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“His word?” A spark of anger cut through my sympathy. “He's working with Fabian. They can't get to us in here, so they've made up this lie to get you to bring me to them. I am not going anywhere with you.”

I pushed off the desk and made a direct line for the door.

Bart moved to block the door. His hand closed over mine. His skin was fever-hot. When he met my gaze, there was no anger in his face, no cruelty or triumph. There was only the hollow, dead-eyed grief of a man who had chosen his own survival over everything else.

“Then I'm afraid I'm going to have to make you come with me, Destiny.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The air in the study turned thick and sour, carrying the tang of stale beer, and contracted. Too late, I thought of calming Bart with my gift. Before I could lower my shields, the panic hammering in my chest mutated into an unnatural, suffocating thirst. My throat tightened with a vicious, magnetic ache centered on the buffet against the far wall, where three cut-crystal decanters caught the low light of the desk lamp.

“Bart,” I managed, my voice scraping against dry vocal cords. “Stop.”

“I have to, Destiny,” he whispered. “I can't carry this anymore.”

My feet moved before my brain could stop them. Every survival instinct I possessed told me to turn for the hall, to scream for Tristan, to throw a chair through the tall casement window. Instead, my hands locked on the heavy, faceted neck of the center decanter. It offered a solution to all my problems. The lead-crystal stopper hit the polished wood with a dull clatter. The sting of high-proof bourbon flooded my sinuses, and the compulsion roaring through my veins registered it as the most mouth watering scent I'd ever smelled.

I tipped the decanter back and gulped.

Raw heat scorched my throat, dropping like a burning coal into my stomach. I tried to pull the decanter away, but my fingers refused to open. I needed more. I was so thirsty.

Bart pressed his hand against the center of my back.

The compulsion shifted, not as a slow wave, but as a direct blow to my brain stem. The room sheared sideways. The Persian rug vanished into a spinning blur of indigo and crimson, and the solid weight of the floor dropped out from under my boots. Vertigo tore through my inner ear, violent and disorienting.

Bile flooded my mouth as I swayed. My stomach heaved with an acute, wrenching nausea, dropping me to my knees. The decanter thudded on the rug, amber liquid splashing across my jeans and the hem of Bart's rumpled trousers.

I tried to call for Tristan, but my tongue felt swollen. His name dissolved into an unintelligible rasp.

“I'm sorry.” Bart's voice came from far away, muffled by a high-pitched ringing in my ears. “I'm so sorry. Osric promised me that the calibration won't hurt you. You're going to be okay. When this is over, you'll thank me.”

I tried to plant my palms against the floor to push myself up, but my arms had turned into wet noodles. My fingers slid uselessly through the puddle of liquor. Double vision split the room into fractured duplicates: two desk lamps, two sets of heavy velvet drapes, two versions of Bart kneeling beside me with tears soaking his stubbled cheeks.

He picked me up and shifted me to cradle me against his chest with a grunt. My head fell back, heavy as stone. I watched the coffered ceiling rotate above me in dizzying circles. I wanted to bite his neck, to gouge my nails into his eyes, to make enough noise to alert one of the guards. My nervous system simply refused the commands. Instead, my muscles twitched, paralyzed by an artificial stupor so dense my thoughts fragmented into scattered impressions.

Bart carried me into the hallway and down the back stairs. Every step he took sent a jolt of pain through the base of my skull, rhythmic and pounding, mimicking the worst migraine of my life.

“Just hold on,” he muttered, breathless, his chest heaving against my shoulder. “Just a few minutes. Then we're out.”

His terror was palpable, and my barriers had broken under the weight of Hangover, so I felt it. It added to my misery and sickened me more than any malice could have. Bart was not an enemy gloating over my capture; he was a drowning man dragging me under to keep his head above water.

We reached the ground floor. Bart pushed through a door, and the night air hit my face like a slap. Gasping, I flopped in Bart's arms. My head lolled over his arm, and I saw the blurry image of a guard disappearing around the corner of the house. Bart had timed my capture perfectly.

Bart propped me on my feet against the trunk of a car, hauled the rear door open, dumped me across the back seat, and slammed the door shut. Panting, I turned onto my back. He scrambled into the driver's seat, threw the transmission into gear, and drove around the main house, speeding for the gate.

The violent rocking of the car brought another surge of dizziness. I pressed my cheek against the cold leather, fighting the fog encroaching on my vision. Tristan. The thought was a fraying thread. What would he think when I never returned to the room? Would he think I'd gone to bed, my mortal body unable to handle the hours of work? How long would it be before he started looking for me?

I caught a glimpse of the gate, and the Conclave's ward shivered over my skin. The sound of tires over gravel blended with Bart's harsh breaths. Trees blurred past the rain-streaked window. We turned and the ride smoothed. Route signs flickered under brief washes of ambient highway light, but I couldn't focus long enough to read the lettering. Consciousness slipped away in jagged increments.

When my eyes opened again, the car was descending a concrete ramp into a subterranean structure. Fluorescent strip lights hummed overhead, casting a sterile, blue-white glare across raw cinderblock walls. The car stopped, and the engine cut out.

The silence lasted only a second before the rear door was yanked open. Bart reached in, hauled me out, and pulled me up into his arms.

“Over here,” a crisp, cultured voice called out.

I closed my eyes again. We moved for a few minutes and stopped. The tang of ozone, copper, and chemicals revived me. I opened my eyes to see metal workbenches lining the perimeter of a vast space. They were cluttered with glassware, coiled copper wire, and boxes of metal parts.

Osric came into my view, moving past us to a console. He held a clipboard and wore a white apron over his tweed jacket. His dark blond hair was neatly parted, his green eyes sharp behind wire-rimmed spectacles.