Beast

Chapter Eighteen

Dante felt older as he walked out of Julian’s office. He’d only been in there for an hour and a half, but he would have sworn he’d aged ten years.

It was really happening. After all these years, the fight was finally here. Torin would come after Beck and Cian, and he would have the Vampire Council’s support. Well, maybe not their support, but they would look the other way if it meant royals once again had full access to consorts.

Torin was going to be the acknowledged king of the Seelie Fae, and Beck and Cian would be the rebels. Dante was having a hard time processing it.

And Chalen Palgrave was trying to kill him.

Simon Roan walked out behind Dante, a grim look on his face. “Mr. Dellacourt, I understand that you don’t trust me, but I’m your best bet to stay unharmed until such time as this misunderstanding with Palgrave can be fixed.”

He didn’t want to fix the misunderstanding. He wanted to eviscerate Palgrave.

“Roan really is the best,” Julian said. “I’ll vouch for him. Use him as a bodyguard for a while until we deal with Palgrave. He’s insignificant compared to ensuring the safety of the true Seelie kings.”

Dante wanted to growl his frustration to the world. He didn’t need this shit with Palgrave while his cousins were in danger. “I didn’t kill Kinsey Palgrave and neither did my cousins. If they had, I would have heard about it. If I had killed Kinsey, I damn straight wouldn’t hide it. And, if I’d killed him, it would have been because he was doing something he shouldn’t have.”

Julian walked out, closing the door behind him. “According to my sources, Kinsey Palgrave went to the Refugee plane and didn’t come back. He received a message from someone. I managed to find a record of the call. I have excellent government sources. They’ll tell you they’re all about privacy, but there’s very little on this plane that doesn’t get recorded somehow. It’s fuzzy. I can only make out a blonde woman telling him to come pick up a consort. Kinsey left shortly after receiving the call. Am I correct in saying there was a hag stalking the kings?”

Julian’s sources were utterly impeccable. Dante bit back a little bit of bile. He could still see the hag. “You’re right. She’s dead now.” He’d had a hand in killing her. “And she was blonde. Her name was Liadan. She was sent by Torin to kill the twins. When she couldn’t manage that, she caused trouble.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the hag was responsible,” Julian said. “She would be strong enough to kill a vampire. It doesn’t matter now. I doubt Chalen will listen to anything I say. You need to get your consort and get back to the Dellacorp Building. Let Roan handle Palgrave. You need to figure out where to stash the kings until I can get them to the Unseelie plane. I’m in contact with King Fergus. He’s offering them asylum.”

“In exchange for what?” Dante wasn’t stupid. The last thing he wanted was to walk his cousins into an ambush.

Julian’s lips turned up. “He’s my uncle, you know. King Fergus married my mother’s sister.”

No. Dante hadn’t known that. The Unseelie were very secretive. “Are the twins part vampire?”

Now Julian was full-on smiling, but the fangs he showed off gave it all a menacing feel. “Worse. They’re half-Unseelie-royal, half-royal-vampire, and all symbiotic twins. Lachlan and Shim are more dangerous than you can imagine. And they’ve matured past an age where they must bond. I could smuggle a mate off the Seelie plane, but they insist on only one.”

“That’s insane. They can bond with any bondmate.” Dante thought about how fast Beck and Ci would have taken a mate. They might not have loved her the way they did Meg, but they would have done it.

Julian shook his head. “They’ve dreamed about this one for years. Don’t you think my uncle has offered up any female who could bond? He’s promised the Planeswalkers a multitude of riches if they would bring him a bondmate his sons would accept. But they want the princess in the tower. That’s what they call her. They insist that Beck and Cian Finn hold the key to finding her and bringing them into their true power.”

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.

Tested on. That fucker had his consort in a cage. Chalen Palgrave meant to treat her like a beast to experiment on. Dante’s heart raced, but something dark opened inside him. If Chalen Palgrave wanted a beast—Dante would give him one.

Megan took a step back. “Is he going to hurt me?”

Julian put a fatherly hand around the girl. “No. But I suspect I can’t say the same thing about Palgrave.”

Meg smiled brightly. “Oh, good. He’s a horrible person. I’m a pacifist by nature, but I will totally help get him in the building if he’s going to kill that man. You’ll let me keep the bunnies, right?”

Dante turned without speaking. Roan fell in beside him.

“I’m going to call some of my contacts in the police force. We’ll keep it quiet. I wouldn’t want Palgrave to destroy evidence, if you know what I mean,” Julian called out.

There was the click-clack of stilettos as Meg raced to catch up with them. She had Julian’s dark shirt wrapped around her body like a robe.

“This should be fun. I know the best way into that building.” She walked on like they were going on a fun shopping trip rather than into battle. “And now that I have a minute with you, Mr. Dellacourt, I can talk to you about organic meal pills. There’s this rancher who has come up with a way to organically produce meal pills that doesn’t even kill the cow.”

