Eric’s eyelashes fluttered down and that smile tilted his mouth upward slightly. Nathaniel rolled Eric onto his back and buried himself deep inside my husband, his mouth nearly savage as he latched onto Eric’s throat and drank deeply.
I curled up under the covers, content to enjoy the show. Nathaniel had sated the worst of my bloodlust, and he’d given me so much to think over.
Eric left soon after, though Nathaniel lingered in my bed for another three hours. He slipped away well before the sun rose, claiming a need to return to Charleston, leaving me alone with my thoughts in a bed too big for its lone occupant.
The following week flew by. I helped Matthias in the kitchen, continued reading up on that one blasted civil war, and had movie night with Alice. Gregory, like Jason and Eric, had to be away during the week, though he tried hard to make it back every weekend. Formal basketball practice was right around the corner, and Alice and I both knew what that meant. Jason and Gregory would spend the few months after that dividing their time between their studies and basketball, leaving little room for those who loved them.
Jason called on Thursday and chatted for a while. Eric was attending a lecture by a visiting professor, so Jason and Willow had the run of the house. He gave her the phone for a minute, and she chattered the whole time, most of it consisting of her two favorite words. I smiled and replied in the pauses. Really, sweetheart? I said, or No, Daddy didn’t do that, did he?, or Yes, Jason is crazy as a loon, but don’t worry, he loves you. She gurgled and laughed and chattered some more, and finally, Jason came back on the line announcing bath time. I hung up feeling lighter than I had in days.
Therese’s going away party was the next night. It was such a big deal, Alice and I had borrowed Marco and gone out shopping for new dresses. I’d let her pick mine, a burnt orange sheath that clung to every curve I had and split up the side from the hem at my ankles all the way to mid thigh. Hers was more sedate, a simple chiffon yellow dress tailored to cup her breasts and torso. It fell away from her hips in soft folds of fabric, the hem’s long triangular points swirling around her ankles. The outfit was saved from complete plainness by the matching, three-quarter sleeved bolero she’d found. It complemented her coloring wonderfully. She looked like an angel, radiant and bright, a perfect reflection of her inner self.
We headed down the stairs together an hour before the party’s official start and played hostess to early arrivals. Nathaniel was among them. He’d somehow slipped into Elizabet’s mansion without my knowing. I kissed his cheek and chided him softly, and he smiled, flashing his dimple.
Eric and Jason arrived right on time, coming in right behind Darien. The werewolf was alone, thank goodness. I greeted him politely and asked for an audience at his convenience, and his icy eyes went feral, as if he knew exactly what I wanted to talk about.
As soon as the band struck the first note, Nathaniel wended his way through the crowd and claimed me. I went willingly enough. He was my pet, after all, and a good dancer. And I liked spending time with him.
He swung me into a waltz, his hands firm and warm. “Is there any chance I can talk you out of that dress tonight?”
“Only if you can beat Eric and Jason to it.”
A soft glow burned in his pale blue eyes. “I suppose they’ll want you all to themselves.”
I tilted my head, considering him. Sent a quick query to Eric and Jason through our bonds. Their response was immediate and nearly emphatic in its firmness. I pressed my lips together, hiding a smile. “We’d love to have you join us.”
Nathaniel’s hand tightened on mine. “I would be honored.”
I wanted to tease him out of his solemn formality, wanted to watch a smile form on his sensual mouth, and would have if not for the sudden sharp sting in my right temple. I winced and willed it away. It subsided briefly, then redoubled, sharper and stronger. I hissed in a breath.
“What is it?” Nathaniel asked.
“I don’t know.”
He pulled us off the dance floor toward Eric and Jason. They were frowning at one another, their postures rigid. Five feet from them, emotion washed over me and Willow’s mind brushed against mine. Mama, she thought, and it was panicked and frightened and not at all like the calm happiness I’d sensed in her the past weekend.
