The nurse’s words were like a thunderclap in my ear, making me deaf to anything else she might have said. I held the phone to me, shock filtering through me for the first ten seconds because there was no way that Rose was dying. That wasn’t possible. The doctor had said she just needed rest.

I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the sob as the truth hit me and I slid to my knees. I blubbered through my fingers. “No, the doctor said I should leave her alone. That I should let her get some rest!”

“I’m sorry, again, that doctor Etterson does not work here. Whoever you spoke to was not a doctor. As soon as this storm subsides, I think you should come see her. Say your goodbyes.”

She hung up on me and I didn’t blame her, though I did wonder if she was related to the 9-1-1 operator I’d dealt with earlier. Then her words sank in. Say my goodbyes? No, that couldn’t be.

I clutched the phone and ran into the kitchen. Diego was the only one of the four men waiting for me. His dark eyes swept over me once. “What’s wrong, Dominique?”

I grabbed his arm. “Rose. She’s ...she’s dying. I have to get to her.”

“The others have gone to investigate something in our home, to see if there were any batches of the kortine removed around the time you were attacked. They left me to watch over you.”

“You have a binding on you too, right?”

“Which means we can’t do anything outside of the rules,” he said. “I cannot leave here without the others,” he said.

I swallowed hard. “And you can’t take me to the hospital. You can’t tell me anything until that binding is gone, right? I mean, if I can remove it, you could help me get to the hospital, through the storm?”

He didn’t so much as blink those big brown eyes.

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, my mind racing. “I have to get to Rose, but I want you to come with me which means I need to figure out how to take your binding off.”

His eyes widened. “That’s not possible.”

I drew a breath. “Wrong thing to say to me.” I slid my hands under his cloak, and then under his shirt. His body tensed as I felt up and down his torso, focusing on the feel that I recalled from the binding around Corbin’s neck.

“Pants off,” I said.

His eyes widened but he didn’t so much as crack a smile. The fear in me was too heavy, which left no room for teasing, not when Rose’s life was on the line. I had to get to her, and that meant breaking the binding on Diego.

He undid his belt and slid his pants to the floor baring his thickly muscles thighs. I ran my hands over his hips and on either side of those thighs until I was on my knees right in front of him. I ran my hands over his legs with my eyes closed because if I opened them I was looking straight at his cock, which was most certainly enjoying the attention I was giving his body.

“Dios mio,” he muttered. “You are killing me.”

“I’m going as fast as I can.” I bit my lower lip and tipped my head back.

He groaned. “That look is not helping.”

I bit my lip harder to keep my mind on why I was doing this, for Rose, and not the sensation of his muscles flexing and dancing under my fingers. I slid my hands to his inner thighs and ran them upward. Diego groaned again and put his hands on the top of my head, words I didn’t understand flowing off his tongue.

“Stop that,” I said. “I think I’ve got it.”

He grunted. “You can keep looking. I’d suggest higher.”

My lips twitched, but it was my fingers I focused on. His inner thigh was coated in something that felt like the strands of a rope. Why the rope wouldn’t be around his neck, I didn’t understand.

I dug my fingers into the binding I couldn’t see, and as soon as my fingers slid under it, it flashed to life, a bright red rope. Heat snapped through my fingers, the same as had happened with Corbin.

Diego snarled and his hands tightened on me ever so slightly. “That is not comfortable.”

“I’ll go fast.” I stared at the throbbing red rope that tightened with every second. I yanked at it, pulling it away from his skin but it kept sticking back to him like it had glue on it. The heat in my hands spiked and I whimpered, anger and pain making my movements jerky.

“Damn it!” Fear for Rose and anger that anyone would bind Diego like this against his will combined inside me, and my hands dug deeper into the rope, splintering the spell at a speed that made what I’d done for Corbin look like a turtle’s pace.

This time the rope fought back, lashing around my wrists, moving from his thigh to my arms, just like a snake. I grabbed what I could of it with both hands. “No, this is not happening!”

Like a solar flare, the heat shot up, and I screamed as it constricted on my arms and on Diego’s leg at the same time. I didn’t let go, I had to believe I could destroy it, just like I’d destroyed the binding on Corbin.

Sweat rolled down my arms and I wasn’t sure if it was the heat of the rope or the exertion of hanging onto it.

