Page 69 of Colton’s Mate

Not if Callie could help it.

She tried to steel herself to fight, refusing to look at Rohene, to give her the satisfaction of knowing Callie was afraid.

She felt the syringe go into her neck, and then things started going fuzzy in her mind.

No! She had to hang on. She had to be able to fight.

The room started to look weird. The walls and floor pulsed. Shadows seemed to be moving by themselves in the flickering torchlight.

Then suddenly, the metal tray slipped off the table and clattered to the ground. All by itself.

Rohene turned on her minion. “Fool!” she snapped. “Oaf! Can you not move without knocking things to the ground?”

“I didn’t—” he began, and then shut his mouth hurriedly. Apparently you didn’t argue with the leader of this clan. Brandon would love that so much.

But Minion was telling the truth. He hadn’t been anywhere near the table.

No one had. Hah. Maybe they had a ghost too.

Watch for the spirits.

Holy shit.

“Nick?” she whispered, almost silently.

One of the moving shadows detached itself from the others. She saw the faint shape of a panther crossing the room. He rubbed up against the side of her leg.

Watch for the spirits. Go where they tell you.

And just as Rohene touched the first probe to her skull, she was somewhere else.

Jason had met Colt and the crew at the road and led them up the high rocky cliff to the ventilation shaft.

Remy was below, and he was not looking good. Worst of all, they’d already taken Callie.

Rohene could be probing her mind with magic right now—and the leopard gods only knew what that would do to her.

As fast as he dared, Colt fashioned a shaped charge out of C-4, just like his dad had taught him, and cleared everyone back.

“Fire in the hole,” he murmured. They covered their heads and their ears.

The blast went off, widening the hole just enough.

Colt was putting the rope around himself, about to go down, when Titan grabbed him.

“No. Callie needs you.”

And suddenly, Colt was in the spirit world.

He was standing outside a large transparent dome, maybe thirty feet across. It wasn’t solid—the surface shimmered faintly, like it was some kind of force field.

Magic?

Inside, he could see Callie. She was surrounded by floating bubbles, so thick they almost hid her from view. Inside each bubble he could see faint scenes, like they were little snow globes. People, places, moving and sometimes talking, though he couldn’t hear anything.

Every time one touched her, she flinched in pain, as if it burned her. And there was nowhere she could go that they couldn’t touch her.

Suddenly he saw a huge crow talon over her head, as large as a scythe. It cut through the bubbles, releasing some of the figures. They surrounded Callie.