Where was he?
Where was he?
“He’s not answerin’ his phone,” Pop said as he pushed himself carefully out of his seat and took a shuffling step toward his wheelchair. “So I called Dalton, and he was going to get a hold of Daniel’s parents, see if he could get in touch with him that way.”
“He wouldn’t stay longer than three hours, Pop,” I said, my voice rising with hysteria. “It’s always three hours or less. He always says he’ll be back in three hours, but it’s always a few minutes less than that.”
“I know that, Flower,” Pop soothed, wheeling toward me. “But he must’ve gotten held up. There’s no need to panic when we don’t know anything.”
“Call Uncle Dalton back,” I ordered. “Give me your phone. I’ll call him.”
“He said he’d call me back, and he will.”
Visions of Daniel’s brother-in-law Charlie flashed through my mind. He’d seemed so normal. Sure, kind of twitchy, but anyone would be after they were kidnapped. He hadn’t seemed like a mate without their Vampire, at least not the way Aunt Halle had always described them—people who were so mired in grief that they wasted away or made the decision to end their lives.
Was Daniel dead?
My heartbeat pounded like a drum in my brain, the pressure so intense that, for a minute, I was afraid I was going to black out.
Would I be one of those mates that lie in bed all day, wasting away because I’d lost the other half of my soul?
Just the idea of Daniel being dead made my skin burn like fire rippling across the surface.
I looked down at my arm dumbly, expecting to see that I’d actually been set alight.
“I need you to calm down,” Pop said, moving closer. “Calm down, Rosemary.”
“I can’t.” I looked to the door again.
My mate was out there somewhere. He should’ve been home already. He should’ve climbed into bed with me so I’d woken up to strong arms wrapped around my waist and the pleasant heat of his body instead of this horrific burning sensation.
He could be hurt. He could be in danger. He could be dead.
Without conscious thought, I was out the door and jogging down the front steps. When I hit the gravel, I picked up speed, ignoring the sound of my father yelling for me to get back in the house. Rocks dug into the soles of my feet, but I found the pain to be a welcome distraction to the way the rest of my body burned.
It took less than a minute before the house disappeared behind me.
It took ten minutes to get to the road.
It would’ve taken nine, but I’d had to stop because I was dry heaving so hard that I’d begun to stumble.
I wasn’t sure where I was going. The route we’d taken when Daniel brought me home that first night was a bit of a blur, but I had to assume that I was at least moving in the right direction. I was ten minutes closer to the highway when a familiar truckcame into view and swerved into the opposite lane, stopping on the side of the road less than a foot from where I was.
“Going for a run?” Uncle Dalton asked calmly as he climbed out of the truck.
“Did you get ahold of Daniel’s parents?” I demanded, shaking my arms out at my sides.
It felt like I had bugs crawling all over me.
“I did. They weren’t sure where he was, but said that he and Chance had gone somewhere together.”
I wouldn’t have been more surprised if Uncle Dalton had slapped me across the face.
“What?” I asked hoarsely, swaying on my feet.
“I called Chance because I knew you’d want to know,” Uncle Dalton said, taking a few steps toward me. “He said things are all good. They’re just getting a few things done, and he’d fill me in later.”
“No, he wouldn’t do that,” I argued. “He said he’d be back in three hours. He wouldn’t justnotcome back. He wouldn’t do that.”
