Flames licked the edges of her skin. Agonizing heat seared her nerve endings. Arietta bit her tongue until she tasted blood.

"I'm admittedly sad," Reison, the man from her nightmares, her mother's murderer, said. In his hands, he held a blade covered in low-level flames. As a fire wielder, Reison could control flame, something he was entirely enraptured with as he wrapped his magic around the dagger. Just as he controlled the fire, he also controlled the pain that came with it. He could make that flame disappear in a heartbeat.

Or build it higher until he heard her screams.

Arietta tried to detach herself from the moment. To retreat so far into herself that—

The blade pressed deeper into her skin. The heat flooded the air around her.

A leather-gloved hand wrapped around the back of her neck and pulled her forward. "It's not fun when you're not with me, Arietta, dear."

Arietta whimpered.

"As I was saying, I'm admittedly a little sad you wouldn't trust me with your past," Reison said. The tip of his dagger traced a line of fire across her skin, up her arm, and to her shoulder.

They had her in nothing but shorts, a bra, and a tank top. And now she knew why.

The moment the pain started, the whispers backed off. For that, she was grateful—there were no bugs, no shadows, no whispers. But now there was pain. She wasn't sure which she preferred.

"You can make it stop," Reison muttered. "I've seen you do it."

A tension, heavy like a boulder, hung beneath his words. Anger. There was anger hiding amongst his words.

Arietta whimpered now for a different reason. She'd once seen him furious, back when she used to work for him in another facility. Back when he tortured shifters in the name of science. In the name of power.

"So you can do what?" Arietta said thinly. Sweat dripped from her temple, under her arms, down between her shoulder blades.

Reison tangled his fingers in her hair just at the bottom of her scalp. He pulled. Arietta's chin went up. Anything to close the distance. Anything to reduce the pain—at least, the piece she could control.

Reison's dark beard was only a few inches from her face. Ugly, unfettered disgust made her empty stomach roll. "So I can prove your mother wrong. She told me you were nothing. A child with no abilities. She told me you were useless."

Nothing.

The whispers crescendoed in one sudden rush through her ears. As if they'd been blocked by the pain, but were now a sudden flood of sound.

Nothing. Nothing. NOTHING.

Some part of her mind yelled at her. Roared. Hissed. Growled. That she wasn't nothing. That she was something big.

She held onto that thought. Clutched it like a lifeline. Even if it was a lie.

"I have nothing for you," Arietta hissed through tight teeth.

That part of her mind preened. As if...proud?

Maybe the drugs they were injecting into her had more side effects than she originally thought.

Reison only grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."

The blade sunk into her skin.

***

Gavriel's arm ached. At first, he thought it was normal—the same ache of his leopard trying to burst free. Then he realized it was along the very edge of his skin. Only a thin line tracing along his forearm and up his shoulder.

Frowning, Gavriel put the report down on his desk. He wasn't retaining a word of the inventory list anyway.

Something stabbed into his shoulder. Wiping at his sleeve, he stopped.

His leopard snarled and hissed inside him. Lashing out with some type of understanding of the pain.

A quiet knock sounded at the door. Violet, one of his shifters and a close friend, poked her head in. "Gavriel, have you seen—" She stopped. "What?"

Gavriel's eyebrows came together. "I don't know."

"Are you alright?" Concern flooded her features. Glancing around the room, Violet shook her head and hit the switch to open the shutters on the skylight. Natural sunlight poured into the room. "You're sitting in the dark in here." She puttered around, collecting crumbled papers dotted around his floor and the empty cups at the edge of his desk. "Have you eaten yet today?"

Gavriel did not answer. So hyper-focused on the ache as it traveled back down his arm. A whisper of heat traced along with it. The leopard roared. Trying to tell him something, but unable to communicate through the rage and pain. That was all the leopard was now: rage and pain.

"Gavriel?" Violet crouched next to his chair and put a hand on his arm, right where the ache had settled. Her fingers were cool against his skin. Frowning, she touched his wrist. "You're burning up." Her palm came up to rest on his forehead, but whatever she found made her eyebrows come together. "Do you have an infection? Did you get hurt?"

Gavriel shook his head, shoving the leopard down further beneath his skin. "Arm hurts. But no wounds."

"Have you been to see Talia? I don't think—" Violet stopped, her face paling.

The pain radiated outward, flaring suddenly. Gavriel sucked in a sharp breath. His muscles tensed beneath his shirt.

His leopard roared and roared. Pushing to get out, pushing for freedom.

"Gavriel, what is your leopard doing right now?" Violet asked quietly. He could barely hear her over the thunder of his pulse in his ears.

