But they couldn’t waste any more time; with Yudor’s head start on them, a search party might have already been dispatched, and if not, then Galen knew it was coming. And he couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk them finding Emma. Beautiful, stubborn Half-Breed Emma.
And he’s a little perturbed that Nalia would.
The three of them plod holes in the sand reaching up to Emma’s back porch, alongside a recent trail of someone else’s—probably Emma’s—footsteps leading from the beach. Galen knows this moment will always be burned into his memory. The moment when his brother, the Triton king, put on human clothes and walked up to a house built by humans, squinting in the broad daylight with eyes unaccustomed to the sun.
What will he say to Nalia? What will he do?
The steps creak under their bare feet. Toraf slides open the glass door and ushers Galen and Grom in. And Galen’s heart plummets to his stomach.
Whoever tied Rayna to the bar stool—the same bar stool occupied by Nalia last time he’d seen it—made sure it would be a painful fall if she tried to move too much. Both of her hands are bound behind her with an electrical cord, and each of her ankles are cinched to the stool with a belt. A broad piece of silver tape over her mouth muzzles all the fury bulging in her eyes.
Toraf runs to his mate. “My poor princess, who did this to you?” he says, tugging gently at a corner of the tape. She snatches her face away from him and chastises him in muffled outrage.
Galen strides to them and promptly rips the tape from Rayna’s mouth. She yelps, raking him over with a scalding look. “You did that on purpose!”
Galen wads the tape into a sticky ball then drops it to the floor. “What happened?”
Rayna squares her shoulders. “I’m going to kill Nalia for good this time.”
“Okay. But what happened?”
“She poisoned me. Or something.”
“Triton’s trident, Rayna. Just tell me what hap—”
“Nalia kept saying she needed to go to the restroom, so I let her use the downstairs bathroom. I figured it would be okay because she seemed to have calmed down since you left, so I untied her. Anyway, she was taking a long time in there.” Rayna points to the bathroom below the stairwell. “So I checked on her. I knocked and knocked but she didn’t answer. I opened the door—I should’ve known something was off since it wasn’t locked—and the bathroom was dark. Then she grabs me from behind and puts something over my face. The last thing I remember is Emma standing in the doorway screaming at Nalia. Next thing I know, I wake up in this chair, tied up like some common human.”
Toraf finally frees her. She examines the red lines embedded into her wrists. Rubbing them, she winces. “I’m going to do something bad to her. I can be creative, you know.” Rayna clutches her stomach. “Uh-oh. I think … I think I’m gonna—”
To her credit, she does try to turn away from Toraf, who’s now squatting on his haunches to unstrap her feet. But it’s as if he were the target all along, as if Rayna’s upchuck were attracted to him somehow. “Oh!” she says, vomit dripping down her chin. “I’m sorry.” Then she growls, baring her teeth like a piranha. “I hate her.”
Toraf wipes the wet chunks from his shoulder and gently lifts Rayna. “Come on, princess,” he murmurs. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” Shifting her in his arms, he turns to Galen in askance.
“Are you serious?” Galen says, incredulous. “We don’t have time for that. Did you not hear what she just said? Emma and Nalia are gone.”
Toraf scowls. “I know.” He turns to Grom. “Just so you know, Highness, I’m upset with Princess Nalia for tying Rayna up like that.”
Galen runs a hand through his hair. He knows how this works. Toraf will be useless until Rayna is sufficiently calmed down and happy again. Trying to convince his best friend of doing anything otherwise is a waste of time they don’t have. Unbelievable. “There’s a shower on the third floor,” Galen says, nodding toward the stairs. “In Emma’s room.”
Galen and Grom watch as Toraf disappears up the stairwell with their sister. “Don’t worry, princess,” they hear him coo. “Emma has all those nice-smelling soaps, remember? And all those pretty dresses you like to wear…”
Grom cocks his head at Galen.
Galen knows this looks bad. He brings his brother to land to reunite him with his long-lost love and the long-lost love has tied up his sister and run away.
Not to mention how else this looks: illegal. Rayna wearing human dresses and taking showers with human soaps and upchucking human food. All evidence that Rayna is much more familiar with the human way of life than she should be.
But Galen can’t worry about how anything looks. Emma is missing.
It feels like every nerve in his body is braided around his heart, squeezing until it aches incessantly. He stalks to the kitchen and flings open the garage door. Nalia’s car is gone. He grabs the house phone on the wall and dials Emma’s cell. It vibrates on the counter—right next to her mother’s cell phone. Dread knots in his stomach as he dials Rachel, his human assistant. Loyal, devoted, resourceful Rachel. At the beep he says, “Emma and her mother are gone and I need you to find them.” He hangs up and leans against the refrigerator, waiting with the patience of a tsunami. When the phone rings, he snatches at it, almost dropping it. “Hello?”