Author's Note: This chapter is a little bit shorter than I planned, mainly because when I started writing the second passage, it wound up going far longer than I typically like chapters like this to go. So I just broke them up into two smaller chapters. I hope you enjoy it!

Olivia groaned as she slowly came to, the pain from her ribs and from the gouges Reiko's shuriken had made in her torso screaming for her attention, and her face sore from their battle. Gingerly, she touched the back of her scalp where the aching throb was the most apparent and felt a goose egg raggedly split sprouting from her skull. Blood was drying in her hair. Grimacing with each movement, she glanced around and now saw through an eye that was nearly swollen shut that she was in a stony hollow, sheltered in a nook amongst jagged pinnacles of weathered rock. The strange Netherrealm sun was gradually rising overhead, the day coming on swiftly. It burned like a blast furnace, setting her already boiling skin on fire. She was grateful for the shadows of her hiding place, she thought as she gripped her wounded ribs and held them to steady them and stop the pain.

"You're awake, Milady," Xinyi's voice spoke from behind her. She turned and saw him hunched over a little fire, cooking something over it.

"What did you do to me?" she snarled. She felt oddly hungover, as if she'd been chugging vodka screwdrivers half the night. And it hurt to speak, her jaw oddly disjointed.

She started to summon her powers to her hands, but a familiar jolt of pain surged through her head, splitting it in two. She yelped as she collapsed onto her face and then gripped her temples in her hands to stop the ringing in her ears. For a long moment, it hurt too much to think. But eventually, it dwindled away, leaving a sharp headache through the top of her brain in its wake. She knew what this was. Only one thing in the world caused pain like this. Full of fear, her fingers gradually crept to her throat and found a metal collar encircling it.

"Cobalt?" she hissed. "You put cobalt on me?"

"I really am sorry," he apologized. "But it was for your own good. Reiko would've killed you if I hadn't intervened when I did."

"I had him on the ropes," she protested. "You didn't need to do this!"

"He only let you think that," he replied. "So I will not apologize for saving your life."

"Then why keep the collar on me?" she growled. "Take it off me. Now."

He calmly shook his head. "No, Olivia, I won't do that. You'll just run back to the battle and try to fight him again. Keeping you subdued is a necessary evil, I'm afraid. At least this way, I can be sure you'll stay safe."

"Let me go!" she shrieked, and her ribs shrieked with her.

"I wouldn't yell like that if I were you," he told her, still unnervingly calm as he stirred whatever was in his pot. "I'm not entirely certain what creatures lurk in these mountains."

She scowled. "So let me get this straight, Xinyi," she began. "In order to protect me, you slapped a collar on me and dragged me from the battle. And now, we're in the middle of Netherrealm with God only knows what on our tails, and you're still keeping me from using my powers, which are arguably the only way I can protect myself?"

He chuckled at that. "I've heard the stories of your harrowing tale in the Red Desert," he replied. "You survived there without your powers. I have no doubt that Netherrealm is no match for you."

"I didn't do it alone," she argued, thinking of Erron and Takeda helping her just as much as she'd helped them.

"Nor will you do it alone now," he countered. "I am with you, and I will keep you safe."

She wanted to scream her lungs out - to get her family's attention or to get that of a bloodthirsty Netherrealm demon, she couldn't say. "This is kidnapping," she snarled.

"If removing you from harm's way is kidnapping, then yes, I am guilty," he replied with a smile.

She realized arguing further was an exercise in futility. She looked around her, searching for a way to escape. "Where are you taking me?" she now demanded to know, trying to figure out something, anything, to help her get free.

"To the Sea of Blood," he told her, clearly not worried about divulging that information to her. "Netherrealm shares it with Outworld, and on the shoreline is a portal leading to the other side. We will use it to return to Outworld, and then we will travel to Mòhé where the Cryomancers will crown me their king."

She furrowed her brow in confusion. "Jiayi is still alive," she quickly reminded him. "I think," she said as an afterthought, now wondering where the other prince had gotten to in all of this.

