not good, especially not with a staircase in front of us.

“Treasure,” she answered and it took me a moment to remember the question. Treasure. They wanted Knox for his treasure.

“It always comes down to treasure,” I mumbled as we made our way to the staircase.