“Oh no. I just got back to the house and her car is not in the driveway. So I stopped over to just be sure she wasn’t there and no one answered.” She paused, her breath ragged over the phone. “She’s left the house, and she has a trace on her.”
I was standing without even realizing it, walking over to the edge of the deck. My voice was low. “You said she was staying in tonight.”
“I know.” Her voice rose. “That’s what she told me, but she didn’t.”
“Dammit.” My hand tightened around the phone. “Of course she didn’t.”
“Is everything okay?” Adam asked from behind me.
I ignored him as Dee spoke up. “Don’t be mad at her, Daemon. She doesn’t know it’s not safe for her out there right now. She has no idea. This isn’t her fault.”
Her fault or not didn’t matter. It was still a huge pain in my ass.
“I’m going to go and see if I can find her. I bet she’s at the library and I will—”
“No, you won’t. You aren’t going anywhere. You keep your butt at home.” Anger rushed over me, but underneath that, dread was expanding. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Daemon—”
“I’ll text you as soon as I find her.” I resisted the urge to turn the phone into a missile. “I’m sure she’s fine. Just…just stay home and don’t worry.”
Hanging up, I dropped the phone back in my pocket. “I’ve got to go.”
Adam stood, concern etched into his features. He already had his phone in his hand, and I hoped like hell Dee knew to keep the whole trace thing to herself. “Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” I placed my hands on the railing. “Tell Andrew I’ll catch up with him later.”
I vaulted over the railing, dropping a good fifteen feet below, landing in a crouch. I rose and took off toward the front of the house. I almost started to go past my SUV, because I could get to the library faster on foot, but how would I explain that to Kat when I found her?
Hell.
Pivoting around, I hurried toward my car and climbed in. Turning the engine on, I threw the SUV into reverse, navigating it around the cars and trees. The drive into town felt like it took an eternity, and I had to have gotten behind every slow-moving ass on the highway. Fat drops of rain splattered off the windshield. Since it started raining, it appeared no one could drive more than twenty miles an hour. My hands clenched the steering wheel until my knuckles bleached white. Anger rolled through me like the storm brewing outside.
I was angry at Kat for not staying put, furious with myself for putting her in a position where I was going to have to search her ass down and come up with some lame-ass reason why I was there.
And pissed off that I hadn’t been home to catch her ass leaving.
When I made it into Petersburg, I was ready to run over a small village with my SUV, and since parking was a bitch in the evening and I wasn’t in a hurry or anything, I ended up having to leave the car three blocks over, parked behind a diner.
There was a lot of traffic on the main streets, so I had to watch myself. The rain was tapering off and the street lamps were flickering on as I headed down the sidewalk, toward the town library. My mood was dark, matching the clouds ahead, and when I spied the library and didn’t see her car, I was ready to destroy something.
Either she had already left or she’d never been here. There was only one other place to check, a less trafficked side road that was behind the library. I picked up my pace, cutting across the narrow lawn in front of the building, and rounded the side.
An icy chill exploded along the base of my neck and powered down my spine, kicking my instinct to shift into my true form into overdrive. The dread exploded like a buckshot.
I could feel them, tainting the air and the ground, cloaking the narrow street in unnatural, thick shadows. My brain clicked off and I picked up speed, becoming a blur as I cleared the side of the library. I spotted Kat’s car. A light was on inside, but I didn’t see her.
The presence of an Arum grew stronger.
Shooting across the road, I came up on her car and I felt it—the oily thickness in the air nearly choking me. Then I saw it in its human form, but the edges of it were shaded out, transparent like dark smoke. I didn’t see Kat, but it had something—someone—on the ground, and I knew without seeing her that it was Kat.
And it could already be too late.
This…this was my fault.
The rage and dread whirled through me like a hurricane, and I had no idea how I managed to stay in my human form as I grabbed the Arum by its shoulder. My hand sunk a few inches into it, and then I had ahold of its bone and muscle. I yanked back hard, lifting the Arum into the air and tossing it several feet to the side. I caught a brief glimpse of Kat, and my fury tasted like death in the back of my throat.