"He is a traitor to our people," he told her. "It pains me to do so, but I will go to our people and tell them how I discovered his plot to help Reiko attack our city and escape our custody. If Jiayi ever returns to Mòhé, he will be executed for treason."

She glared at him as her mouth dropped open and formed a perfect circle of surprise as the world suddenly came into focus. "It was you," she deduced. "You let that bastard loose. This is all your fault!" she shrieked.

Now he scowled back at her. "I will not even dignify that with a response," he coldly replied. "You are wearing on my nerves, Olivia. Please silence your tongue."

With a ferocious roar, Olivia crossed the space between her and him in a couple of leaps. Before Xinyi could react, she was on top of him. But she found that the Cryomancer prince was more than she bargained for, even taken like that, suddenly, off his guard because he'd assumed the cobalt collar would keep her tame. Before she could get a hold of him, his long legs and arms wound around her and pinned her body in a clinging grip that was incredibly strong, squeezing her like slowly tightening cords. His chilled fingers tried to find their way to the junction where her shoulder met her neck. All she could really do in response, at that point, was snap her head backwards into the prince's face with a loud crack. Xinyi groaned as blood exploded from his nose, but he did not let go.

Finally, though, he managed to get a grip on her shoulder, and he pumped his cryogenic energy through her to subdue her once more. This time, Olivia collapsed from his body like a piece of wet string. Xinyi pushed her over and then got to his feet. His eyes froze pale blue with cold fury, but he couldn't do more to her. She was unconscious once again, quietly moaning in her sleep, and even he had lines he would not cross.

When Olivia woke again some time later, she discovered that Xinyi had cuffed her hands with more cobalt in front of her and also fastened a leash to her collar while she was unconscious.

"I'm not a dog!" she growled as he yanked her from their hiding spot in the crevasse. Words couldn't adequately describe her fury at this situation, or her humiliation. Even Reiko hadn't treated her like this. Such a thing, she knew, would be downright rude in his eyes. At the thought, she yanked back on the cobalt chain as hard as she could, and brought the Cryomancer prince with it. "Let me go!" she screamed again as she kicked him in the face with her boot. Her ribs cursed her for it.

He was only momentarily stunned by the blow, even though blood spilled from his mouth, a lovely wound to match the bruised nose she'd given him earlier, and in a split second, he had returned her gift with one of his own. His fist hurtled into her jaw with such force that she flew into the rock wall beside her. Now it was her turn to bleed.

"I have chosen you to be my Queen, Olivia, and therefore you belong to me," he firmly declared as she gingerly dabbed at her split lip. "Lest you have forgotten - if you ever knew, that is - the wives of the Lords of Mòhé are completely obedient to their husbands. Their respect is not a common courtesy, and it is not asked for. It is just given to their Masters, freely and abundantly."

She bitterly chuffed at that. "I'm not your Queen, nor do I belong to you," she hissed as she spat out a mouth of blood on a rock. "So you can take your demands of wifely obedience and shove them up your ass!"

He shook his head and sighed. "I had hoped you would be more receptive to me than that," he said. "When I escorted you around Mòhé, did you not feel something special between us?"

"Just indigestion," she sarcastically replied.

"You're wounded, and you're confused right now," he gently said as he knelt beside her and kissed her forehead. "But don't deny that you felt a connection between us just like I did. After I spent five minutes with you, I just knew you were meant to be my Queen."

She scoffed. "If you actually felt anything for me, Xinyi," she began, "you wouldn't hold me hostage like this. If you're so convinced that we're fated to be together, why do you have to put a collar and a leash on me like I'm a goddamn pet to make me stay?" She furiously shook her head. "Whatever this is, it isn't love. Love isn't keeping someone a prisoner until you can make them fall in love with you. That's just Stockholm Syndrome."

He bristled at that. "I do not know what Stockholm Syndrome is, Olivia," he told her. "But I do believe that when we're safely in Mòhé, you'll come to see that everything I've done since taking you from the battle, no matter how despicable you think it is, was done for you. For us. I confess I loved you the moment I saw you. And I know something for me stirred in your heart as well."

