As Meg had brought Beck and Ci into theirs. Dante didn’t want to think about what kind of powers the Unseelie princes would gain from bonding with the perfect mate.
Julian stared at him. “Please trust me when I tell you my uncle will do anything to save his sons. The Seelie kings are in no danger.”
It was almost too much to take in. He nodded at Julian. His mind wasn’t made up, but it wouldn’t do any good to argue now. He would discuss it with his cousins.
He knew Julian was right, but it rankled. He wanted to wrap his claws around Palgrave’s throat and not stop until the fucker’s head popped off. But Kaja had to be his first concern. He had to get her home to the safety of his family’s building. Once he had her back in the penthouse he would set security on her ass. At least six. A full unit. Then he could take care of Palgrave and decide what to do about his cousins.
A worried looking young man strode up to Julian and spoke in hushed tones. He had to go up on his toes to reach his master’s ears. Julian’s face went stone-cold, his eyes darkening with every word the young man spoke.
“Show me,” Julian said.
The younger man held up a tablet, and within minutes, Julian was cursing a blue streak.
“What?” Dante asked. If there was going to be trouble in The Club, he wanted to get Kaja out as soon as possible.
Roan was on high alert, his every muscle rigid. “What’s going on?”
“Your consort is gone,” Julian said flatly, every word a knife to Dante’s gut. He held out the tablet. “Do you know this woman?”
Ashley. Fuck. He’d sent her a very nice note and a large check, but it looked like she hadn’t appreciated being given her walking papers. “She was my mistress until I got married.”
Roan cleared his throat. “I think you’ll find she has ties to Chalen Palgrave. I saw a picture of her in his office.”
A fucking spy and now a kidnapper. He’d never had the best of taste in women until he’d met his Kaja. “Where would he have taken Kaja?”
“Not to his penthouse,” Roan said. “I suspect he took her to his company headquarters. It’s one of the reasons I broke the contract. I suspected he wanted to hurt the consorts, both yours and the queen. I’ve spent very little time there. I know the main office, but again, I think he’ll avoid it. If we call the cops in, it would be the first place they would look. Palgrave has a couple of different arms. Some of the small divisions are in other buildings across the city. Can we look up the building plans?”
Julian whispered something to his employee who turned and took off running. “I’ll do one better. I can get you a guide.”
Dante didn’t want a guide. He wanted that gun Meg carried around. It was still buried where Kaja had hidden it.
While everyone else kept talking, Dante closed his eyes and tried to find her. Acting on pure instinct, he opened his mind and called to her.
Nothing at first. He practically screamed in his head and then a tiny whimper. If he hadn’t felt it before, he would have blown it off as an incidental sound, but now he grabbed on to that one tiny sound and held on for dear life. He focused, stepping away from the rest. Her mind was cloudy, unable to think in a clear pattern.
She was afraid. He heard one thing play in her drug-addled brain over and over again.
Dante.
She wanted him to come for her. His whole body ached at her fear. He wanted to kill Chalen Palgrave, but more than that, he wanted to comfort her. He’d brought her to this plane where she would never be accepted. He’d brought her to this.
Hush, sweetheart. I’m coming. I am going to be there, and you’re going to be fine.
He forced his own panic to a much deeper place, one that Kaja couldn’t feel. She needed him to be calm. She was alone and scared and had no idea why she couldn’t think straight. Dante knew. He’d been to enough parties in college to recognize the drugs they had given Kaja. He sent out soothing thoughts.
He got a flash of white—so white. All the lights were white, and the man was white, and she was in a cage. The entire vision was so disorienting, Dante felt his stomach churn. Kaja was handling the drugs well. Gods, how much had they given her?
Dante opened his eyes. And then narrowed them because he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “Meg?”
The Queen of the Seelie Fae stood there dressed outrageously in a red leather bustier and what Dante worried was a thong. She was wearing stilettos that added at least four and a half inches to her petite frame.
“Does Beck know you’re here? Gods, Meggie, he’s not just going to spank you this time. He’s going to go crazy. You go and change into something decent right now. Do you understand me? I do not have time for this. You will change, and you will get in the car I’m going to call for you, and you will go back to my house. You will not step foot outside the Dellacorp building, or Beck won’t be the only who spanks you.”
Meg’s eyes went wide, and then she fell to her knees in a perfect rendition of a slave’s pose. She turned her face up to Julian, and there was a placid smile on her lips. “Oh, he’s lovely, Sir. Is he my new Master? You promised to find me one. He’s so commanding.”
Roan elbowed him with a shake of his head. “Take another look. She doesn’t glow, Dellacourt.”
Fuck him. Roan was right. This girl looked like Meg, but she didn’t have Meg’s glow. This Meg was a vampire. It was so odd to see her like this, but it was only fair. After all, according to Meg, she’d met Dante’s human self when she was on the Earth plane.
Julian placed a hand on Vampire Meg’s head. “Sorry, Megan, he’s taken. But I will pair you with a Master when I find the right one. I need your help for another reason. I need to know how to get into the Palgrave Industries building.”
Her familiar face went blank, and her eyes cast down. “I’m sure they’re closed at this time of night, Sir.”
“Yes, and you, you clever and bratty little sub, know just how to get around that, don’t you? You know how to get in and how to do it very quietly, so no one knows you’re coming.”
Her auburn hair shook. “I am not allowed to do anything illegal. I remember everything you said to me after the last time you bailed me out of jail. I am a very good girl.”
No, she wasn’t. She was lying. Even Dante could see that.
“You’re a masochist is what you are, Megan.” Julian gently pulled her head back. “If I didn’t already have a couple of beloved slaves, I would take care of your discipline on my own. I’ll leave it to Master Leo. It’s not going to go well for you, but I might tell him to allow you to come if you fess up right now. Otherwise, you’ll be on the cross for hours with no relief.”
That threat had her talking. “It was just a little raid. You don’t understand, Sir. Palgrave Medical is running horrible tests on bunnies and monkeys. I just snuck in and freed a few of them.”
Julian hauled her up from her slave position. “Megan here is a bit of a protester and part-time criminal.”
“I am not a criminal. What they do to those animals is criminal,” she protested.
“You were in the medical facility?” Dante asked, making connections. “Is it very white? With cages?”
Vampire Meg nodded. “It’s a terrible place. They keep it so cold. They don’t even understand that animals need soothing colors, too.”
“I don’t think soothing colors mean much to animals who are being tested on, Megan.” Julian sighed as though he’d gone over this with her before.