“Sir!” I barely registered the first pair of hands on me before the second and third joined them. Vampire grips, strong and trained. I snarled, fangs snapping, as they hauled me bodily into a private lift. My body calmed, giving up the fight, but only because a sharp claw was pressed into my jugular. It would not kill me, such a puncture—nothing short of decapitation could—but it was a very precise threat all the same.
The doors opened onto a candlelit suite I recognized with sickening certainty. I had been here earlier today to speak with Vale; he owed me and currently had the book for safekeeping in his vault. The book was probably the reason Jade was missing, and it was very tempting to get it, to wave it around and draw out whoever had her. It wouldn’t work. I’d lived long enough to know that, to have witnessed it firsthand.
The coven leader waited inside, tall and immaculate, silver hair bound neatly at his nape. Vale was one of those vampires who ran his coven as if they were still partially stuck in the past. With the exception of his deep affection for modern art like Picasso and Dalí, he firmly believed everything had been better back in 1200.
His eyes flicked over me, sharp and displeased because I’d made a ruckus in his foyer. “You cannot behave like this in my house,” he said coolly. Were I one of his coven members, I would be cowering at his feet, but I was not, and this was about Jade, nothing could hold me back now.
“My house?” I laughed, harsh and broken. The fear was so absolute, my blood howled in my ears and my heart beat so fiercely, it felt like it would hammer through my sternum. They could all hear that, each and every vampire in the room. “Youpromised me safety. You swore this place was secure.” I stepped forward, restrained only by the guards’ hands. “You let my soulmate be stolen.”
The word echoed against the walls, clung to the thick velvet drapes, and flickered through the candle flames. The coven leader stilled, as did everyone else in the room. I saw eyes grow wide, saw the glow of power in some, and knew more than a few were testing my words for the truth. “Soulmate,” Vale repeated slowly. “That is a myth. There is no proof any ever existed, and we have long memories.”
I bared my teeth, displaying my fully extended fangs. “You’re wrong.” With a violent tug, I yanked open my shirt and exposed my ribs. Silver moonlight flared to life across my skin, a living mark, burned deep and undeniable. None of them might have seen the proof before, but they all recognized it. This kind of mark could not be faked.
A collective hiss swept the room, vampires leaning in to get a closer look, others rearing back as if the sight scorched them. The coven leader’s composure cracked, his eyes glowing silver, evidence he was not in control of his feelings. He stepped closer, eyes widening as he saw the truth written into my flesh. “…Impossible,” he whispered.
“And yet,” I snarled, “here I stand, and you let her be taken. You gave me your word we had sanctuary—both of us—and you let her get stolen.” I was so furious that the guards holding onto my arms struggled to keep me back from Vale. Not that I wanted to kill him, not yet, but I very much would like to wrap my hands around his throat and let him know what I thought of his hospitality.
He straightened sharply and stepped back from me, probably sensing my fury, and that he was the lightning rod for it. “I had no hand in this,” he said haughtily, his honor stained after my accusation. It was the way to motivate a coven leader like him, and it worked. He turned, voice cracking like a whip. “Find out what happened. Now.”
The coven scattered, a blur of motion and intent, leaving only the leader and two guards with me. Minutes stretched like torture. I reached for the bond again, but there was nothing, just blackness. Not pain, not death, but a deep, aching hole of absence. She existed, but she was not there, and I could not find her.
Then one of his vampresses appeared, all ancient silk and whalebone corset. She must be quite a sight, sweeping into a security room to demand camera footage. Two worlds, two times, colliding and meshing in ways only the immortal world allowed. She whispered urgently into Vale’s ear, her hand on his arm and her fan waving coquettishly. I wanted to snap a few of her dainty fingers to impress the urgency of the situation on her. If she could flirt and fan like that, she wasn’t moving fast enough.
Vale’s mouth tightened at whatever she said, but he straightened and waved off the guards holding me back. “It seems,” he said carefully, “that a human was allowed through security. He claimed legitimate business.” They would not have considered him much of a threat unless he was carrying a weapon. My hands curled into fists, my eyes leaping from Vale and his pouting vampress to the two guards behind me. Had they done that? Had they let this human through in their arrogance?
Vale reached for a tablet and turned it to me so I could see the footage he’d pulled up. A shot of the hallway and the hotel room door where we’d been staying filled the screen. I recognized the slender man in the bad suit pushing a room service cart right away. David looked smug and annoyed as he left the cart by the door, and then I watched him enter the room. A few minutes later, he retrieved the cart, and then I watched him leave, the cart in tow.