Diego stumbled back as the last of the rope fell to the floor at my feet, flashed, and then dissolved into nothing.

He stared at me from the far side of the kitchen. “That compulsion has been on me for years. I . . . I almost don’t know how to feel.”

I grabbed his pants from the floor and tossed them at him. “Feel great and free because we need to get to Rose now.”

He strode across to me, bent and kissed me so gently that it was if a butterfly had landed on my lips. “I will thank you properly when this is all taken care of.”

“Deal,” I whispered back. “Now hurry, please, Rose is in trouble.”

He nodded, snapped his fingers and his magic coursed down his arms, circled around him and he went from pant-less to pants on in a literal blink of an eye.

“Think you can do that for me sometime? Maybe add an updo for my hair?” I turned away, ran to my room and grabbed a pair of socks, boots, jacket and my wallet. I stuffed the wallet and my phone into the coat pocket. I looked at Diego who just stood in my kitchen, his hood up, quietly waiting for me.

There was a calmness to him that drew me, like the eye of a storm. I held my hand out and he reached for me. “We will not need your vehicle.”

“We won’t?”

He shook his head. “Now that I am free from the binding, we can travel together.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant until I saw the blue magic dancing up and down his arms, highlighting tattoos I’d not seen before in the shadows of my dream. Each tattoo had a glyph, not unlike my own.

“These are like my scars,” I whispered, shock filtering through me.

“That we need to discuss, too. For now, let us get you to Rose. Take my other hand.” He held out his free hand and I took it in my own. The second our fingers wrapped around one another there was a jolt of power and the blue magic ripped around us in a spinning vortex.

Eye of the storm indeed. Diego didn’t so much as flinch as the world around us spun and danced, as the kitchen disappeared.

I didn’t close my eyes, much as the spinning upset my equilibrium. I wanted to see what he was doing because touching him while the magic coursed through his skin sparked an answering sense of power within me.

I blinked and my sight was gone. I clutched at Diego. “Where are we?”

“The basement of the hospital,” he let go of one hand and held the other up as a bright blue-white light flared over his fingers, illuminating the space. The room was mostly empty with just a few boxes here and there. He led me to the door, and the blue light flared around the knob.

“Locked?” I asked.

“Not anymore.” He glanced back at me, a smile on his lips. I reached up with my free hand and touched his face.

“Thank you.”

“No,” he shook his head as he opened the door. “Thank you for trusting me even though I kept things from you.”

I sighed. “I know things aren’t always what they seem. And I saw the binding on you. As long as you promise to be honest with me from here on out.”

“Of course.” He tugged me to his side, bent and kissed me quickly, but even in that brief touch the sharp pull of energy between us sparkled and danced, electric on my skin.

He swallowed hard. “Hurry up to your friend. I will check the hospital to make sure it is safe.”

“Wait,” I put a hand on his back stopping him as he stepped away from me. “What do you mean if it’s safe?”

He shook his head. “I believe that whoever scarred you may still be trying to hurt you now by hurting your friend. It . . .it is one way to bring someone’s power to life. To give them someone they love to protect.”

I clapped my hands over my mouth. “You mean it might be my fault that Rose was injured?”

Diego shook his head. “Not your fault, never. Go to her. I will be there as soon as I can.”

I watched him stride away from me, his wide back fading into nothing between one step and the next.

I stumbled up a short flight of concrete steps to another door. That was locked. I smacked the flat of my hand against the door several times, anger getting the better of me. Mostly anger at myself.

The door knob rattled and I stepped back, down the first step. Orange sparkles danced and jogged over the handle.

None of my men had magic with orange.

I spun and ran down the steps, sliding to a stop at the bottom and leaping to the right. There were three stacks of boxes and I ducked behind them as the door creaked open.

“Ms. Swift, it’s Dr. Etterson. I know you are in here.”

My jaw dropped. Dr. Etterson had magic? Of course, it made a wicked sort of sense. The nurses didn’t know a Dr. Etterson, and he’d been at both my incident at the ER with my scars, and he’d told me to leave Rose when she was dying. I clutched my hands into fists at my sides. The sound of his feet on the steps told me he was drawing closer. He passed by the boxes going straight for the room that Diego and I had arrived in. His back was to me.

