“It…uh…” I blinked rapidly to both push the memory aside and control the tear it conjured. I tried to remember what I had been about to say. “It wasn’t your fault. I asked. You said no. I nagged. You gave in. This was self-induced.” Was it my imagination, or could I smell salty sea air on his skin?
“Getting’ better?” He moved his hand from my neck to my forehead.
“Must be.” I gave my best shot at a grin, but it landed at a grimace. I pulled his hand away and nodded that I was good. He could shake off whatever effects his Neptune-like state caused. “The flop sweat seems to have stopped. How far did we make it?”
As we left his apartment to get my truck from the café, I got the brilliant idea to skip the motorcycle and give teleporting a try. I really hoped we were within walking distance, because no way was I doing that again. I glanced around. We were either in a driveway or a really quiet street. Nicely landscaped trees and bushes lined the sidewalk behind us and—come to find out—I had plopped down on a curb. The area seemed familiar.
Caleb strode a few paces away and peered off into the night in an attempt to determine our location. His head snapped back in my direction. “Uh—Celeste? Isn’t that the café’?”
I eased my still wobbly body up off the curb and followed Caleb’s stare. Now I knew where we were. I’d driven this particular stretch numerous times. It was the driveway that led back to the parking lot of the NCC campus. I just wasn’t used to seeing it while splayed on the ground. Not even a quarter mile away, surrounded by cop cars with their lights flashing, was my workplace. In an instant, my sickness was gone, and I was on full alert.
“Let’s go.” I broke into a run. Adrenaline coursed through me, but I struggled to keep my speed in check. Soon we would be within view of people. I couldn’t risk moving at blur speed even though I wanted to. Caleb fell in stride beside me.
I jogged up to find a tear-streaked Sophia slumped on the curb at the far end of the parking lot. Despite her own visibly-shaken look, Melissa had an arm around Sophia and was trying to comfort her. I squatted down in front of them, my eyes searching for any signs of an attack. “What happened? Are you two okay?”
Sophia peered up at me with red-rimmed eyes. Her face was streaked with tears and mascara. Instead of answering, she lunged. “Celeste! You’re okay!” She latched on and squeezed me in a tight bear hug. “When the police said they couldn’t get a hold of you I thought something terrible had happened to you, too!”
“Too?” I frowned. “Who did something bad happen to?”
Sophia pulled away and glanced over her shoulder at Melissa. Melissa’s lip trembled. The last of her composure threatened to crumble. She managed a brief nod.
With sorrowful resignation Sophia explained, “Becca’s missing. Her parents stopped by her apartment and found her place trashed. Now no one can find her. Her car’s still here, but there’s no sign of her. The police have questioned us and are going through all her stuff trying to get some idea of where she could be. It’s awful, just awful! What could have happened to her?!”
One word sprang to mind and filled me with dread. Alec.
“They are going to want to talk to you too, Celeste.” Melissa added and rose to her feet. Tragedy made her normally calm and assertive tone shaky and small. “I’ll go let them know you’re here.”
“Thank you.” I stood up and glanced back at Sophia. “Will you be okay alone for a sec?” She gave a less than convincing nod. “I’ll be right back.”
Caleb had been standing a couple of steps behind me, giving me the space I needed with my friends. I latched onto his sleeve and jerked my head for him to come with me. I stopped as soon as we got out of earshot. “You know about the other force rising.” My tone made it clear that wasn’t a question and I didn’t want him to play dumb.
“Aye. I’ve heard murmurings.” His brow furrowed, and he gave me that ‘intense guy’ stare he was so good at. “Celeste, that lad I saw ya talkin’ to. I could feel the darkness emanatin’ off of him. Could he have had somethin’ to do with this?”
My stomach knotted, and I found it impossible to look him in the eye. “No. He wouldn’t do this.” I hated to lie, but I couldn’t have Caleb going after Alec. I had to deal with him myself. It was the only way to ensure that if there was even the slightest glimmer of hope to save him, it would be utilized.
