“Why do you think she’s being held at the northern end?” Bennett asked.
“Because that’s the approximate location of where Gabby was when I lost…” His breath hitched, unable to go on against the remembered despair of that moment when Gabby’s essence had been cut from his senses.
Bennett’s eyes widened. He reached out, clasping Valin’s shoulder in silent support. “Valin…I’m s—”
“She’s alive,” he growled, cutting the Paladin off before he could say the irreversible word. “I lost connection with her, that’s all. There are a million reasons why that might have happened.” And only one very probable one that would mean the end of his world.
She’s alive. She has to be alive.
Bennett nodded, dropping his hand. “If you think she’s been taken too, then the direness of the situation is even worse than I believed.”
Valin knew what he was getting at and didn’t give a shit. “And bringing the council into this will make that worse, not better.”
Bennett’s mouth thinned, the muscle along the length of his jaw twitching as he ground his molars to bite back the words he obviously wanted to say.
Not. Dead. Because if she was his world was on a free fall to destruction and there was a good chance he just might take the rest of humanity with him.
Jacob tapped the table, nodding his head curtly as if they’d made a decision. “I need to finish gathering my soldiers and we need to leave. Now. Too many hours have passed since Annie was first missing.”
Valin shook his head. On this he and Bennett saw eye to eye. “No offense, but we need more of a strategy than running off in a vaguely northerly direction and hoping not to be ambushed when we draw near.”
“And I suppose you have a plan?” the man asked in a deadly low voice.
“Does anyone have a phone on them?” Valin asked the room in general.
Jacob blinked, but crossed the room, grabbing up a cell from his desk at the back.
“Who do you plan to call?” Bennett asked, his eyes narrowed speculatively.
“The one Paladin I can trust to care about saving Annie and Gabby.”
Bennett tipped his head to the side. “You think maybe Alexander?”
With how closely Senior was probably keeping the aider and abettor? Valin shook his head, twisting his mouth up in a semblance of a smile. “Nope. I’m going to call Gabby’s father.”
The phone slipped from Roland’s loose grip, the beep signaling that the call had been ended sounding on its fall to the wool rug. He couldn’t move, couldn’t think; the shocks were hitting him too fast.
Roland had hardly had time to come to grips with the thought that Gabby was in fact okay, then further had the shock that he was her dad laid at his feet. After the events of his turning he’d been too angry to accept, too self-centered in his own misery to connect the dots and come to the same conclusion himself, but now, with the slick sweat of fear coating him, the crunching sensation in his chest, he knew without a doubt that what Valin had suggested was true: Gabriella was his daughter. And if she had been taken by their enemies, there was a damn good chance he’d never get to tell her how glad he was.
He looked up at the sound of the bedroom door creaking open. Karissa shuffled down the hall, yawning even as her eyes locked on him with concern. “Roland? What’s wrong?”
He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
She’d come in late last night after spending almost forty-eight hours straight at her brother’s side. Roland had been itching to talk to her about Valin’s visit the day before, but one look at the circles under her eyes had him sending her to bed instead. After all, he’d gone almost ninety-four years without even knowing he had a daughter; what was another few hours before sharing the shocking news with his mate?
Too long. You waited too fucking long.
“Roland?” Karissa crossed to him, her brow knotted with worry as she slid her arms around his waist and looked up at him expectantly. “Why are you blocking me? Correction, why have you been blocking the bond?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize…” He took a deep breath, trying to release some of his tension in the comfort of her embrace, simultaneously letting go of the walls he’d built around his turbulent thoughts. He couldn’t project, but Karissa could read him anyway, merely one of the miracles of being her bond mate.
“Valin found Gabby,” he told her to clarify the most pertinent of what must have been an avalanche of turbulent thoughts.
Her eyes widened, relief spreading across her features before her brow furrowed again, marring her face with confusion. “But this is good. Why are you so upset?”
“Do you remember how I was turned? How I said there was a woman? A succubus.”
She nodded, pulling her bottom lip through her teeth as he watched her mind tumble toward the obvious conclusion. “Roland, does that mean…”
“There’s a chance, a good one, that Gabby might be mine.”
“Oh Roland…That’s wonderful.” A smile spread across her lovely face, her grip tightening around him in a hug. “You didn’t think I’d be mad, did you? You know I would love someone to talk girl-talk with.”
“You unman me.” He closed his eyes, his love for her, for her acceptance, overwhelming him. He knew what this cost her. Knew that she wanted children of her own, but given what she was, what he’d made her, she’d never have them. He felt so deficient in the fact that he couldn’t provide her heart’s desire, had half-feared she would feel awkward that he had a child by another, so her obvious happiness, the bright love for his child that streamed across their bond, was almost enough to have him crying tears of joy. Except for one thing.
“Roland?” she asked again, her happiness dimming as his misery fed back across their link. She stepped back, searching out his face for an answer.
“She’s missing. Valin thinks she might have tried to trade herself for the null that broke into Haven.”
Her hand lifted to her mouth, his fear, her terror eating up the air in the room. “Oh no…” A second later she was pushing away that fear, her shoulders straightening as her face set with determination. “Do we have a plan yet for getting her back?”
And that’s why he loved this woman. Fear, hopeless odds, neither ever stopped her when it came to fighting for someone she loved.
“Not yet, but we will,” he said, taking her hand.
Christos stopped inside the dimly lit room, waiting for his eyes to adjust. It had taken him longer than he thought it might to subdue his prodigal daughter enough to leave her unattended, and he worried that his men might have become…creative…in their torture of the null without him there to provide instruction. He was a bit surprised to find only two bodies in the room. One the unconscious form of the null stretched out on the bed, the other his chief surgeon who was currently tying off his last suture.
“Where is Stephan?” Christos asked, having detected his heavy residual scent in the room.
Cyrus shrugged, setting the thread and needle on the steel tray on the nightstand as he stood to face his master and king. “I don’t know. He got frustrated and left.”
“Frustrated?”
Cyrus jerked his head toward the bed. “She doesn’t respond to a thrall.”
“Ah….” And Stephan was such an egotistical bastard that he probably took that as a failure. “And you? What do you think of her gift’s resistance?”
“Me?” Cyrus lifted his brow, his mouth curving up into a smile. “I consider her a welcome challenge.”
Christos grunted, moving over to the bed to study Cyrus’s work so far. The ravaged neck that Cyrus had just finished stitching would have been Stephan, and he made a mental note to speak to his second about risking the commodity’s life. The rest? Well, he had to admit that Cyrus had a skill for the type of pain that wouldn’t actually kill, but would make the recipient wish he would. Results had proved Cyrus’s method highly effective in breaking the spirit, but also time-consuming.