Chapter Thirteen
Fenrir sighed when he finally hung up the phone.
What should have been a five-minute phone call with the plant manager to confirm a number of orders to be filled over the next week ended up being a forty-five-minute conference call with half the upper management discussing plans for the rest of the year.
“That incompetent fool has got to go,” he muttered as he added a note to the list of things he would deal with after summer hibernation concluded.
For now, he had a mate to join and a solstice night party to enjoy. Flipping off the lights, he left his office and found Beck and Bjorn in the living room watching a baseball game. As soon as he stepped into the room, Beck turned off the television and both men rose and snapped to attention.
Without a word, the two men followed him into the elevator. While he moved to the back of the elevator, they took their places in front of him. After Beck touched a button on the panel they quickly descended to the ballroom.
Stepping out into the lobby area, Fenrir’s nose twitched as the faint scent of his mate teased him. They stopped just outside the ballroom for a moment before joining the party.
The two men moved to the double doors and waited. For some reason, he was feeling anxious and in need of his mate’s gentle touch. Nodding, they pulled the doors open and he entered the ballroom. He had not taken two steps into the room when the music stopped.
Vincent’s voice then came over the sound system. “Join me in welcoming the Konungur, King of the North tribe.”
The crowd parted and heads bowed throughout the room.
This greeting had become a nightly ritual that Fenrir was tired of but put up with.
He knew the pomp and circumstance was part of his life as king just as it had been for the past two hundred years.
Even if his kingdom was only one building and not a large chunk of land.
He crossed the room at a steady pace and only when he got near the bar did he wave a hand at Vincent, who spoke to the DJ.
A moment later, the music began again. Summer’s best friend and landlord had become a valued member of the entertainment staff and had brought a new energy to each evening’s events.
Sweeping his gaze from one end of the bar to the other, Fenrir frowned.
Summer was not behind the bar where she was supposed to be.
Looking at the end of the bar where Liam normally stood guard, his frown deepened when his best friend was missing as well.
He looked at Beck who looked as confused as he felt.
“Call Liam and find out where they are.”
Beck stepped away as he lifted his phone to his ear.
Fenrir turned and scanned the crowd, reaching out to Summer, but could not feel her through the thin connection they’d built by exchanging blood and seed but not building their own circle of life.
Turning back, he watched Beck make a second call, and then a third before he pocketed his phone and turned to face Fenrir again.
“Liam’s not answering, Konungr.”
Turning to the bar, Fenrir waved to the head bartender who hurried over. “Where’s Summer?” he asked.
Joey looked around and then glanced at his watch before answering. “I sent her for a case of whiskey about ten minutes ago and she hasn’t returned. I figured she was just taking a break since it’s been pretty crazy. Liam went with her, so I didn’t think about why she hadn’t returned.”
Beck’s phone blasted a siren, which he answered immediately. “Is he all right? Where’s the Drottning? Well, find her.”
“What’s happened?” Fenrir growled as he once again reached out, trying to telepathically connect with Summer. Usually he could at least read her emotions, even if they couldn’t communicate. But there was nothing. He could not feel her energy, which was unusual. What the fuck was going on?
Beck hung up and pulled him close, speaking softly in his ear. “Bjorn found Liam unconscious outside the women’s locker room near the kitchen. He’d been hit by something big and heavy. When Bjorn checked the restroom, there was no sign of Summer. The Drottning is missing.”
Fenrir closed his eyes and took a deep breath, fighting down an overwhelming urge to shift. If he gave into his basic instinct, there could be a lot of dead humans and paranormals as he raged. And losing control would not do his mate any good.
The other half of his soul was missing. She had to be somewhere in the building, but where? There were a lot of rooms in the forty-story building to check.
Then his thoughts turned to the question of who was responsible for taking her. And why. Whoever it was, they would be dead as soon as he found them. After they found Summer.
“Find her, Beck.”
“Of course, Konungr. In the meantime, I think you should return to the penthouse. It will be easier to protect you there.”
A shiver raced through Fenrir. There was no way he was going back upstairs to wait while his men tried to find his mate. “No. I am the only one who has a chance of tracking her.”
He moved toward the door that led to the kitchen and locker room where his mate had been last seen. Though they had not exchanged fluids simultaneously and completed their mating, he had taken a drop of her blood into his body each night, and filled her with his seed.
They were connected.
He should be able to track her thanks to those drops of blood. He should be able to follow her scent, even with the hundreds of others filling the ballroom. Once they were out of the ballroom, he paused in the hallway and stripped.
Beck accepted his clothing and draped them over one arm. The guard looked away until Fenrir shifted into his big wolf form. Sniffing the air, Fenrir took off down the hall towards the locker room. That was where his search would begin.
Liam was sitting against the wall just outside the women’s locker room, holding his head and looking rattled when Fenrir and Beck arrived.
Bjorn was standing over him, talking on his smartwatch and looking like he was about to go into one of the berserker rages he was well known for.
It made him one of his best warriors, but was not helpful in situations that needed calm, cool thinking.
Standing in front of the locker room door, Fenrir scratched at the door, demanding entrance. He waited none too patiently for Beck to push the door open.
Entering, Fenrir trotted into the room, breathing deeply. He circled the room, tracing Summer’s sweet scent to where it was the strongest. He circled the room, pausing in front of and then entering the restroom stall she’d used.
Stepping back, he then followed the trail to the sink where her sweet aroma altered. The sour scent of fear overlaid it. Stepping back from the sink, he noted that her scent mixed with that of two other masculine ones he did not recognize. Strangers had entered his building and taken his mate.
He followed the combined scent out of the restroom and down the hall just outside the ballroom to the elevator bank.
Pacing back and forth in front of the three elevators, he stopped and scratched at the door to one on the left.
Looking over his shoulder, he met Beck’s gaze and made a growly grumbling sound before turning back at the door.
Only when he looked at his guard a second time did Beck hit the call button.
The other two elevators opened in seconds, but it took several minutes before the one his mate had disappeared into finally opened.
Stepping inside, he looked at his friend and nodded.
Beck and two other guards stepped into the elevator behind him.
The guards held a brief conversation before Beck hit every button on the panel. A moment later, the elevator began to rise.
At each floor, the doors opened and Fenrir stepped out of the elevator in his wolf form. He breathed deep as he circled the area. But on each floor there was no trace of his mate’s scent, so he would return to the elevator and impatiently wait for the doors to open again.
When they reached the floor just below the penthouse and there was still no sign of her, Fenrir returned to the elevator with a sad whine. She could not have disappeared with no trace.
“The basement,” Beck said as he hit one last button. Fenrir walked in circles as the box descended, not stopping until they reached the lowest level of the building.
As soon as the door opened, Fenrir stepped out and growled before taking off down the hallway to the left.
The scent grew stronger as he followed it down the hall to a utility room near the end.
This was where the trash was collected into dumpsters from a trash shoot that ran vertically through the building.
He circled the room, but the scent ended at the lift that raised the dumpsters out of the basement onto the sidewalk where they were picked up and hauled away by the city. Looking at Beck, he whined again and circled on the lift.
“Raise the lift. She’s been taken out of the building,” Beck ordered before he and a second guard joined him.
In the next moment, the lift began to rise. As soon as they were outside the building, Fenrir circled and picked up her trail once again. Whoever had her had carried her down the sidewalk. How had they not been seen by the humans while carrying an unconscious woman down the street?