Unease ran cold fingers down his spine. This time, he answered the call. “Tatiana, you might have seen in the news that I’m in the middle of something urgent right now.”
The Light Fae Queen’s voice sounded in his ear. Usually she was the epitome of elegance and iron, but this time the iron sounded rusted and strained. “So am I. Julian, I need for you to come as quickly as you can.”
What the fuck?
His stomach clenched. “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t tell you that,” said Tatiana in measured tones that spoke of extreme control. “You know as well as I do that phone conversations might not be secure.”
His mind flashed to the one possible reason Tatiana might have for calling him. He demanded, “Has something happened to Melly?”
The possibility was inconceivable. Melly was so vibrant, so young, just a few hundred years old. An array of images flashed through his mind, each worse than the one before. Melly, in a car accident – Melly in the hospital, badly injured… or dead.
That last thought caused dread to wash over him in a sick, cold wave.
“All I can say is, please, for the love of all the gods, can we put our differences aside just this once? Will you come to help me?”
In an instant, he abandoned the one thing that had consumed him for the last forty-eight hours. He had already set his plan in motion. Yolanthe could take it over and spearhead the search for Justine.
He told her, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Two
“C
ome on, Melly, will you wake up already?” someone demanded. An impatient woman, with a familiar voice. “Hell’s bells, I didn’t realize I compelled you to go down that hard. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”
Melly had been having the strangest dream.
The first part had been awesome. She dreamed she was skiing, whipping along the downhill slope so fast she could hear the wind whistle in her ears. Gods, she loved that rush.
Something snagged her left ski, and she lost all control. The world flipped as she tumbled head over heels. Ow. Ow. Ow.
Then with the sneaky suddenness that dreams could sometimes have, the scene shifted and she landed in a sprawl in the living room of her small Malibu house. Through the open archway that led to her bedroom, she saw Julian lying in her bed.
The tangled sheets had fallen around his hips. She knew from memory every muscled bulge and hollow of his broad, scarred chest. Her heart started to pound as she stared at him. It’d been so long since they’d been together, so very long.
Could it be possible for skin to feel hungry? Her skin ached for the sensation of his rough, callused fingers.
His white-flecked dark hair tousled, he watched her with wolflike eyes. “Pick up your damn phone, will you?” he snapped.
He was such a killjoy. Furiously, she threw her phone at him, and he blurred to catch it. As she watched, Julian crushed the phone in one hand.
“Okay,” the director said. (Who was directing this film? Squinting, she tried to look past the bright set lights.) “We need just one more thing before we call it a wrap. Come on, Melly – give us one of your awesome screams. Wake up and don’t hold back, just let ’er rip.”
Obligingly, she tried to open her mouth to belt out a good one, but she still had her skiing helmet on with the chin guard strapped tight. Somebody had added a mouthpiece to it, and the whole thing was actually kind of making it hard to breathe.
As she struggled to get her hands free so she could tear off the mouthpiece, she discovered that she was wrapped in a straitjacket…
That couldn’t be right. They had finished the film with the straitjacket years ago.
What the hell?
Her eyes popped open.
Someone was carrying her over his shoulder, fireman-style. His body held a small frisson of Power that she identified immediately as Vampyre. Her head bobbed upside down. She had pinned her long, curly hair into a loose chignon, and it had slipped sideways over one ear. Strong, bouncing beams of light illuminated a rough stony hallway.
Not a hallway. A tunnel.
She was gagged, and her wrists and ankles were tied.
Panic struck. She erupted into wild struggles.
She almost managed to flip out of the strange male’s hold, but, swearing, he hoisted her into a more secure position and wrapped his arms around her thighs.
Someone bent over her and smacked her over the ear so hard her head rang. “Behave.”
Craning her neck, she stared up at a beautiful, young-looking woman with auburn hair. A very familiar woman, and a very old Vampyre, one of the most Powerful in the Nightkind demesne. Justine.
The wrongness of the situation rocketed around Melly’s mind. She had gone skiing, and had just returned to her Malibu home to get ready for her next shoot, when she remembered Justine had shown up on her doorstep. After that – nothing.
While she couldn’t talk physically, she could telepathically. Justine, she said tensely. What the fuck are you doing?
Justine petted her head then removed the gag. “There, there,” said the Vampyre. “Everything will probably be okay.”
Everything will probably be okay?
“What are you talking about!” Melly’s head ached, and she struggled to think past it.
There was no way she could have been prepared for this, none.
When she went out in public, she was usually attended by a guard or two, but her Malibu home was in a gated community with a good security system. Other actors and celebrities lived in the community, and normally, Melly felt perfectly safe there.
Normally, she would never have imagined someone like Justine would kidnap her. Justine had been on friendly terms with Melly’s mother, Tatiana, the Light Fae Queen, for a very long time, and she had made friendly overtures to Melly for years.
Justine straightened and said to the man, “Put her in this one.”
Melly looked around wildly as the man carried her into a cell, an honest-to-goodness dungeon-y cell that had been hewn out of rock with metal bars and a door fitted across the opening.
The man dumped her unceremoniously on the floor with such force, her hair slipped half out of its knot. She felt a couple of hairpins slide down her neck and drop into her top.
