Mentally, he cursed long and loud but worked to draw as little air into his lungs as possible, yet with each breath he felt the band cinch.

Without the ability to reach out for help, or to move, or to stop the band-spell, he knew he was going to die.

His spirit caved within him and again, if he hadn’t been held in stasis, he would have fallen to his knees.

Margetta drew close and touched his face. “You’re one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. I can end this agony you’re suffering if you’ll agree to be with me, to share my bed.”

“I’d rather be dead.” The band tightened some more.

She waved her hand again. “And now no more talking and I definitely don’t want you calling out for help.”

He tried to answer her, but the paralysis had returned to his vocal chords.

“I wish I could stay, Mastyr, because it would give me great pleasure to watch you breathe your last, but I really do need to coordinate my wraith-pairs. They’re hopeless without me.” She lifted an arm and vanished.

Another breath. Another tightening of the band.

He thought of Willow caught in Axton’s trap and how he’d failed to protect her. Why hadn’t it occurred to him that Axton would make Willow his priority instead of the wraith colony?

He trembled head-to-foot at the thought of another vampire feeding from Willow and the woman that belonged to him. He would always think of her as his.

Then a thought even worse surfaced. Axton would bond with the woman Malik loved.

His chest ached as though he’d just been punched hard right over his heart. Why hadn’t he seen the truth sooner about what Willow was to him?

He understood now that she wasn’t just his blood rose. Somewhere during all those months of chasing her, she’d gotten under his skin.

And he loved her.

But as the bands tightened and full-on suffocation drew close, he had to admit another horrible truth. He wouldn’t even be in this mess if he hadn’t been in such a Goddess be-damned hurry to leave Willow.

He could see the signs now that Margetta had been after her. Willow had complained of headaches and she hadn’t slept well all night. A fae as powerful as Willow could have self-healed easily, but he’d been intent on creating some distance, and now here he was having fallen into Margetta’s trap.

He felt like five kinds of fool. Alexandra the Bad had called it right when she kept slapping at his chest and calling him a stupid man, because right now that’s exactly what he was. He’d been lying to himself and calling it smart.

With barely any air now flowing into his lungs, his arrogance left him. What remained was humility and the truth that if given the chance, he’d bond with her and not think twice about it.

This time, a new dizziness came over him, because his brain was slowly being deprived of oxygen.

The whole situation lay before him from the time Axton had begun his attacks on the entrance to the wraith colony until this moment. What struck him was that he no longer worked alone but had functioned as part of a team, whether with Alexandra and the fae leadership, or with Zane and his Guard, or with Willow.

He felt in his bones that his going-it-alone days were gone. He saw a new future of greater cooperation all over his realm and that was when he rea

lized he’d forgotten one of the vibrations that he and Willow had tapped into.

The earth itself.

But could he reach this most primal frequency so far away from the wraith colony?

He had no idea, but he had to try.

With black spots coming and going in front of his eyes, he opened to the gift Willow had given him of the ability to feel the power of the Nine Realms itself as it lay deep in the earth.

He drew the vibrations up into his body and felt the frequency begin to push back against Margetta’s spell.

Magically, the bands loosened enough for him to start gasping in air. With each breath, the spots before his eyes lessened, and the bands stretched wide until finally the band-spell broke.

Unfortunately, the stasis spell still held, but he relaxed and kept the earth’s vibration moving through his body. This time, he reached out to Alexandra the Bad and discovered she was right outside his door. He could feel her there, but he still couldn’t reach her telepathically or move a muscle.

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