“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Diamond complained, righting herself from where Alec had tossed her into the car. “Who has Alec seen that has him so upset? ”
“The two men from the Moravian Council,” Pia answered her.
“But . . . Alec and Kristoff are Dark Ones. Is it bad to see the members of the group that rules your people?” Diamond asked.
“It is when they want to imprison you in the Akasha. Alec?” Kristoff, playing navigator, pointed to the right as the highway curved around a hill. “Junction with another highway coming up. They could be taking that and we wouldn’t know.”
Alec swore. “Sins of the saints, why doesn’t she talk to me?”
“She’s not answering?”
“No.” Alec ground off a few layers of enamel, jerking the car’s steering wheel as he pulled off the road, sliding on the gravel that littered the shoulder. Ahead of them was a sign announcing the exit for the highway that ran roughly east to west. He had no idea whether the two councilmen had taken that road or the one they were on. Hell, for all he knew, they could be going in the opposite direction.
“Well, they’re with Sally, aren’t they?” Diamond said, giving a little shrug. “They probably went to her house.”
Alec ripped off the seat belt in order to turn around and face Diamond. “Sally has a house in France? Here, in the south?”
“Yes,” Diamond answered, looking startled. “In Privas, not too far from us, from what I can remember. She held a big barbecue here last summer, when she became a demon lord, and invited everyone from the Court to see her new palace. Well, the extension of her palace into the mortal world, because naturally we couldn’t go into the Abaddon part. I mean, what would the Sovereign say if it found us all frolicking around Abaddon enjoying steak and cedar-planked salmon?”
Alec stared at her for the count of four. “Why would the messenger wish to go to Sally’s house?”
Diamond gave a little shrug. “It’s handy? If they’re trying to lure you into a trap, which I assume is what you mean by the reference to banishing you to the Akasha, then that seems like the most private place to do so. Unless the Moravian Council has buildings in this area?”
“No,” Kristoff answered as Alec turned around and gunned the motor, ignoring the merging traffic behind him as he drove over the shoulder and verge and onto the highway going to the east. “They don’t. They must be holding Sally and Ulfur, too. Cora still not answering?”
That thought made him grind his teeth even more, a desperate need to be with her, to protect her, riding him hard until it caused the hunger within him to awaken.
The drive to Privas was the longest event he’d ever suffered, filled with all too many horrible visions of Cora being harmed, and he swore that if the messenger or his partner so much as bent one single hair on her adorable head, he would have his vengeance.
“Is Alec growling?” Diamond asked Pia.
“Yes, yes, he is. And swearing,” she answered.
“In Latin,” Kristoff added. Alec shot his friend a look. Kristoff grinned, and added in Italian, “She’ll be all right. They have no reason to hurt her.”
“Cora is a fighter. She won’t tolerate being used as bait to trap me. She’ll fight them.”
“She’s also your Beloved now, and won’t take injury like a mortal would. I know you’re worried, but just remember that it’s you they want, not her. She’s just a means to an end.”
“What are you guys saying?” Pia said, flicking a finger at the back of Kristoff’s head. “You know how I hate it when you talk in languages I don’t understand, which really is all of them because I’m horrible with languages. So stop it and tell me what you’re saying.”
Alec ignored the chatter of the women as they discussed what the council could or could not do to his Beloved, and focused his attention on getting them to Sally’s residence as quickly as possible without killing any mortals in his way. Kristoff, knowing what emotions he was feeling, was blissfully silent with the exception of pointing out turns, a map of the area spread across his lap.
Periodically Alec tried to get Cora to respond to him, but all was silence. Worse, and far more worrisome, he had no feeling of her presence. The messenger might have silenced her by means of threat or drugs, but he would still be able to feel her being, bound as it was with his. But now . . . he felt empty, as if she had left, and taken his soul with her.
“If they’ve harmed her,” he said in German to Kristoff.
“Don’t torture yourself with that,” Kris answered him, pointing to a wrought iron gate. “Christian Dante may be many things, but he wouldn’t condone a Beloved being harmed. His own would never let him hear the end of it.”
Alec growled to himself, not waiting for the door of the gate to open—he simply jammed his foot on the accelerator, and crashed through the double gates in best action-movie-hero style, crumpling the front of the car in the process.
Kristoff sighed. “There goes the damage deposit.”
“Whoa!” Pia gasped, clutching the back of Kristoff’s seat. “You almost gave me a heart attack! Next time warn us when you’re going to—holy moly, will you look at that place? It looks like a palace.”
“It is,” Diamond said without looking up from where she was texting on her cell phone. “One of the Louis, I believe, gave it to a mistress. Louis the thirteenth? Fourteenth? I lose track of them. Sally said she got it cheap from a mage who was unloading some property to buy a quintessence.”
Alec was out of the car almost before it had come to a complete halt, his hands fisted as he glared for a moment at the car that the members of the council had driven. He swore vengeance again as he marched toward the door. One hair, if they so much as touched one single hair on her delightful head . . .
“Would it do any good if I asked you to stay here?” he heard Kristoff ask.
“None whatsoever,” Pia answered.
Alec tried the front door, found it locked, and stepped back a few paces to assess the building. It was rather blocky, but built in a warm cream-colored stone, with tall windows divided into numerous small panes, encased in a darker marble. Formal gardens made wings on either side of the main building, with wellkept gravel paths winding through the greenery. Alec didn’t wait to see if anyone would respond to the bell that Kristoff rang—he ran to the left, skirting a small koi pond, and leaping over a low stone balustrade to stride up to large French doors flanking a gigantic stone urn. “Corazon!” he bellowed as he jerked open one of the doors, luckily unlocked. “You will answer me now!”
“I’m afraid she can’t,” a woman’s voice answered him. “Oh, you’re all here? Goodness. I’ll have to have one of my minions rustle up more orange cinnamon rolls. I wasn’t expecting everyone. Why, Diamond, I haven’t seen you in . . . oh, it must be a century or two. You look so mortal now.”
Alec spun around to find Sally beaming at them from a doorway that clearly led into the main hall.
“I try to fit in,” Diamond said, breathing a little fast from the run around the house. “You look as fabulous as ever. Is that a Chanel suit?”
“You like?” Sally did a little spin to show off the cherry red suit with short skirt. “I prefer simple lines, myself, not all those fussy bits that so many designers seem to want to put into clothes these days.”
“Where’s my Beloved?” Alec demanded, his patience at an end.
“Cora?” Sally clucked her tongue and moved forward until she could put a hand on Alec’s arm. “I am the last person to criticize, as anyone will tell you, but really, Cora needs to take in an anger management class or two. You would not believe the things she said to me! She threatened me with the most heinous, the most cruel . . . well, let us draw a veil over exactly what she said, and instead acknowledge that should she ever wish to become a demon lord, she’d fit right in.”
Alec stared at the woman in utter disbelief. “