Breathing heavily, Melly almost planted her foot in the Vampyre’s face. She could have done it. She was fast enough, angry enough, and she’d certainly had her own fair share of training. Tatiana had insisted both her daughters learn self-defense.
But while she might be able to kick the shit out of Vampyre Guy, she knew she was no match for Justine, who leaned against the open cell door, watching. And she still hoped to get somewhere by talking.
“Justine,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on, or why you felt compelled to kidnap me, but if we go to my mom and we just talk it over, I’m sure we can figure out how to fix things.”
Justine smiled at her. “Look at you,” the Vampyre said. “Pretty and well meaning, and stupid as a poodle. I’ve always had a soft spot for you, Melly, but some things can’t get fixed by running to your mom for help.”
Melly angled out her jaw as both fury and worry deepened. Well first, Justine was just plain wrong, because her mom was the most formidable woman Melly had ever met.
But with Justine kidnapping Melly and refusing to talk to Tatiana, this was bad, really bad. She said between her teeth, “What did you do?”
“I took a gamble and it didn’t go so well. So, now I’m taking another gamble.” The Vampyre met Melly’s gaze. “We’re going to find out if Julian has any lingering feelings for you. I’m thinking he might, and if he does, how far will he go to see that you’re safe? Would he even trade himself for you?” As Justine smiled, a tip of her descended fangs showed between her red lips.
Melly’s stomach clenched. Justine had slipped some kind of leash, and if she felt she needed leverage against Julian, something terrible had happened in the Nightkind
demesne. “You’re going to be sadly disappointed,” she said bitterly. “What Julian and I shared ended a long time ago.”
“We’ll see. Sometimes old feelings refuse to die.” Justine told Vampyre Guy, “Strip those pins out of her hair, and pat her down to make sure she doesn’t have anything in her pockets. When you’re done, untie her.”
Obediently, Vampyre Guy yanked his hands through Melly’s long curls, pulling out hairpins. He was none too gentle about it, and tears sprang to her eyes at the pain in her scalp. When he was finished, he ran his hands down every inch of her body, untied her wrists and legs, straightened and stepped out of the cell.
Justine reached inside to set a jug of water and a package on the floor. “Here’s enough food and water for a day, along with a small LED flashlight. The batteries aren’t going to last you a full twenty-four hours, so I would use it sparingly, if I were you. Someone will bring you more food and water tomorrow, most likely. Hang tight – we’ll know soon enough what Julian will do.”
Most likely.
Most likely bring more food and water.
Melly’s breath shook in her throat. Which meant Justine was fully prepared to cut ties and abandon her if things didn’t go her way.
Taking her lantern, Justine shut the door of the cell and locked it with a key. “ ’Bye, darling.”
Fuck you. Darling.
Melly didn’t have a very aggressive personality, but she was pretty sure she could murder Justine’s ass if she got half the chance.
The light faded gradually as Justine and Vampyre Guy left. Before it disappeared completely, she lunged for the packet Justine had left on the floor, located the flashlight and turned it on and off several times to test it.
It worked. The beam of light was small and thin, but it was infinitely better than the intense, complete darkness.
She forced herself to turn it off. Then, in the darkness, she wrapped her arms around herself, shaking.
After a while, stirring, she whispered, “Poodles are smart.”
Twisting, she groped down the back of her neck until her fingers connected with what she was searching for. Snagging it, she pulled out the hairpins that had slipped down her top earlier.
Poodles could also bite when someone least expected it.
Gripping the pins tightly between thumb and forefinger and navigating from memory, she made her way across the cell until her outstretched hands collided with cold steel bars. Then she felt her way to the cell door and ran her fingers along the heavy, square metal that contained the lock. Most likely, it was a pin and tumbler lock, which was the most common type of lock in the world.
If so, she needed two pieces of metal in order to pick it. Luckily, she had hairpins and she knew how to use them. Using her teeth, she stripped off the little pieces of rubber on the ends of the pins. After she tucked one hairpin into her pocket, she bent the other one back and forth until it broke into two pieces.
Taking the first piece, she bent one end just enough so that it could be used as a pick. When she was satisfied with the result, she bent the other end to use as a handle. The last modification she made was to take the second piece and bend it into the correct shape so that she could use it as the lever.
The sensitive tips of her fingers found the keyhole. After she inserted her makeshift lever, she slipped in her pick. As she worked on the lock, her mind darted frantically from thought to thought.
Cold emanated from the rough rock that surrounded her. It penetrated the soles of her stylish ballet flats and ankle-length linen slacks, and raised goose bumps on the skin of her arms that were left bare by a matching sleeveless shirt. She had dressed for warm weather on the beach, not spelunking.
The chill suggested she was pretty deeply underground, but underground where? If she were being held on Justine’s estate, why would Justine bother to stash her underground in a cell?
It would have made much more sense if Justine had hedged her bets and kept Melly in a more or less comfortable state, perhaps locked up somewhere in Justine’s mansion and close at hand, so that Justine could get to her quickly and easily if she needed to change her course of action.
