“I don’t care about the euros or the damn chocolate. Where are they? Are they back at the inn?”
“No, sir. We have eyes on the inn. They haven’t returned. We are searching the city for them.”
Smoke billows out of me. I’m fighting my dragon for control. “It’s a village. A village of 2,000 people. It’s not that big. It’s not a city.” I’m not shouting.
“Right, we are well-aware of our issue,” she says.
“When did you lose track of them?”
“The tour ended at five.”
“Five? That’s hours ago. Track their phones. You should be able to do that.”
“Yes, sir. We can and we were. But their phones are off.”
“Off? She turned it off. Why would she do that?”
“Not sure, sir. We’ve done some digging into the other Miss Fischer. Her phone is frequently without signal.”
“Her sister kidnapped her?”
Roark walks into the den. “What’s going on? Who’s been kidnapped? Raine?”
“No one’s been kidnapped.” The agent on the phone seemingly answers both Roark and me. “We’ll have them located soon. Wren Fischer’s rental car is still in the inn’s parking lot. I will be in touch with you as soon as I have any information.”
“I want reports every half hour,” I say, doing my best to not crush my phone in the palm of my hand.
“They’ve lost her.” Smoke twirls out of Roark’s nose, joining my steam at the ceiling.
“It appears that way.” I reach out and grab Roark’s arm before he can tear out of the room.
“I’m going after her.”
“No,” I say. My stomach flips at the thought of not going after her.
“What do you mean ‘no?’” His nostrils flare. No one tells Roark no. Not even a thunder mate. His dragon is one of the fiercest dragons in the realm.
“I’m attached to her as much as you are, but we’ve already asserted too much control over her.”
“She’s a candidate.”
“Yes, but we’ve never kept them housebound before. We can’t lock her up in the tower and see if she has the lightning.It’s not that simple and you know it. If she’s afraid of us, it might not happen at all even if she is our mate. And you know as well as I do that out of all the candidates we’ve had, she’s closest to being the one.”
“She’s a whole different realm from any other candidate.”
“I know. I know. That’s why we can’t have her scared of us. After what happened with Kieren... it’s a risk.”
“We should never have let her go.” Roark’s fist comes down on the stone mantel. The fireplace shakes.
“Are you not listening to what I’m saying? We have to give her space.” I’m saying it to my own dragon as much as I am to Roark. Because I’m a fraction away from shifting and burning down the village until we find her. And Kieren’s family has made a blood oath to not burn the damn village down—again. If I shift, there’s no way I’ll be able to keep that promise, thunder mate or not.
“I don’t like space.”
“I know, big guy. But we can’t pull her down to the basement, chain her up, and...”
“Chain her up and what?” Roark asks, eyes dilated. “Claim her on our hoard pile?”
It’s exactly what I was picturing—Raine’s skin radiating gold from the bed of doubloons she’d be lying on.
