I’m coming for you, baby. Just hold on for me. Hold on.

She wasn’t sure if it was the splitting headache, the nausea, or the voice in her head calling to her that woke her. She was cold. Stiff. Worse, she found it hard to breathe while there was a tight, constricting weight on her chest – a weight that was also around her lower legs.

Harper forced her heavy eyelids open, wincing at the brightness of the bulb directly above her. Following the sounds of muttering, she saw Crow near a black countertop of what seemed to be a kitchenette, messing with something she couldn’t quite see. His beard was as scraggly and dirty as his clothes.

Glancing around, she realized she was in a trailer that was set up as an office. It stank of grease and oil, and there were toolboxes, car radios, and other vehicle parts lying around.

She also realized she was bound to a desk. Well, this was familiar.

Unlike when the dark practitioners took her, however, Harper’s arms were pinned to her sides as opposed to pinned above her head. That posed a problem, since it meant she couldn’t twist her hands to infuse hellfire into the thick, heavy ropes.

She’d also been stripped of her jeans, socks, and boots, leaving her in only her bra, T-shirt, and boy shorts.

Harper, baby, you need to answer me.

Knox’s panic brushed at her consciousness. She recalled Nora’s warning: “You and your demon will face a trial. You do not like to accept help, but you will need your mate’s aid when the time comes. Accept it, because nobody else will be able to help you.”

The old woman hadn’t been fucking kidding. And while part of Harper loathed the idea of calling him here, she truly needed his help. Nobody else would be able to find her so fast, so she would have to do what she hadn’t done the last time that Crow came for her: she’d have to trust that Knox could protect them both.

Harper? Harper, answer me.

She reached out to him and —

Pain sliced through her head, and a moan slipped out before she could stop it.

“Telepathy will be a problem for a while.” The voice lacked any compassion.

Crow turned away from the counter, eyes glinting with something that was far from rational. He was wearing an apron and trying to fit a surgical mask over the lower half of his face.

Her gaze slid to the tray of surgical instruments on the counter, and she knew then exactly what he intended to do. Dread shot through her. “No.”

“I have no other choice.” He ripped open a packet and pulled out a clean syringe. “Even if you could call out to Knox, you wouldn’t. I can’t get to him.” He rubbed the back of his hand against his forehead in what seemed to be a restless, irritable movement. “A hysterectomy will stop him from having the child with you.”

No motherfucking way was he performing any fucked-up surgery on her. “You want to let me go,” she told him, but her compulsion was weak while she was low on psi-energy. Nonetheless, she tried again. “You don’t want to hurt me.”

He shook his head, shaking off the compulsion with ease. “This has to happen —”

A cell phone rang, and he bit out a curse. Placing the syringe on the tray, he stalked through the trailer to a coat he’d slung on a filing cabinet. Fishing a phone out of his pocket, he tugged down his face mask and gruffly answered, “What?” A pause. “Yeah, well, I’ve been busy.”

Harper figured it was the person pulling his strings, but just in case she shouted, “I’ve been kidnapped! Tell Knox Thorne —” She cut off when Crow rolled his eyes at her. Damn.

“Yes, I took her,” snapped Crow. “I had to act quickly. The security will be too tight for me to touch them at the event.” His back went ramrod straight. “No. No.” He shook his head so fast she was surprised it didn’t make him dizzy. “Killing her is not part of my mission.”

Harper strained to hear what was being said on the other end of the phone, but she couldn’t even make out a voice. She flicked her gaze to the rusted door. Out. She needed to get out, out, out.

She struggled against her bindings, ignoring the burn of the rope as it chafed the bare flesh of her chilled legs. But even with adrenalin rushing through her system, enhancing her strength, her struggles came to nothing. A knot of fear lodged in her throat and left a jittery sensation in her stomach.

Crow started jabbing his closed fist against his temple. “No. If I kill her, it frees him to find another she-demon and have a baby with her. He won’t cheat on Harp —” Crow growled. “Forgetting about the baby would mean abandoning my mission! I won’t do that!” He ended the call.

“Who’s trying to use you like a puppet?” she asked when he returned to her.

“I’m no one’s puppet.”

“They think you are. They’re trying to use you, trying to divert you from your true path,” she added, wondering if playing along with his little fantasy might buy her some time. Knox obviously knew she was missing. He’d find her. Somehow. Right? “Who is it?”

A muscle below his eye ticked. “They don’t matter.”

“Tell me why I’m strapped to this table. I need to understand.” She didn’t need to understand. She needed her blade. But it was no doubt wherever her jeans and boots were, dammit. She scanned her surroundings in search of something, anything, that could help —

A gun. It was on the far end of the counter. If she could just get to that… which, of course, she couldn’t do since she could barely move at all.