My vision went red. That was it? That slimy bastard had walked into a vampire-owned hotel and walked back out with my mate, just like that? It was worse to know she’d been stolen by such an incompetent bastard. “We did not consider him a threat,” the leader said grimly. “That was our failure.”
“She trusted this place,” I said. “I trusted you.” I spun away, pacing through the room, my footsteps hushed on the rich carpets. Candles flickered and died in my wake, and the room grew dim.
After a pause while Vale observed me, he said, “I will make this right, I swear it.” I turned to meet his eyes, waiting for him to say something like, “That will make us even,” but he didn’t. He knew it didn’t, and to his credit, he did not try to abuse the situation. Perhaps the evidence of my soulmate mark glowing through my open shirt was too much. It demanded respect, it was so special, he might feel the urge to protect it at any cost. I could work with that. I needed all of his coven at my disposal to scour the city.
He flicked through the files on the tablet that the still-silent vampress had pulled up for him. “Ah. Bella has run facial recognition. The man is David Hargreeve. She traced thehuman’s recent contacts. It appears he has ties to a vampire-owned corporation, Sunworld.”
I swore viciously. Sunworld? Of course they had a hand in this. They were the only ones with a possible interest in the same book we had come here for. I knew this was about that damn book, but I did not say that. To do so would make Vale take an interest in its contents himself, and I could not trust him that far. Let them think these Sunworld vampires had taken Jade because of our soulmate bond; it was equally plausible some immortal party would want to research that.
The list of Sunworld properties filled the screen; too many. They owned property all over the world, but even here in Boston, it was already a long list: warehouses, offices, residences. Shell companies layered over shell companies, but this vampress, Bella, had already uncovered all of that. I should have realized the coquettish fanning was an act to disguise her competence.
“We’ll search them,” the leader said. “All of them.” He spoke without hesitation and with zero doubt that they could do so. His coven’s resources were offered freely for the task. I did not object, even though I had a sinking feeling that it was going to be exhausting and pointless. What else could I do? I could not reach Belfry, and I could not reach Jade through the bonds in my mind. Telepathy had never been my strength. I found things not people, that was my talent. To feed, I could make people forget. Short-term memory only. Nothing that would help me find Jade now.
The night bled into a gray dawn—slightly foggy, with a wet chill in the air. Vampires scattered through the city faster than anyhuman force could manage. I ran rooftops, streets, shadows, and every second felt like a knife. Each building we checked was another dead end, and Vale was growing impatient, worried he was upsetting a vampire force he didn’t want to tangle with.
Then, finally, I felt something; the bond stirred. My heart thumped wildly in my chest, and I froze. Vale was ahead of me, but he came back to place a hand on my shoulder. “What is it?”
It was Jade, the faintest unfurling in my head, but it felt like the sun coming out from behind a thick layer of clouds. I staggered, breath hitching. She was alive but hurt. I could sense the throb of pain and the pulse of her fear. She was somewhere out there; I reached for her and met only distance, like shouting into fog. “Hold on,” I whispered. “Hold on, darling.”
Vale nodded, then spun us slowly on the edge of the roof where we stood. “East, west? What do you sense?” I pointed in response, listening to the first impulse, instincts roaring. He released me to grab his phone while I leaped from this roof to the next and began running. He was telling his coven to abandon the targets in all areas except the north I’d pointed to.
Then something small and furious crashed into my chest.LUTHER.Belfry clung to my coat, his tiny body shaking and his eyes wild.I found you. I found you.He’d been flying so fast it was as if my bond to him had only just caught up, slamming into my brain. Perhaps I’d been so fixated on the flicker that was Jade that I had excluded him.
Relief and terror crashed together as I lifted him gently from my shirt and raised him in front of my face. “Where is she?” I demanded. “Belfry, where is my mate?” The little guy had singemarks on his silk vest, and cobwebs clung to the matted fur on the back of his head. A nick marked his left ear, which was still oozing fresh blood. He’d been through it, and with the early morning light streaming brightly over the roofs, I had no doubt he had tangled with a bird—one with claws and a sharp beak.
He swallowed, wings trembling, and despite the terrifying flight he’d made to reach me, he said, full of determination:I’ll take you to her.
Chapter 29
Jade