"You're crazy," she muttered, and suddenly she felt very afraid that she wouldn't get free. For one fleeting moment, she imagined herself as a butterfly that Xinyi had caught and pinned in a box that she could never escape from. She would live and die in that box, doomed to die in that box, never to fly again.

"Perhaps," he agreed. "People in love usually are. Now get on your feet."

"No," she resisted when he tugged on her leash.

Slowly, in a way clearly meant to intimidate her, a kori sword grew from his free palm. "You will still be a prize as a Queen even without an ear or a finger," he threatened.

She looked from his sword to him in terror, her heart pounding in her chest, his handsome face pitiless. In that moment, she knew he would maim her to encourage her cooperation. And there was nothing she could do about it.

Helpless to resist further, she obediently got to her feet and began walking with him pressing his sword into her spine. Patience, she told herself as they moved through the ravine. You can catch him off guard later, just like you did to Reiko. For a moment, she thought about waiting until Xinyi let his guard down before feigning penitence and then seducing him like she did to the General, but she quickly dismissed it. Xinyi knew what she'd done with Reiko, so he'd be expecting a similar stunt. Still, her brain never quit searching for solutions to her predicament, hoping against hope something would present itself to her.

The day wore on, and Olivia felt tired and sluggish from the cobalt collar as she walked, her brain swimming in bad memories of the last time she'd worn one of these damn things. It had been one hell of a fight trudging up and down sand dunes day in and day out, and right now was little better, especially wounded as she was. Each breath felt like fire escaping a blast furnace, and she struggled to breathe and walk over the rough terrain with her hands restrained like they were. But Xinyi never slowed his pace, and marched her through the ravine with his sword drilling into her back, constantly reminding her to behave. When the morning became afternoon, and afternoon faded towards evening, they were still scrambling through the rocky and narrow crevasse between mountain ranges with no end in sight.

All that day, the outer ridge of the jagged mountains had bent gradually northward, and now, along its brink there was a face of scored vertical rocks shooting towards the sky like narrow pillars. It reminded Olivia of Devil's Tower back in Earthrealm, that great rock that, legend had it, was scratched up by the claws of some great bear. But as tall as this cliff face was, she shuddered to think about what kind of creature could have scratched such deep grooves into its face.

Finally, they came to a cave with a familiar red symbol painted on the smooth rock over it, and Olivia thought it was Reiko's standard. When Xinyi spotted it, he ushered her inside. To her surprise, there was a torch already dimly burning in a sconce on the wall, nearing the end of its flame. But the light was bright enough to illuminate two packs, one small, one large, brimming with food and perhaps more, setting neatly against the back wall. Beside them was a pile of firewood split and stacked and ready to burn. And beside that was a cage the size of a dog kennel…

Olivia's heart sank in dread, and she looked to Xinyi in alarm. "No," she said. "No, you can't put me in there!"

"Well, I really have no choice, now do I?" he said. "The worst part of the journey is yet to come, and I'll need to be fully rested for whatever monster, if there is one, lies ahead. But I can't rest if I'm constantly watching you to ensure you don't escape. And since I can't carry this cage and force you up the mountain, I need to get my rest in now."

"I'll behave," she swore, holding up her hands deferentially.

"No you won't," he replied. "You have yet to be tamed." He motioned with his kori sword toward the cage door. "Get in."

"Please, Xinyi," she begged as she now folded her hands together.

"Get in or lose an ear, Olivia," he countered. "And then you'll still get in."

Frustrated, humiliated tears sprang to her eyes as she slowly turned to obey before kneeling and climbing in. "When my father hears about this-"

"Your father is now Reiko's mindless minion," he abruptly cut her off, and she couldn't miss the giddy smile in his voice. "He won't do anything, even if he does hear of this."

Her heart sank because she knew he spoke the truth, and suddenly, she missed her dad terribly. "You son of a bitch," she hissed as he now knelt beside the cage door and fastened it with a thick padlock. Her venom belied the very real fear and sorrow poisoning her heart. "I can't believe I let you kiss me. I should've bit your lips off."

