Fucking grape.
It was his least favorite flavor, followed closely by the blue raspberry shit that made his mouth look like he’d eaten a Smurf. No, blue raspberry was his least favorite flavor simply because of the blue-mouth aftereffect.
They’re both atrocious, he decided.
As they walked, he counted the licks while trying to calm himself as well as prepare for the barrage of emotions about to hit him. He believed he was under control again until they stepped through the door.
He lost count of the licks as a sledgehammer of feelings blasted him in the chest and nearly staggered him back a step. Instead, his stride never faltered as he plastered on a smile and tried not to ram his fist into something.
“Declan,” Ronan greeted and broke away from the others.
Declan’s smile was more genuine as he embraced his friend. They squeezed each other’s shoulders before parting ways. Ronan shook Logan’s hand next. “Good to see you.”
“You too,” Logan said as he shifted his bag on his back.
“How was Mexico?” Ronan inquired.
“Good. I’m glad I went. We’re confident the vamps and hunters will continue to work well together. What’s going on here?”
Ronan turned back to the table where the others stood. “I wish you’d come back to better news.”
Ronan led Declan and Logan over to the large table. The tension inside Declan increased with every step they took. Vicky stood by the table with her head bowed and her hands resting on the flat surface. He didn’t have to feel the anxiety radiating from her; one glance at her pale face and pinched lips told him that her sister was with Lucien.
Declan didn’t realize he’d put his hand back in his pocket until he crushed the lollipops. Chunks of sugar seeped out from the wrappers and stuck to his fingers. He clearly recalled the beautiful girl with dark blonde hair that had shades of gold and wheat threaded through it.
It wasn’t easy to forget her long, lean body with curves in all the right places. And then there were those astounding violet eyes; he’d been alive for centuries and never seen anything as beautiful as they were.
She was the main reason he jumped at the chance to go to Mexico. His desire for her rattled his ironclad control in ways no one had before, and he couldn’t allow it to happen. The last time he lost control, too many people paid the price, and he’d been living with the consequences of it ever since.
So he packed his bag, hopped in his car with Logan, and took a trip to Mexico where Willow haunted his dreams almost every night. And now, she was missing.
His fangs unexpectedly lengthened, and for a minute, a haze of red coated everything in the room as he resisted his impulse to destroy and kill everything in his way of her. He worked to retract his fangs while he focused on the others.
Nathan stood beside Vicky with a hand on her shoulder and another resting near the map. Next to her brother, Kadence stared at some pictures of trees. The photos were upside down to him, so it took a few seconds to register that they were camera footage taken outside the massive bunker in Maine.
Standing next to Kadence, Roland, the head of security, pointed at something in one of the pictures. “The computer programs I’m running threw up a red flag on this one the day the cameras went down. At first glance, I didn’t see anything wrong with the photo, and after knowing what caused it to be flagged, I put it aside. After their disappearance, I decided to take a closer look at some of the flagged photos. That was when I spotted this.”
They all leaned closer to get a better look. It took a couple of seconds before Declan made out the shape of what looked like a human, or possibly a Savage, in the photo. But it could also be a tree or a deer or a shadow. If it was a human or Savage, they had their back to the camera and were nearly out of range.
“Do you see it?” Roland asked.
“Yes,” Kadence said.
“Is it a Savage?” Elyse asked.
When Saxon went to stand by his mate, Madison held her arms out to her mother, and Elyse drew her daughter into them. She cradled the little girl against her chest while Madison rested her head on her shoulder. The love emanating from them helped calm Declan a little.
“It could be anything,” Kadence murmured.
“It could, but I’m going to assume it’s a Savage after losing contact with them,” Roland said.
“Why are we just seeing this picture now?” Ronan inquired.
“We have close to fifty cameras up there,” Roland said. “I have the footage from each running through computer programs for face recognition and that are designed to pick up movement and people, but they’re not perfect, and they miss things. So do I. There are no faces here, and this isn’t even one of the cameras that went down. This camera is still running.Thatis the only reason this photo was flagged.”
He pointed to a speck of red in the upper left corner of the photo.
“What is that?” Saxon asked.