Caleb’s jaw tensed. But he didn’t push the matter. “Then it could be the Countess sendin’ you a message. I’ll do some snoopin’ in the Underworld and see what I can uncover.”
I grabbed the sleeve of his leather jacket in a death grip before he could even think about moving. “Isn’t that dangerous for you now? If she thinks you’ve failed or turned on her…”
He looped his fingers in the tied belt of my coat and drew me to him. Our foreheads almost touched as his green eyes fixed on me. “I’ll be fine. Stay safe and be on ya’r guard. I’ll be back to ya just as quick as I can.”
I tipped my face up. He moved in to fill the space between us. “Promise me you’ll come back,” I whispered.
Caleb breathed the words softly against my skin. “I promise.” Our lips met in an urgent kiss that gave away our mutual fears he might not be able to keep that particular promise. He pulled back and stared at me as if trying to memorize my face. “Be safe, lovey,” he murmured. Then sprinted off into the darkness.
Unable to force myself to watch him go, I turned back toward my coworkers. Melissa had returned to her spot by Sophia. Tears streamed down her face as she watched the officers remove Becca’s boxed up belongings. Sophia, on the other hand, stared after Caleb with narrowed eyes and utter contempt. My blood ran cold. A blink, and then she focused on me. Her expression softened, and she tilted her head in an almost demure fashion. In an instant, the only friend I had made in months became my prime suspect in the Countess’ hidden identity.
My hands balled into fists at my sides. I waited for her to twitch. Smirk. Anything. That’s all it would take.
“Excuse me, Miss?” Behind me a young officer with milk chocolate skin and eager eyes stood with his pen and pad at the ready. “This young lady mentioned you work here.” He motioned to Melissa. “Could I ask you a few questions?”
As reluctant as I was to turn my back on Sophia now, I didn’t have a choice. “Yeah, sure. Don’t know how much help I’ll be though.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised!” Exuberance bubbled off of him. “Sometimes even the most minute detail can break a case wide open!” He clicked his pen to ready. “Do you know if your boss was seeing anyone?”
“No idea,” I admitted with a shrug.
“Did she have any hobbies or interests you know of?”
“She never mentioned any.” I sagged under the weight of the guilt that I never took the time to get to know my manager at all.
“She was in the photography program at the college. Do you know if she had any outside subjects?”
“Becca was into photography?” To myself I added, “I didn’t even know she was in school.”
“Carlson!” A middle-aged cop with a thick spare-tire, and a red puffy face yelled. “You about done? We’ve got nothing here. Found all we’re going to at the apartment.”
“Yep! Just wrapping up,” Officer Carlson answered. He clicked his pen again and folded his pad shut. His teeth gleamed as he smiled. “If you think of anything that may help, anything at all, please give us a call.” He pulled a business card out of the breast pocket of his shirt, handed it to me, and then jogged off to rejoin the other officers.
Without a backward glance at Melissa or Sophia I strode to my truck. There would be time to deal with Sophia later, when we weren’t surrounded by innocent people. Right now I needed to find Becca. If her apartment held the most information about her abduction, that’s where I needed to be. Hopefully, there was still time to save her. And Alec.
But first, a quick stop at home. I needed my sword and my shield, aka Gabe and Keni.
CHAPTER 26
“Hey. Where are Gabe and Keni?” I asked. “We’ve got some Mission Impossible style work to do tonight, complete with a little breaking and entering.”
“They—you—we—UGH!” Ranted our normally eloquent Spirit Guide. Her ruffled feathers negated any need for my empathe ability.
My eyebrows raised so high they nearly shot off my face. “Whoa. Try throwing a verb in there, Alaina. Makes communication more effective.”
Grams rounded the corner from the living room, arms crossed firmly. Well-manicured nails drummed against her skin.
“What’s going on, Grams?”
“What’s going on, Celeste…” She managed to say my name like it was a bad word, “…is that we learned some incredibly upsetting news today.”
“Did you hear about my missing manager? Was it on the news?” I pulled on my tennis shoes and laced them up. “Don’t worry, I’m on it. I came to get Gabe and Keni, so we can go scope out her apartment to see if this is Dark Army related.”
