Alex's words hung in the air between them, and suddenly being so close to the stranger made her uneasy, uncertain, and incredibly uncomfortable.

As the haze of her panic subsided, her defenses kicked back into high gear. This was the same man who kidnapped her, took her from her home, and wasn't telling her why. Regardless of what her heart may believe, despite how safe he may make her feel, she wanted to be as far away from him as possible.

She gathered herself up off the floor and out of his arms, but forgot her injured foot's searing pain, and managed to hobble away before collapsing on the edge of the bed. She looked down at her bare foot, where the skin looked red and swollen, and she cringed as she tried to move her toes.

"You really should let me look at it. You may still have pieces of ceramic in there."

She knew he was right, and soon he was kneeling in front of her at the bed.

"May I?" He motioned to her injured foot. She nodded and gently lifted it out for him, resting her heel on his extended knee.

His hands were soft as he gingerly handled her foot. She let out a sharp yelp here and there as his fingers tested and pried at various spots along her sole and toes, and when he seemed satisfied with his examination, he gently placed the extremity back on the ground and stood up, walking over to the wall of cabinets and drawers across from the bed.

Taking a breath to calm her nerves, she decided now was as good a time as any to open up a line of communication. "Okay..." She struggled to remember his name.

"Treyan."

"What?"

"My name is Treyan," he reminded her from over his shoulder.

"Treyan," she sighed. "Please, tell me. I need to know what's going on."

He continued to rummage through the high cabinets along the wall. For a moment she wasn't sure if he had heard her on not.

"Okay, never mind. You can just bring me back to my apartment now and we can pretend this whole encounter never happened. We can both go along our merry little ways and continue on with our mundane lives."

He turned back to her then, a small tweezer-like tool in one hand, a roll of gauze and bandages in the other, and he knelt back in front of her, gently lifting her foot to his knee again.

"I can't do that," Treyan said softly, his focus wholly on her foot.

She winced as he began to work, pulling the broken pieces of the pitcher from her foot. "Oh, yes, I think you can."

He shook his head and sighed, his eyes focused on her foot. "If you haven't figured it out by now, Alex, I know you. Doesn't that give you reason enough to want to stay and figure out why?"

Alex bit her lip as she watched him. "Yes. Yes, it does. Of course, it does," she said quickly. "So, tell me, and then I can go home."

"Do you truly think if you returned home, you could forget any of this ever happened?""

She peered at him. "Denial is a powerful force."

He snorted and continued. "The denial you mention would undoubtedly drive you insane. Of course, you could try to figure it all out on your own, but eventually you'd make yourself crazy because no matter how hard you tried, you would never be able to place my face."

He glanced up and her wide eyes met his careful gaze. There was no humor in those blue eyes. Not even as he said, "It would destroy your last bit of sanity to the point where you would begin to claw the skin away from your fingers while you worked at the bricks of that fireplace in your apartment, just hoping for the glimmer of a chance that I would again appear."

She stared at him, blinking, still trying to determine if he was joking or not. But he continued to work away on her foot, wrapping the bandage tightly to help quell the bleeding, not once looking up at her as he went on.

"I would think you would have started with the easier question first. Where am I, Treyan? That would have been what I would have asked. I have brought you to a location totally unfamiliar to you. Do you not want to know where you are?"

"I do."

He looked up to her then, his expression blank.

"You say this, yet it's not the first question out of your mouth."

"Technically, I didn't ask any questions."

He smirked as he returned to wrapping her foot. "Your logic is an excellent trait for an empress."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Because you, Alex, are the Queen Empress, especially if I have anything to say about it."

Her frustration at him avoiding her questions began to rise, but the pain in her foot was a lesson she didn't need to be taught again. Cringing at the memory, she tried her best to remain calm, willing herself to take another deep breath in as she carefully tried to word what was to come next.

"You're in the Empire," Treyan finally said before she could admonish him again.

"What does that even mean? Which empire?"

"The Empire, and you are its empress. The Queen Empress. One from a long line of those chosen from the Otherrealm thanks to the Prophecy."

Once again, Alex was almost at a loss for words. Treyan sighed. "You are Queen Empress Alexstrayna, the daughter of Fire and Light."

Alex swallowed. "That's not my name," she challenged, looking for something, anything, she could say to reel in the conversation.

"It is," Treyan insisted. "You may have been Alexandra Ross in the Otherrealm, but in the Empire, you are Alexstrayna." He smirked slightly. "Though I suppose either way, Alex still works."

"I still don't understand."

"You may not, not for a long while. Just know that the Prophecy of the Fire and Light determined your destiny long ago, Alex, even before you were born."

"So...?"

"'So' what, Empress?" He smiled at her as he stood up, finished with tending to her wound. Her foot still throbbed, but the tight bandage would help any swelling go down. He sat in the chair across from her in the corner of the room, crossing his legs and folding his hands across his lap while he sat back, looking her over as if he was about to hold court.

"So, who are you?" She adjusted her position on the bed, situating herself on the edge of the bed as she prepared for a long, uneasy conversation.

"I am Treyan, Crown Prince of the Empire. It is my sworn responsibility to oversee my lands, and more importantly, acclimate you to them." His strong arms folded over his solid chest. "Go ahead, ask another."

"Fine," she grumbled as she sighed, bracing her arms on the bed. "Other than your Prophecy, why am I really here?"

"You are here because I made the decision to bring you here—a split-second decision, mind you, that probably saved your life."

"From who? That guy who broke into my apartment?"

Treyan nodded.

"But you knew him." She meant it as a question, but she was more focused on maintaining her breath.

