"I know," said Madoc. "I'm doing what I can."

"Let me help," offered Nika.

"I don't know how you could. Tori didn't put these images in your head. She put them in mine, and they're so scrambled together I can't make sense of them."

"Maybe I can. I know the way Tori thinks. I've been in her mind for years."

Madoc shrugged. "It's worth a shot."

Nika unfastened her seat belt and crawled into his lap, straddling him. The heat between her thighs burned through his jeans, and he set the land speed record for fastest erection ever.

Madoc shifted, trying to unpinch his manhood. The motion made Nika bounce on top of him, which of course, made her b.r.e.a.s.t.s jiggle beneath her cotton shirt.

He knew he was staring, but he couldn't stop himself. All he could think about was how good her hard little nipples had tasted against his tongue, how they'd tightened even more when he'd sucked them.

As if she were reading his thoughts, her nipples puckered, pressing against her shirt.

She wasn't wearing a bra. As small as she was, she didn't really need one, but that meant all he had to do was lift up her shirt and he could kiss and lick and suck her nipples until she begged for more.

That thought stopped him cold. Nika wasn't likely to beg for more of what he'd given her last night. He'd hurt her. Made her bleed.

"None of that," she chided. "It was perfectly normal and I'm not going to let you make me feel bad about it."

"You're reading my thoughts?" he asked, ripping his eyes away from her t.i.ts, just in case.

"You asked for my help. Besides, I think I like some of those thoughts you're having. We'll try that whole s.e.x thing again later."

When they weren't in a moving car. With an audience.

Helen was driving. She glanced in the rearview mirror and met Madoc's gaze. "I think a bit of privacy might be in order here," she said; then his ears popped as she put up a soundproof barrier of air around him and Nika.

"They can't hear us now, can they?"

"Nope."

A slow, languid smile lifted Nika's mouth and Madoc could do nothing but stare. He still hadn't forgotten a single one of his fantasies involving her mouth. Only now that it was the worst possible time for him to be thinking about them, each one of them came back in rapid succession.

"We'll try all that, too. Soon," she promised. "But you've got to stop thinking those naughty things and focus on what Tori gave you."

Right. Tori. They had a very young, very scared, very pregnant girl to save. The fact that she also happened to be Nika's sister was just added motivation.

Madoc valiantly ignored his b.o.n.e.r and closed his eyes so he wouldn't be distracted by Nika's mouth again. He focused on the tangled snarl of images Tori had forced into him and let them all flicker through his mind. They went by so fast, he couldn't make sense of them. They were just a blur of light and color, too insubstantial to actually understand.

"We need to slow them down," whispered Nika.

Madoc heard her with his ears, but he also felt her voice inside his head, too. It was odd having her this close, but not uncomfortable. She seemed to be able to invade his thoughts without taking up any s.p.a.ce, without crowding him.

He felt a stream of power flowing out of his body, heating the luceria around his finger as it pa.s.sed into Nika. He had no idea what she was doing with the energy, but whatever it was, it felt nice. Pressure inside him eased. He pulled in a deep breath, feeling her b.r.e.a.s.t.s press against his chest.

It was going be so nice to get her naked again, just once more. This time, he'd be gentle. Careful. He'd take her slow and easy. There'd be no more blood. No pain. Only pleasurea"so much of it he'd be able to wash away all memories of how he'd ripped her virginity from her and left her bleeding.

"Stop it. I'm tired of you beating yourself up over that. I enjoyed myself quite a bit."

"Not nearly as much as you should have."

"How do you know?"

"I know. Next time, so will you."

"We'll see about that."

There was a buzzing feeling in his skull; then suddenly, something about the images zooming through his head changed. They slowed down until they were flipping through his mind at a rate he could actually see.

Like a bizarre slide show, each flash of events pa.s.sed through him. Most were of dark cave walls. In some, he could see the chubby arms and legs of the girl Tori had once been as she looked down at herself. In others, her limbs were longer and thinner. In the next moment, she was chubby again.

"The order is jumbled," said Nika. "We need to sort it out and get back to the night she was taken."

"Do you know how to do that?"

"I think so. Hold on."

Again, Madoc felt a flow of power falling out of him. The tiny connection between them flared, allowing her to take on more of the energy stretching his insides.

As she did whatever it was she was doing, the strain he'd been carrying around for years began to ease. For the first time in decades, he felt like he could pull in a full breath.

He was so thrilled by this victory that he hadn't been paying attention to the images.

They stopped, and he felt Nika's body tighten even as he sensed her fear invading his thoughts, like a dank little tendril of smoke.

Madoc put his attention back where it belonged and saw what had scared Nika so much.

It was the face of a man who wasn't quite a man at all. The top of his skull was a bit too wide, his black eyes too deeply set. His bloodred lips were peeled back in a hideous smile, displaying two rows of pointed teeth.

Zillah.

The name echoed in his mind like a shotgun blast. This was the thing that had stolen Tori. The creature who had hurt her. Raped her.

"Don't look at him," he told Nika. "Change the image to something else."

Her voice shook with fury. "I want to watch him die."

"So do I, but that will have to wait until we can find him. Show me something I can use."