“This has nothing to do with anyone but you,” Grams stated, her red painted lips pursed in disapproval.
I pushed myself up off the bench and then grabbed my black hoodie from the coat rack. “About me? What about me?”
Alaina’s milky white skin flushed red. “Members of Council contacted me to inform me that the Conduit has been consorting with the enemy!”
“I most certainly have not!” I argued indigently and zipped my sweatshirt with as much vigor as anyone can put into that particular task.
“Really? Then you were not out on a date with a Seeker?! ” Alaina yelled. “He did not transport you in a black cloud of smoke this very evening?”
I felt the heat rise in my cheeks. “Oh, that. Well, yeah, that’s all true. But it’s not what you think. Caleb’s on our side!”
Grams blue shadowed eyes narrowed. “Caleb? The one we met? I knew nothin’ good could come in a package that pretty.”
“But he is a good package! Or—uh—a good guy. His circumstances have sucked, but that’s not his fault. He wants to help us!”
“Is that her? Is she here?” Gabe pounded down the stairs in a white hot rage. In a burst of feline speed he was in my face, hissing and spitting out his anger. “You went out with a demon?! What is the matter with you? Are you really that hard up for a boyfriend?”
My nostrils flared. “First of all,” I began through clenched teeth, “I just learned tonight that he is half demon. Secondly, you wanna talk about hard up? Your girlfriend has a beak!”
“That’s true,” Kendall interjected as she wandered in from the kitchen, apple in hand. “Looks like I’m the only one that has a normal sweetie. You two have freaky taste.” She bit off a huge chunk of apple.
“Yeah, Keith’s a real prize, Keni,” Gabe shot. Kendall scowled. “So, you’re dating a demon, and the Glee Club is your new band of BFFs. You get these guys are supposed to be our enemies, right? Your role is to fight them, not hang with them.”
“It’s not that cut and dry, Gabe.” My hands trembled as I raked them through my hair. “You’ve met the Glee Club, you know their situation. Don’t throw that back at me.” Gabe huffed, but didn’t interrupt. “As for Caleb, Barnabus and his men took him when he was only a kid. They forced him to pledge himself to them when he was too young to even understand what that meant. He needs our help almost as much as we need his.”
“I don’t need anything from a demon,” Gabe growled, in a way that was more animal than human.
The fury and color drained from Alaina’s face as she pushed her way past Gabe and latched onto my upper arms. “This Caleb, when was he taken?” she demanded.
I shrugged, more than a little freaked. I’d never seen her so agitated. “I don’t know for sure. Sometime in the seventeen-hundreds, I think. He’s been in the Underworld for like three centuries.”
She jerked as though I’d slapped her. “Stay away from him,” she ordered. “Trust nothing he says to you.” Alaina swiveled around and sprinted for the door, her glow already begun. Gabe opened the door in time for her to morph and soar off into the night.
“See what you did?” Gabe pointed after her. “She has to go clean up your mess!”
“What mess?!” I threw my hands in the air. “There is no mess!”
“Let’s all simmer down now.” Grams positioned herself between Gabe and me and raised a hand to halt both our reactions. “We won’t get anywhere by yellin’. Now Celeste, I’m sure this boy has been sweet as pie to you.”
“He has!” I let my arms fall to my sides. Finally, someone could see my side of this!
“And I’m sure he hangs on your every word and has been open and honest about his past.”
“Well…now he is,” I stammered. “After I figured out what he was.”
“Do you think maybe, just maybe, he’s saying and doing all the right things just to win you over? That it’s part of his plan?”
I hesitated only because she switched tracks so abruptly. “No. No, he couldn’t be.”
“How can you not see what he’s doing?” Gabe raised his hands like he wanted to grab me and shake me. “Do you think you are the first girl to ever fall for some guy’s lines? He played you, Cee! Why can’t you see that?”
Kendall came to stand beside me and threw an arm over my shoulders. “Unclench, Gabe. Celeste, like, never has boys interested in her. She was probably so happy he was talking to her she would’ve believed any line he fed her.”
