For the first time I could remember, I was truly alone. I stared into the empty room, grasping for a sliver of hope.

I’d risked everything to save Shay. Letting stillness ease my trembling limbs, I closed my eyes and saw his face, remembering the freedom I’d felt in his arms, the possibility of a life unlike any I’d imagined. I wondered if my capture had snuffed out that dream . . . if it had ever stood the chance of becoming real.

Despair threatened to drag me down, but I fought back, clinging to a single, flickering thought. Shay loves me. He would risk everything to find his way back to my side and set me free. Because that’s what love is, isn’t it? It has to be.