Her awakening was steeped with agony.

“Carrick,” she croaked, barely keeping her call from turning into a whine.  The fentanyl had worn off, and she needed another blood whore to drink from.  The damage that bitch had done to her would take centuries to heal.  Ilona didn’t know if she would ever be without pain again.

“Hardly.”

She couldn’t see the source of the voice in the dim room.  It was out of her line of sight, and any movement she made sent waves of pain crashing through her. 

But she recognized the voice.  “You,” she hissed.

“Me,” he agreed.  He stepped into her line of sight, the faint haze of the salt lamp casting harsh shadows over him.  Tall, over six feet, with a tapered waist and broad shoulders.  His silver eyes luminesced in the low light.  Silver . . . like Karhi’s.

The heat of anger overtook the pain for a moment.  “You did this,” she hissed.

“Me?” he said, raising an eyebrow.  “You broke the Samhain covenant.”

“You didn’t tell me she had soulsilver,” she rasped.

“I didn’t know,” he shrugged.

“Liar.”

He took a step forward, baring his teeth, silver eyes turning almost white.  “I do not lie, fledgling,” he snarled.  As he moved forward, he jostled her bed.

She bit back a scream of pain, fresh as the day that bitch set her on fire.  The bits of her skin that she still had remembered the green flames as if they were alight right here and now.

“I warned you,” he hissed.  “I warned you that she was more powerful than you could imagine.  Did it even occur to you why someone like me would even be interested in her?  Or were you so wrapped up in your petty jealousy and obsession with control that you couldn’t see anything?”

“She’s a fledgling,” Ilona whispered, just barely holding back the whine that threatened to engulf her words.  “What power could she hold?”

He looked her over pointedly.  “A lot.  You learned that firsthand.”

Fury blazed, dulling the pain.  “That bitch.”

“If you had just left her alone, you’d probably be in one piece right now,” he shrugged.  He glanced up at the ceiling.  “Well, no.  Once I learned that Karhi didn’t know anything about her, and that you were useless, I was going to incinerate you anyway.  I wouldn’t have allowed you to be the one to kill Sloane Briallen.”

The fury threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t do anything.  She didn’t have any muscles to control her limbs, just bone.  “Why do you care?” she hissed. 

He stepped away.  “You did this same exact thing with Elizabeth.  Tried to control her.  You didn’t learn then.  You didn’t learn now.”  He sneered.  “You’re probably going to die a slow, agonizing death because of it.”  He shook his head.  “Tyrants like you never learn.”

Her fury overtook her, and she screamed.  “What do you want?”

He shrugged.  “To save the world.”  Michael disappeared.