Page 40 of Forever Touched

Unable to bear it a moment longer, I turned to leave the throne room, along with my father and his great expectations of me. Before I could, tiny squeals interrupted the tension-filled moment.

“Papa! Papa!”

“Unca Evy!”

We turned toward the side door as two fifteen-month-old toddlers rushed into the room, followed by a harried-looking Kade.

“Sorry,” he said, stopping the black-haired boy from face-planting on the marble. “They escaped the second my back was turned. I can only imagine the Houdini acts they’ll pull when their vampire speed kicks in.”

The little boy beelined for his grandfather while the girl toddled toward me. She also had her father’s dark coloring, but they both had their mother’s silver gray eyes. As her adorable face split into a toothy grin, all of my anger faded. I bent and scooped her up, careful not to let our skin touch. The twins had become better at controlling their Syphon magic over the past few months, but when they were hyper like this, they easily forgot about their abilities.

“Did you feed them sweets again?” I directed at Kade, already knowing the answer as Zoey clapped her sticky hands together.

“Kenna had a cheesecake made for me before she left,” Kade replied with a sheepish shrug. “I just want Zo-Bee and Nico to appreciate finer cuisine. You know Lochie won’t care if their palates are stunted like his.”

Grunting, I dodged one of Zoey’s sticky hands before it could smack me in the face. “Fast!” she cried, bouncing in my arms. “Fast, fast!”

“Fast!” her brother parroted, his cheeks stained with strawberry juice.

My father chuckled and tossed his grandson high in the air. Definitely higher than Kenna would approve of. The boy squealed in delight the whole way down. “You want to go fast, Nico? How fast?”

“Fast, fast!” Nicolas replied, gleefully shrieking as his papa took off across the room at supernatural speed.

I followed suit, smiling when Zoey belly laughed the entire way. Their interruption had come at the perfect time. I’d needed this, more than I knew. As the twins continued to shriek, “Fast, fast, fast!” I felt the last of my tension unravel.

Almost two hours later, when we’d tired out Nico and Zoey enough to get them down for a nap, my phone buzzed. My senses immediately went on high alert, the tension returning once more. I strode down the hall toward my room, accepting the call without needing to check who it was.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” came Loch’s reply. Relief flooded me, until he said, “I dropped her off at her car, then followed her from a safe distance. You were right, Ev. She’s definitely hiding something. The information she gave me about her home was false. She went straight to her employer’s house and parked in the garage as if she lives there. She even has a key for the back door.”

At that, I changed course, zooming down five flights of stairs within seconds. “Give me the address. I’m heading your way.”

Loch sighed through the phone, but he didn’t argue. Seconds later, he texted me the address. I hung up soon after that, needing toconcentrate. Needing to plan. I didn’t know what I would do once I got there, but the thought of Star living with the vampires who sold her for sex night after night filled me with growing dread. The second she’d flinched at my touch, I’d known in my gut that something was wrong.

If I found out they were forcing her to have sex against her will, there would be hell to pay.

13

ADALYN

Mistress was yelling.Screaming.

Despite my precarious position, I took comfort in knowing that nothing had happened to Pepper while I was away. I desperately wanted to see her, to scoop her little body into my hands and pour out my emotions to her, but Mistress had pounced on me the second I’d entered the house.

“Are you listening to me, Adalyn?” she shouted, grabbing my chin. As her fingers dug into my flesh, no doubt leaving bruises, I struggled to remain calm. “You were gone forhoursafter Rocky called and reported you missing. We thought you weredead. I demand to know what happened.”

Georgina and Octavia shuffled into the kitchen, still in their pajamas and blinking sleepily. They definitely hadn’t lost any sleep over my disappearance.

“What did she do this time?” Georgina muttered with a yawn, nudging her sister aside on the way to the fridge.

“She didn’t comehomelast night,” her mother spat, her brown eyes slowly bleeding red. Wow. She waslivid. I didn’t know if I would survive this conversation.

Georgina threw me a nasty look. “Bet she was meeting aclientfor a secret rendezvous. We all know how much she likes to spread her legs. Guess she’s not getting enough sex at the club.”

Heat burned my cheeks, but I firmly bit my tongue.

“Is that true, Adalyn? Were you secretly meeting with a client?”

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