But whatever had happened to turn Justine rogue, Julian was somehow involved, so maybe Justine couldn’t go back to her home. That had a ring of truth to it. Melly was willing to bet she wasn’t anywhere near Justine’s estate.
No, she was somewhere else, somewhere secret enough that Justine believed neither Julian nor any of his people would locate her. And since Melly had been knocked unconscious, she had no memory of the kind of journey it had taken to bring her to this place. She could literally be almost anywhere.
She ran a mental check on herself. Her hands were shaking, but that was from nerves and shock more than anything else. As a Light Fae, Melly healed fast, but her leg and hip still ached fiercely from the downhill tumble she took when she had been on her weekend ski trip. She was hungry and thirsty, but not so much that it had become urgent. Rather, she felt more or less like she did whenever she’d had such a busy day, she forgot to eat.
Also, there was the flashlight. It meant she wasn’t in an Other land, where magic was enhanced and modern technology didn’t work.
Logically that would mean she was no more than a day’s journey away from Malibu, but the trick was, how had they traveled? If Justine had put her on a plane, a day’s journey could mean that she was on the other side of the continent, somewhere on the East Coast.
Her shoulders sagged. Deduction could only get her so far. She wouldn’t be able to figure out where she was until she got aboveground and could have a look around.
Her mind darted to more hopeful thoughts. If she had been gone from home a day or so, someone would have noticed her absence by now.
She ran over the timeline. She had been coming home from her ski trip when Justine had kidnapped her. She had arrived in Malibu in the early evening, and she had been scheduled to be on set the next morning to start shooting a new movie.
Melly always showed up for work on time. It was a point of pride to her that she didn’t trade on her status in the Light Fae demesne. If anything, she worked harder than anybody else in order to be taken seriously as a professional.
She knew to a fraction of an inch how much acting talent she had – or didn’t have. She might not star in any Oscar-winning films, but she liked her career, had fun with it and made a lot of money, and those who worked with her knew she was as reliable as clockwork.
When she hadn’t shown up for work, events would have been set in motion. Her mother Tatiana was not just the Light Fae Queen. She was also head of Northern Lights, the movie studio where Melly’s latest movie was being shot, and Melly was her heir.
As soon as Melly’s absence had been noted, and someone had checked out her little Malibu beach house and found her gone, the situation would have rocketed to Def Con 1. Sniffling, she thought of the Queen’s extreme displeasure that even now must be hanging over Los Angeles like a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Because if her mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.
Then there was Melly’s younger twin, Bailey. She and Bailey had always had a sixth sense about how each other fared. Even though Bailey lived and worked in Jamaica, she could very well have known something was wrong with Melly before morning had ever come.
“I bet you knew, didn’t you, Bailey?” she whispered, holding the thought close like huddling in a comforting blanket. “And you called Mom. Maybe you even got her out of bed.”
Then her mind, traitorous bitch that it was, slipped to Julian.
She thought of how their reunion might be, after he rescued her from Justine’s clutches. He would run toward her, his rough, hard features and wolflike eyes alight with emotion and concern.
Her imagination put them in a sunlit, open field strewn with wildflowers. (She tried to picture Julian in a flowing white poet’s shirt, black pants and black boots, but she couldn’t get his ancient, scarred cowboy boots out of her head. Plus, Julian was a
bout as poetic as a bull mastiff, so she gave up on that image almost immediately.)
She would run toward him too, arms outstretched, and as he snatched her close and lowered his head to take her mouth, the camera could zoom in for a close-up…
Oops, wait a minute, she forgot. Vampyre. Cut the scene.
He would run toward her over a moonlit, open field strewn with wildflowers…
That wouldn’t film very well. Nobody would see the wildflowers in the moonlight. Besides, filming a running scene at night over a rough, open field was a good way to trip and break a leg.
And Julian wouldn’t haul her close for one of those deep, soul-destroying kisses he knew how to do so well. More likely he would yell at her for some stupid thing or other, because that’s all he did these days.
The back of her nose prickled and she blinked rapidly as her eyes dampened. Damn her stupid eyes. She must be allergic to some kind of mold in this gods-forsaken pit.
She wasn’t going to think about Julian anymore, or how he might respond to Justine’s ultimatum. As heir to the Light Fae demesne, she knew better than to hope he might act out of some kind of sentimentality. He was the Nightkind King. Even if he had any lingering feelings for her, other than anger, he couldn’t afford to give in to kidnappers’ demands.
Damn, the lock was a stiff son of a bitch. She could feel the ends of her makeshift lock pick catching on the interior mechanism, but the hairpin was made out of soft, cheap metal. She had already bent it out of shape, and it kept trying to bend further. And the darkness was so absolute, it was starting to get to her.
Since she was rescuing herself, she didn’t need to worry so much about conserving the flashlight’s batteries. Flipping the switch, she took a moment to survey her cell. It was rough and bare, except for a cheap-looking, collapsible cot with a thin foam mattress, and a folded, green wool army blanket. There was also what looked to be a hole in the floor in one corner. Was that some kind of primitive latrine?
Grimacing, she turned back to the door, took the end of the flashlight between her teeth and worked carefully at the lock.