Page 62 of Taken

My body jerks upright in bed, skin slick with sweat, heart thundering. Elena’s terror tears through me, distant but unmistakable, a scream that needs no sound to shatter me.

“No!” I choke, the word too small to hold such horror.

My daughter. Taken.

The connection we share may have stretched thin over decades, but it hasn’t broken. Blood calls to blood, especially Rossewyn blood.

Alarms wail outside my quarters. Red emergency lights flash in the corridor. Footsteps pound past my door—not the measured tread of routine, but urgent.

They know too.

My door crashes open. Creed stands silhouetted against flashing red, face contorted with rage. Behind him, Emerson clutches her tablet, and two guards I don’t recognize flank them, weapons drawn.

“Get her,” Creed snaps.

The guards drag me from bed. I don’t fight; no point wasting strength I’ll need later.

“What’s happening? Where’s Hargen?” I ask, though I already know. The normal routines are shattered tonight.

And where is Allard? Three days, he’d promised. Three days until freedom. Was it a lie? Or has something gone terribly wrong?

Is that why they’re here?

Terror chills the marrow in my bones as I imagine what they’ll do to me if that’s the case.

Creed leads our grim procession toward a different extraction chamber—deeper in the facility, with heavier doors and stronger dampening fields.

“Where is she?” Creed demands after they’ve strapped me down.

“Who?” I meet his gaze, defiant despite the fear clawing up my spine.

This isn’t about the escape. It’s worse. It’s about my child.

His hand cracks across my face, the blow snapping my head sideways. Stars burst behind my eyes, copper flooding my mouth.

“Don’t play games, witch. Your daughter is gone. Stolen by Malakai Steele and his Circle zealots.”

Steele!The name confirms my worst fears—the limping dragon from my visions. The ancient threat I tried to warn Allard about.

“You lost her,” I say, tasting blood. “Careless.”

Another blow, harder this time.

“You knew,” he hisses. “You’ve seen this in your visions. Steele taking her.”

“The images aren’t always clear,” I reply, mustering what dignity I can.

“Well, now you’ll help us find her.” He straightens, nodding to Emerson. “Bring the Shard.”

Cold seeps through my veins. The Shard. They want me to use it to track Elena—to reach across the distance and find my daughter’s magical signature.

To help them hunt her.

“I can’t.” I struggle against the restraints. “That’s not how it works.”

“We both know you’re lying. The Shard connects to the Rossewyn line. Your daughter shares your lineage.”

“And if I refuse?”

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