Page 31 of The Dancer and the Dark
Gavin woke and knew something was wrong. He could smell humans and vampires waiting outside his day chamber. He checked his phone and saw three messages from Chloe, all in the last three hours before he woke.
No greeting from his lover when he woke and four vampires and a human waiting outside his chamber.
Fear manifested in his belly, chilling his heart and cooling his blood. He carefully dressed in the pair of black combat pants he always packed, pulled on a black T-shirt and boots before he opened the door.
He stared at the eyes watching him. Giovanni Vecchio, Raj, Ben, Tenzin, and Audra.
“Tell me.”
“Chloe was taken from the back garden at her mother’s house.” Audra’s face was washed of color and her eyes looked dead. “They shot a tranquilizer dart at Zain, and we think they probably did the same to Chloe. Her mother ran in the house to get me, but when I reached the backyard, they were already gone.”
His mind began to slot pieces of information into a framework. He ignored the raging fear and the temptation to take Audra’s head off. Rage would not find Chloe. Anger would not find her. Cold, clinical deduction was his only weapon.
Before dusk, not vampires.
Tranquilizer, not silenced firearm.
“Boss, I’m sorry. I thought we had her—”
“Quiet.” Gavin cut her off. “I don’t want to hear from you unless you know where Chloe is.”
Audra shook her head.
“Then be quiet.” Gavin’s mind was turning over scenarios. “She’s alive, and they want something from me,” he said quietly. “They’ve taken her as leverage.” He looked at Ben. “What do you know?”
Giovanni stepped forward. “Come up to the library. Beatrice has been on the phone with her grandfather’s people.” The fire vampire led them out of the guesthouse, across the lawn, and toward the main house. “Whether they realize it or not, by attacking Zain, they’ve violated Ernesto’s aegis since Zain works for Beatrice and she’s under Ernesto’s protection.”
“Zain will be fine,” Ben said. “He’s feeling pretty sick, but there were no lasting—”
“I don’t care about Zain.” The human hadn’t been strong enough to protect Chloe, and that was all he cared about. “Chloe is smaller than Zain; if they used the same dosage on her, it could be highly damaging.”
He looked at Tenzin, whose eyes were as cold or colder than his. “Are you with me?”
“Wherever you need to go,” she said quietly.
Gavin knew if there was one vampire he could depend on to dowhateverwas required to get Chloe back, it was Tenzin. She would do the necessary thing even if others hesitated.
“Every vampire in Los Angeles will be looking for them,” Ben said. “We’ve already told Ernesto that Chloe is yours.”
Not enough.
Gavin allowed himself a moment of anger, cursing himself for hiding their connection. If he’d been more open about who Chloe was to him, only a vampire with a death wish would have touched her. Whoever it was had banned him or herself from sanctuary around the world.
He glanced at Audra, then to Raj, his head of security. “Her mother?”
“Safe,” Raj offered. “We’ve put additional guards on the house and circling the neighborhood. I managed to keep her mother from filing a police report, but that’s only going to hold her off for a few hours unless we get her back.”
They entered the house and headed straight for the upstairs library, where he could already hear Beatrice De Novo speaking with someone in rapid Spanish. As they entered the room, she caught Gavin’s eye and nodded.
“I have to go,” she said to whomever was on the phone. “When I get more information, I’ll contact you.”
The voice on the phone responded. “We’ll email the list now.”
She turned to Gavin. “Ernesto’s chief of security is emailing a list of every visiting party in his territory that has asked permission to be here. Obviously, there’s no guarantee—”
“This is probably an unauthorized party.” Gavin knew that if kidnapping Chloe was the goal, it was far more likely that whoever had taken her hadnotasked formal permission to operate in Ernesto’s territory, which meant they were rogues and he could kill them. “It had to be someone who knew who she was to me. There would be no point in taking her otherwise.”
“Unless they were targeting me.” Tenzin’s voice was soft.
