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Then I realized I wasn’t on my kitchen floor.

I was buried in softness. Pillows everywhere, stacked and tucked in a circle around me like a wall. The softest blankets I’d ever felt were beneath my fingers. A throw was draped over my legs, heavier than all my blankets combined. It was the kind of bed I’d only ever dreamed of.

It was a nest.

My Omega went boneless with relief before my brain could catch up.

Where was I?

The room was dim, lit by afternoon light through a single tall window, snow coming down heavily outside. A huge TV took up most of the wall across from me, dark and silent. No pictures. No clutter. Just the nest, the window, and the sinful smell of coffee drifting under the door.

And underneath the coffee, him.

Campfire smoke. Warm on the tip of my tongue. It was in the pillows, the blankets. Everything. It was the same scent that had been playing with my mind. It was everywhere.

Klaus.

My heart stuttered.

No. No, no, no. I’d done this already today. I’d smelled him in my laundry, for God’s sake. My brain had found its mate, and now it was painting him onto everything like a lovesick teenager. I’d hit my head. I was concussed. Of course I was smelling him. I was self-soothing.

There was no way Klaus was here.

Whoever was responsible for the box, brought me here.

There was no way Klaus was—

A movement in the corner caught my eye, and my whole body locked.

I wasn’t alone.

He was sitting on a chaise in the shadows, so still I’d missed him. All black. He’d changed into a short-sleeve black shirt, inked forearms, bloodied knuckles resting on his knee. He was leaning back like he owned the room, which I guess he did. The veins in his neck bulged, disappearing beneath his mask.

That hollow white face. That black, screaming mouth.

Ghostface.

The man who’d hurt Rhett and cut off his hands. The man who’d put them in a box with a bow. Was I next?

I opened my mouth to scream, and what came out was a dry cough. I scrambled backward through the pillows until my back hit the headboard. Every instinct in my brain screamed run. My Omega didn’t move. She went still and quiet, the way she had when we were in Klaus’ arms, like she was waiting to see what he’d do.

He rose and my heart thundered in my chest.

He took his time crossing the room, and the mattress dipped under his knee. He reached for me, and I flinched. But not because my Omega feared him, no, because she didn’t clock him as a threat.

His hand stopped. Curled into a fist. Dropped back to his side.

“Don’t be afraid of me.” His voice came out warped, just like the video. It still rolled through me like a hand caressing my spine. “I won’t hurt you.”

Something low in my belly clenched.

I bit my lip so hard it stung. A man in a serial killer’s mask was sitting on my bed—his bed—and my body had decided that was the moment to find him hot. I was delusional. I was concussed and probably going to die in a pile of very nice pillows.

“Says the guy who kidnapped me,” I rasped, “and is wearing a serial killer’s mask to hide his identity.”

He chuckled. Even through the modulator, it sounded pleased. “I’m glad that fire in you isn’t so easily extinguished.”

“I’m not that easy to put out.”