Something sharp pricked my arm . . .

Only unlike the other times, I didn’t float back into sleep but hovered on the cusp, pulse pounding erratically as I realised I was frozen inside my own body. Terrified they’d up the dose of whatever, I fought the panic using my childhood trick: one elephant, two elephants. . . I needed to know what was going on if I was going to get out of this . . . five elephants. . . Find Finn . . . seven. . . nine. . . my pulse slowed as calm spread through me.

‘She’s under,’ a male said, sounding tired.

‘You sure, son?’ It was the same growling male who’d said taking both Finn and me was going to slow the cart down.

The tape was peeled carefully from my eyes. I could feel it happening, but the sensation was odd, no pain even when I felt the tape snag a couple of lashes. Anaesthetic? Only the human sort didn’t work with my sidhe metabolism . . . unless they were using the stuff meant for animals. Enough of that even worked on vamps. Crap. Someone lifted my eyelids. I got a snapshot of a vaguely familiar pale face and dark hair before a penlight blinded me . . .

‘Pupils not reacting so she’s under.’

. . . He was one of the two males I’d seen hanging round the gnome’s . . .

A couple of buttons on my shirt were popped, sparking unease even as I realised I was still dressed. Something cold touched my chest. ‘Heartbeat’s stable too.’

. . . Shit. Of course he was familiar. He was Katie’s treacherous boyfriend. Marc. Damn. Not only was he two-timing her with some redhead, now he was prodding my breast. . .

‘The bite’s healing up,’ Marc said. ‘Same as the cuts on her face and her back where you clawed her.’ Accusation threaded the words. ‘Don’t think it’s going to fester.’

‘How she get bit by some human anyway?’ Growling Male said.

‘Don’t know,’ Marc answered quietly, and relief filled me as my shirt buttons were closed. ‘But I don’t think it’s interfering.’

Interfering? With what?Footsteps sounded as the two males moved.

‘Bloody hell,’ Growling Male said, his voice coming from further away now. ‘Yous thought this time it was gonna work for sure. Why ain’t she shifting yet?’

‘Who knows?’ Marc snapped. ‘Maybe the stuff the gnome gave you for the circle is wrong. Maybe there’s something missing from the ritual. Maybe whoever he got to hack the witch archives copied the wrong ritual. Maybe she can’t shift because she’s already too magical. I told you we shouldn’t trust him.’

Shifting? Ritual? Witch archives . . .

‘Told you, son, more magical the better, so long as they ain’t one of them fae who already shift to somethin’ else, like a tree. That’s what the notes reckoned was wrong with those girls that chink weretiger tried the ritual on.’

. . . chink weretiger . . .

A loud noise. Stone hitting stone. ‘Don’t fucking call me son, Carlson,’ Marc shouted. ‘I’m not your kid, and after this I never want to see you again. This is all kinds of fucked up wrong. We can’t just kidnap a woman and force her into the shift.’

. . . Fuck. They were trying to make me into a big-cat-shifter. Like them.

‘Heh, s— lad, I knows it ain’t right, but I promised yer Da when he passed, I’d find yer a mate. He was ma brother. Ain’t gonna break ma promise to him.’

‘Da would never have wanted this.’

‘Ain’t wanting it either, Marc, lad. But we tried gitting a female through that Forum an’ you seen the money those folk are putting up for that Bengali cat and her kit. Ain’t no chance for us to match it.’

‘I told you putting that listing on the Forum was a fucking stupid idea, Carlson. Information on the internet goes viral in seconds.’

‘Forum said it were private, lad.’

‘Nothing’s private on the internet. All that stupid listing did was tell everyone we weren’t extinct. I’ve already seen a load of blogs speculating about us.’

‘Ain’t nothing to be done now, lad. Yer twenty-four in a few days. Already long past yer prime. You need a mate.’

‘I don’t want a fucking mate.’ More stone crashed against stone.

I didn’t want him for a fucking mate either.

‘Yer want to live, don’t yer, boy?’

‘Not like this. What’s the point of living if I have to spend my life mated to a woman who hates me? If I hate myself?’

‘Heh, s— lad, she ain’t gonna hate you. Not soon as the mate bond takes. The magic’ll see to that.’

Mate bond. What the hell was that?

‘This is wrong,’ Marc snapped, and silently I shouted agreement. ‘I told you, that girl I’ve been seeing, Claire. I was going to talk to her, I’m sure she’d have agreed to the ritual willingly. She’s desperate to be more than human; she wouldn’t care what it meant. We didn’t have to do this.’

‘An’ I told you, lad. It weren’t gonna work, that redhead might have a smidge of something magic in her, but it ain’t enough. An’ anyways, she ain’t no virgin—’

‘She says she was!’ Marc exclaimed. ‘She told me thrice.’

Was this guy for real? The thrice rule only worked for fullblood fae, not someone with a drop of magical blood.

‘Lad, the gnome ain’t guaranteeing that thrice rule works for a faeling. And even if yous was to try, even if it looked like it was working right, that redhead ain’t telling truth about being a virgin, so yous both be dead soon as yous mated.’

They died if the mate wasn’t a virgin? Well, if they thought I was good to mate with Marc . . . no way in hell was that going to happen, even without the dying bit.

‘Better that,’ Marc said, ‘than kidnapping this poor woman.’

‘She’s a fairy, lad. Ain’t no comeback by the law when it comes to them.’

For the freaking last time; Not. A. Fairy!

‘She’s a person,’ Marc snapped.

‘She’s a fairy. Heck, we’ve been catching her sort for the gnome. Ain’t hear you sticking up for them, lad.’

‘They’re garden fairies, Carlson. She’s as different from them as we are from the tigers in that stupid zoo. And the fairies were already dead from natural causes. We didn’t kill them.’

‘Ain’t killing her, lad. Just making her shift.’

‘What if she doesn’t shift? Then she’ll die,’ Marc said angrily. ‘That’s the same as killing her. Then what you going to do, Carlson, give her dead body to the gnome so he can cut it up and sell it like the garden fairies?’

‘Ain’t gonna come to that, lad. She’ll shift.’

Even I could hear the doubt in his voice. Damn.

‘What if she’s not a virgin?’ Marc asked quietly.

‘Told you, lad, I got the feeling right here.’ A hollow thump sounded, like a fist on a chest. ‘Got it first outside the gnome’s in the park other night. I don’t get that less they’re intact.’

Oh boy, was his feeling wrong. Stupid fucking idiot. He really needed to get his facts right. Not that I’d wish whatever ritual they were doing on anyone else.

‘I can’t feel anything,’ Marc said.

‘Course not, ’cos yous still an innocent yerself. Yous needs to go through the ritual afore you cans.’

He was lying. I could hear it in his voice. Question was, why?

‘Anyways, it was her or that young blonde yous been sniffing around.’

Katie! If they’d touched her, they were dead. Hell, they were dead anyway. They’d just be more dead.

A menacing growl reverberated through the air, raising the hairs at my nape. ‘Told you, Carlson. Stay away from Katie.’

I opened my eyes, blinked in relief and then frustration as I realised it was only my eyes I could move. I stared up. Firelight chased shadows over the rough-hewn rock. We were in a cave.

‘Aw, lad—’

‘The ritual is wrong,’ Marc’s yell cut him off. A stone flew over my head, crashing into the cave wall at the back. ‘The gnome must’ve stitched you up. That’s why she’s not shifting. You’re working on the wrong information, Carlson.’