The first time he'd done it, it had almost felt like rape—his will asserted over hers, her protests falling on deaf ears. She'd fought the insertion of his power into her body, had squirmed from him and ran. He'd forced it into her anyway, gentling her with softly spoken words. It was the only time he ever spoken so sweetly to her, when he'd wanted her to settle down and allow him to mold her.

Over time she'd learned to accept the sessions with Rue, and as her magick had grown in power, she'd actually started to look forward to them. Although Rue had never provided her with complete answers to her questions, never explained exactly what he was doing.

He'd most certainly never opened up to her emotionally as the parental figure she supposed she'd been longing for. The Ytrayi weren't good at that, though in the privacy of their romantic relationships, with their mates, she knew there was a degree of shared emotion, caring, even love.

But in her relationship with Rue—owner and pet, master and slave—true openness of feeling never evolved. Even though she'd always known—well, she thought she'd known—that Rue cared for her well-being on some level. She'd believed that up until the day he'd imbued her with the elium and sent her tumbling into a foreign world.

Where was Rue now? If he still lived, would he care that she was about to be tortured, probably killed, by these two Atrika? And why did she care what Rue felt for her anyway? Why was she even thinking of him in this moment at all?

Probably, because he was one of the few people in her life she'd ever formed a relationship with, no matter how dysfunctional.

Probably because it was too painful to think about Adam. Especially about losing him.

Adam.

Pain lanced through her and her spine bowed. Right after the flash of agony, blessed numbness started at her toes and worked its way up her body. Her mind, already befuddled from the venom, flashed again to parts of her life—watching her mother die, meeting Ty.

Then Adam's face filled her mind. Instead of balking from the fear of losing him, she embraced the image and held it close.

Adam smiling at her, Adam glancing at her, annoyed that she was endangering herself. The curve of his lips, the light in his eyes, the warm glow of caring he'd bestowed on her at the gas station right before she'd been taken.

Claire was glad that was the last memory she had of him. It warmed her even as her body went cold from the demon poison making its way through her bloodstream.

Her vision blurred. She blinked and the color of the world bled away to black and white. The numbness and chill in her limbs and body unfortunately did not prevent her from feeling the hard grip of the demon's hands on her arms and legs, or the heat of Kai's breath as he leaned down and examined her eyes.