“You said that if I can learn to use this…whatever…that I wouldn’t need your protection anymore,” Sera said. “So what does that mean for us?”
Both men looked at her with confused frowns marring their brows.
“It means you can go out on your own without worrying so much,” Henri said. “Without us worrying so much.”
“So I’d still be living with you, then?” She hated feeling insecure, but it wasn’t like their relationship had started under normal circumstances.
“What are you talking about?” Leo asked. “Of course you’d still be living with us.”
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Henri asked.
They both looked like they were the insecure ones now and it made Sera’s heart clench.
“I thought you were happy with us,” Leo said.
“I am,” Sera insisted. “But if I can protect myself, then the two of you won’t be obligated to keep me around.”
“Is that what you really think?” Henri asked. The vampire reached across the table and covered her hand. “Sera, I’m sorry if we haven’t been clearer in our feelings for you, but you have to know how much you mean to us both.”
Sera swallowed a sudden lump. “I do, I guess. I’m just a little insecure. I’ve never had a relationship like this before.”
“With two people, you mean?” Leo asked.
“No,” Sera insisted. “I mean…good…perfect. I’m so happy with you both that I guess I’m constantly waiting for it to all fall apart, because never in my life have I been allowed to keep anything good.”
Leo reached for her and tugged her up before pulling her down onto his lap. He hugged her as tight as he could without hurting her.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Leo assured her as he stroked the back of her head. “And neither are you.”
Sera hugged him back and breathed in his scent. It helped to calm her down. There was something she had been wanting to say to them for a while but she had never found the courage. A month might not seem like a long time, but the three of them were practically together every moment of every day. She felt like she knew them better than she ever had anyone.
Pulling back Sera looked between the two men in her life.
“I love you,” she said in a soft voice with courage she didn’t really feel. “I love both of you, and I guess I’m just scared that this won’t last.”
The look of happiness on Henri’s face was worth the risk. He took her hand again and brought it up to his lips.
“I love you, too, darling,” he said. “You’ve come to mean the world to me.”
They shared a warm and intimate smile.
“There are days I still can’t believe I get to have Henri,” Leo admitted. “And now I have you, too. I love you both, more than anything in the world. You’re my family. My pack.”
Sera felt her eyes begin to prickle. “I’ve never had a family before,” she said in a shaky voice. “Thank you.”
They were in a far too public a place and Sera was suddenly aware that people were looking at them. She sniffed once and got off Leo’s lap.
“Um, I’m just going to use the lady’s room,” she told them. She needed a moment to compose herself.
Sera felt a little light-headed as she walked back toward the bathrooms. Tonight had been the best night of her life. Although she felt as if she were walking on air, she also had that all too familiar feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. Her life would never be the same, and she was fine with that, but she wondered if she would ever feel truly safe. Now she had Leo and Henri she had more to lose.
Trying to force those thought out of her mind, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and dabbed under her eyes with a tissue. Looking back at her was the same Sera she had always been. She looked as human as anyone else, but then so did Leo.
She tried to avoid the angel world as much as possible, because nothing freaked her out quite like it.
Having composed herself, Sera left the bathroom and was about to head back to the table when she heard her phone ring. She grabbed it from her purse, assuming it to be a cold caller, and frowned when she saw that it was Andy, the guy she used to work with.
“Andy, hi,” she said as she answered the phone.
She hadn’t expected to ever hear from him again, but then she assumed he’d found out it was her birthday.
“Sera, I…can you…I need help”
The phone was breaking up so she walked over to the front door and stepped outside, hoping that the signal would be better.
“Andy? Are you there?” she asked.
The phone went dead and she only had a moment to worry that something had happened to him before she was grabbed from behind with a hand around her mouth.
* * * *
“Mister Bernard,” Rosa, the lady who owned the restaurant, said as she stopped at their table. “Would you like me to bring the cake out when your friend comes back?”
Henri knew that the cake wouldn’t get eaten tonight, at least not by Sera, but it was now technically her birthday and it had felt right to finish it off the evening with a birthday cake.
“Yes, please, Rosa,” Henri said, smiling at the old woman gratefully.
Once she left, Henri turned back to Leo to find a soft smile on the werewolf’s face.
“This is going to work, isn’t it?” Leo asked. “Me, you, and Sera.”
“Yes, I think so,” Henri said, answering Leo’s smile with one of his own.
“I understand why it’s hard for her to think about what she is and who her parents might be,” Leo said. “We just need to be patient with her. It’s still all pretty new for her.”
Henri was about to agree when he suddenly felt something through his bond with Sera. There was a rush of fear and then nothing.
“What? What’s wrong?” Leo asked.
“I don’t know,” Henri said. He got up from the table, closely followed by Leo. “I felt Sera’s fear, but now I can’t feel her at all.”
Leo scanned the restaurant and visibly sniffed at the air. “She’s not here. She’s gone. Oh God, Henri.”
