Chapter 33
Gray
Millie is gone.
It’s a quarter after five in the evening by the time I wake up.
I roll over, hoping to find her wrapped up in the duvet, but she’s gone.
Panic grips me as I sit up to search the room, listening for any hint of footsteps, something to signal that she’s near.
Nothing. Tearing out of the bed, I find pants and a shirt, slipping them on while I move.
Her scent is strongest beside me, but it lingers in the places she’s passed through.
It’s fading, but I can still smell her; can still see the vision of her scent as a thread in my mind.
I follow it like a trail of crumbs through Tannis’s hallways.
Millie was quick and sure-footed when she left.
Not one step out of line as her scent leads me downstairs.
The trail ends as I make my way into the kitchen, but there is no sign of Millie.
She’s gone. For a silent moment, I stand there alone as sunlight peeks in through the windows.
A pink sky with splashes of purple snuff out its harsh and harmful shafts of light.
I can feel the evening sun tingle against my skin, but it does nothing to rouse me from my own wonderings at where Millie might have run off to.
“Good evening!” Tannis announces loudly, strolling into the kitchen with a half-dressed mortal man in tow. “You’re up early.”
“Millie is missing,” I say, turning to them.
“Missing?” Tannis stops beside a coffee pot, which is full and made fresh. The mortal man beside Tannis takes a cup from the cabinet above the machine and pours himself some.
“I woke up, and she was gone.” The gravity of the situation doesn’t seem to sink in right away.
“Where did she go?” Tannis asks.
Frustration takes over my calm as I snap, “I don’t know.”
Tannis gives me a hard look when the man beside him nudges their arm. He holds out a slip of paper for Tannis. My cousin takes it and skims the message written on it.
“Here.” Tannis rolls their eyes dramatically as they wave the paper at me. “She left a note.”
I surge forward and snatch it. In a hurried message, she wrote: Heading to the club. Dax asked to see me. See you tonight!
If I had any breath left in my lungs, I would have sucked in the last bit of her scent, along with all of the air left in the room.
She left to see Dax? So early? I know she works most nights, but she didn’t tell me she was going in at all before she fell asleep.
It should ease me to know where she is, but the timing doesn’t sit right in my gut.
What reason could she have for sneaking out?
A few ideas come to mind, but none of them make sense, except for one.
It wasn’t so long ago that I overheard their conversation at the boutique.
If I remember correctly, Jill knows Dax, which means she and her sister might have fled to String Theory.
I set the note on the table and face Tannis.
Their mouth is working on the wrist of the human man, who is sipping their coffee, unbothered by the vampire latched to his arm.
“I need to borrow a car.”
Tannis groans as they pull away from the human. Red paints the inside of their mouth as they lick up a stray drop from their lips. The sight and smell of the man’s blood are enough to make me hungry, too, but I tamp down the need to feed and refocus.
“Are you going to defile it?” Tannis asks.
“This is serious,” I say. Something feels off. I don’t like that she left without giving me any kind of warning. Dante is still out there, and he’s made it very well known to all of us just how much he doesn’t want her around.
Not just him, I think, recalling my own error. Her stalker never died. Rather, he never stayed dead.
“So am I.” Tannis presses their lips together and leans against the counter. “My cars are expensive, and the cost of detailing? Astronomical. Not that I don’t have the money, mind you, but it’s wasteful.”
“Tannis,” I warn. If my heart was still beating, it would be pounding in my chest.
My cousin narrows their eyes and points a finger in my direction. “Don’t start with me.”
Worry wins out over my temper. I hold up both hands before me and bow my head. “No more sex in the car.”
“Good boy,” Tannis says. “We can take the Veneno. It’s one of my fastest cars.”
“We?” I ask, blinking.
“Yes, we,” they say, giving their companion a peck on the cheek. The man smiles and walks away, disappearing from the kitchen with their coffee still in hand. “No one drives the Veneno but me.”
The man returns a minute later with a set of keys and a shirt for Tannis.
They thank him and he retreats again. My cousin jangles the keys at me and leads us out of the kitchen.
In the garage, the lights flicker on, and while the smell of manufactured metal is strong here, I can still scent a glimmer of Millie.
