I’d been knocked out once before, in sparring. It was tough to hit a shifter hard enough to render them unconscious, but when I was about seventeen a lion shifter got me a good one, out cold for fifteen minutes. So I knew the sensation of waking from a blow like that, the haziness and disorientation of my synapses trying to fire in some semblance of order again.

Waking from the jinn’s spell was nothing like that. A slow haze of consciousness started to filter in, measured increments of awareness. I knew my body was moving on instinct without any actual recognition of the motions. Eyes open, chest rising and falling, lungs filling, hands scratching at the rough dirt beneath my body. I couldn’t say how long it took for memory to creep in, for images to filter into my brain past the lingering magic. Whatever spell that elemental had hit me with, well, it had knocked me out in more ways than one.

My eyes were tracking small wisps of what looked like dandelion. The air was neither hot nor cold, and there was plenty of light, but I wasn’t outside. It was like a wood-lined cave, which was … odd. Maybe a round cabin?

Bit by bit, piece by piece, the parts that made up Jessa started to fit back into their places. My wolf rose, along with my dragon. When I was unconscious, they seemed to be out as well. As the fluffy aura of my dragon snarled and flicked metaphorical wings, I suddenly remembered that Braxton had broken through the energy cage. What the hell had happened in that clearing? Where had the jinn sent us?

A slice of agony split through my head, as if the clarity of events had reminded my poor abused body that it had just been hurt. Badly. I couldn’t move my head, but that didn’t stop my hands from searching for my dragon shifter.

What if something happened to him? What if that jinn had taken or hurt Braxton?

The wolf and dragon inside both started to howl, a long mournful cry of pain and loss. We couldn’t survive without Braxton. There was no Jessa without him.

I was distracted by a low growl behind my head. I was still struggling to move myself, having to force my limbs through magic that coated my skin and held me immobile.

The contents of my stomach started to roll as the agony of my head intensified. I was about five seconds from hurling. Eff this. I knew what I needed to do.

I reached for my wolf, fighting the remnants of the jinn’s spell on my skin. The shift to animal often cured many ailments, and she was quite impervious to magic, so it was my best option. I was going to destroy my clothes, but I’d deal with that later.