"Ilianna's mother."
I nodded and thrust upward. "We need to go see—"
I cut the rest of the sentence off as a phone rang. It wasn't my phone—I hadn't yet gotten around to charging the damn thing—but rather a phone coming from Tao's room. It was answered after a few seconds, but that didn't do much to ease the tension suddenly running through me.
I knew who was making that call. Knew why.
After a few minutes, Tao stumbled out, looking somewhat disheveled and far from awake. "It's Mirri," he said, thrusting the phone at me. "She's not making sense. Is Ilianna missing or something?"
"Yes." I grabbed the phone and said, "It's okay, Mirri. I know what's happened to her, and she's okay."
"Oh, thank god." Tears filled her bright eyes. "I was so afraid something bad had happened to her. Where is she? Why hasn't she contacted me?"
Something bad had happened, but I wasn't about to tell her that. At the same time, I couldn't not tell her what was going on. I hesitated, then said, "I'm afraid she's being held hostage against my good behavior. She hasn't been hurt, and won't be, as long as I do everything her kidnapper says."
"Oh, fuck."
That, ten times over, I thought grimly. "I think we've worked out a way to free her, Mirri—"
The phone was snatched from her hand, and suddenly I was staring at a man with piercing, light blue eyes, pale skin, and silver-white hair. Albino, I thought, and then realized this was probably Carwyn.
"I want in on any rescue attempt," he said, voice deep and fierce.
"I doubt that Ilianna would—"
"I may not yet be her mate," he cut in. "But I will be. Whoever did this to her must pay."
And that was both the stallion and the man speaking, I thought grimly. And yet I couldn't do everything. If I were to have any hope of prizing Ilianna away from Lucian's clutches, then it would have to be when Lucian was otherwise distracted.