If Henri’s heart still beat, it would be beating out of his chest. As it was his senses were all on high alert and he felt a pit of dread form in his stomach.
“We’ll find her,” Henri assured Leo. “She can’t have gone far.”
“What if it’s Price? What if he took her?”
Henri grabbed some money from his wallet and tossed it onto the bar as they passed, not stopping to explain to the owners why they were leaving in such a hurry. He followed after Leo until they were outside where Leo once again began sniffing the air.
“That way,” Leo said.
The two of them ran through the street but there were so many people around, Henri didn’t know if Leo could track her over long distances.
“He had to have had help,” Henri said as they ran. “There was a human with him when he showed up at the house, possibly a witch. That’s the only explanation for why I can’t feel her through our bond.”
Leo stopped at a junction, sniffing the air down each way. “She must be in a car or something, I’ve lost her scent. Oh God, Henri, what if something happens to her?”
Henri pulled Leo into a hug. “That won’t happen. We won’t let that happen. I know where Price lives.”
“You think he took her to his house?” Leo asked with renewed hope.
“I don’t know, but if you have to threaten to bite every last vampire there, I promise you we will find out where she is.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“We could just have a little taste,” a man’s voice said from nearby.
Sera came to, feeling like she’d had a night of heavy drinking. Her head was foggy and she desperately needed a drink of water. She stirred a little, but her body felt so heavy that she couldn’t quite open her eyes.
The sound of skin being slapped echoed through her ears.
“No, we couldn’t,” a differe
nt voice said. “We’re to watch her, nothing more. If you can’t control yourself then leave and send someone else in.”
“No, I can. I’m fine,” the first voice said. “She just smells so good.”
Sera blamed it on the brain fog that she only now realised they were talking about her. It was no easy feat but she managed to pry open her eyelids. She was in a room on a bed. The walls were painted white, though they looked aged and grimy, and there was nothing in there but the bed.
“What the hell?” she asked as she sat up.
The strangest thing about the room was that there were no windows, only two doors.
“She’s awake.”
“Where am I?”
There were two men standing guard by one of the doors. Given the conversation they’d just had, Sera was willing to bet they were vampires. She felt a fission of fear go through her body at the implication.
“Look, this won’t end well for you,” she said with false bravado. “I have a vampire and a werewolf who will find me and kill anyone who stands in their way.”
The two men ignored her so Sera kept going.
“I’m bonded to Henri Bernard, maybe you’ve heard of him. He will find me.”
Again, neither of the men acknowledged her.
In a fit of anger, Sera got up from the bed, her legs a little shaky from whatever they had done to knock her out. “Look—”
“Shut up,” one of her guards shouted in her face.
The other guard seemed to take a bit of pity on her, which was something she supposed. “There’s water next to your bed and the bathroom’s through there. Just calm down, okay.”
“Calm down?” she asked. “I’ve been bloody kidnapped.”
The guards went back to ignoring her. She looked around the room, and with some horror, noted that on closer inspection the walls were padded. She felt a bubble of panic swell up inside her. She desperately tried to remember Carolynn’s teachings on meditation and slowed her breathing in an attempt to slow her heart.
Maybe there’s a window in the bathroom, she thought. She knew it was a long shot but she had to at least try and find a way out.
* * * *
Henri banged on the door to Christian Price’s house with such a force that he actually bloodied his knuckles. The skin knitted back together before the door was even opened. It was a toss-up to say who was more pissed off, Henri or Leo.
The door opened and one of Price’s lackeys looked them up and down. Before the man had a chance to say anything, Leo had him pushed up against the wall inside, his hand around the man’s throat.
“Where is he?” Leo growled. “Where’s Price?”
Another vampire came running, having heard the commotion, but Henri quickly stepped inside, grabbed his arm and pushed him face first into the wall.
“Where is Price?” Leo asked again, this time so loud that it came out as a roar. “I won’t ask you again.”
“I’m right here,” Price said as he descended the staircase. “Now would you care to explain why you’re attacking my men?”
Leo released his captive and turned his fury on Price, but Henri stopped him with a hand to the arm.
“Where is she?” Henri asked, his tone low and threatening. “Give her back now and I might let you live.”
Price sighed heavily and leaned against the banister. At least fifteen more people came to join them. They were massively outnumbered.
“I assume you’re talking about your nephilim,” Price said casually. “Well, sorry to disappoint, Henri, but I don’t have her.”
Leo growled again and went to lunge at Price but Henri stopped him.
“Think about it,” Prince continued. “If the girl were to go missing, I’m obviously the first person you’d suspect. If I had taken her, would I be stupid enough to be here now? If I’d taken her, we’d already be on a plane going half way across the world by now.”
What he was saying could make sense, but it could also be a double bluff.
