Page 63 of These Dangerous Fates

Sterling’s fingers elongate into claws and he rakes them over Kai’s chest as he pushes the vampire away. “She is my mate, asshole. I am just as worried as you are. Do you think I’m happy we’re in this situation? Do you think I want my mate in the hands of that bastard?” His words are barely decipherable over the growl rumbling up his chest from his wolf.

Kai swings and catches Sterling in the jaw. The shifter’s head snaps to the side, but he doesn’t stagger. Instead, he grabs Kai by the throat and lifts him effortlessly off the ground.

“What the fuck!” I yell, jumping from the couch. “Ellis is out there somewhere, scared and in danger, and you two are acting like fucking children. Grow the fuck up and calm down. You are doing nothing but hurting her by fighting like this.”

My magic shoots out of my hands and barrels into the Kai and Sterling. They slam into the wall, rattling the picture frames hanging in a neat row. I press my magic against them, holding them in place as I stalk forward. They glare at me with their chests heaving, fangs and teeth on display.

“Now,” I say firmly, “You guys can stay here and fight each other wasting precious time, but my soul bonded is out there, and I’m not letting another second go by where I stand around and do nothing to save her.”

The tension in the room falls away. Kai and Sterling stare at me in shock and I realize what I just said. Fuck. I didn’t mean to blurt that out.

“Soul bonded?” Kai asks.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Yeah. I’m positive.”

Soul bonded. Basically, the same thing as a mate or beloved. Soulmate. For mages, soul bonded goes so much deeper than a beloved or mate. As soon as I acknowledged what she was to me, my magic was tied to her. It’s why it’s been acting so erratic since I found out she was gone. Without her, my magic doesn’t know what to do. She is the tether to it, and I need to get her back. For so many reasons.

“Are you two going to cool it long enough to save Ellis?” I ask. “Because if not, I have no problem leaving your asses here and doing it on my own.”

Kai and Sterling look at each other before nodding. I let them go, relieved because holding them there was harder than it should have been. Already, I can feel the difference in my magic. That simple task of pinning them to the wall is something I should be able to do for days without breaking a sweat. But I’m not sure I could have held them for another two minutes.

“Where do we even begin?” Sterling asks, shaking himself off.

I roll my shoulders, unsettled and unmoored, not liking the way my magic is acting so strangely. “I’m going to hack into the street cams. Hopefully, I’ll be able to find her.”

Thankfully, no one asks what happens if I can’t find her, because I don’t have an answer to that possibility. I pull my phone out and sit next to Allie on the couch while Kai paces the living room, and Sterling leans against the wall and broods.

“What time did he break in?” I ask Allie.

“Around 12:30,” she replies dully.

“So she’s been missing for about 45-minutes,” I mutter. Mentally, I think of all the possible directions Sam could have gone when he left the apartment. There are so many, it seems impossible I’ll be able to find them. “Do you have any idea where he may have taken her or what direction they could have gone?”

She shakes her head, eyes welling with tears again. I take a deep breath before getting to work on my phone. This is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack.

“Isn’t there any way to track her with your … bonds?” Allie asks. “I mean, you are all tied together, right? Beloved, mate, soul bonded. That has to come with some kind of tracking device.”

All three of us shake our heads.

“If we were close enough to her, we’d be able to narrow it down,” Kai says. “But she must be too far away for us to do that.”

My fingers fly over my phone screen as I hack into the street cams. I pick a direction and go with it, praying it’s the right one. I’ve been at it for over an hour, my eyes dry and gritty, when Sterling cracks.

“Fuck this!” Sterling shouts and pushes off the wall. “It’s taking too long.”

“She wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t fucked up so badly!” Kai shouts back.

“Guys,” I interject, breaking off their staring contest. “Calm the fuck down. Fighting with each other will not help get her back. Besides, I think I got something.”

Ellis

Panic has completely taken over. Even if Sam’s magic wasn’t binding my arms and legs, I wouldn’t be able to get away. All the self-defense lessons have flown right out the window. My mind is eerily blank. It’s like a snowglobe up in there, with swirling white flakes and nothing else. Sam’s hands on my body paralyze me. My skin crawls and nausea churns in my stomach as every fear-filled and painful memory is brought to the forefront of my mind, and I’m helpless to escape them.

Thrown over his shoulder with green bands of magic sizzling painfully over my skin, I do my best to keep track of where we’re going. Cataloging my surroundings is the only thing keeping me from spiraling into a full-blown panic attack. As it is, Sam’s shoulder digging into my abdomen only increases my difficulty breathing.

The sidewalk blurs by as he drags me through the city. It’s early enough that people are still out enjoying the vices of Altair, but everyone looks the other way. It’s how things go around here. No one wants to step in where they aren’t wanted. Besides, most of them are doing things that are equally illegal.

The buildings on the street he turns onto look familiar, and I think I know where he’s taking me. My suspicion is confirmed as he climbs the steps to the Kennedy building. Inside, he takes the elevator to the top floor where his office is, the same floor my dad’s is located. Is my dad in on this? I don’t know whether that would make this better or worse.

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