I let out a slow breath, and started around the edge of the boxes, working my way toward the door at the top of the stair. I glanced back as Dr. Etterson stepped into the darkness of the storage room, his hand raised above his head with a light over it, just like Diego.

I sprinted up the stairs on my toes, my steps silent. At the top of the stairs I didn’t look back but kept running knowing that Etterson—if that was even his real name—would not be far behind.

I ran for all I was worth until I hit the bank of elevators. I could take them, but would that be obvious? I hit the call button, all but dancing on the spot. If I could throw Etterson off, it would buy me time because there was no doubt he’d know where I was going. But which way would give me the most time?

The elevator doors binged open and I stepped in and hit the button for every floor, all the way to the twentieth. Then I hit the button to shut the doors. As they slid shut, I leapt back through and ran away from the elevator toward the stairwell on the opposite side of the door that led into the basement room. Maybe it wasn’t much of a diversion, but it was all I had.

I pushed the door to the stairs open as quietly as I could and slid through, holding the handle as I shut it behind me so there would be no loud bang. Even so, the click sounded like the hammer of a gun as it shut tightly.

I didn’t wait to see if Etterson noticed. I turned and ran up the stairs, grabbing at the railing with each step to pull myself along faster. I thought I’d outfoxed him until I reached the fifth floor. Behind me there was a thunderous boom that sounded like a bomb had gone off and Etterson’s voice rolled up to me.

“Dominique, stop.”

My feet started to slow and I cried out. “NO!”

There was a tingle in my legs like I stood on a battery and I leapt forward once more, not really sure what had just happened. What was going on? Did I even want to know?

I passed the sixth floor and sweat was streaming down the sides of my face and my breath came in gasps. More from the anxiety than the output of energy. This was no worse than a work out at the gym. Except at the gym there was no man with magic behind me, no lives on the line. Right now, Rose was dying and it was my fault.

I burst through the door to the seventh floor. Two nurses stared at me and I pointed at the door. “There’s a man with a gun in the stairwell. He was chasing me!”

They stared at me for another beat and then they were running. One toward me and the door, the other toward the phone.

“What did he look like?”

I gave her a quick description of the man I knew as Etterson. “He was yelling at me that he was going to kill everyone.”

The nurse beside me yanked a set of keys from her waist and locked the door.

“What if he shoots it open?” I said. “Maybe we should block the hall?”

She nodded, her eyes wide with fear. “Good idea. Grab those extra beds.”

Between the two of us we filled the hall between the elevators and the stairwell. I backed away. “I have a friend here. I need to check on her,” I said.

I spun and ran down the hall toward Rose’s room. As I stepped through the door to her room, I knew something was wrong.

The same two women were in their beds as before, and there was no one in the bed across from Rose.

But it was the hand holding Rose’s that worried me. I could only see a portion of the hand and arm around the curtain surrounding her and as I walked the body attached to the hand came into view.

Etterson stood there holding Rose’s hand. “I’m afraid this must end, Dominique.”

“You . . .you’re a warlock. Why are you doing this?” I spluttered the words, shocked that they would even come out of my mouth.

“Because I am on one side of the two factions. The Cabal helping you is on the other side.” He smiled, but his smile was off, as though he was not sure himself if he should be happy or sad.

“Don’t do this. She needs medical help. Please, don’t hurt her,” I said.

“I’m taking her away,” Etterson said. “We want to study her at the Temple of Light.”

“What? Why?” I was doing everything I could to stall him. Anything at all to buy Rose and Diego more time.

He sighed. “Because unlike you, Rose is special. She has power in her that has not been seen in a thousand years.”

I sagged. “So, you’re going to heal her?” I could live with that. Not that I wanted her to be far away from me but at least she would be alive.

“No, not at all. I plan to take her power for my own.” He grinned at me then and I saw a glimmer of madness.

“And that will kill her, won’t it?”

He grinned and flicked his eyebrows up. “Yes. But her loss will help me gain the power I need.”

I had to stall, Diego said he would meet me at Rose’s room. I had to just wait until he got there. “But why didn’t you take her before?”

