“So you’ll be returning to your clan?” Cyn abruptly demanded.
Roke grimaced. It was a discussion he’d been putting off.
“Once Sally is comfortable with the idea,” he said.
Cyn sent him a knowing glance. “You think that might be a problem?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What if it is?”
Roke shrugged. His decision had been made.
“Then I hand the position to Kale. He’s a competent leader who I trust to protect my people.”
Cyn came to a sharp halt, a blatant horror etched onto his bluntly chiseled features.
“You would walk away from your clan?”
Roke stopped beside his friend, folding his arms over his chest.
“Without hesitation,” he admitted. “Nothing is more important to me than making Sally happy.”
Cyn gave an exaggerated shudder. “Better you than me.”
Roke laughed. Only weeks ago he’d been nurturing a sense of outrage at being stuck with Sally as his mate for all of eternity.
Even when he’d known in the depths of his heart that he was never, ever going to allow her to escape.
Fate seemed to have a peculiar sense of humor.
“Your mate is out there,” he warned his friend. “And chances are you’ll find her when you least expect it.”
“Don’t be trying to curse me.” Cyn made a hasty sign to ward off evil. “I’m a vampire who fully embraces his freedom.”
Roke smiled wryly. Well wasn’t that the truth?
“By freedom you mean big-busted nymphs?”
Cyn waggled his brows. “Or fairies. Or sprites. I’m not choosy.”
“No shit.” Roke rolled his eyes. “Will you be leaving for Ireland?”
“Aye. I . . .” The vampire frowned as Roke went rigid and his power shook the ground. “Roke?”
“Goddammit,” Roke growled, racing toward the nearby gate as fear exploded in the pit of his belly. “Not again.”
Cyn kept pace beside him, pulling his gun as Roke’s temper shattered the marble benches to dust.
“Tell me what’s going on,” the clan chief commanded.
Roke could barely speak, a dark panic threatening to cloud his mind.
“Sally.”
“She’s hurt?”
“She’s gone.”
Cyn was wise enough to avoid the stone archway as it crumbled into a pile of rubble, instead following Roke as he smoothly vaulted over the high fence and headed into the nearby woods.
“Gone where?”
“I don’t know,” Roke snapped, his senses spreading through the neighborhood for any hint of his mate. “She was here one minute and gone the next.”
Cyn muttered a low curse. “Could it have been a portal?”
“Yes.” Roke skidded to a stop, bending down to touch the ground that was still warm from the magic. “Here.”
Cyn closed his eyes as he tested the air. “The Chatri.”
“Goddamn that bastard.” Roke straightened, wishing he’d left the King of the Chatri trapped in the Nebule’s prison. He’d known as soon as he’d met the arrogant ass he was going to be trouble. “He stole my mate.”
Cyn shifted his feet, looking uncomfortable. “Roke, you can’t be sure.”
Was he kidding? Roke shook his head.
“There are no other scents beyond Sally and Sariel. He had to have been the one who took her.”
“I’m not suggesting he wasn’t the one who formed the portal.”
Roke narrowed his gaze. “Then what are you saying?”
Cyn grimaced. “Maybe it wasn’t a kidnapping.”
Common sense warned Roke that his friend had a point. It wasn’t, after all, the first time that Sally had disappeared. Hell, it wasn’t even the second time.
But he wasn’t currently listening to common sense.
He was listening to his heart that whispered Sally wouldn’t abandon him.
Not without speaking to him first.
“Sally wouldn’t have left me.”
Cyn carefully considered his words. Wise vampire.
“Sariel is her father.”
Roke shook his head. “He’s a selfish bastard who destroyed her dreams of finding a family who actually cared about her.”
“Still, family is family,” Cyn pressed, speaking words that Roke didn’t want to hear. “Especially to a young woman who never had one.”
No. Roke wouldn’t doubt her.
He had to believe that she’d been taken against her will.
It was the only way to keep a grip on his sanity.
“She wouldn’t have left,” he stubbornly insisted. “Not without telling me she was going.”
Cyn tempted a swift, painful death. “She did before.”
Roke gave a low growl.
Enough.
He wasn’t going to waste time arguing. Not when Sally was being taken farther and farther away from him.
“She was forced,” he muttered, yanking his dagger from beneath his leather jacket before he was running through the trees with fluid ease.
There was a startled sound behind him before Cyn was racing to catch up.
“Where the hell are you going?” he rasped, his gaze scanning the thinning trees for any potential danger.
“I can feel her.”
Cyn scowled. “Feel her?”
Roke slammed his fist against the middle of his chest. “Here.”
“You’ve lost your mind, buddy,” Cyn muttered as they hit the street and Roke picked up his pace until they were traveling too fast for the human eye to follow.
“Maybe.” He really didn’t give a shit. Still, as eager as he might be to risk his life, he wasn’t nearly so ready to put Cyn in danger. “Return to Styx and—”
“No way,” his companion interrupted, continuing to scan their surroundings with a wary gaze.
Roke frowned. “This isn’t your fight, Cyn.”
The vampire kept his gun at his side, clearly determined to play the role of bodyguard.
“It is now.”
Roke rubbed the aching void in the center of his chest. His connection to Sally remained steady, but it was . . . muffled. As if something or someone was trying to hide her.
It didn’t take a genius to know who that might be.
“Why?” he demanded of his companion.
“Obviously, you need me.”
Roke snorted. It wasn’t often that anyone dared to imply that he was anything but fully competent at taking care of himself.