My heart squeezed and dropped, taking my breath with it. The quiet murmurs of the crowd faded away and the music and light dimmed with them. My world narrowed to the man holding my elbow, the two men we were walking toward, and the fleeting connection my daughter had made with me, lost just as quickly.
I caught Eric’s gaze and whispered, “Willow,” but he’d already yanked out his phone. He dialed a number, held the phone to his ear for a moment. Brought it down and dialed again, his movements jerky and stiff.
Nathaniel pushed the last few people out of our way and brought me to a halt next to Jason.
“Where’s Willow?” I asked him.
“Cassie’s babysitting her at the house. Devin’s girlfriend?” Jason’s eyes roamed the crowd. “Have you seen him?”
I shook my head, and Nathaniel said, “I saw him perhaps half an hour after I arrived this afternoon, but not since then.”
Eric was making another call. Whoever he dialed picked up. He turned his back on us and slipped into a nearby alcove, his words low and rapid.
Jason grabbed my other arm and pulled me to the alcove’s entrance, Nathaniel in tow. “I need to find Marco.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “Hold on.” His eyes went black and a moment later, he said, “He’s on his way. Elizabet, too. I took the liberty of calling Alice and her favorite as well.”
Eric hung up and slid his phone into a pocket on the inside of his suit jacket. “Cassie didn’t pick up her cell or the house phone. A police officer I know is on his way there right now. I’m sure it’s nothing, sweetheart.”
As gentle as his words were, I knew he was lying. I could taste it in the bond stretching between us, hear it in the angry thud of his heart. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong, and Willow was at the center of it.
Willow, my sweet baby girl, who’d been a part of my life for such a short time. My knees buckled and I sagged against Jason. “Can you feel her? Can you hear her through your bond?”
He wrapped an arm around me and hugged me tight. “No,” he said softly. “I can’t.”
Elizabet rushed into the alcove followed closely by Marco, Alice, and Gregory. Her face was pale and pinched, her eyes wide, and her hands were tight fists around the fabric of her skirt. “What is it?”
“Willow.” Eric’s voice was terse and harsh. “Cassie was watching her tonight, and now, she’s not picking up her phone.”
Alice slid through the crowded alcove, moving to stand beside me. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
“She reached out to me.” I turned worried eyes on her. “She called for me, and then she was gone. Jason can’t feel her anymore, either.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Jason asked. “Cassie would never hurt her.”
“Cassie wouldn’t.” Marco crossed his arms over his chest and pinned a hard stare on Eric. “But others would.”
Eric’s eyes slid closed and the color leached from his face. “Zane. Surely not. Darien’s supposed to have him well under control.”
A grim smile stretched across Marco’s face. “Let’s find out.”
He slipped out the alcove’s entrance, Nathaniel hot on his heels. Eric’s phone rang. He yanked it out and answered it, and sank down onto the bench seating hugging the curving wall, elbows on his knees, one hand scrubbing through his hair. “Jesus Christ. Are you sure? Ok. Ok. No, we’ll be there as soon as we can. Thanks. No. I appreciate it. Yeah. Ok.”
He ended the call and glanced up, sorrow etched into the fine features of his face. “Cassie’s dead.”
Alice swayed, her hand going to her heart. “What? How?”
“Something ripped her throat out. There’s a lot of blood.” Eric’s gaze touch
ed mine briefly, then returned to hers. “One of our neighbors is a cop. He was off duty tonight, volunteered to check the house. He found her in the study in front of the door leading down to the basement. The outside doors were busted and the house is in shambles.”
The safe room. She’d been trying to get to the safest part of the house and now she was dead. I swallowed the bile clawing its way up my throat. “Willow?”
He shook his head. Jason let go of me and dropped down beside him, his hands trembling as he wrapped an arm around Eric. I stumbled my way to them and sat on Eric’s other side, resting my head on his shoulder.
Someone had taken Willow and left her caregiver behind for us to find. An innocent child gone, a friend of our family slaughtered. The choking worry in my gut coalesced into a cold fury with which I was all too familiar. I’d lived with it for months in that bitterly isolated cage, lived with it, breathed it, propped up my fragile mind with it. Sorrow over Willow’s disappearance would do me no good, but fury I could use. Fury would strengthen my will and push me through what must be done.
