Deep, primal terror flooded me. I struggled to flee, run, anything, but a flick of Rhyzkahl’s left hand bound my arms behind me. Another flick pulled them up so that my wrists were at my lower back.

Eyes on the blade, I breathed in gasping pants. “No, Rhyzkahl, please…. It’s not too late.”

The blade glimmered oily blue, fully formed in his hand.

“It is too late…now,” he said, voice laden with deadly promise.

And I knew without doubt it was true. A heartbreaking ache of disappointment flashed through me. I’d wanted so badly to trust him, but it didn’t matter. He was going to do something terrible to me.

But right on the heels of that disappointment came an equally profound disappointment and anger at myself. I’d always known he was up to something, and hadn’t fully trusted him. The hints and clues had been there all along, but, damn it, I hadn’t wanted to look at any of it objectively. My own need and angst kept me nicely wrapped up in ego-stroking denial. He’d attempted to coerce me in our very first encounter, placed his mark on me in a moment of true duress, dribbled information to me on his own terms, used my computer while I slept—and who knew what else. And there’d been numerous moments where he showed flickers of indecision that echoed those he displayed just now, right after our lovemaking. Yeah, great cop sense, Kara. He wasn’t simply a charismatic “bad boy.” No, Rhyzkahl was far, far worse.

I felt the shift in his aura, heavy and vile. I thrashed in the bindings, sure that if I could break free I could find a way to escape. I had to get away, had to. But no. No freedom. The blade whispered. Rhyzkahl lifted it and deep red fire ignited along its length, illuminated sporadically by scintillating arcs.

“Rhyzkahl, don’t do this.” I felt my lips move, felt the clench in my throat, but heard no sound.

Rhyzkahl heard. “It is already done,” he said, voice terrifying in a different way than Mzatal’s scary-as-fuck voice—colder and carrying a promise of horror. “Can you not feel it? There is more. Much more.” Lifting my wrists a smidge higher, he moved me to the very center of the diagram.

I let out a squeal of discomfort and fear as he pulled my wrists even higher up behind me. Strappado. That’s what this torturous position was called. I only knew that because I had a case last year of consensual BDSM that went too far. And now I understood Mzatal’s warnings, far too late. Had he known what lay in store for me? And, if so, why hadn’t he fucking told me? My heart slammed within my chest. I knew I was deeply and seriously fucked. I tried to pull grove power, but it felt as if I ran up against a smooth wall.

“It cannot touch you here,” he said. “You yourself sealed the chamber against the grove.”

Sick horror filled me. “You swore not to do me any harm!”

He didn’t even pause before responding. “‘During that time in your world,’” he said, clearly quoting the words of our agreement back to me, “‘I will do nothing with the intent of causing you harm.’”

My world. Stupid. Stupid! “Stop! Don’t do this!” I didn’t even know what “this” was, I only knew it was going to be bad.

Rhyzkahl made certain I was in the very center of the diagram, then lifted my wrists until they were slightly higher than my shoulders, forcing me to lean forward to relieve some of the burn of the uncomfortable position.

“Mzatal,” he said, snarling the name. “He thought to keep you from me, use you himself.” He gave a cold smile. “He will pay for his audacity.” His breath hissed, and I saw that the thorny protrusions on the blade hilt had molded around his fingers. Deep red fire wreathed his hand and crept up his forearm. I had the very bad feeling he couldn’t release the blade even if he wanted to, at least not until this ritual was finished.

My gut clenched as I stared at him. “Why are you doing this?” I swallowed hard. “Is this what happened to Elinor? Did you kill her too?”

Pain exploded in my face as he backhanded me hard, knocking me off balance, and I gave a strangled cry as my shoulders wrenched in the bindings. Dizzy from the vicious blow, I struggled to get my feet beneath me again. As soon as I did so, Rhyzkahl gripped my chin hard and turned my face fully toward him. “I did not kill her!” he said, fury replacing the ice in his voice. “Never speak that again.” His gaze slid over the puffiness of my eye, but it didn’t seem to touch him. “Look. At. Me.”

Whimpering softly, I met his eyes. My terror increased at the darkness I saw there.

“Twelve,” he said. “We will begin with the number twelve.” The grip on my chin tightened. “Look well, Kara Helene Gillian.” His eyes penetrated me with dark intensity. “By the time we reach one, you will no longer have the resolve to look into my eyes. And when we are complete, that name will be a forgotten whisper, and you will have a new one.”

The truth of it was etched in his perfect features. He wasn’t going to kill me. Whatever my fate, it would be much worse. I spit into his face, knowing it would surely be my last act of defiance.