He felt his eyes flash to the animal, then back. Fighting not to shift. Even as claws raked down the cage keeping his leopard contained.

"Wants out." Gavriel grit his teeth.

"Why?"

Why did his leopard do anything anymore? "He is in pain."

Violet hesitated for only a moment, before she carefully asked, "Gavriel, is this pain yours?"

No. It was not his pain.

It was Arietta's.

His leopard growled, even as Gavriel's lips went numb. His voice sounded outside himself as he said. "A mate bond takes forever to get to that point."

"I know." Violet's hand felt wrong on his arm. Because it wasn't her hand. Arietta's. "But nothing about this situation is normal. After the attack, the bond could have adjusted."

He had told no one but Talia and his lieutenants who Arietta was to him. But those who were close enough to him, those like Violet, who had seen him interact with Arietta, knew enough. Violet had been one of his friends since childhood. One of his greatest supporters as he navigated the transition into territory leader.

She was also a deer shifter. Deer shifters were more nurturing, more submissive. Which meant his leopard never felt threatened by Violet.

He could open up to her.

"I have not—" He cut himself off. "We have not solidified the bond."

He had not had enough time. To make Arietta his, or tell her how much she meant to him and his leopard.

"No two bonds are exactly the same." Violet finally took her hand from his skin and, shamefully, it allowed him to take one full breath. What was happening to him that he could not even stomach being comforted by one of his friends?

Gavriel speared his fingers through his hair. The pain radiated up his arm. Nothing but a whisper, an echo of what must actually be happening.

Arietta. They were torturing her.

And he could not stop it. Could not save her, or protect her.

Claws shredded the determined steel of the cage that locked his leopard away. He needed to get out. Needed to get away. Out of the inner home, where their vulnerable were close.

"Go," Violet encouraged. "I'll give you a few hours, but if you don't return, I'm send Cael to get you."

He all but fled.

***

Ronan climbed the last few steps up the aerie and opened the door to Cael's tree home. Cael almost never used this place, preferring instead to be in the inner home where he could protect those that needed him, which meant they could often use Cael's aerie as an outpost.

It had come in handy when they were attacked. And when they had visitors they did not trust in the territory.

Like Brynn.

He found the human woman in the kitchen, tapping her bare foot against the floor as she mulled over a set of plans at the table.

He closed the entry door loud behind him. Brynn glanced up. Today, she had her light blonde hair in a messy knot atop her head. Ronan's fingers itched to tuck the few escaping pieces behind her delicate ears. With her bare feet and her lazy hairstyle, Ronan's leopard practically purred.

Self-derision was a sour taste in his mouth. Even as he opened the small pack he brought with him and tossed a small bag at Brynn.

Brynn caught the bag easily in one hand. Something that made his eyes narrow. The motion was fluid and easy.

Brynn's lips quirked, an action he locked onto immediately. She opened the bag and smelled it, closing her eyes as she took in the ground coffee beans. "You're amazing."

His leopard preened, which only made Ronan grunt. Damned leopards.

His leopard would love anything this woman did. Which drove his human side mad in a whole different way. He knew nothing about this woman. Not where she came from, not what brought her to the Western Shifter Territory and thus here, and not what her long-term plans were.

She helped them defend their territory when they had been attacked by wielders only a few days prior. There was still a scrape on her temple to prove it. And yet, his human side knew something was off.

Brynn was hiding something.

Ronan would do whatever it took to find out what it was. He had a responsibility to protect his people. Even when everyone else trusted the outsiders, he refused to give them anything but their own leash. Then he would wait to see if they would hang themselves on it.

"I've finalized the spots for the install of security devices," Brynn said, setting the coffee on the table next to her. "Just need your final approval. What's our receipt date?"

They'd ordered a slew of devices at Brynn's recommendation. There were a variety of cameras and sensors, among other devices, to help alert them quicker to any threats on their territory. Without her expertise, Ronan would have not understood all the different devices and what the best options were.

And yet, the entire time they'd worked on the security plan, he wondered how Brynn learned about technology.

"The supply group will pick them up tomorrow morning," Ronan grumbled out his response. He settled his pack on the floor by the door—the easiest spot to grab if he needed to leave in a rush.

"Good." Brynn tilted her head as she looked down at the marked up map in front of her. The action exposed the smooth line of her throat.

Ronan's leopard had a visceral reaction to the small action. One that made him curl his fists at his sides and shove the beast down.

He needed to figure out what made Brynn tick, and he needed to do it soon. Because fighting his beast every moment while in Brynn's presence was driving him wild. The leopard only wanted to curl up next to her, feed her, and ensure every moment she was comfortable.

His human side knew better.

He needed to know Brynn's secret before anyone else, especially Brynn, figured out his own.