Page 140 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

Garrik. He was outside. Somewhere. And at any moment, could walk through the doors and?—

“He’s not coming for you.” The crackling in her veins turned into shards of molten metal. “I made sure of that. You’remine—you willalwaysbe mine.” Kaine lifted the glass as if the entire world burned at his feet and he lived on the ashes.

“No,” she barely breathed. The word struck some crucial part deep inside her. She wanted to turn to the door, to run out, to find Garrik—wherever he was—not believing that Kaine had done something terrible when she knew that he could. But settling inside her bones, covering them with a film of hopelessness, knowing the male he was…

There was nothing she could do.

She almost heard Garrik’s voice then.Run.Just like in the alley.

Kaine arched a brow and snickered. “No?” Then snickered again, turning his body to fully face her, draping an arm across the bar while the barmaid simply wiped the counter around him. “I should drag your worthless ass to the back room and remind you who you belong to.” Kaine’s hand brushed along the snaps and ties of his pants.

His perfect little trophy on display for all to see.

His canvas to paint and mold and manipulate.

His little, dotingwife. Made to simply warm his bed and suck his?—

“You’re coming home with me.” Clanging noises shattered through her every bone as Kaine pulled shackles, which were far too large for his pockets, from behind him. Chains so short, she wouldn’t be able to walk in them. “And when we get there, these will never leave your body ag?—”

Her chair toppled before he finished his last word. Alora stumbled back, heat flaring, her palms outstretched—aimed in front of her, aimed at him.

“Don’t,” she quivered, the sound unlike the strong female she’d ruthlessly fought to become.

Chairs scraped along the wooden floor behind her, but she didn’t care to turn and see, not while Kaine had dropped a shackle to dangle and sway, holding the other with one cruel finger curled around it.

He stepped forward with a wicked grin.

She staggered back.

“Get on your knees before your lord,” he decreed, his voice as raging as the scorching heat boiling inside her. “You know what happens when you run from me. And I know I trained you better than that.”

Heat. Terrible, blazing heat rippled through her. Enough that she thought she was on fire.

She couldn’t breathe.

It was too hot.

She couldn’t breathe.

Swirling sunstorms ignited in her palms before she could stop them, casting dancing white light over every surface and blinding his wickedly handsome face. If ever the moment came that she would encounter him again, she had hoped for more strength than this … this pathetic trembling in her knees. Than the terror that gripped her and had her frozen to the floor, unable to control her flames.

Kaine stepped forward, so hauntingly it was as if he weren’t real at all.

And she couldn’t doanything. Nothing but cry out from the depths of her mind as those flames in her hands sparked and created a circlet of fire around her on the wooden floorboards.

Please, someone, help me.

Kaine’s boot stepped through her toppled chair as if he were made of illusions.

Somewhere in her mind, she registered the strange movement. Even saw the faint wave of his body as if he were a fire and she was staring into the heat that manipulated the view above it. Kaine wasn’t a Mystic. She’d seen his body enough to know as much.

But it was too late. Far too late.

Kaine’s body misted away into dust and air and white light.

Alora held her palms out, embers exploding in her eyes.

And stared at the empty space Kaine’s ghost had just been…

---