My first call to Hayley’s number sent me directly to a voicemail box that hadn’t been set up yet. “Dammit.”
I followed MapQuest’s directions to a decent looking apartment complex with cement stairs wending their way among juniper shrubs to the upper floors. Hayley’s place was on the third floor.
Nor did she answer my heavy knock.
“Great. Just great,” I growled, trying her cell again.
Once more, I received the notification that her voicemail hadn’t yet been set up. I stared at her door, thinking that Hayley was by nature a homebody. So, why wasn’t she at home at nearly ten o’clock at night? Did she suddenly discover a taste for the bars and the dance clubs?
That’s not Hayley at all.
Frustrated, angry, I stalked down the stairs to the parking lot. Meandering up and down several rows of cars, I found several Hondas, but none were new. My fears grew with every car I knew wasn’t Hayley’s. Why had she purchased a cell only to keep it turned off?
I supposed I knew the answer to that.
She had no one she wanted to talk with.
Returning to my truck, I sat inside, fuming, scared. I’d never been one to discuss my feelings. I kept them bottled up, and only permitted my anger to show. Anger was easy. Angerdidn’t reflect the real me. The inner Alaric. The Alaric who feared to love another, who feared to let anyone see the sensitive and tender Alaric.
Being sensitive and tender was to open oneself up to attack. A thrown spear entered soft flesh more easily than a steel shield.
My cell rang in my pocket. I yanked it out, nearly dropped it, and held it up.
Hayley’s number flashed on the screen.
“Hayley? Thank all the gods, are you all right?”
“Hello, Alaric.”
I froze. “Fiona.
“We have your little toy, dear. We won’t harm her as long as you play nice.”
“What do you want?”
“Listen.”
I listened.
Chapter Nineteen
Hayley
As far as prisons go, mine was quite nice. I could sleep on a large comfortable bed, watch TV on a flat panel, wide screen television. All the latest streaming channels were available on it. I had my own bathroom complete with soaps, shampoos, a hair dryer, plush rugs on the polished tile floor. An assortment of towels sat in a cabinet and hung on racks.
Fiona and Damon, unmindful of observant humans, flew me to the palatial estate on a clifftop overlooking the Pacific. The flight terrified me, as a single slip of Fiona’s talons would send me hurtling earthward and into the sea. Boom! Dead on impact.
Shark bait.
She didn’t drop me, and actually set me rather gently in a walled courtyard. While I shook from reaction and terror, she and Damon both shifted into their human bodies. They watched me impassively as I got myself together and halted my chattering teeth.
“Your first flight?” Fiona asked.
Unable to speak, I merely nodded.
“Do what we tell you,” Damon said, looming over me, “and you’ll be fine. It’s Alaric we want.”
I dry swallowed and managed to squeak a single word, “Why?”