Rhyzkahl didn’t show a flicker of reaction. Still gripping my chin, he wiped the spittle away with the back of the hand that held the blade, then shifted to lay his other palm against the side of my face. “Only by breaking you, dear one, can I rebuild you into a greater existence, a new life,” he said with a sickening gentleness of tone. “Enthralled, you will be safe, cherished.” He smiled at me, caressing my cheek with his thumb. “You will thank me when you fully understand what I have done for you, when you understand that I have saved you.”

He lifted me in the arcane bindings until I was on my toes. My breath hissed through my teeth in bursts with the strain in my shoulders. “Bullshit…you…insane…fucker.”

All hint of the deranged gentleness evaporated as he leaned close, breath hot on my face. “Through you we gain Szerain’s blade. Through you, we open a gateway to a new world. Then you will be with me forever.” The bindings grew into a sheath that enveloped me, preventing my body from moving even a millimeter. Only my head was free. I thrashed futilely with a blossoming panic.

He brought the blade close to my face. I let out a breathless scream, sick with horror as I reflexively tried to jerk away.

“You have met Xhan before, under tame circumstances,” he said, moving the blade before my eyes, voice cold and penetrating again. “This time, it reveals itself fully to you.”

You are mine.

I recoiled from the horrific presence of Rhyzkahl and the blade, unable to jerk anything but my head away, and that only a few inches.

Snarling, he wound fingers in my hair close to my scalp, pulled my head up, and bound it in that position, stripping even that small freedom of movement from me. With a gesture, he lifted me completely off my feet so that my chest was at his eye level, yet he kept me in the sheath so that the strain on my arms and shoulders wasn’t as great as it could have been. He placed his left hand in the center of my chest. “We begin with the first sigil here,” he said in a cold and unwavering voice that told me that he was not fucking stopping. He dropped his hand and placed the tip of the blade against my skin. I let out another scream at the touch of the blade. I thrashed and struggled to no avail—his power held me immobile, though my muscles fought to respond.

A low hiss that sounded like pleasure came from him as he began to work, knife biting precisely as he carved my flesh. I cried out as pain seared through my chest, every bite of the blade like a window into the depths of hell. My vision began to gray, and I didn’t fight it. If I couldn’t escape through death, at least perhaps I could find a temporary oblivion.

Rhyzkahl looked up into my face as I began to pass out. “No!” He said, clenching his teeth as he yanked the oblivion away from me. Full awareness returned like a slap, and I let out a low sob.

He continued to work methodically, precisely. Occasionally he would look up into my face after doing a section, as though looking for something. At times it almost seemed as if the blade led him.

I trembled, panting in ragged gasps of breath. Finally, he lifted the blade from my skin and passed his hand over the incisions. I shuddered in relief, whimpering at the pain in my shoulders, wrists, and chest. He stepped back, eyes on the sigil he’d just carved, and spoke a few distinct words in demon. With a flick of his left hand, he removed the encasing sheath, allowing me to fully sag in the bindings with my feet still far from the floor. Another keening scream escaped me as I kicked my legs futilely, struggling for nonexistent purchase as my shoulders shrieked in agony. The diagram flared in eager response.

The red flame coiled around his arm from blade to shoulder, arcs shimmering with a discordant potency that I knew was far different from what I’d always worked with. “It is beautiful.” His eyes dropped to the sigil. “And now, together, we bring it to life,” he said, voice unspeakably scary in its soft intimacy, as though we were actually working together.

Tears streamed down my face. I shook my head as much as I could. “No, please…no…”

Rhyzkahl moved close to me again, laid his left hand alongside my face. “In the pain, dear one,” he said in the same scary intimate voice, “is the true connection made. Without it, all of this,” he gestured vaguely with the knife, “is for naught.”

He stepped back two paces, lowered his head. He inhaled as he brought the knife upright before his chest, gripping the hilt in both hands. I shook in the bonds, knowing he didn’t mean simply the pain from my shoulders and the carving he’d made in my skin.

“NO!”

He lowered the blade and pointed toward my feet, wrapping each in roiling sheets of viscous black shot through with flickers of brilliant red, burning like fire that did not consume my flesh. I screamed, thrashing, desperately wanting to pass out but utterly unable. His face settled into intense calm as he drew the fire up my legs, and I shrieked in agony.

He brought the dark fire up to the level of the sigil, hissing as ruby lightning leaped from the blade to connect fully with the ignited sigil. I couldn’t even scream anymore, could only jerk in the bindings. He held it for ten heartbeats of eternity, then dropped all the arcane pain instantly, leaving only the ghost of its memory. Yet I wasn’t burned. It didn’t seem possible that such unspeakable agony could leave no physical damage in its wake.