Elijah was waiting for her when she got back to the room. He’d been sitting on the bed, head hanging low, hands pressed on his knees, looking as though he had the weight of the world strapped to his shoulders.

She could relate. She was so going to need a good massage when this was all over.

If she wasn’t dead.

A shiver rattled her bones.

“Hey,” Elijah said with concern, rising and going to her. He rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she answered in a shaky voice. “I’ll be all right. Just feeling a bit queasy.”

“Tell me about it.” He pulled her to him.

She eagerly went, pressing her face against his warm, strong chest, and wrapped her arms around him. She closed her eyes and listened to his heartbeat, memorizing this moment so she’d always have it to hold on to when things got dark.

Which was inevitable, considering the way things were already going.

She wanted to curse. Wanted to scream. Mostly, she wanted to pull Mistress Black’s hair out.

Or set her on fire.

Or torture her.

Her eyes flashed open with horror. Holy shit, since when had she become so bloodthirsty?

Her power snaked under her skin, whispering dark thoughts to her. She wanted to hurt her. Needed to make her pay for what she’d done to her mate.

Since discovering her magical affinity, she’d been conducting research on it nonstop, courtesy of a little magical hacking spell that covered up her trail on the World Wide Web. No need to alert the DPI’s cybercrime department to her massive search queries on “Black Magic.” It was undoubtedly one of the department’s hot words by now, used to try to track her whereabouts.

At any rate, she’d compiled quite the Black Magic database inside her mind, though half the time she wished she could unlearn what she found. On the bright side, it was spooky. On a darker note…downright spine-chilling.

Elijah held her like that for a long while. Which was fine by her. Let the world stop, if only for a moment. It owed them at least that much in exchange for attempting to save it.

Verika felt her mate tense slightly before he spoke. His voice was so quiet, somewhere below a whisper, as if he was afraid to even speak. “There’s one more thing I neglected to mention, about Mistress Black’s visit.”

Her heart stuttered. Immediately pulling back, she looked up into his eyes. “Tell me.”

He told her. And her jaw nearly hit the floor. “Excuse me, I’m supposed to be descended from her? That monster?”

“She says as much. Or, at least, she’s delusional enough to believe it’s true, even though it might not be.”

What. The. Hell?

Could she be? Sure, she supposed it was possible, anyway. She didn’t exactly know much about her birth mother. Okay, she didn’t know jack shit about her real parents because they had given her up, supposedly “for her own good.”

Dammit, she was sick and tired of people telling her what was and wasn’t good for her.

She was pretty sure being related to a psycho-witch wasn’t a good thing.

“What else?” she demanded. “I know you’re holding back information.”

He bit his lip. “She also said she’d remove my brand if I gave her you.”

“A trade,” she said flatly.

“It would appear so.”

Verika’s brain stopped working. When it started up again, all it could muster was one word. “Fuck!” she shouted, pulling away.

Elijah’s eyebrows rose into his hairline as though there were balloons attached to them. The F-bomb rarely tumbled out of her mouth. She liked to think she was a sophisticated curser.

But sometimes, the F-bomb was the only word to do a situation justice.

She needed to hit something, now.

Going to the wall, she formed a fist and punched.

“Ow! Mother—”

“Whoa, there! Take it easy!” Elijah grabbed her hand, which throbbed now as if she’d dunked it in lava, and kissed it.

She winced. Tears sprung to her eyes. “That hurt,” she said miserably.

He chuckled, giving her an amused look as he gingerly rolled his thumbs over her sore knuckles, gradually massaging away the pain. “At least you formed the punch correctly and didn’t break your thumb. Though your hand’s going to be sore as hell, I’m afraid.”

“I never understood the point of punching things until now. I just…grrr, God! I needed to release the anger somehow. Next time, I’m going to aim for a pillow.”

“Wise choice, Muhammad Ali.”

She lightly punched him with her free hand. “You’re hopeless.”

Elijah opened his mouth to say something, when he swayed. The color leached from his skin, and he stumbled toward a chair at the dinette set.

Verika went to him and sank into an adjacent chair, resting a hand on his arm. His skin was cold. He was never cold.

“Elijah?” she asked with worry.

“I’m all right,” he rasped. His breaths sounded labored, as though it took every ounce of strength he had to simply breathe. “Just letting it pass.”

“Has this been happening for a while now?”

His silence confirmed just as much.

“When did it start?” It wasn’t an angry, or even accusatory, question. Just a curious one.

“When we first hit the road. I’d been having ‘little flus’ here and there since I left Mistress Black’s, but they were so mild and few and far between that I didn’t pay them much mind.”

They sat in silence for a while. “I wish you’d told me,” she whispered.

“I didn’t want to wor—”

“Sssh,” she whispered, leaning forward and pressing her finger to his lips. She got up and hugged him. “You’re my mate. I’m going to worry about you regardless. It actually helps me worry less if I know what we’re up against.” She cupped his face in her hands, forcing him to hold her gaze. “I’m not breakable. Don’t hesitate to share your worries with me. I can take them.” Her lips quirked up in a grin. “I’m actually kind of a mystical badass, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah. I got that part.”

Dropping a kiss on his forehead, she sighed and sank back down into her chair. “So what are we going to do?”

“What do you mean? Wait, you’re not considering handing yourself over to Mistress Black.”

She twiddled her thumbs and stared at her hands. “If it’s the right thing to do.”

He shot out of his chair. “Bull-fucking-shit it’s the right thing to do! Verika, she’s insane! She’ll kill you, or worse!”

She stood up too, her own voice rising in anger. “I can’t sit around and watch you slowly die!”

“And I can’t give up the only person who makes me want to live to the one who almost destroyed my life!”

Verika’s thought process stumbled. “Elijah…”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, he cursed and sat down. His back stooped, and he kept his gaze hidden from her as he said, “I can’t lose you. I can’t. It would break me, Verika.”

Speechless, she wet her lips and paced, nibbling at a fingernail. “We’ll explore other options. I think we should do as your brothers suggested and rest. Our brains work on things subconsciously while we sleep. I know it works for me. When I have a problem I can’t seem to solve, I sleep on it and usually wake with the answer.”

“But what if she comes? In my dreams?”

“That won’t happen.” Her eyes went cold as her power crackled through her. “If she comes, I’ll rip her apart.”

Elijah stared at her hands, where green energy had gathered at her fingertips. He swallowed hard.

The glow immediately winked out. Crap. She needed to calm down before she freaked him out more. She had to get a rein on her power before it became unruly.

Elijah blinked and looked away. His gaze found the window, staring. “Maybe we should run away, keep my brothers out of this.”

Her heart ached for the sorrow in his eyes.

She knelt before her mate and took his hands in hers. “We came here to ask for your brothers’ help. I’m so proud of you. I know that couldn’t have been easy, facing them like you did.” She kissed the back of his hands. “And I know it’s tempting to return to old habits because they’re comfortable. Diving into the unknown is scary. I should know. I was scared to death when I discovered what I truly was. At one point, I would have given anything to return to being an affinity-less witch because it’s what I knew. But change happens for a reason. It helps us grow and makes us stronger. We need your brothers.” She stood. “Running isn’t the answer anymore, Eli. We can’t run forever. The only way it’s going to end is if we stand and fight.”

She bent; her lips hovered over his. “I promise, through thick and thin, I’ll be there fighting right along with you. Forever.”

Then she kissed him.

A promise, filled with all the passion she possessed in her soul.