“Or you want to convince us you don’t have her to throw us off the scent,” Leo said through gritted teeth.
“You know, I expected you to be smarter than this, Henri,” Price said. “Your wolf on the other hand—”
His words were cut off by Leo’s loud roar. It had no effect other than to make Price smirk.
“Who else would want the girl?” Price asked, seemingly already knowing the answer. “Who would have the power and the resources to take her away from her bonded and a werewolf? Who would know they wouldn’t be a suspect?
“Eva,” Henri said as the truth of Price’s words dawned on him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
There was a mirror in the bathroom but no windows. Sera looked around the small room for something she could use, but beyond the mirror, toilet, and sink there was nothing. She briefly considered trying to break the mirror to use a shard as a weapon, but then she remembered the vampire from the café and the way he had easily pulled multiple splinters of glass from his body.
“Fuck.”
She rested her head against the cool mirror.
“Think.”
She knew that Leo and Henri would come for her, but who knew how long it would take them or if they’d both make it to her in one piece. The thought of something happening to either of them, especially because of her, made her go cold.
Through her work with Carolynn, Sera had been able to focus her abilities more than she had before. She tried to calm her breathing and concentrate on the two vampires in the other room. Their motives were clear, but she got a sense from one of them that he felt a bit sorry for her. Maybe she could use that against him in some way.
She had also been able to shatter glass objects at will, though it had taken a lot of effort and hours of meditation leading up to it. There weren’t any windows in the other room though, there was nothing she could use.
With a sinking feeling in her gut, she walked back to the bedroom, knowing that she had no choice but to hope Leo and Henri found her.
* * * *
“Henri?” Leo asked.
Henri’s mind was branching off in ten different directions, each travelling at the speed of light. Could Eva really be so arrogant to think she could pull this off? Would she really break a fundamental coven rule? Where would Eva take Sera?
“Henri?” Leo tried again. “He’s lying, right?”
“I don’t know,” Henri finally said. He looked at Price and saw no fear, nothing other than disinterest on the man’s face.
“I’ll be perfectly honest with you,” Price said as he came swaning down the staircase. “I was going to play the long game. I was never going to simply take Sera. I was going to make her want to come to me. Before your wolf interfered and picked her up, my plan was to convince her she would be safer with me.”
Henri mentally catalogued every piece of property he knew Eva owned. She wouldn’t take Sera to her apartment building, that would be the first place Henri would look for her.
“Eva’s the competition,” Price said as he walked over to a desk and pulled out a folder. “There’s nothing I don’t know about her.”
Henri was suddenly filled with hope. “You have spies in her court, don’t you?”
Price simply smirked at him. “I’ll help you find Sera, but I want something in return.”
Henri knew that owing something to a man like Price was never a good idea, but it was worth it to find Sera before something bad happened to her.
“What do you want?” Leo asked.
“I want to come with you, and when the time comes, I get to be the one who kills her,” Price said.
Henri let out a humorless laugh. “Of course, because you can kill her as my proxy, as is my right for how she’s wronged me, without causing trouble for yourself. You also get to take over her coven.”
“Come on, Henri, surely I’m the lesser of two evils,” Price said.
“That remains to be seen,” Henri answered. He looked to Leo to gauge what he was thin
king. All he saw there was blind rage. It was times like this when Henri really couldn’t blame Leo for his dislike of vampires.
“Eva’s bound to have the girl well guarded,” Price pointed out. “I have men at my disposal.”
“I have a pack of werewolves,” Leo countered.
“Yes, I heard about your recent promotion,” Price said. “I have to say, Bale was a thug, I’m not sorry to see him go. Still, your pack is in Kent, are they not? It’ll take them a while to get here and by then…well, who knows what could happen to poor dear Sera.”
Price was right, they didn’t have a choice.
“All right, you have a deal,” Henri said. The wide smile that spread across Price’s face like a Cheshire cat made Henri certain he was going to regret this decision. Still, that was a problem for another time. Right now all that mattered was finding Sera.
“There are two places I think Eva could have taken her,” Price said, suddenly all business. He pulled out some documents from the folder and spread them out on his desk.
“There’s an old psychiatric hospital just outside of London she recently bought with the intention of turning it into flats.”
“What else?” Henri asked.
“An office building on the bank.”
Henri looked at photos of both the buildings. “Do either of them have an underground level? Somewhere without windows?”
Price looked over a few things. “The hospital. Why?”
Leo smiled as he caught on to Henri’s way of thinking. “We told her that Sera was able to shatter glass with her nephilim abilities. She’d want to keep her somewhere without windows.”
Price smiled and picked up the photo of the hospital. “Well then, let’s go get your girl.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sera didn’t know how long she had been in that room but it felt like hours. She was sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her knees drawn up to her chest while she waited for something to happen. What had started off as the best birthday ever had steadily turned into the worst.
Welcome to the Underworld (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) Page 14