Nika was trembling, though whether with fear or rage, he couldn't tell. He swept his hands up and down her back, hoping to calm her. The feel of her slender back under his palms managed to soothe something inside him, too. She was here, in his arms, safe and sound, and nothing and no one was going to change that.

The image shifted; this time, it was a close-up of the open, salivating jaws of a sgath. Nika swiftly went through several blurry images as if wanting to get away from that one. The next one she stopped on was of their childhood bedroom.

"That's before the attack," she said. "The window isn't broken yet. I'll move forward a bit."

The next time she stopped, he saw what it had looked like for Tori the night she'd been taken. As a sgath pulled her out of her window, she stared back at a much younger Nika.

She was just a girl. Her hair had been dark then, not the fear-bleached white it was now. Blood leaked from a wound on her leg, but she ignored it. She was reaching out toward Tori, her lips parted as if speaking.

"Okay. This is it," she whispered. "You need to find where she went. I'll move through the thoughts one by one."

What Tori had seen that night flowed past Madoc like a movie. He scoured each image, searching for landmarks, signs, or anything else that might lead him to where Tori was.

He saw nothing familiar. There was still some kind of distortion happening. So much of what he saw was simply . . . wrong.

Failure bore down on him, crushing the breath from his lungs. How was he going to admit his inadequacy to Nika? He didn't want her to see his failures. He wanted to be her hero.

"You're not a failure," she said. "We'll just have to try again."

Already he could feel her shaking with fatigue. She was new to his power, and no matter how badly he wanted to find Tori, Nika had to be his first priority.

"We need to stop."

"We can't," said Nika. "We're too close."

"We have time to figure this out. It will take at least a day to get everyone home and ready to move."

"I want to go tonight."

"I realize that, but if we move too soon, we won't have enough manpower to save her. I know you don't want that."

Her gaze hardened and her mouth tightened. "He's just one mana"one creature. I could kill him myself if I got close enough. All I need is a weapon."

"I'm not going to let you risk yourself like that. We're going to do this right. No one is going in alone. Period."

"You're not going to hold me back from Tori. No one is."

"I'm not trying to. I'm trying to help you see reason. I can't seem to control the images without you, and you're too tired right now to be much help. The best thing you can do for Tori is to get a nap on the way home; then we'll try again."

"I won't be able to sleep. Not now that I know what they've done to her. I should have known before now."

"Why? You said she'd been pulling away for a while."

Nika nodded. "That's why. She didn't want me with her when he raped her. I should have been there."

"No," said Madoc, his voice too loud and angry. He reminded himself to be gentle. "She protected you out of love. Don't cheapen her gift by regretting it. Besides, how do you know that it wouldn't have been worse for her had you been there to witness it, to suffer with her?"

"She's just a girl."

Madoc drew in a calming breath and smoothed his hand over her hair. "We'll bring her home soon."

"Tori doesn't have much time."

"I know."

"If that babya"or whatever it isa"comes before we find her, she might not make it."

Madoc couldn't let Nika's imagination go therea"not when there was still a chance. "She'll make it. We'll get the Sanguinar working on a way to get her through the birth and make it safe for her."

"And the baby?" asked Nika, shuddering.

Madoc had no answers. "We'll deal with that when the time comes."

"I can't even imagine what she's been througha"how she was strong enough to endure it and still try to protect me. Who was protecting her?"

"As of now, we are. All of us. She's one of our own and we'll find a way to bring her home."

"Maybe I shouldn't have told Andra she's alive. Maybe it would be kinder for her to never know what really happened to Tori."

"Andra's strong. And Tori's not dead yet. There's still a chance."

"You think so?"

"You found a way to save me when I was sure I was a lost cause. I'm sure we'll do the same for her."

Nika snuggled against his chest, tucking her head under his chin. "You keep telling me that, okay? I have a feeling I'm going to need to hear it more than once."

Madoc tightened his arms around the most precious woman to have ever existed. She hadn't given up on him when there was no reason to hope. The least he could do was keep her hope alive long enough to help her get through this.

Whatever happened, she wasn't going to be alone. He was going to be right here with her, giving her hope, holding her close, and, if need be, drying her tears.

Nika was his now, and for as long as she was, he would not fail her.

She'd stayed up last night, watching over him while he was injured. She needed her rest. He still wasn't convinced she was completely healthy.

"Sleep for a while," he whispered. He gathered up minute sparks of power floating in the air and used them to put the faintest hint of compulsion in the words. "We'll be home soon."

Nika's body relaxed against his and her breathing evened out as she fell asleep.

Madoc leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes, and forced himself to go through those horrible images again, one by one. He needed to learn how to control them, remove whatever was distorting them, and make sense of them so Nika never had to see them again.

He knew that if anything happened to Tori, these images would be the things that haunted Nika most.

Chapter 17.

Dabyr was buzzing with activity when they arrived. The underground parking lot was nearly full. Curious teens tried to appear nonchalant as they eavesdropped for a clue as to what was going on.

Madoc ignored all of it and carried the still-sleeping Nika straight to his suite. He wasn't sure if he did it because he was worried she'd park herself in the hall again, or if it was because he liked the idea of getting her in his bed. Maybe a little of both.