“Go, Juliet!” Samantha ordered. Her mother’s voice, strangely calm and in control for the first time in ages, was what snapped Juliet out of her shock. She strode forward and knelt down next to the stranger and saw a flash of silver around her sister’s wrists.
“Why is Lily wearing chains?” she asked accusingly, her voice pitched low to keep it from shaking. When she lifted her eyes to meet the stranger’s, her gaze was caught by something at his throat. It was a large jewel that seemed to throb with dark light—if there was such a thing as dark light, Juliet thought. She blinked her eyes and looked away, both disturbed and drawn to the odd jewel at the same time.
“Samantha, do you know me?” the savage asked. Juliet stiffened in fear. Who was this guy?
“How do you know my mother’s name?” she asked, certain that it hadn’t been said in his presence.
“Yes, I know you, Rowan,” Samantha answered, waving an impatient hand in Juliet’s direction to keep her quiet. “What do we need to do?”
“We need to get her by a fire so I can start to heal her,” Rowan said. He started to lift Lily, and she moaned in pain.
“What? We need to call 911 and get an ambulance,” Juliet yelled. She reached out a hand to restrain Rowan from moving her. “You’re hurting her!”
“I know that,” he shouted back, his expression desperate. “But we have to move her. I can’t heal her here.”
“Mom!” Juliet screamed. “For all we know, he did this to her.”
“No, he didn’t. Listen to him, Juliet. He’s the only one who can help her now,” Samantha said sternly.
Juliet searched for any sign in her mother’s eyes that she had lost it, but all she saw was cold, hard sanity—something Juliet hadn’t seen in her mother in a long time.
Samantha knew exactly what was going on, even if Juliet didn’t, and it was Samantha who had said she knew where to find Lily and she’d forced Juliet to take her to this stretch of road in the middle of the night. Juliet had no idea how her mother could know where to find Lily after three months of her being missing, but right now there were more pressing matters, like saving Lily’s life. And at the moment that seemed doubtful. Juliet had candy-striped in hospitals and trained as an EMT. She was going to med school at Boston University and she’d seen enough to know when someone was dying. Although Juliet said under her breath that they should be taking Lily to an emergency room, she knew it would make no difference at this point. Her little sister was going to die whether they got her to an ICU or not.
Rowan kept Lily on his lap in the backseat of the car while Juliet drove as quickly as she dared through the falling snow. She gripped the wheel as if she were trying to wring it dry in order to keep her hands from shaking. Her sister, missing and thought to be dead, was back. And she was dying in the backseat of Juliet’s car.
Juliet’s eyes kept bouncing up to the rearview mirror as she drove. She watched this Rowan character cradling Lily in his lap, trying to soothe her. He spoke to her gently to keep her conscious, saying anything that popped into his head—outrageous things, like how Lily wouldn’t dare leave him alone. How he needed her. How lost he would be without her. But Juliet’s suspicion was not as easily quenched as her mother’s. Lily had been kidnapped three months ago, and Rowan must have had some part in it, no matter how tenderly he seemed to hold her and speak to her.
Lily was delirious by the time they got her home, humming and whispering to herself in a singsong way as if she were soothing a child. Rowan carried her inside and laid her in front of the fireplace.