Pain.
Ronan groaned, his throat dry, his head pounding with every beat of his heart. Pain pulsed through him in vicious waves, coiling through his chest, his limbs, his spine.
He tried to move.
A mistake.
Chains rattled above and below him—tight, iron restraints that held his wrists overhead and his ankles below, stretching him into an X. His feet barely touched the cold stone floor, his weight dangling helplessly.
Then the real agony hit.
A searing, blinding pain erupted in his chest as he shifted. Like fire. Like a blade twisting inside him.
He cried out sharply, his breath catching.
Something was wrong. Something was in him.
His body trembled. Sweat slicked his brow despite the cold.
He blinked through the dark, trying to see—anything. But it was pitch black, like he’d been sw
