Oh, hell no. I tried to struggle, to kick and claw, to beat on them with anything I could. I shifted fully into my draken form, trying to use my spine ridges, my wings, anything to beat them back with. My body reacted too slowly, too sluggishly. They laughed at me, and in desperation, I tried to shift away. Nothing happened.

“Wha ‘id oo do?” I slurred towards Thad, who was peering down at me with casual interest.

He had managed to drug me, to poison me, and now my last avenue of escape was closed to me. I had been weak in that moment and chosen to trust him. Thad threw me over his shoulder, and I fought him the entire way up the stairs, down the corridor, and then down into another separate dungeon. I froze as the scent of blood and fear met my nostrils, as well as another scent; fire witch.

Thad threw me down on a slab of stone, the ridges on my back immediately flattening and tucking into my spine. I tried to shift back into my human form but couldn’t. It was like trying to scream while trapped in water. My own body couldn’t hear me as I raged for it to do something, anything. I shrieked as white-hot pain exploded through my back, a demon grabbing my wings and forcing them flat to the edges of the table. He was lifted off his feet a second later, Thad slamming him into the stone wall.

“The wings are delicate,” he snarled.

The demon hissed back, a challenge rising in his eyes as he wiped the blood from his lip. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Black fire erupted from Thad’s hands, and the demon screamed as the flames met his body, clinging to his skin and eating at him slowly, incrementally. The other shadow demons backed away from me in fear, their hands raised. The burn on my hand twinged in sympathy, but at least I could pull my wings in safely to my body. My pain tolerance was high, but everything was off the table when it came to my wings. It was an annoying weakness. I winced when Thad grabbed my black hand, frowning at what he saw.

“Who gave you this?” he whispered, his voice a dangerous whisper.

“She came in with it!” a shadow demon answered, not wanting to be Thad’s next victim. I couldn’t answer if I’d wanted to; my tongue was nothing more than a thick, unresponsive muscle in my mouth. Thad dropped my hand and moved on.

“Severn needs to know if you’re pregnant. I won’t . . . I can’t . . . that is, if you can tell me for sure, I won’t have to do anything else. I’ll just try to get you back on your feet. He wants you healthy for. . . well, he wants you healthy.”

I knew exactly why he wanted me healthy. With a herculean effort, I turned my head and saw another woman on a similar stone slab a few feet away. Her bright red hair and skin marked her easily as a fire witch. She lay there unconscious, restrained by her wrists and ankles.