My purpose narrowed to two goals. Find Willow. Destroy the ones who had taken her.
Yes, fury would serve me well. It swept over me, burning through the last vestiges of worry and fear and aching sorrow in a hot, raging fire. The shadows bouncing gleefully in my mind surged forward, breaking the barriers I’d erected around them, and claimed the fury as their own, consuming it in a frenzy and feeding it back to me in ever larger waves of darkness. I welcomed it, used it, wove it into my very essence, shoring my strength for the coming days. Fury would lead me until my daughter was brought safely home.
God help anyone who stood in my way.
Episode 5
Unfurled Shadows
Beauteous mem’ry, bright and bold
Hid under watchful mind, and I
Shackle unfurled shadows cold
Thy beating heart, forever mine
--From “Ergasta Halloweye,” author unknown
Chapter One
Some sorrows can be expressed with words or actions, through thoughts and some indefinable language created between the minds of bonded vampires and their families. Others remain trapped in our hearts, forever reverberating the consequences of a single poor decision into every aspect of our lives. I should’ve learned that the night Selena stole my humanity from me, leaving the shadows behind to haunt my every breath. I should’ve known I’d never free myself from that memory or its consequences.
Willow was gone.
News of her disappearance rippled through Elizabet’s ballroom. Marco set trustworthy pets and household staff at the entrances and exits and allowed no one to leave. Devin was nowhere to be found. His girlfriend lay dead in Eric and Jason’s study more than an hour’s drive away, and a former pet, Devin’s first roster mate, might’ve been involved.
I rested my head against the wall of the alcove where we’d gathered and rubbed one hand gently across Eric’s back. He was slumped over beside me, elbows braced on knees, head in hands, and a quiet despair echoed through our bond from him. Jason sat on his other side, one massive palm cupping the back of Eric’s head as he murmured reassurances.
It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have anticipated this.
I didn’t have to hear Jason’s words to know what he was saying. We were all thinking it, Elizabet and Marco, Alice and Gregory, Therese and Marlena, Nathaniel; even Darien with his complexly fuzzy werewolf brain emitted the belief that Eric had had no hand in his daughter’s disappearance. Everyone was certain it wasn’t Eric’s fault except Eric.
His mind was in turmoil, racing through possibilities at a dizzying rate. In his grief, he’d inadvertently allowed some of the thick walls protecting his innermost thoughts to crumble, exposing his carefully crafted plans to everyone in the alcove. Decision trees with branches far removed from possibility popped randomly into his mind. He kept returning to a single outcome shared by several. Willow, gone. Over and over again, he traced connecting lines backward and forward, searching for a hole in his reasoning. Willow, gone. Over and over again, the one decision he’d never believed possible flashed through his mind.
Willow, gone. Devin, betrayed me.
Eric lifted his head and met Elizabet’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”
She stepped forward, crimson gown swishing, and knelt between his widespread knees. “You warned me, dearling. How could you have done more?”
“I could’ve seen what he was. I should’ve known, did know how weak he was. I just couldn’t face it, and now…” His shoulders stiffened. He cupped her nape and drew her closer, his voice stretched thin with regret. “This is the beginning.”
“No, Eric. This is merely a bump in the road, and not necessarily one that can be placed at Devin’s door. His is not the only absence this night.” Her gentle smile did nothing to erase the sorrow etched into her expression. “What happens now happens, and we are prepared for it, are we not?”
“As much as we can be.” He sighed and released her, and a tendril of humor crept into his voice. “This is one time I’d rather be wrong.”
“And I as well, dearling.” Elizabet stood and touched each of us briefly on the forehead with fingers chilled by her slower circulation, Eric, Jason, me, imparting a small measure of her innate strength to us all. Her eyes were black, a stark contrast to her pale skin, and a quiet determination radiated from her. “Gather yourselves. See to the girl and your home. We shall find Willow, my children. We shall find her and bring down the fullness of our wrath upon those who had the temerity to spirit her away.”