“Ah. Well, I wasn’t sure which one of you was the special one. It isn’t you, by and by. I can only take one.” He held up a single finger. “Otherwise, I would have just taken you both. But I’ve been watching you with the Cabal. They are trying so hard to open you to your power, and even the marks cut into you weren’t enough to open you. Believe you me, I tried to make it you. Your bloodline would have one think you are special, but it turns out it’s Rose. Not you.”

I shook my head. “Please, I don’t understand. Why is she special? Why would you not just allow her to be healed and—”

“There are no healers in our world, not for an injury like this.” He waved his free hand at Rose. “You see, the healers were weak. They let themselves be used up.” He shook his head. “I digress. I told the nurses that you escaped from the ninth floor. So, you’ll be all tied up soon enough.”

He waved at me, and the orange sparkles danced down his arms and enveloped Rose’s body.

“NO!” I screamed the word as I leapt toward them, crashing into the now empty bed. I spun around as the two nurses who’d been at the front desk before circled around the bed.

“Miss, everything is going to be fine,” the one on my left said, a needle tucked in her palm.

I shook my head. “No, you don’t understand. Do you not see that Rose isn’t in this bed?”

The other nurse smiled. “There has been no one in this bed all week.”

“No.” I held up a single finger and pointed it at her. “No. She was in an accident. The big one on the highway and she was in a coma and then I phoned in and they told me she was dying so I came here and Dr. Etterson tried to stop me from getting to her. He took her away!”

I was panting, my breath coming in gulps as a panic attack clawed its way up my throat. I had to get away. Where was Diego? Why had he left me to this on my own?

I scrambled across the bed and the nurses closed in. The one behind me grabbed my heels and yanked me hard so that I was flat on my belly. I didn’t want to hurt her but I needed to get away. I kicked out, catching her in the thigh, but she never let go. I felt the sting of a needle in my ass cheek and the tingle of a high-powered sedative as it coursed through my blood. The air went out of me in a whoosh and I sagged into the bed that still smelled like Rose’s perfume.

I swallowed hard once and let out a low groan. “You don’t understand.”

“It’ll be okay. We have your file here. We’ll get your therapist in as soon as we can and you can have a chat with her.” The nurses were being so kind after I’d tried to get away which made me cry. I felt bad that I’d hurt the one.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“Ah, it’ll be okay. I’ll have a bruise and a story about the pretty girl who wrestled with me. My hubby will love it.” She winked at me even as she helped my limp body into a wheelchair. They strapped my chest and head back so I didn’t wobble and then wheeled me out of the room to the elevators. In we went and then onto the ninth floor.

The psych ward. I knew the place. I’d been there once before. Dr. Etterson had sent me for an evaluation and that was where I’d met my therapist, Dr. Auralee.

More than all that, my mind kept shifting back to the four men who’d promised to help me. The four men who I knew now I’d spent the last year falling in love with. Tears trickled down my cheeks as I finally admitted how false it had all been.

“Prozalin,” I whispered. “That’s what my doctor has me on.”

“Okay, honey, will get you a dose of Prozalin and once it’s in your system you’ll start to feel better.” The one nurse put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

A sob slipped from me as they wheeled me into a padded room with a single bed. They unstrapped me from the wheelchair and helped me to lie on the bed. Everything was happening so fast and I didn’t understand how my life could spin out of control in a matter of twenty-four hours.

Yesterday, I’d been on the phone with Rose and she’d been on her way to Miami. Now she was stolen away by someone who didn’t exist, and I was in lockdown in a psych ward. My limbs were heavy and I struggled to get my one hand up to cover my eyes, to block out the light of the room, to block out the sight of the padded walls.

I wanted to call the men to me, to call Sterling, Corbin, Diego, and Lucas to come and rescue me, to believe they could rescue me. But the truth was finally in front of me. I’d lost my mind to the delusions just like Dr. Auralee had said could happen if I didn’t take the Prozalin. I’d deliberately not taken it so I could live in my fantasy world and this was the consequence. There was a ping inside my head and I slid my hand from my face. If this was all a delusion, then Rose had to be okay. I sighed softly. She was probably in Miami soaking in the sun and showing off her curves in a mini-bikini. Bright red, it would be bright red with frills. That was her style.

With that, I let myself sink into the oblivion of the sedative, not fighting it any longer.