Harlan fell back onto his ass. His bones felt like they had been turned to jelly. In an instant, every ache and pain and joy and hope vanished. There was nothing but a cold hollowness left.
“She’s not with me,” he heard himself say, from some great distance. “She’s not in the suite.”
Damien was smart and well trained. Barely a second passed before his confusion disappeared, replaced by the cold calculation of a soldier on a mission. He didn’t ask where she might have gone, or suggest that she might come back soon and all his worry could be in vain.
Damien was a vampire. He knew the instinct an anchor inspired as well as anyone. An anchor waslife.They were not simply lovers, or meals, or partners. They were a singular obsession and the source of all hope.
To lose one was utterly unimaginable.
“I’m going to call the desk. Michael will get access to their security footage. If she’s in the hotel right now, we’ll know in ten minutes.”
Unspoken was the certain knowledge that if she wasn’t, Zia had been taken.
Harlan hung up the phone without saying goodbye. His aches and pains, even his empty stomach, were distant memories as adrenaline took their place. It rushed through his veins as he forced himself to throw on clothing. His gland ached with a fierce, aggressive pulse when he did a circuit through the suite, trying to determine how stale her scent was, how recently she might have left — or been kidnapped.
Instinct howled with pain and rage. He could barely see straight. His anchor was missing. His lifeblood, the greatest treasure in his possession, the woman he loved and didn’t deserve, wasgone.
It went against everything that made him a man and a vampire to realize he’d simply slept through her disappearance. Her protection was his top priority, and he’d simply— what? Drooled into a pillow as she was snatched from their suite?
Did she scream for him? Did she cry? Did she suffer?
It was the smallest relief that the more he looked, the less he thought she had been taken directly from under his nose. If it was a ploy with a fake hotel employee, there would not have been a room service cartinthe room. She wouldn’t have had time to finish the coffee he saw on the corner of the cart, certainly.
This was confirmed when he circled around to the entrance of the suite, determined to try and pick up on any foreign scents that might linger there, and instead found a note.
The sight of Zia’s familiar, looping handwriting made his heart skip a beat. He felt his throat tighten when he read the words scrawled on the hotel stationery.
Baby—
I’m running to the store to get you some food. They only have junk in the fridge. >:( Be back in 5. Love you!!!
—Zia
* * *
In the end, it took ten minutes to determine where Zia had gone, and half as long as that to discover an abandoned bag of Sipironin a damp, shadowy alley by a children’s store a block from the hotel.
The Palace’s security footage, backed up by the nervous concierge who gave her directions, told Harlan and his men that she had been missing for approximately an hour.
Their faces were grave as they watched the footage again. Amidst several other guests, Zia’s lush form stood out as she sauntered through the lobby and toward the glass doors, a tiny skip in her step. She looked content but determined, like she really was trying to make the errand a quick one.
When she turned her head slightly, a giddy little smile curled the corner of her mouth up. The sight of it gutted him.
Harlan was too numb with fear to be angry at her or his men, though the rage he felt lashed at his insides. Mostly, he was disgusted with himself.
Why hadn’t he donemore?
He didn’t think to station men outside their door. They weren’t fucking foreign dignitaries. They didn’t need guards standing on alert at all times. He thought they would be safe enough with his men a door away, relaxing in their own suites but on call if there was trouble.
It was his fault he wasn’t paranoidenough.If he had been, she would have been stopped at the door, or at the entrance to the hotel, and turned right back around. She would have huffed but returned to bed anyway. He would have woken up with her in his arms, safe and maybe a smidge annoyed, like he was fucking supposed to.
It was also his fault that he didn’t explain to herexactlywhat could happen if they slipped up, if Julius took any tiny opening they provided. He didn’t want to frighten her with the realities of his old life, so he had been honest but vague. Even knowing that Zia remained skeptical about the truth of the threat, he didn’t try to correct her.
He never wanted to expose her to the world he left behind.
And because of that, his sweet anchor saw nothing amiss with running a quick errand as he slept. She wanted to do something nice for him. She was just trying to be a good partner and look after his needs. It washisfuck-up that got them here.
For once in his life, Harlan felt like he was frozen.
