Eden awakened with a start. She opened her eyes. At least, she thought she did, but she was still surrounded by darkness. She frowned and raised a hand to rub her eyes.

—except her hand wouldn’t move. It was—

What the heck is wrong with me?

She couldn’t move a muscle…

The Tranq!

And she was blindfolded. Now, she could feel the fabric of the material against her face.

Wait, face? No. She wasn’t in her human form. She was in her panther’s form. She’d been in her panther body when she was Tranqed.

So why am I awake now? Shouldn’t I be knocked out?

And if she was awake, why couldn’t she move a muscle? She pushed for a shift, but got no response from her panther.

She screamed in her mind for her panther to respond, to let her shift into her human form, but the only thing that greeted her was silence.

Then she felt it. Another, next to her.

Wait, no, not next to her. In her body

“Piria?”

In her mind, Piria responded, “Yes.”

“What’s happened? Why are you and I conscious and my panther is not? I mean. Well, I know why she isn’t conscious. But why are we?”

“The Tranq does not seem to affect me. And that is transferring to you.”

But that meant she couldn’t shift out of her panther. She was stuck in the animal’s body, unable to move. Then another thought occurred to her. “Piria, why can’t I see?”

“What do you smell?”

Eden took a deep breath. “Horses?”

“It seems they have put a horse blanket over your panther’s head.”

Now why would they do that?

As if reading her mind, Piria answered. “I’m sure they know you have an elemental. I can’t cast at what I can’t see. Who knows what would catch fire.”

“They? They who? Do you know who THEY are?”

Piria didn’t have a chance to reply. The sound of a door creaking open broke off Eden’s internal conversation with her elemental as she paused to listen for whoever had put her in this predicament.

“Hurry up, use the Tranq-reversal. We can’t question a panther.”

In her panther’s mind, Eden concentrated on what she’d just heard.

The voice was a woman’s, throaty, with a foreign accent. Eastern European, perhaps? Reminded Eden of the late-night commercials advertising phone sex.

“Reversal?” A different voice said, higher pitched than the first—also female, also with an accent.

“Yes. I told you to bring Tranqs and the reversals. The syringes with the pink juice in them,” said Phone Sex Voice.

“They’re in the bag, in the car,” said High Pitch Voice’s tone grew whiny.

“Then get them,” snapped Phone Sex.

A searing heat started behind Eden’s panther eyes. She knew what that meant.

“Piria, stop. You can’t create flames when you can’t see targets. You’ll burn this place down.”

Whatever this place was.

It was clearly indoors, the two women’s footsteps had fallen on wood, Eden had been able to tell that from the moment the door opened.

The heat that flowed throughout Eden’s panther body did not diminish, gathering momentum instead.

“No, Piria. Do not do this.”

Eden’s words were in vain. She realized that as immediately as the smell of smoke permeated her senses. The acrid smoke made it past the blanket’s horse smell.

Great. Just great. Piria had started a fire.

High Pitch screamed.

“Let’s get out of here,” Phone Sex said.

“What about the panther, the—” High Pitch began.

“I’m not dying for this cause.”

“But Rochelle said we had to get—”

“Then you stay.”

Running footsteps across wood let Eden know that Phone Sex Voice was gone.

A second set of footsteps followed Phone Sex out.

Now what?

Eden screamed for her panther to awaken. Screamed over and over in the mind she shared with her panther. But she knew it was fruitless. The Tranq would keep the panther unconscious.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Eden released her rage on Piria. “We’re all going to die because you can’t control yourself.”