I stared at her for a beat. “Don’t help, Keni.”
“Just sayin’.” Dressed in a pair of black yoga pants and a hot pink zip-up jacket, she lifted one shoulder and let it fall. “He grew up surrounded by nasty, evil dudes, Cee. Even if he wants to be honest with you, he might not know how.” She punctuated her point with another bite of apple.
Despite my earlier doubts about Caleb, I brushed Kendall’s arm off and adamantly shook my head “No. He’s a good person.”
“You’ve looked into his emotions and know that to be true?” By Grams’ tone I knew that a “yes” would leave no room for doubt in her mind. But I couldn’t lie to her.
“Only a little,” I admitted. “I couldn’t hold the connection for very long. His anguish was just too painful.”
Grams dropped her hands as she faced me. Her head angled to the side. “Then you don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
My spine straightened when I thought of the risky situation Caleb had put himself in for me—for us. “He risked his life by going back into the Underworld to hunt for information for us.”
Grams pressed her lips together like she was trying to figure out what words would get through my thick skull. “Honey, if the whole thing was a set up, there was never any risk for him. What about your missing manager? How do you know he didn’t have something to do with that?”
“No. No way.” I waved my arms in front of me. “We stumbled onto that scene together. That has Dark Army written all over it.”
“And who do you think they would send for something like that? A demon that’s already in the area, that’s who.” Grams answered her own question before I could interrupt. “Was he with you all night?”
I opened my mouth, then snapped it shut. It sounded too incriminating to admit I had been unconscious for a good chunk of time, and lost sight of Caleb for over a half-hour after I discovered he was a Seeker. “Mostly…”
Gabe’s face burned beat red. “Mostly? Mostly?” He started for me—probably hoping to get a chokehold on my throat—but Grams spun and slammed both hands against his chest to stop him. Her tiny frame was no match for him, but Gabe still halted where he was out of respect for the Grams. “Well, let me ask you this, oh Chosen One. If Caleb d
idn’t abduct your manager who did? What other demon is even around to do it? Huh?!”
“Alec!” I regretted it as soon as his name left my lips. I clapped a hand over my mouth as if that would somehow draw it back in.
My brother’s hulking shoulders sagged, a bit of his anger shifted to annoyance. “Nice, Cee. Just because a guy dumps you doesn’t mean he’s evil. Fantastic though that you’re willing to throw him under the bus for a demon.”
In utter defeat I dropped my hand. This was going to get ugly. No way around that. Grams kept her arms up in case Gabe charged again, but turned to me with questioning eyes. Kendall’s hand wrapped around mine. I glanced over at her. With a nod, she encouraged me to go on. She would be on my side. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and told them everything. The hospital visit, Alec’s stop in to the café, even about Kat—his new plaything.
I ended with the only explanation I had. “I don’t want to hurt him. He’s my friend.” I stared down at my hands. “I just thought if I had a little bit more time I could figure out how to save him. But the more time passes the more I wonder if there’s anything left of him to save.”
Gabe gave Grams’ arm a quick squeeze and then slid around her. With surprisingly quiet steps for a guy his size (I think that was a cat thing) he came to stand right in front of me. I peered up into his broad face, unsure of what to expect. He placed his big, meaty paws on my shoulders.
“I understand why you kept this from us. But he’s not just your friend.” Gabe’s voice was soft and sad. “And he’s only in this situation because of us. So, if there’s a way to save him, we’ll figure it out. Promise.”
Overcome with relief, I latched onto my big brother in a tight bear hug. Tears welled in my eyes. “Uh, Cee? Breathing becoming an issue,” he gasped.
“Sorry.” I released him and swiped at my eyes with my sleeve.
Jangling metal interrupted our moment. The keys to my truck dangled from Grams finger. “Whether it’s Caleb, Alec, or some other non-demon, someone took that girl. You three need to go see about bringing her home safe.” I reached for my keys, but Grams pulled them away. Her heavily mascaraed eyes bore into mine. “And if you find out Caleb is behind this, young lady, what do you plan to do about that?”
Embrace (The Gryphon Series Book 2) Page 14