He growled her way as his car was brought from the garage.

He wanted the real Meg back.

Kaja came to in fits and starts. The world was a weird mix of past and present. She dreamed of her home, but this time she ran with Dante at her side. She on four legs and he on his two powerful ones. He ran as naked in his skin as she was in her fur, his fangs and claws on full display. It was full summer, and the plains were alive with prey. Deer and stag and moose all fled in terror at their approach, but it wouldn’t matter. They would select the fattest and feast. They were unstoppable. Stronger because they were together.

Kaja reached out to him.

I’m coming, love. I’m coming.

He wasn’t coming. He was here beside her. As it should be.

Then it was white, so white. When had the snows begun? The world was coated in white and silver and cold. So cold. She shivered despite her fur.

Where was Dante? She wanted Dante. She didn’t want to be alone again. Dante?

Hush, love. I’m coming.

But he wasn’t here, and she was sick. She felt it in her brain. She was ill and in pain. Dante!

Kaj! Calm down now.

The voice in her head had taken on a distinctly domineering tone, and Kaja responded to it. She forced herself to stop. Her head was muddy, but she could move. The ground beneath her was cold, but it wasn’t soft and wet like snow. It was hard and unnatural. Metal. She opened her eyes and closed them quickly. Too bright. Far, far too bright.

“I think it’s awake.”

The voice that spoke was cold as well. Through slitted eyes, Kaja looked up. She was in a cage, though not one as nice as the gnome’s cages. This was utilitarian. Metal bars and cold metal floor beneath her. There were two men standing beside a long metal table looking down at her. One was in a white coat that reached his knees. He wore a dress shirt and slacks underneath, and had strange gloves covering his hands. The other wore a suit much like her Dante’s.

“Funny how she changed when she lost consciousness.”

“I didn’t think so. It was disgusting. She’s a fucking dog. How does Dellacourt make himself touch that?”

Kaja knew the second voice. It was the man who had been in the car. Why had he taken her?

She was in her wolf form. She knew why she had changed. Her body wanted to heal. It was stronger in this form. Already she felt better, though still so weak.

She would not drink again. Her mind sought the connection to her husband.

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. Palgrave. I don’t understand the lure. I would much rather discover how she ticks. I’d like to start with some stimuli to see if I can get her to change back to her human form.”

Dante. I am afraid.

I know, baby. But I’m coming. I won’t leave you there. How many vampires are around you?

Kaja pulled her head up. Weary. She was so weary, but she looked around. She opened her senses and let the sights and smells of the place wash over her.

Two men. One woman. Ashley. She thought the name with a sneer.

Dante seemed to get the message. His next thoughts were hesitant. Um, I can explain about her, love. You see…

Kaja growled.

I love you, Kaj.

She would see about that. For now, she had a job to do. I’m in a small cage. I can smell three others, but they are outside the door.

And then Kaja forgot to breathe, the pain was so great. It came up from her paws and radiated through her body, sending fire through her veins. Her lungs felt tight and breath was impossible. She howled with the ache that went on and on and on.

“It doesn’t seem to be doing anything,” the man in the white coat said. Kaja watched as he took his hand off some form of button.

Her body sagged as the pain stopped. Her legs shook. She had no control.

There was a kick to her cage that sent the whole thing rattling. The man in the suit stared down at her, disgust apparent on his face. “Hey, dummy, change. We want to see your human form. Do you think it has a brain in this form?”

White Coat frowned. “I believe so. That was only a medium setting though. Perhaps we should try one higher. I don’t want to push it, Mr. Palgrave. The higher settings tend to kill off the subject or at least fry its brains.”

Kaja, what the fuck was that? What are they doing to you?

Dante’s panicked voice was screaming in her head. It was too much. They wanted her to change, but she couldn’t risk it. She could handle more in this form. If she changed and they turned on the machine, there was a huge chance that she could die. She needed time. Dante would come. He would come, and she needed to be alive when he got here.

She would take the pain.

Kaja! You talk to me right now. I felt that. What are they doing?

He’d caught her pain? That wouldn’t do. She would have to shut down their connection. She was loathe to do it. Feeling Dante was the only thing that was keeping her going.

That was why she’d been afraid. She’d been afraid of loving him. She’d been unwilling to fight for him because when she couldn’t directly feel him, she didn’t trust him. It was time to move past that. It was time to believe.

They are killing me. Come quickly. I love you, my Dante.

She closed the connection between them as the pain began again. This time she was alone, with no physical sense of Dante. As the shaking began, she realized he was with her. No matter what. She didn’t need to feel him to know he was coming.

He would always come.

Kaja howled and held on to the pain. As long as she hurt, she was still alive.