Chapter 59
fifty-nine
CILLIAN
My Alpha has only woken me from a deep sleep twice.
Once, the night Rhys and Dane were trapped in the fire. And again, the night Briar found out she was our mate and had a panic attack in the shower.
So I already know, when my eyes suddenly fly open, that something has happened.
Something is wrong.
Dane jolts upright the second I leap out of our bed. He sees my face, glances at the small space where our omega should be, and flicks his hand out, knocking Rhys’s shoulder.
“Wake up,” he grunts, rubbing his eyes. “Briar moved into the nest.”
I don’t know how, but my certainty is deep and immediate. “No,” I rough out, grabbing the nearest pair of sweats off our omega’s reading chair. “She isn’t here.”
Rhys lurches to attention, his aqua eyes bleary but wild. “What do you mean she’s not here?”
He’s asking if I mean the room, the house, or the property. I don’t have an answer, other than shaking my head and stalking out of the room.
Dane stays behind me, the quiet snick of his gun’s safety the only indication he’s there. Rhys runs ahead, calling Briar’s name.
An instinctive swell of dread grows in my stomach, raising the fine hairs on my nape. Our security guards should have come to investigate the noise by now—unless they’re gone.
Or dead.
They’ve been tranquilized, I discover, when I find one of my hand-selected guards face down on the second-floor landing. There’s another, passed out in the foyer. Which means I’ll probably find two more at their posts beyond the front door.
Fuck.
Briar would have seen them if she had come this way. She would have known to run back to us. Which means she probably took the staircase by my bedroom. To the kitchen.
Dane is several steps ahead of me, pivoting and bolting for the hidden stairwell. Rhys shouts up from the first floor. “IN HERE!”
Goddamn it. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
For half a second, I’m sure we’ll round the corner and discover my worst fear. Briar, cold and gray, with her gorgeous green eyes gazing sightlessly into the distance. Surrounded by blood as red as the petals that inspired her nickname.
But my recurring nightmare isn’t there. Nothing is.
Except for an open back door.
And a single ruby rose.