I’m fucking furious. Furious at the thought of anyone laying hands on my Greer, Ash’s little princess, my queen. Shaking with rage at the thought of rope on her skin, tape on her mouth, and even worse…

I stare at those scuffs, willing my heart rate to go down. For the first time in years, I miss my M4. I miss my Glock. I haven’t felt so much like a soldier in years, but now, with this righteous anger, this real fear, my brain dumping adrenaline into my bloodstream by the gallon, I could almost be back in Carpathia charging through the trees.

“We prepared for this,” Gareth says, interrupting my thoughts and taking a moment to holster her gun and button her jacket back up. “There was always a possibility we’d miss them.”

I look back at the Corbenics’s mansion, the one that belongs to Abilene Corbenic’s parents, to Greer’s aunt and uncle. I think of the phone records Gareth and Wu showed me on the plane; it had been Abilene who texted Greer in the middle of the night and beckoned her down to the lobby. I think of the quick actions Merlin had taken as we were in the air, finding all the properties Abilene would have had access to, narrowing it down to this one.

Finally, I think of Abilene’s arm laced through my own yesterday afternoon as we walked down the aisle to Ash. I don’t know her very well, but I would never have guessed her capable of this.

Greer would have recognized the house, I think bleakly. She was being stolen away, using a house owned by her own family…

“Abilene told Merlin and the Secret Service that her phone was stolen two nights ago,” Wu says. “We can’t discount the possibility that she’s telling the truth, and that Melwas’s people took advantage of Abilene’s connection to Greer.”

“We can’t discount the possibility that she’s lying, either,” Gareth says, and there’s something so factual about the way she says it that it doesn’t sound cynical, merely honest. “After all, we have had several people tell us that she seemed to make an amorous connection with one of Melwas’s men in Geneva this winter. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility.”

I tear my eyes away from the wet, scuffed wood. I need a gun in my hand. Or a knife. And I need to be moving.

“Where to next?” I ask, even though I already know. They showed me the pictures on the plane, the mountain resort that Melwas had purchased under a different name, the resort that satellite photography showed being fortified like a castle. It would be a perfect place to keep a secret captive. On paper it belonged to someone else, it’s so far out of the way that no one would find it by accident, and judging from the intelligence, he’s gathered a small army around it.

“Next we go to Carpathia,” Gareth says, and there’s a gleam in her eye she can’t quite hide. I’m glad. It means she’s as bloodthirsty as me.

8

Greer

after

I don’t know how long I’m on the boat. I struggle and fight as they put me on it, kicking and biting and screaming, even though I know the nearest house is half a mile away and there’s no way I’ll be heard over the crashing waves. And then my shoulder stings, a pricking needle followed by a deep burn, and the world fades away.

When I come to, I’m being carried in Not-Daryl’s arms on another dock. The sun is bright and hot, and birds cry nearby. I’m so thirsty, so terribly thirsty, and I feel so weak, like my muscles are made of seaweed. I try to stir, try to fight, or at least speak, but there’s nothing for it. The darkness takes me again.

When I finally wake for good, I’m thankfully unbound and un-gagged, sitting by myself on a plane. It’s small and the interior is well worn and spare, populated only by Not-Daryl, three other men, and myself. No flight attendants on the Air Kidnapping flight but quite clean, I think tiredly. Two stars.

I roll my head against the back of the seat and look out the window. Mountains roll underneath us, mostly low and green, with the occasional spur of rock here and there. Off in the distance, I see the mountains grow taller, darker. I know these mountains from the war, from all the pictures and documentaries and shaky helmet-camera footage captured by soldiers.

Carpathia.

For just a moment, I let the fight leave me. I let the fear leave me. And I only think of my wedding. It was my last free day and I didn’t know it, and how fitting that my last free day would be the day I willingly surrendered my freedom to Ash.

Just the thought of his name brings heat to my eyelids and I shut them fast, afraid to cry around these men. Ash in his tuxedo, sliding his ring on my finger. Ash holding me in his arms as we danced to Etta James’s “At Last,” a song he and Embry danced to, he told me. Ash whispering to Embry as he caressed him, whispering to me as he and Embry both fucked me. Us, holding hands and promising…promising something. Love. An attempt. A surrender to the helpless feelings we all had for each other.

For just one selfish moment, I allow myself to be a damsel. I allow myself to be in pointless, nearly weepy distress. I ache for my life before, for yesterday—or two days ago, however long it’s been. I ache for my wedding dress and veil, for the church decked with flowers, for my groom and his best man. I ache for our wedding night, that wedding night I can feel even now with biting soreness. I ache for the feeling of being cradled between the two bodies I love best in this world, the feel of their sweat-slicked skin and hard muscles, and the biting teeth they used when they couldn’t find the right words to whisper to me.

I allow myself to indulge, just for a single moment, the thought that they will come for me. That the instant this plane lands, my king and my prince will be there, ready to sweep me away from this strange place and the people who would do me harm. I allow myself to hope for it like it’s the only thing I know how to hope for, that at this very moment, Embry and my husband are on their way to me. That they will find me at all costs and that everything will be okay.