His brother stopped on his threshold. Black eyes full of wrath, blond hair gleaming in the candlelight, Noble glared at him. “I don’t believe this shit. Dillinger’s out of control.”
Rathbone’s lips twitched. “He didn’t hurt her.”
“He—”
“Knocked the wind out of her, but softened her fall with a cushioning spell,” he said, pointing out the facts, keeping it real, ensuring Noble didn’t rewrite history. Protective by nature, more sensitive than most, Noble disliked hurting women. Normally, Rathbone did too, but desperate times called for different methods. His enemies were cunning and brutal, so he must be too. “Not a single bruise on her.”
“He zapped her with a mini-thunderbolt.”
“Tit for tat, brother,” he said, trying not to grimace. Dillinger had been a little rough for his liking. “She hit him with a wrench.”
Noble grunted.
The sound signaled surrender, and the end of the argument. Dillinger might lack social graces, but his reaction had been instinctual. Muscle memory more than anything else. You hit one of them, they always struck back.
Yanking his tie from around his throat, he flicked his hand. Black silk landed on the desktop with a hiss. “You have any trouble locking her down?”
Noble shook his head. “She’s still out. Probably will be for a while. I put her in the Emerald Room.”
Pretty suite at the back of the house.
Impenetrable cloaking spell surrounding it.
Only one way in. No way out… unless he or his brothers permitted it.
A good choice, given the hotel was booked solid. He didn’t need his guests stumbling onto his hostage, or figuring out the brothers who owned Habersham House weren’t what anyone expected—immortals with one foot in the human world and one firmly planted in their own.
“Where’s Dillinger now?”
“Sharpening his knives.”
“Good,” he murmured, watching Noble move farther into the room.
Air rippled. The temperature dropped, swirling into arctic chill, making candle flames flicker and dance. Dressed in faded jeans and a Def Leppard T-shirt, Noble skirted the back of the couch, then took a hard right, walking away from the ornate wood-paneled walls into the center of the study. His bare feet whispered over expensive Turkish rugs. Quiet expanded as he made the trip, striding beneath burnished copper ceilings to reach his end of the room.
He let the silence stretch. No sense yanking his brother’s chain. Noble wasn’t shy. If he had a problem with the way Rathbone handled things, he’d make it known. And do it fast.
Expression set in hard lines, Noble stopped walking. He stood on the other side of the desk a second, black gaze drilling into his, then did the usual and unloaded his six-foot-six, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound frame on the armchair across from him.
Leather groaned in protest.
Rathbone eyeballed the antique frame, wondering when it might give out. Any day now, given Noble’s size. “The best place for Dillinger to be right now is the armory. It’ll calm him down.”
“I know. The whole reason I didn’t get in his grill about the girl.” Stretching out his legs, Noble crossed his feet at the ankles. “You really going to let him question her?”
“Dillinger’s not getting anywhere near her.”
“Then what?”
“She’s bait, Noble. A way to draw her father out.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I, but that asshole double-crossed us. We can’t go where he went. She’s the key to smoking him out.”
Noble grumbled something under his breath.
He raised a brow. “You got a better way to get the TriHexe back?”
Leaning forward, his brother planted his forearms on the tops of his knees. Fingers laced between his legs, he shook his head. “Shouldn’t be this difficult. No way should a human be welcome there.”
“I know.”
“So kidnapping a girl’s the only play we’ve got?” Black eyes full of unease met his. “Seriously?”
Picking up Biscayne’s cell phone, Rathbone stared at the cracked screen. He swiped the pad of his thumb over the damage. Uneven ridges pricked his skin as the Samsung lit up. Rathbone barely noticed. His mind was elsewhere, inside the auto-body shop, replaying the scene inside his head. Recall provided more details, things he’d missed the first time around. He’d picked up on her conversation when he exited the car—the sound of her voice, the panic in her tone, the words she spoke before Dillinger engaged and it all went to shit.
His eyes narrowed.
She’d been talking to a man. Someone powerful. Someone other. Someone who might be able to go where Rathbone and his brothers couldn’t.
An intriguing idea. Perhaps the solution to his problem.
The guy on the phone valued the girl. The promise he made, the urgency in his voice coming over the line, spoke volumes. The mystery man would want Cate back unharmed… as quickly as possible, no doubt the second he arrived in the city, which gave Rathbone more options. His plan still might work. Maybe a new deal could be struck—Cate’s safe return for the TriHexe. Simple exchange. But not with her father.
Noble tipped his chin. “What’re you thinking?”
Rathbone didn’t answer. He moved his thumb over the Samsung instead. A lock screen with a passcode appeared. He murmured a familiar spell. Biscayne’s cell phone unlocked. Easy as pie. No match for the power thrumming through his veins. His mouth curved as he tapped on the phone app, then scrolled to the last number called. Time to see whom Cate had been talking to, and just what the monster he sensed lurking beneath the mystery man’s surface could do.
6
SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
T-minus fifty-two minutes
Sitting in the cockpit of the private jet, Rannock tried not to think about Cate. About where she was, what was happening to her, or the bastards who’d taken her. Hard to do. His mind kept wandering, taunting him with worst-case scenarios, preparing him for the fact she might already be dead.
Gone before he got the chance the meet her.
Or touch her.
Or claim her, like he suspected he should’ve done the instant he heard her voice. A month wasted. Days, hours, and minutes never to be reclaimed with his maybe-mate. A female more precious than the breath in his lungs.
The thought tortured him, gouging deep, digging into mental spaces best left undisturbed. Clenching his teeth, he redoubled his efforts. Distraction. He needed a distraction, before he lost all sense of himself and his dragon half went insane.
Focusing on the small cockpit, he allowed his gaze to travel. Blackened by a darkening spell, magic rippled across the small windows, pooling against metal frames, protecting him from the sun. Unable to see the sky, Rannock changed tact. His gaze traveled over the instrument panel. He re-checked the gauges, monitoring altitude and wind speed, counting down the minutes until he landed on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
He’d never visited North America.
Had never wanted to, either.
But with Cate in danger, and his dragon half rampaging, Rannock ignored his wants in favor of Cate’s needs, fighting to stay even as he piloted the plane, flying over the Atlantic for the first time in his life. He hoped the trip was his last, but…