The Faerie Master (Aaron's Kiss Series) (23 page)

The dining area had nine booths around the outside of it.
Black and red leather seats and red and black Formica table tops looked worn and soft.
The stools around the bar were alternating red and black too.
Each booth had a straw container, glass salt and pepper shakers, and catsup when they were open.
Black and white tile floors were bright and shiny even in the dim early afternoon sun.
Cade smiled as she drank her pop.
She loved this place.

When she was finished drinking she went to the cash register and lifted it up.
Under it was an envelope with her cash in it and her check from Gabe.
With the check she had just under five grand.
Not a lot in the world of vampires, she knew, but it was all she had.
Stuffing the envelope in the waistband of her jeans she went to the back door and slipped out.
She was just locking the door when she felt someone close.
The tingle at the back of her neck signaled that someone with magic, she knew what it was now, was close by.

She was just turning around when Gabriel in wolf form was standing behind her.
And beyond him were several more wolves.
All of them large and several of them with foam dripping from their muzzles.
She clutched the keys in her hand wishing with all her might that she could start the day over and stay in the warm bright kitchen with Duncan until Shawn woke up and brought her into town like he said he would.
His shift to human form frightened her; his nude body hard and aroused terrified her more.

“Hello Cade, my dear.
I think you’ve been avoiding me.
I told you that you would never be rid of me the last time you tried to run.
You belong to me.”
He burrowed his nose at her neck and nipped.
Not to draw blood, but to scare her.
“Now, come along nicely and I won’t have to have these animals behind me tear you to pieces.
I don’t care if they hurt you, Cade. It’s not your body I need, but your mind.
Come along nicely and I’ll let that stupid brother of yours live a bit longer.
Well, long enough to tell you how he killed your mother and took you at any rate.”

“My mother?
I don’t understand.
Garrett killed my mother?
You lie, Gabe.
You’d do anything to make me do—”

Gabriel hit her hard.
She felt the blood spurt from her mouth and lip and run down her neck.
Her back slammed against the wall as a car roared into the parking lot in front of her.

“I don’t lie.
I may be a lot of things, but never a liar.
Now get in the fucking car, Cade, before I lose my temper.
I’ve had enough of this and I want my money.
Why you came to this fucking Podunk town is beyond me.”
Gabriel dragged her to the back of a large, dark sedan.
She was thrown in the back and hit her head again.
“When we get to my lair you will do as you’re told.
I’m not going to put up with any
more shit from you.
But for now I need quiet.”

The rag covered her face before she could move.
Cade could smell the sweet smell seconds before she began to drift.
Chloroform.
He was drugging her with chloroform.
She thought about Shawn just before she was out.
He was going to be so pissed when he found her.

~CHAPTER 16~

“Oh Master, I did tell her to stay.
She was quite determined to leave.
I had thought to take her into town with the car, but she said that I had become a cave dweller and that she would hurt me if I t
r
ied.
I did not wish to be hurt and I was aware that Master Shawn took her wheels off of her transportation.”

Shawn didn’t want to take Cade being gone out on Duncan.
When Duncan had banged on his door shortly after one o’clock this afternoon Shawn had been in a deep sleep.
It had taken him a few minutes to wake up and focus on what Duncan had been saying.

“Lady Cade, she is missing, sire.
I have looked everywhere I can think trying to locate her whereabouts, but I have not had any luck.
I fear something may have happened to her.
I did not have her cell phone number to reach her.
I do hope I was correct in waking you, sire.”

“Of course, Duncan.
Anything that Cade does, you have my permission to wake me.
She does tend to get herself into trouble.
Let’s go and see if we can find her.”

That had been two hours ago, still hours before sunset.
Shawn knew the real reason she had left was because of him.
He paced the large dining room again.
Of course that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to beat her ass when he found her.
Right after he made love to her
,
that was.

“Did she say where she might be going?
Was she really upset when she left?”
When Aaron raised his brow at him again Shawn tried to temper his tone.

“No, Master Shawn, she did not.
When she did not return to the kitchen immediately I had thought she was trying to put the bike back to its original state with tires.
I knew that you had taken the screw things with you to the lair and as I did not see her with them I assumed, quite wrongly it would seem, that she wouldn’t be able to leave.
She was quite upset when she walked out.
I thought she would be working off some of her mist for awhile.”