Now the prince began gathering wood and carefully arranging it in a circle near the cave entrance. "You're so hostile, Olivia," he said. "You should be thinking about our future together."

"I am not marrying you," she spat. "You'll have to kill me."

"Mòhé is not like Earthrealm, Olivia," he told her. "The nobility rarely marries for love. Our marriages are almost always arranged. And usually, the parties involved are not happy about it. Therefore, any resistance you might offer on our wedding day is expected. Though, I had hoped you and I could be the exception to the rule. I can't think of anything more humiliating than to wed a sobbing woman who wants nothing to do with me." With that, he struck a piece of flint to steel and sparked a fire. "I wish you could see inside my heart and know my sincerity."

"If wishes were horses, all men would ride," Olivia grumbled. She looked at the packs again, and a new bone of contention sprang to her mind, masking her fright. "Lucky for us those were conveniently stashed here, like they were just waiting for us," she snidely remarked. "Compliments of Reiko, I presume."

"I don't know what you mean," he replied as he stoked his fire with a stick.

"Oh, that wasn't his sigil above the cave?" she shot back. "My mistake. It's been a few years since I last saw it on his war banners." He didn't answer her, so she scoffed and said, "You know what I want to know is, what is he giving you in return? It must've been pretty good if you'd sell out your own people, you coward!"

He slammed his stick into the fire, prompting embers to explode in the air. "I did not sell out my people!" he shouted back. "I'm saving them."

"Saving them?" she bitterly hissed. "By inviting Reiko to attack and kill them so he could steal Outworld's kamidogu? By engineering his escape, which killed even more?"

"Olivia-"

"No, you tell me exactly how all of that is supposed to save your people!"

"Their deaths were unfortunate," he told her, his face contorted in barely contained rage. "But change is inevitable, and it often breeds destruction before it breeds peace."

"You keep telling yourself that to help you sleep at night," she shot back as her cuffed hands curled around the bars. "You keep telling yourself that the men, women, and children you killed when you set that monster loose - be they the Cryomancers, the Lin Kuei, or the Shirai Ryu - were worth the price you paid." She thought about everyone who'd been affected by Xinyi's foolish actions in the last few days, and finally her mind came to Grandmaster Hasashi, her former mentor. "My father may not be able to come for you," she began, "but I promise you that Scorpion will for what you helped Reiko do to the Fire Gardens and to all his students. And when he does, I won't be able to stop myself from laughing as I watch him burn your soul."

For a moment, Xinyi's smug expression faded as a look of fear crossed his own eyes. But it was gone as quickly as it had come, and he merely shrugged. "If he comes for me, he will learn why it is unwise to anger one of the Lords of Mòhé."

alwaysdoubted, oh, Kotal might surprise you. You never know ;) Also, I wouldn't say no one has a way to find Livy. Frost might surprise you too! I'm always glad to see your reviews, my friend, and I'm glad you're enjoying the adventure.

MKDemigodZ-Warrior, LOL nah, the Navajo and Apache don't really live in the Great Plains either. Both tribes live on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. But yes, the Sioux live in the northermost part of the Great Plains. Anyway, no matter. I'm glad you enjoyed the update. I missed having Himavat around, so I had to bring him back in some capacity. It's definitely hard to accept his reasoning about why they can't interfere, but on the same token, that's how I'd imagine God would answer me if I asked those same questions to him. And Hanzo might yet bring shy Sam out of her shell...

ROCuevas, thank you!

DinoLord00, yeah, fight scenes get tiresome for me to write - not to mention read - and sometimes a more chill chapter is as equally important as one full of action. I mean, if I kept you at that high stress level the whole story, you'd be pretty exhausted by the end. And for me personally, that's not that enjoyable of an experience. So yeah, it was definitely time for some R&R. And yeah, I think Sam needs some sort of a father figure in her life right now since her whole world has gone haywire and everyone she cares about is gone. So she needs Hanzo, in her own way. And yeah, with Anya's life tied to what happens with Kuai Liang, I've definitely raised the stakes. But it'll make Kuai Liang's beatdown of Reiko all the more interesting...IF that's the route I choose to take ;)