I blew out a breath of frustration through my nose.
Our girl.
I knew what the vow meant. I understood what we’d all agreed to. It was why I’d sat and watched, my cock hard and aching in my slacks as rage, jealousy and lust swirled into a deadly concoction inside me.
But I couldn’t let myself drown in the poison of those thoughts. I refused to give in to the negativity of my feelings about this. About her.
Besides, all I really wanted was to find balance between us. All of us. Where we could temper our worst inclinations with some of our best. And it felt like she helped us to do that sometimes.
She knew just how to sate my rage and my desperate desire for control. And occasionally, in the depths of the night, when my mind finally settled to sleep, I dreamed of her. Not the dark and filthy fantasies I indulged in during the day. But of kissing the tears away from her cheeks when she cried and of holding her in my arms while we slept. And those dreams might have been some of the most disturbing I’d ever had.
I curled my fingers around the door handle, let out a long breath and pushed the door wide.
For a long moment, all I could do was stare into the empty space, my eyes dragging over rumpled sheets and discarded clothes which had been haphazardly tossed towards the hamper.
A dull, empty kind of ache rang hollow in my chest and my pulse pounded in my ears as I just stood there, staring.
I managed to flick the light on, striding into the room, my eyes hunting out every dark and empty space or corner where she might be hiding before I threw open the bathroom door next.
I switched on that light too, my eyes crinkling from the sudden assault of the brightness on them as I easily saw she wasn’t there.
My pace quickened as I threw open the door to Blake’s room, flicking on his light and finding myself actually hoping to discover her pinned beneath him or on top of him or tangled with him in any fucking way rather than finding him alone like that.
“What the fuck, man?” Blake snarled, shielding his eyes as he sat up in alarm, the sheets slipping to pool at his waist and proving beyond a doubt that she wasn’t hiding beneath them.
“She’s gone,” I said simply, no need to state it any more clearly than that. There was only one she any of us gave a damn about. Only one who would up and abandon us.
“What? How?” he demanded, out of bed in an instant, dragging on sweatpants and looking all around his room like he might spot her hiding beneath one of his discarded socks. His gaze fell on me again and I just stood there, mind whirling, panic circling my heart. “Do you think Toby took her?”
My upper lip peeled back with rage at the idea. Had that fucking stalker come here? Broken in, wrapped a meaty palm over her mouth to stifle her screams as he woke her and then stolen her away from us? Could he have done that quietly enough for me to have missed it? Could that be what had driven me from my bed?
“Search The Temple,” I commanded, turning and striding from the room as I focused on what I needed to do. “If by some miracle she has her phone on her wherever she went, I can find her.”
“How?” Blake demanded.
“I took it from her as a part of one of her punishments and installed tracking software on it,” I said simply. In fact, I’d done that to the rest of the Night Keepers too. Just so I could keep an eye on them, know where they were whenever I needed them.
“That’s…kinda genius and kinda fucked up,” Blake’s voice followed me as I ran back through the church to the stairs which led up to my room.
Blake took on the challenge of waking Kyan and I was treated to a batch of cursing before he managed to explain what was going on. That was followed by more cursing, but it didn’t matter to me. Nothing mattered aside from finding her and bringing her back here to safety.
I snatched my phone from its position on charge beside my bed and quickly opened up the app I needed.
An endless ringing started up in my ears as the map aligned itself, three little dots appearing first to show me, Kyan and Blake all together right here in The Temple. But as it zoomed out, progressively widening the map to allow for a greater distance, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.
There were two dots heading north on the highway beyond the school over sixty miles away from us. Tatum and…Monroe.
I dropped onto the edge of the bed as I just stared at those little dots moving further and further away from us.
What the fuck?
Footsteps pounded up the stairs as I just stared at the screen, my brain firing on all cylinders as I tried to unravel this riddle.
“Has she got it with her?” Blake demanded.
“Do you know where she is?” Kyan snarled.
I looked up at them and silently held out my phone for them to see.
“What the hell is going on?” Kyan growled.
“I’ll call him,” Blake said instantly. “Find