Shawn looked at Aaron.
Mist?
Aaron shrugged gently and turned to Duncan.
The poor man was spraying some sort of cleaning stuff over and over on the counter then wiping it away only to do it again. Shawn was sure he was going to wear a place in the heavily-tiled area.

“Steam,” Aaron said to Shawn before continuing.
“Duncan, what were the two of you talking about before she went outside.
Think about it carefully.
You said she was upset, about what, do you remember?”

“Yes. Now I remember.
She did say that I was not to become a cave dweller. I believe that’s what she said, Master Shawn.”
Duncan sat at the table, pulled out a small bag, and dumped its contents on the table.
Six golden spoons poured out.
From another pocket he produced a rag and began wiping the spoons with it.
“Lady Cade asked to borrow a car, something to go to...I can’t remember, sire.
She said that if you asked that I was to tell you she made me let her go, that she was forceful.
I do believe her to be much stronger than one thinks.
She is—the diner!
She said that she needed to go to the diner and would return soon.”

Shawn sat down. He reached for her mentally again and hit a wall.
He didn’t feel anything from her.
Not death, just a void. The diner, why would she be going to the diner today?
As far as he knew the owner, Paul, was still at the pack house with his family.
Cade was getting something then. “The check that Pete asked her for.
Cade probably went there to get it.
She was pissed because I ordered her to stay here and she left to get it on her own.
We have to go and see if she’s there.”

Shawn went to the door and stopped.
It was full daylight.
He couldn’t leave yet.
He turned back to Aaron.
Before Shawn could say anything Aaron pulled out his cell and called Bradley.

“One of mine is missing.
I think she may be at the diner where the human you rescued the other day was at... Thank you, yes.
Could I ask a favor of you?
Could you send someone there to see if they can find her? I don’t believe so.
Though that’s a thought. I will ask him when I get off from here... You have my thanks.”
Aaron closed his phone.
“Bradley said that he himself will go.
He’s wondering if the wolves that attacked had anything to do with you, or do you think that they came with this Gabriel person?”

“I don’t know any wolves.
Well, not really.
There were a few stragglers that would come around to do some dirty work for Ferris, but nothing permanent.
I can’t think of anyone that would be stupid enough to cross me.
I do have my moments and
,
sometimes, I tend to frighten some people.”

Shawn reached again.
This time he had a touch, brief, but a touch.
When he tried to dig in deeper the void moved into his mind.
She was alive and afraid.
He could feel her moment of fear as though it were his own.

“I touched her just now.
Wherever she is, she’s afraid.
I sense a pack, mostly wolves I think, though there are others—a panther and a bear for sure.
Others, too.
None are so big or as hungry as the pack.”

“I’ll let Bradley know when he calls.
I’m also bringing Mel here.
If Cade is faerie then Mel might be able to locate her quicker than we can.
She said that she is coming.”

“I’m here.
I have her mother’s things as well.
There is something else.
Cade is a Lesser Faerie
,
but she is also a Golden Faerie.
Her mother, Jasmine, was one so
,
as her birthright, Cade is one.
Dad said that she would have a tattoo on her somewhere to mark her.” A huge white and gold box appeared on the floor beside her.
“There would be a faerie as her sigil, a
s
golden as her birthright.
 
Her father, Vladimir Michaels, also known as Lord Atwell, is still alive.
He has been located and is at the castle.
I thought I’d let you know before I sent him here.”

“Can you find her?
I mean, do you have a way of locating her?
When I reach I get nothing.”
The brief touch made Shawn feel hope, but he was still terrified for her.

“While I can’t pinpoint her exactly I can give you an idea.
Finding her for you is against our laws.
The Fates are not happy when you try to adjust what they have set forth.
I can tell you that where she is there is magic, black as the deepest hole.”

Shawn began to pace.
What he really wanted to do was to rant and rave.
He wanted to howl at the moon and scream at the injustice of it all.
Hunger boiled in his belly. Not for blood, at least not to feed, but to hurt, to avenge, and to kill.

~~~

Cade woke to a dark room.
Not just dark, but pitch black.
Reaching out she could feel someone in the room with her and then realized it was Garrett.
When she tried to move she realized that she had been tied to a chair.