Fleur was in hell. Maybe literally. It had to be at least a million and a half degrees in here, in the dark. Wherever here was. Hot air burned her lungs with each breath. The wall against her back was some sort of dark craggily rock, hot to the touch, and the place damn well smelled of sulfur. Or demon dragon farts. One or the other.

Where in the world, or underworld, as the case may be, was she?

She tried squinting and then opening her eyes wide to get them to adjust to the darkness. It was like one of those scenes in a horror movie where the screen was totally black, minus the creepy music. Craptastic.

Steele was probably losing his shit right about now. She tried saying his name in her mind, hoping against hope that he was in his dragon form, out looking for her and would hear. “Steele?”

Nothing.

The tiniest of green glows emanated from her neck. The soul shard.

She grasped it in her hand and closed her eyes. The love she felt for Steele bubbled up through her, giving her strength.

Yes. Love.

How that was possible in such a short time, she didn’t know, but it was true. Sure, he was sexy hot, and whoo-boy was he a rockstar in the sack, but this was something more than lust.

He was protective, even when he didn’t need to be. Which she found adorable, not that he needed to know she thought so.

But what really melted her heart was the way he was strong, yet gentle, the way he was so alpha, and yet let her have control.

She’d never felt in control of anything in her entire life. Destiny had always been the one calling the shots.

Steele changed that.

No. Hold up. That wasn’t entirely true. He’d shown her there was another way. She was the one who quit waiting for destiny to happen, and started making her own life happen.

That life was with Steele.

When she opened her eyes, the room, or rather cave, was filled with light from the shard. It surrounded her like a protective layer. The air felt less hot and she could breath again. Awesomesauce.

Maybe if she got up off her butt and took a proper look around she could find some way out of this mess. Fleur got to her feet and took a second to evaluate life and limb. She wasn’t missing any bits and the only part that didn’t feel normal was where her back had been pressed against the pokey bits of the rock.

Either her captor hadn’t injured her, or she was dead and couldn’t feel the pain anymore. If it was the latter she was going to kill somebody. Then they could hang out together.

She took a deep breath, and coughed at the acrid smell. Okay, so probably not dead. That meant she needed to find a way out of here.

Fleur slowly spun in a circle hoping for any hint of light to guide her way.

Nothing to the right, nothing behind her, but, aha – there, to the left a small glimmer of red.

The light from the shard faded, as if it knew danger lay ahead, and it didn’t want her to be seen.

She gingerly felt her way along the wall toward the light. The red glow brightened as she got closer, and illuminated a tunnel.

There was only one way out. That was never good.

No matter how hard she tried to be quiet, the rocks crunched beneath her feet, and she sounded more like a herd of garbage trucks than a stealthy escapee.

A few more feet ahead and she saw the tunnel would open into a larger cavern. There were voices in there. Voices like these ones meant bad guys.

“Damn it, boy. Why haven’t you taken the shard for yourself? It’s the only way.” A voice, that could only be described as angry Mrs. Claus echoed through the chamber.

Yikes. If that was her kidnapper’s mother, no wonder he’d turned out psycho.

The crash of a rock smashing against the wall shattered cranky Claus’s nagging. “You think I don’t know that. I already tried.”

He had? It wasn’t like it would have been hard to slip the cord over her head while she’d been unconscious.

“Try harder.”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Each word was a growl. He did not like this woman.

“Then kill her.”

Uh-oh.

“You’re losing your mind, witch. Why do you think I didn’t kill the green dragon?”

At least there was that bit of good news. Steele was alive. She would get back to him.

“You give more credence to the mating than it deserves.”

Oh, yeah? The mating had meant everything in the world to her. Steele was her family, her people, her tribe. But what did psycho kidnapper think it was important?

“Dammit. The shard is useless to me of the soul inside of it is dead.”

Umm. So, if he killed her, Steele would die too? No, no, no. She backed away from her not so secure hiding spot. If she had to dig herself a new tunnel out of that cave with her fingernails, she would.

Steele would not die because she made a dumb move and tried to get herself killed escaping.

“You don’t know that, you’ve never—”

“Shut. Up. Now.”

“Ungrateful whoreson.”

“Jealous harridan.”

Oh, yeah. Definitely bad guys, and also kind of whiny twelve-year olds.

What if she couldn’t dig her way out? This was crunchy, hard, sharp rock. Just walking on it made enough noise. If they heard her scraping or banging on it, they’d probably come running.

Shit.

She had to go back. Maybe if they kept arguing long enough she could sneak by them.

Yeah, right.

“Give me the soul shard and you can go.”

Great big piles of stinking shit. That dark and scary voice had come from right behind her.

She’d take a deep breath and sigh, but then she’d have to smell his ass gas.

