Chapter Twelve
“I’m going downstairs,” Summer whispered from the doorway of Fenrir’s office. “Vincent called and the bartenders are slammed and they need me.”
The phone call Fenrir was on had something to do with the tribe’s many businesses, so she didn’t want to take up too much of his time, but she also did not want him to worry about where she was.
A few days earlier she’d left to go down to the coffee shop to pick up a chai latte and Fenrir had nearly torn the penthouse apart before she’d returned.
After a lengthy scolding, she’d promised never to leave the penthouse without telling him where she was going . .. or take one of the guards with her.
“Come give me a kiss,” he said after hitting the mute button on the desk phone. “And take Liam with you.”
She crossed to his side and dropped a kiss on his lips. But what was meant to be a quick kiss quickly turned into much, much more. She was left breathless and staggering back across the room.
“I’ll be down as soon as I can finish this damn meeting.”
“Yes, Konungr,” she snarked before leaving him to his phone call.
It had been a week since he’d claimed her as his mate and Summer could barely remember life before meeting her vampire-wolf shifter hybrid.
Crossing the living room, she shook her head at the two men lounging on the couch watching a baseball game. “Come along, Liam. You’re on bar duty tonight.”
Though both men were equally talented in the self-defense protective arts, Fenrir always had Liam shadow her when she left the penthouse alone.
Bjorn would be called to replace him as the king’s second guard.
The argument was that Liam would be more responsible than Beck when it came to her protection.
Liam waited until they were in the elevator before he spoke. “About the rules...”
“Don’t leave your sight. Don’t join the party.
Stay behind the bar and be ready to duck if anything exciting happens.
No testing the drinks until Fenrir joins us.
Follow any and all orders immediately and without question.
” Lifting her right hand, she crossed her chest. “I swear to follow all the rules and stay out of trouble until Fenrir can join us. Is that good enough?”
Liam smirked and shook his head as the elevator stopped at the ballroom level. “Yes, Drottning min.”
“Good. Now let’s go. Vincent said the bar is going crazy and they need me to help out for a while.”
“Of course the bar is going crazy. It’s solstice night,” Liam said just before stepping out of the elevator.
Summer followed closely behind him, grateful for his big, broad presence in the room full of people who were still mostly strangers to her.
They entered the ballroom filled wall to wall with bodies dancing to rock and roll music from the eighties and Liam did not pause.
He marched straight across the large room after giving a loud growl.
Within a few steps, a wide path opened for them all the way across the room to the bar.
Though she was now their queen, Summer kept her eyes glued to Liam’s back.
No use in stirring up trouble without Fenrir beside her to keep the peace.
He rounded to the end of the bar, and once she ducked under and was safe behind it, he took up his position, his expression passive as he watched the crowd closest to the bar.
“Where do you want me?” Summer asked Joey, the head bartender.
“If you could pull beers and maybe work as barback, that would be great,” the man said, his hands never stopping from pouring whiskey in a half dozen shot glasses he’d set up on a tray.
“Just beer and whiskey tonight?” she asked as she grabbed a dishwasher tray of beer mugs and set it close to the taps nearest where Liam was standing.
“Yes. With everyone in the building here tonight we keep it simple. Oh, we also set up all the taps to the same beer so they don’t have a choice. It will also keep us from having to change kegs too often.”
“Got it.”
Taking a deep breath, Summer began pulling beers and handing them across the bar to whoever stood there. When the crowd thinned a bit, she looked around and approached Joey again.
Seeing the trays of dirty glasses were filling up quickly, she picked up the top one and carried it to the kitchen with Liam trailing along behind her. She was thankful she didn’t have to wash the dishes, just exchanged them with the dishwasher for a tray of clean ones.
After her third trip, Joey grabbed her arm and leaned close so she could hear him. “Can you go to the storeroom and bring up another case of whiskey from the stack to the left of the door?”
After glancing at the bottle in his hand, she nodded. “Be right back.”
She thought about sending Liam but knew better from past experience. He would not move more than six feet away from her and would refuse to carry anything. He needed his hands free to be an effective bodyguard.
Slipping out from behind the bar, she walked past Liam and headed to the door that led to the kitchen, storeroom, and other behind the scenes areas. Once they were out of the ballroom, the noise level dropped dramatically enough that she could talk without yelling.
“I need to use the ladies’ room,” she said, pushing him past the storeroom and down the hall to where the locker rooms for the kitchen staff were located.
Liam grunted as he led the way. He opened the door and stuck his head in, taking a quick look around before stepping back and allowing her to enter.
Summer used the facility and was washing her hands when she heard the door open.
“Who the fuck are you?” Summer asked when two men walked into the women’s locker room.
They were big and built, like every man she’d seen since entering the building the week before.
They also looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place them.
Instead of looking at her with awe or a friendly countenance, they stared at her with menace in their expression that she’d only encountered once before—when she’d been mugged the previous year.
Where was Liam? was her next thought. She’d left him standing guard so she could have a few minutes alone to do her business and try to collect herself before returning to the bar.
She stared in the mirror as the two men rushed across the room without saying a word. It was as if they’d planned their actions well in advance.
As they approached, the wild thought that these were the same ones that had herded her from The Gin Room to this building the week before crossed her mind. Fenrir had his security team looking for those men, but with so little to go on, they’d not had any luck.
Though she doubted anyone would hear her, Summer pulled in a deep breath and screamed as loud as she could.
Since the sound hurt her ears as it bounced around the room, she knew it had to be doing major damage to the shifters’ more sensitive hearing.
As she screamed, she studied the two men in the mirror, determined to remember them so she could describe them to Fenrir later.
She smirked at their reactions until the one on the left smacked the back of her head. “Stop that,” he growled when she ran out of air and began pulling in more air.
Before she could object, the one who’d smacked her then grabbed her arms and held her steady. The other one stepped behind her and a moment later, something sharp pricked her neck.
“Oh, shit,” she murmured as her body seemed to disconnect from her brain.
She didn’t pass out but could not move her body. Her muscles would not react to any orders her brain sent. At least her body continued breathing and pumping blood.
Forcing her eyes to remain open, she watched as the bigger of the two lifted her over his shoulder and carried her from the restroom. Her head flopped to the side, allowing her to see Liam lying on the floor, unconscious, with blood pooling around his head.
As they carried her to the bank of elevators, she admitted with amazement that she was not completely freaking out. After all, they were kidnapping her, though she had no idea why.
To hurt Fenrir?
To cause a rift between Fenrir and his tribe?
Or was their intention even darker?
The man carried her down an empty hall that ran down the outside of the ballroom. She tried to scream when they reached the elevators just outside the ballroom, but nothing emerged. A moment later, the tone sounded to announce the arrival of an elevator and the two men stepped inside.
When the doors slid shut and the elevator began to move, she tried to see where they were taking her, but the way her head rested against the man’s back, and the wall angles kept her from seeing anything helpful.
The two men remained eerily silent, causing her fear to explode in her like bread dough with too much yeast. As it grew and grew, tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision. She hoped Fenrir found her quickly because she had a feeling if he didn’t, she might not live to see the dawn.