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“Not a lie,” Benedict chimed in, his sleeves pushed up to reveal his forearms.
“Lyric?” Alek’s brow furrowed.
She slowly met his gaze. “I’m not exactly sure where she went. Just that she needed a head start.”
“Fuck,” he muttered.
“She’s gone to the facility.” Ice crystals formed in my veins, and my heartrate leaped at the thought of what could have already happened to her. “Hasn’t she?”
“I think so,” Lyric answered, breaking her mate’s stare and sighing. “She didn’t give me any specifics for this exact reason.”
“She took off?” Ransom scrambled to his feet.
“Looks like it,” Hawke answered, still eating like none of this bothered him.
“What the hell was she thinking?” Alek roared.
“That she designed the place, so she could sneak in and out without alerting the guards?” Lyric offered, cringing slightly. “I mean, if I had to guess. She knew that going at the compound in an assault would get you hurt, if not killed. Again, guessing, since she used some kind of Disneyworld Magic Mountain analogy that I’m still not quite clear on.”
“We have to go now.” I turned to Ransom, mentally following the faint traces of our bond across Edgemont and to…the coast. “Call Xavier and tell him the rendezvous point has changed to the hill just on the other side of the facility. We can’t wait. She’s got a half-hour head start, and she’s already in danger. I can track the bond that far.”
“She’s already there?” Ransom took out his phone and prepared to dial. “Wait. How did she get all the way over there so fast? It’s easily an hour drive…” His eyebrows shot up. “Oh shit.” His gaze swung to Lyric. “Please tell me she didn’t do what I think she did.”
Lyric turned a bright shade of red. “Maybe.”
Ransom threw his phone at Benedict as he ran out of the room. “Make the call!” he shouted over his shoulder, skidding around the corner into the hallway. “Olivia!”
Hawke stabbed another piece of sausage and cut it into little pieces on his plate. The fucker was a stone-cold killer but damn if his table manners weren’t as meticulous as he was.
“What is going on?” Alek asked Lyric, his voice softening as he lowered himself to her seated eye level. “You have to tell me, Lyric.”
She pressed her lips between her teeth and took a shuddered breath. “Okay. They just needed me to distract you for a few minutes so they could get out. She said they’d be in and out before you were even scheduled to meet up with Xavier, and I didn’t want you hurt!”
They. She’d used Olivia to wend. That was the only explanation.
Alek swore under his breath but cupped his mate’s cheek. “You and I are going to have to have a discussion on what teamwork really means when I get back.”
“I was just trying to keep you safe,” she whispered.
“I know.” He kissed her forehead and stood as Ransom slid into the room, his face white as a damned ghost.
“She used Olivia, didn’t she?” I growled.
His wide and panicked eyes met mine as he nodded. “They’re gone,” he whispered.
“Guess we’re going to have to rescue more than one woman,” Hawke muttered, already reaching for another bite.
“There’s no way they could break in there with just the two of them.” Benedict shook his head. “Sure, Olivia is the fastest vampire I know—male or female—but even if Valor’s codes worked on every door and they found the gap between patrols that doesn’t even exist, there’s no way they’re going to locate Daphne and get out without being seen.”
“We have to go now!” I shouted.
“You’re not listening to me!” Ransom yelled. “I said they’re gone. I don’t just mean Olivia and Valor. Avianna’s chamber is empty. She’s not here.”
Hawke’s silverware fell to his plate, crashing into the china Lyric was so fond of.
Lyric blinked quickly. “Okay, that part I didn’t know,” she whispered. “I thought it was just Olivia and Valor. I never would have let Avianna go.” She shook her head furiously.
The room fell silent for the span of three heartbeats.
Until Alek and Lyric were blessed with a child, Avianna was the heir to the throne.
Hawke exploded out of his chair, nearly toppling the damned thing as he grabbed his cell phone and strode out of the room, already dialing. “It’s Hawke. Meet us on the hillside just out of sight of the compound. Yes, I fucking know that wasn’t the plan. Plans changed.”
“We have to go.” Benedict followed him out.
“Eat this. We can’t have your stomach grumbling.” Ransom shoved a blueberry muffin at my chest on his way to the door.
“I’m so sorry,” Lyric whispered. “You have to get them back.”
“We will,” Alek promised, kissing her hard and quick before rising to his feet.
“She’s my best friend,” Lyric said to me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I was just trying to help.”
