GETTING AWAY FROM Bane proved easier than getting to Bane. Maybe because she didn’t have hours of vomiting in her rearview? Nola scanned the living room she hadn’t seen for a month.

Home sweet home.

All was as she’d left it. The same shabby chic furnishings remained: a floral print couch, a coffee table with peeling white paint, papered walls that displayed different kinds of birds and a rug with frayed edges. Christmas lights hung from the ceiling year-round. Framed photos of Vale and Nola making funny faces covered the side tables, intermixed with vases of dried flowers and a lamp shaped like a pair of rain boots.

Nola and her sis had created a beautiful, quirky environment with limited funds, and she was proud of everything they’d accomplished. One day, she hoped to buy designer drapes and—

“Nooo!” Without Bane’s presence, withdrawal symptoms thundered to new life. Instant aches and pains, flop sweat and shakes so violent she probably looked like she was having a seizure. On top of everything else, she got to deal with the beast’s parting gift.

Eyes watering, stomach roiling, she stumbled into her bedroom...her private bathroom. Every movement a special kind of agony, she liberated the first aid kit from the medicine cabinet. Through sheer force of will, she found the strength to peel off her ripped, bloody clothes, drape a towel over the toilet lid and plop down. The sight of her leg...

Like ground hamburger meat. Bile surged, and she gagged. Since she was a royal, her word law to Adwaewethians...since she was part Adwaewethian... “I command you to heal,” she told her leg.

One minute, two. Nothing happened.

Dang it! As she cleaned and bandaged each puncture, darkness infiltrated and battered her mind, threatening to pull her into a sweet oblivion. She needed a date with 9-1-1 and stitches.

Problem #1: no money to pay the bill. Problem #2: she was a drug addict, the use of prolonged opioids in her file; emergency doctors would most definitely assume she had injured herself for more pills. They had in the past. Problem #3: paramedics would ask questions she couldn’t answer.

How was she supposed to explain a dragon/phoenix shape-shifter? Claim a wild animal attacked her? Authorities might go hunting. What if they killed an innocent creature? Just the thought upped her stress level. What’s more, her “natural-born instinct” would erase any words about Bane. Not that she wanted to tell strangers about him.

My warrior, my secret.

What if someone had reported her and Vale missing? People would want proof Vale still lived. And what if Erik monitored nearby medical facilities? He’d track her down to use her against Vale, Bane and Zion. Three for the price of one.