AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Until the next party, that is, a week away.
She could do that.
The tension slowly eased away from her, part of the pain easing back, sliding from her senses, allowing her to breathe again.
“My sweet Summer,” he sighed. “I would trade the world and all that is in it to take the pain from you.”
She smiled, remembering another time he’d said that. In Russia, when she’d burned with fever from the bullet Dragovich had put in her shoulder.
He stopped moving.
Looking up, she saw he’d led her to the table where her family sat. Stepping back, his fingers stroked down her arm before he released her, nodded to her parents, then returned to stand next to his brother.
“Hey, Summer.” Mike Taggart nodded to her as he stepped to the table. “Mr. McGillan asked me to find you and tell you he’s getting ready to leave. He wanted to see you first though. He was in the foyer when I saw him.”
He turned to Caleb then with some comment about one of the women bemoaning the fact that Caleb wasn’t dancing.
“I’ll be right back,” she told her parents. “Steven has to leave and I want to make certain to tell him good-bye.”
She strode away from the table and headed inside, weaving through the guests and navigating the crowded dining room before moving through the rest of the house.
The dimly lit rooms past the dining room were silent and empty, the house quiet after the loud chatter from outside.
It took several minutes for her to reach the marble foyer, only to find it empty as well.
Frowning, she stared around, waiting impatiently, certain Steven would show up any minute. Glancing behind her she expected to see Raeg or Falcon, only to realize they hadn’t followed her.
That was odd. They hadn’t taken their eyes off her at any other time, but now they were nowhere to be seen?
Two more minutes, she thought silently, that was as long as she’d wait.
If she waited that long.
A chill eased down her spine. The hairs at the back of her neck lifted in primal warning and she swung around, determined to hurry back to the party, to Raeg and Falcon.
She hadn’t taken two steps when the first broad male form stepped from the dark shadow of the curved staircase. In the next heartbeat, two more blocked her way, weapons gleaming dully in their hands.
“Dragovich is waiting for you,” the heavily accented voice of the taller Russian stated malevolently. “We can take you to him as you are, or bleeding and weak. Your choice.”
“Bleeding and weak” wasn’t acceptable. But then, leaving to meet Dragovich wasn’t exactly the answer as far as she was concerned either.
And where in the hell were Raeg and Falcon?
* * *
She was gone.
Falcon searched the crowd for her as he hurried across the distance to where her family sat—the last place he’d seen Summer before his view was blocked for precious seconds by half a dozen half-drunk guests asking him if he’d seen some blonde who had said she was going to dance with him or Raeg.
No blonde had approached them. It wouldn’t have done her any good to do so either.
“Falcon.” Cal and his sons came to their feet as he glared at them.
“Where is she?” he questioned her father. “She was here and then she disappeared.”
“I thought she was with you,” her father snapped as he and his sons hurried from the table.
“She wasn’t with us.” Fists clenched, he stared around the area again, fury beginning to build inside him.
