Allie heard their footsteps move away. She listened until she couldn’t hear them anymore before risking taking more than the shallow breaths she’d allowed herself until now. But she didn’t move. She wasn’t sure she could. God, her head hurt. Shouldn’t the nanos be fixing that?

Forcing herself to calm down, she concentrated on her breaths rather than the pain. Or tried to. Unfortunately, her mind was turning to what Abaddon had said about the others being willing to trade Liam for her.

“No.” The word slid out in a soft whisper of denial. Surely Magnus wouldn’t trade Liam to get her back? Hand her son over to these madmen and let them twist him into another Leonius? She didn’t want that. And Stella certainly hadn’t. She’d killed herself to prevent that happening. And Allie would too, without a single regret.

Well, that wasn’t completely true. She already had a regret. Allie wished that when Magnus had told her he loved her, she’d done more than sit there staring at him with fear rolling through her. She wished she’d had the courage to admit that she thought she might be falling in love with him too. She could have given him that at least. But she hadn’t realized that she might not get the chance later. She supposed that meant she’d learned another of life’s lessons today. Always tell people how you feel about them. Don’t withhold it out of fear. You never knew if you’d get another chance.

Well, this was bullshit, Allie thought suddenly. She would get the chance. She wasn’t dying here, and she wasn’t lying around waiting for them to try to get Magnus to give them Liam in exchange for her. She wasn’t chained down and her captors had left her alone. She was getting up and getting out of here.

“Now,” Allie muttered aloud when her body didn’t immediately start moving. Clenching her teeth, she shifted first one hand and then the other closer to her body, and then started to push herself upward. She managed to lift her upper body perhaps an inch off the ground before the pain in her head increased from agony to shattering.

Allie wasn’t conscious when she hit the floor again.

Magnus was whistling happily to himself, his gaze repeatedly sliding to the pale blue jeweler’s bag with the bow tied to the handle on the passenger seat. He was pretty pleased with himself. He’d got exactly what he’d envisioned when he’d set out to find Allie’s rings, both an engagement ring and a wedding band. Of course, he’d had to drive into London to find it, and it might not be the right size. But the salesman had assured him they could alter the size to fit later.