We rose as one and filed out, making our way quickly through the hushed crowd. Alice and Gregory followed close behind, their sorrow as palpable as my own. They’d never met Willow, never seen her dimpled smile, never cradled her tiny body in their arms, but they were loyal friends. I had a funny feeling we’d need their help long before we found my daughter and brought her safely home.
* * *
Dinky made us wait in the foyer until Elizabet’s car was brought around. A slight tremor ran through his hands and his jowls sagged under his red-rimmed eyes. “Soon as I heard the news about Miss Willow, I ordered the driveway cleared. Knew you’d need to find her. I knew it.”
I grasped his fingers in my own and squeezed gently. “You’re a dear man, Dinky. What would we do without you?”
“Not a thing,” he said tartly, and I couldn’t contain the laugh that broke through my worry.
Darien caught up with us as we were stepping through the front entrance. “My nose might come in handy,” he said, and Eric nodded solemnly, accepting his presence with a grace I would’ve been hard pressed to exhibit under the circumstances.
The six of us piled into the back of Elizabet’s car, the same limo that had taken us on the rounds the night of my birthday. I sat between Eric and Jason. Alice and Gregory took the seat opposite us, their hands wound tightly together. Darien slid in beside Alice and dropped his head against the back of the seat, eyes closed, fingers laced loosely together in his lap.
Eric had one hand on my thigh. The passing nighttime scenery held his gaze. He’d closed himself off again, hiding his thoughts from us, retreating into his mind. I hoped he wasn’t fretting over some perceived lack on his part, though I doubted it. In all likelihood, he was adjusting his strategy, ruthlessly forcing himself to consider the ramifications of actions he’d rather not contemplate.
I placed my hand over his and closed my eyes, leaning into Jason’s stolid strength. Surely Eric was wrong about Devin. Surely he hadn’t betrayed us and done something to Willow, not Devin whom Eric still loved, deep in a place he thought he’d hidden from the rest of his family. For Jason’s sake more than mine, but I knew it was there as surely as I knew Jason and Willow and I were there. I could feel it, had always felt it even before I’d understood what it was or why I knew it was there.
Damn Selena and her twisted, irrational mind. Damn the shadows roiling greedily through me, and damn th
e memories they were drawn to.
Jason covered my other hand with his and stroked a thumb across my knuckles. His rings were warm against my skin, a comforting reminder of all we’d endured, and of the love we’d found.
Love conquered all.
Some dim part of my heart clung to that belief. I drifted into a place halfway between sleep and awareness, my mind circling ever outward, searching for some trace of a little girl I’d known far too briefly.
* * *
Blue lights strobed in random patterns along the darkened landscape, illuminating the night-shrouded yard of Eric and Jason’s house in bizarre and eerie flickers. Several police cars blocked the street off to either side, leaving a space large enough for the ambulance that was parked with its rear against the sidewalk. A small crowd of neighbors and onlookers had gathered there, well out of the way. Their eyes turned toward us as the limo rolled to a stop well away from the flashing lights. Almost immediately, their gazes shifted languidly back to the house and the bloody crime scene it contained.
Eric’s friend was standing in the driveway. I slid out behind Jason, waited patiently through Eric’s introduction of the off-duty police officer. Owen Medders was short and compact, the expression on his unremarkable face as flat as any I’d ever seen. He shook our hands and kept his eyes on ours, never once dipping them to the hints of cleavage Alice and I showed.
Either he was the most self-controlled man on the planet or Eric had warned him not to look. Idle curiosity got the better of me, in spite of the situation. Had Eric shared the nature of our physiology with the unassuming officer or was he one of the few men who never allowed his gaze to roam?
“Any news?” Eric asked at last.
Owen shook his head. “Coroner’s here, still examining the body. You and Jase’ll need to give a statement.”
“Of course. Is there any way we can see Cassie?”
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