“What was the point of all that back there?” I press Tannis, annoyed by their games.
“A lesson in humility,” Tannis says, stopping beside a sleek black car. “Now get in.”
I shake off my annoyance and climb into the Veneno. As the engine revs up, the garage doors open. Despite the darkness, white lights lining the driveway guide our way. Tannis puts the car in drive and pulls out slowly.
“To the club?” my cousin asks as they clear the drive.
“Yes,” I say, and the second the wheels hit the road, they hit the gas. Tannis wasn’t wrong about it being fast. While smooth, I can tell we’re going at a thrilling speed.
Good. The faster we get there, the better, I think, hoping to stave off my worry.
I want to believe that she’s fine, and that all she’s doing is meeting with Dax to talk about Jill.
It was bothering her to be at odds with her friend, but there would be a time and a place to make things right.
Still, I knew Millie. She attracts trouble the way a flower attracts bees.
“By the way,” Tannis starts, drawing my attention back to the moment, “I found the solution to your problem.”
“What problem?”
The one corner of Tannis’s mouth that I can see turns up. “You know, enthralling Millie. I have your solution.”
“This again?” I can’t help but feel my anger. “I don’t want a solution to a problem I don’t plan on having.”
“Even if it’s a witch?” Tannis counters. “I’ll understand if it’s a no, given your recent encounter with one.”
He isn’t wrong. I’m already tired of the word, and I’ve only met one. “Another witch?”
“Probably the most powerful one in the area,” they say. “She owes me a favor.”
“What could a witch know about a vampire’s thrall?
” I scoff, looking out the window at the lights streaking by.
It does little to soothe my growing anxiety.
Nerves are complicated enough without complex emotions, and Millie has me feeling everything new for the first time in a hundred years.
Hunger I can control, but this? My body is itching in the worst way.
“Plenty,” Tannis says confidently. “Witches have magic beyond our comprehension.”
“Like what?”
“She promises me that she can protect Millie’s precious little head,” Tannis says, and I almost can’t believe it. “All the benefits of being your thrall, with none of the icky downsides.”
For a moment, I consider it. While I am vehemently against enthralling Millie to me, Dante’s vindictiveness makes me question if I can protect her myself. Learning how to fight and defend herself from Tannis isn’t enough, not when everything about her is mortal.
Maybe… maybe it isn’t such a bad idea.
My logic is interrupted the second we pull into the parking lot of the String Theory. For the moment, I forget all about Tannis and their witch. Something different draws my attention, and I’m out of the car before it’s even parked.
“Wait!” I hear Tannis call out, but I can’t stop my feet from moving.
I smell blood… Millie’s blood.
Millie
I’m an idiot for thinking Steven’s ten second head start was an advantage.
One minute I’m running, and the next, I’m bowling through cocktail rounds and knocking over furniture with my body.
I made it to the dancefloor, right where the bar is, but I didn’t get any farther than that before he made me into a ragdoll.
I do everything I can to protect my head and other parts of me, but fuck does it hurt.
The wind rushes out of my lungs, and I try desperately to catch my breath.
“What’s wrong? You ran so much faster the first time.” Steven picks me up with ease and sets me on my feet again, but I can barely stand upright. He looks disappointed, which is kind of twisted given the situation.
“Sorry, forgot my heels tonight,” I choke out. I really need to learn how to keep my mouth shut in moments like this.
“Feisty.” He licks his lips.
“Fuck… you.” My voice catches on the last breath, but the intention is there. If he’s trying to rattle me, he won’t get shit.
“Run,” Steven demands. “Faster.”
I stumble forward and pick up my feet, pushing through the blistering pain I feel in my back and hips.
I run toward the bar and slip on the floor behind it, which happens to save my life, otherwise my head would have hit the bar counter before I had a chance.
When I get to my feet, Steven is pulling his fist out of the splintered wood surface.
His eyes find mine, and he stalks forward with measured steps. .
I grab for a bottle of Hennessy on the nearby shelf and slam it down against the counter. It shatters into brilliant shards of glass, leaving behind a jagged end that I hold up and point against him.
“Whatcha gonna do with that, baby?” He tilts his head, taunting, as he nods toward the bottle.
“Come at me again and find out for yourself.”