Page 105 of Fanged Embrace
“Laurie?” When no reply echoed down the hallway, no clacking of cutlery in the kitchen, no padded footsteps heading my way, I shot to my feet. “Laurie?!”
I tried to be rational about it—maybe she was in the bathroom? Maybe she’d gone for a stroll around the premises. Sure, that was wildly out of character for her but maybe she was feeling stifled inside. I scanned the living room, eyes flickering over the dead embers in the grate. There was no reason to panic. Not yet.
I bundled the blanket around my shoulders and slippedthrough the doorway, determined to keep my anxieties in check. But with every room I poked my head in, the further my heart sank. In the kitchen, nothing but yesterday’s dishes, and every hallway I walked was empty too. Laurie’s scent was everywhere, trails crisscrossing all over the place, but growing stale; these were old tracks. I tried not to let it worry me.
I wove through the building, looping back around when her scent was swallowed by the standard smell of dust and old books. Back in the living room, I rifled through my discarded clothing for my cellphone and dialed her number. It rang once, and then cut to voicemail. I tried again—and got voicemail. I tried again, and again, and nearly flung my phone across the room when, again, I was sent to voicemail.
“Shit.”
I let my arm droop, cell dangling from my fingers while I looked around vacantly, like Laurie was hiding somewhere in this room. But I couldn’t hear her heartbeat, I couldn’t track her scent. I couldn’t feel her aura, no matter how far I cast my net.
A fluttering panic was rising in my throat, and this time I did nothing to control it. Because Laurie was gone. Where she’d gone, and why, was a mystery, but I couldn’t come up with any answers for her disappearance. My brain couldn’t seem to get past the first hurdle of accepting thatshe was gone.
Another painful thought snagged my subconscious, slicing like a knife through my chest.She’d promised.She promised me she wouldn’t do anything reckless, wouldn’t disappear into the night, and I—like a fool—believed her.
I pressed my hands to my eyes, berating myself for drifting off before her. I should have known she’d pull a stunt like this. I should have heeded the signs. She’d let me mark her—an act so intimate, so sacred—and I should have known. I should have known she was going to leave me.
I was an idiot for thinking that I had more time.
My head snapped up again, my pupils narrowing topinpricks in my panic. A new thought wormed its way through the grief. What if she hadn’t left of her own volition. What if she’d been taken?
I rushed to the terrace, ignoring the fact that I was wearing nothing but a quilted blanket and a bird’s nest of tousled hair on my head. My bare feet thumped across the creaking floors and I startled the Leyore guard keeping watch outside. “Did any of you see Laurie leaving the premises this morning? Or anyone else snooping around?”
The guy blinked back at me, and my panicked aura must have been cascading out of me because he flinched slightly and his expression twisted into one of wide-eyed unease. “Nobody’s come by since you got back last night. I didn’t see anyone leave, either. Is something wrong?—”
I didn’t wait to let him finish, I was already storming away.
They hadn’t seen Laurie leave, so she must have snuck past them. Willingly. Or she could have been thralled into following someone out the door. It was difficult to say, but there was one way to prove that she’d left on her own; I made my way to the guest room with my heart in my throat.
The door stood ajar, a sliver of dim morning light slicing across the unmade bed, covers still tangled the way she’d left them when she last slept in there. My pulse thudded in my ears as I stepped inside. I scanned the nightstand—no phone, no note, nothing.
Drawn by dread, I crossed to the wardrobe. Dust motes drifted through the beam of light, the floorboard under my heel creaked. I wrapped one clammy hand around the wardrobe’s knob, hesitated, then eased the door open. Laurie’s scent clung to the hanging clothes. I swallowed hard and tilted my gaze up to the top shelf, where I’d left her gun.
Empty.
My stomach lurched. That goddamn gun, meant for killing monsters—she’d taken it. Shechoseto leave, and I knew exactlywhere she was going. I backed away, panic giving way to a mixed bag of emotions I didn’t know what to do with. I was angry, because she’d promised she would stay. I was gutted, because she’d lied to me. I was terrified for her safety, because she’d gone to face those monsters alone.
Why now? What changed? Yesterday morning she’d been happy, comfortable. We’d talked, and she’d laughed and when I left, she’d smiled at me. It was only after I got home that she’d been different—tense. Had the waiting simply hollowed her out? Had she simply grown impatient, tired of leaving her revenge plans to stagnate while my coven floundered to find a way to take her enemies down?
Or had the organization sent some new threat I hadn’t noticed?
I retread every step of our night together. My mind replayed every supercut of gentle touches, the desperate way she kissed me, the embrace that felt achingly like goodbye. I’d missed it, or I hadn’t wanted to see it for what it was, too blinded by hope to second-guess her promise.
But hindsight would not save her now. My fingers tightened around the phone still clutched in my palm. With a hand in my hair, I dialed Jordan’s number and paced a frantic loop in the guest room as the line rang.
“River?” Her voice was thin, sanded raw by exhaustion. No doubt, she was still downtrodden after the failed recon mission. “If this is about the meeting tomorrow?—”
I cut her off, clenching the phone tighter. “Gather all of our allies. Everyone we have left. Laurie’s gone. She took her gun and slipped right past the guards, heading for the organization’s HQ. Alone.”
Jordan blew out a sharp exhale across the line. “When?”
“Early this morning, I think.” I dragged a hand over my face, wiping at beads of sweat that slowly bloomed on my brow. “We don’t have much time. We need to orchestrate a strike—today.”
“River… we’re not ready,” her voice, sympathetic, came from the receiver. “We don’t have the numbers, we can’t?—”
“Wehaveto!” I shot back, turning on my heel to storm down the hall. “Look, Laurie’s an idiot for going off to kill the big bad alone, but this could be our shot. Have our allies attack the organization's facilities?—”
"What facilities? We came up empty last time, remember?"