Fleur grasped the talisman that contained part of Steele’s soul in it. He’d given it to her both figuratively and literally. Letting this asshat get his hands on it would be bad news bears. She turned and faced the kidnapper. What did one say to the uber bad guy of the underworld? “Bite me.”

Asshat grinned, or smirked, or scowled, Fleur couldn’t tell the difference. “These teeth are more than you can handle, little witch. Don’t make me use them on your delicate flesh.”

“I am no delicate freaking flower. Bring it on, dickwad.”

Yeah. It was all bluster. She was scared out of her mind. But, he didn’t need to know that. He’d said he’d tried to take the shard from her and couldn’t. That had to give her some sort of advantage.

Her kidnapper shook his head. “The mouth on you. My demons will enjoy shutting it up.”

Demons? Like those weird black snake-like dragons at the battle outside her apartment? Not good.

Time to get the dodge out of hell. But, how? The dark cave or the cavern o’ bad guys were both horrible choices.

She backed away, ready to turn and sprint back to the cave. Maybe she missed something in there, like a magical wardrobe that could transport her away from here.

Good Gods. Her best plan was playing hide and seek to stay away from asshat and cranky Claus.

“Come here.” Asshat grabbed her arm and drug her out into the cavern. Holy Hades. Were those boiling pools of magma?

There were half a dozen other tunnels leading out of the cavern, but to get to most of them she’d have to recall all her best childhood skills at playing the floor is lava. Because it was.

She was never very good at that game.

Cranky Claus came up to her, totally invading her personal space bubble and tried to grab the shard. Fleur jerked away and the crone only grasped empty air.

She had the white hair and red dress, but there was no plump cheeks or cookies and milk to this woman. She had to be a thousand years old, and was in serious need of a hamburger, or two, or twelve. No wonder she was cranky.

She narrowed her eyes and glared at Fleur then down at the shard. She pointed a craggily finger at it.

“Two dragon’s souls are intermingled in that shard. It is powerful. Get it from her.”

Asshat scoffed. “Don’t be daft, you old hag.”

She waved that finger at him. “Stupid boy. Can’t you see it? Her father was a dragon.”

Whoa. What?

Asshat looked her up and down, a new interest in his eyes. “The daughter of a dragon. You are a rare breed.”

Nope. Nope. Nope. This old witch really was losing her mind. But, maybe that was her way out of here. If she could get the two of them to fight even more than they already were, then she could use the distraction to bolt to one of the tunnels.

If she didn’t die in a pool of lava in the process.

She could think about the implications of what the old lady had said later.

“Your anti-Mrs. Claus is wrong. My father was a soldier.” That much she knew. “I think I’d know if he was a dragon.”

No, she wouldn’t. Shh.

“And, if she’s so wrong about that, she’s probably been lying right to your face. What else has she been lying to you about? Hmm?”

“Nice try little witch. My hag of an aunt and I are after the same thing. It wouldn’t do her any good to lie to me. Now, be a good girl and give me the soul shard.”

Plan A was shot to hell, literally.

She folded her arms and cocked her hip to the side, trying to look bored with the two of them. Hopefully her not-scared-of-you façade distracted them enough while her brain went on into Miracle-Gro mode to find another way out of this. “No thanks, I’ll keep it. What else do you want?”

“This is not a negotiation.” He took her by the arm again and backed her toward one of the lava pools. “You will give me the shard.”

“I know you can’t kill me to get what you want. So, stop trying to scare me.” Fleur searched the cave for any sign of life. A tiny sprout, a branch, a leaf, anything she could grasp onto for help.

“If you don’t give me the shard, you’ll wish I had killed you here and now.” Black claws extended from his fingers, digging into her skin. He pushed her to her knees and kept the pressure on, shoving her face closer and closer to the hot bubbling liquid rock.

Fear and adrenaline spiked through her, sucking away her breath. One touch of the magma would burn through her skin all the way to the bone in milliseconds.

The scared small part of her that had controlled her actions most of her life begged her to cry out, give in, do exactly what they wanted her to do.

She couldn’t. Her life and soul were interwoven with Steele’s. She pulled on his strength, the warrior part of him that would never allow this horrible creature to win.

Black scales rippled across his arm, protecting his own skin from the heat. “Give me the shard and you won’t have to feel the unending pain of lava burning away at your face.”

She was so close now, she should already have third-degree burns. A ripple flashed across her own skin. The shard protecting her, or something more?

Either way, she had reprieve that allowed her mind to clear. That’s when she saw the one thing that could possibly save her life. She never would have seen it from any other angle, and now she had a plan, thanks to Steele.

The thread of a root pushed through the ceiling of the cavern, and it would save her life.