"Knew of him, yes. I did not catch his name, but he was an underling like all of the others. Not the real threat, but close."

"Underling?"

"To Reylor."

Another name she assumed she was supposed to know. "And who is Reylor?"

He smirked. "Now we're getting somewhere."

Treyan ran his hands through his hair as he leaned forward in the chair, his elbows resting on his knees. She sat on the edge of the bed and waited, ready to listen intently and hoping for answers to her questions.

"Who is Reylor?" He repeated the question more to himself. "To answer your question, Reylor is my brother. My twin brother, if you want to get technical. Also, now, my estranged twin brother, but some things couldn't be avoided, I suppose. I chose my path, and he chose his, and here we are." He shrugged.

"Your brother was behind that ball of fire? The one in my apartment—he knew where I lived. And knew who I was. Does he know about me and this Prophecy too?"

Treyan held her stare, and she wasn't sure if she had asked too much or not enough. She swallowed, glancing down at the mattress where she sat, suddenly uncertain if she wanted to know any more answers. Maybe Treyan didn't want to talk any more either, considering the silence that fell between them.

When he stood from the chair a few moments later, she allowed herself to watch him as his moved toward the wall of cabinets and shelves, his hands moving over the various items and supplies resting there.

"Reylor knows more about you than even I wish," he said quietly, distracted.

"Is he a threat?" she asked carefully.

He glanced over his shoulder as he said, "Think of everything you knew about the life you've lived until this very moment, and then ball it up and throw it out that door. That same world will now forever be changed because of who you are and what you were meant to be. And when you finally walk into that new world, you'll discover it now possesses so much more meaning than the one I took you away from." He turned to face her fully. "Once you realize what you are woven into, Alex, you will find that small apartment in Boston is nothing compared to this."

She sat there, staring at him, processing everything she was hearing. Other than the intense dramatics, she felt like things were about to get much deeper than she expected. Yet, she wanted to know more.

His blue eyes darkened as he watched her, and she settled back down and continued to listen, making herself keep patient until he was done.

He let out a breath as though he could sense her unease, or the way his tone affected her. "When the suns rise tomorrow, you'll see how things truly are here, Alex. Unfortunately, so will Reylor. From tomorrow forward, your life will become a bloody battlefield that will determine the outcome of existence... for all of us."

Did he just say suns? She shook her head as if to clear it.

"How? How do I come into all of this? As far as I can tell, from what you're saying, this seems like nothing more than you and your brother needing to learn how to play nice."

"You come into this because you have to, Alex," he informed her, almost desperately. "Right now, the more I tell you the more I know you'll try to figure it out, and it will do nothing but confuse you further. You just need to trust me—"

"I don't even know you!"

"Trust that time will explain everything so long as you allow it." He spoke calmly, slowly beginning to put the rest of the bandages away.

"How much time do you think I have?" she blurted, standing from the bed. "I don't have time to be in the middle of these games. I have to go home—I have a job, friends, rent to pay—a life there! Did I mention my father's a cop? He's going to be looking for me, and trust me, you do not want to be on the other end of that search."

"I'm not telling you this to upset you, but you have to know that whatever life you had before no longer means anything."

"What are you talking about?" she challenged. "Of course, it means something. And right now, it means a hell of a lot more than your damn Prophecy."

His eyes lingered on her for a moment, studying her.

"Alex, you are finally home. Don't you understand? There's nowhere else you need be because this is where you belong."

"That makes no sense!"

"Yes, it does, you just need to trust me. Believe when I tell you that Boston was nothing more than a myth. A cover, a protection from the future that awaited you until the time was right. That time is now. This—right here, right now—is where you are meant to be."

"You keep saying that, but I don't even know where 'here' is! Maybe I don't want to walk out that door or wake up in the morning to see whatever it is you want me to see!" She was getting irritable, tired, and extremely angry. "Maybe you should take me back to Boston, real or not, and leave me in peace!"

He rolled his eyes and walked back toward her, this time with his arm extended to take her hand in his. "Would you rather spend another night in a recovery room?"

She looked at him, then at his hand, then back up to him again. "What?" Is he threatening me now? she wondered, swallowing hard and trying not to show her fear.

"It's getting late, and tomorrow will be another long day."

"I already told you, I'm not walking out that door." She planted her feet on the floor for emphasis, despite the pain that coursed through her from doing so.

He looked at her like a parent waiting for their rebellious child to learn that arguing was going to get them nowhere and sooner or later they were going to need to give in. Still, she refused to take his hand, so he took it for her and pulled her up.

She stumbled as she tried to avoid putting weight on her injured foot, which in turn landed her exactly where she didn't want to be—in Treyan's supportive, welcoming arms. He was about a head taller than she was, so she needed to arch her head slightly to look at him. As their eyes met, he again brought a gentle palm to her cheek, his skin warm to the touch, the hint of callouses on his fingers as if he used his hands to work on a daily basis. The caress against her skin, however, was more intimate than she would have expected from someone she just met, and her breath hitched when his thumb slowly ran over her cheekbone.

That same nostalgic warmth that overcame her before was again welcoming, but the rational part of her mind told her something about this connection wasn't right. His scent wanted to overwhelm her, like cloves and cinnamon in mulled apple cider on a crisp fall day. It was the epitome of comfort and warmth and she didn't want to leave.

"Treyan...?" she whispered.

"Goodnight, Alex."

"Goodnight?"

Instead of an answer, he leaned in, pressing his cheek against hers, his lips brushing against her ear as he whispered those unknown words. As her body went limp in his arms, her world, once again, dimmed to darkness.