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“How rude of me, I haven’t even introduced myself.” His dark robes flowed around him as he moved, and his staff crackled with dark energy. He was tall and muscular, and he radiated an aura of power and menace. He moved with a grace and precision that was almost inhuman, and his every gesture exuded confidence and authority. “I’m Erebus Ashwood, and as I’m sure you’ve already surmised, I’m a member of House Lowe.”
Sera’s grams was not fucking around. Not that I disagreed with going all out to find Sera, but I had no way of telling them this wasn’t moving any of us in the right direction.
“You don’t appear surprised at my arrival,” his pursed lips frowned. “I’d question you here, but I require privacy to truly enjoy myself.”
With a flick of his wrist, Erebus sent a cloud of dark energy flying towards us. Shadows swarmed around us, and my entire world went black. I was powerless to do anything but go along for the ride.
Undercover Lovers
FRANC
Iparked in the visitor parking lot and then Caden and I walked over to Sera’s apartment building. We slipped through the front entrance as another tenant was leaving and took the stairs up to Sera’s floor, where I knocked on her door. There was no answer. I knocked again, but no one answered.
“She must not be here either,” Caden said. “I can check outside to see if there’s a good view of her balcony? Might see something inside that way too.”
I nodded, and he headed off down the hall. I knocked again, this time listening carefully for movement inside the apartment. My gut told me something was wrong with Sera, but I couldn’t tell if it was my demi-god intuition or just the fear of not being able to find her running through me.
The door across from Sera’s opened a crack, and an older woman peeked out at me. She looked like she was in her sixties with salt-and-pepper hair tied up in a bun on top of her head. Her eyes were a remarkable, vivid green the color of moss. “Another visitor, eh? What are you doing here?” she asked me in a gravelly voice as she pulled the door open further, revealing herself to be taller than me by several inches. “Are you family too?”
“No,” I said, not wanting to divulge too many details to the nosy neighbor. “I’m a friend of the family. I’m Franc.”
She crossed her arms over her ample chest and tilted her head to the side. “Call me Eloise. There have been several people banging on her door at all hours. I know they said she’s missing, but I’d think if she found her way back here she’d know enough to call her family too.”
I glanced down the hall, but there was no sign of Caden yet. “Sadly, she’s still missing,” I replied.
Eloise clicked her tongue. “She’s a gorgeous girl, so I’m not surprised people are going all out to find her, but this is ridiculous. That cousin of hers, Mikael, was just here.”
“How long ago?” I asked.
“Ten minutes? Fifteen? You folks need to learn a thing about canvassing an area, that’s all I’ll say.” She pursed her lips at me and then looked over my shoulder down the hall at Caden who was just arriving back at the door to Sera’s apartment. “From what I gathered from our brief conversations, Mikael seems convinced that Sera is in danger? He also said I should be on the lookout for unsavory characters. That wouldn’t be you two, now would it?” Eloise asked us directly, her no-nonsense tone brooking no argument or dodges from us on the subject. “Are you folks unsavory?”
I glanced over at Caden who just shrugged at me as if to say he hadn’t been able to find out anything from his brief excursion outside Sera’s balcony. Eloise arched an eyebrow at me again, but then she looked past me at Caden as he joined us in the hallway outside Sera’s door.
“We’re just friends who want Sera found, and it sounds like we’ve struck out again,” I said to Caden. “Sorry, ma’am, we’ll get out of your hair.”
Eloise looked us both over again, no doubt so she could report us to the next person, and then shut the door.
“I guess we should tell the others,” I said.
“There’s one more thing I’d like to check,” Caden replied, pulling something from his pocket. As I watched him he unrolled a small kit of tools, selected a couple of items, and then went to work on the door.
“You can lock pick?”
Caden nodded, his focus almost entirely on the lock. “I even got work to pay for my training and tools.”
“Clever trick, detective. Where did that kit come from?”
“I had a few things I kept in your back office at Velvet and picked it up while you were sorting out the contractors.”
“Of course you did,” I replied.
I heard the lock click open, and a moment later Caden was pulling me into the dark apartment after him. He closed the door quietly behind us. “I hope the nosy Ms. Eloise wasn’t paying attention just now.”
Caden nodded. “Doesn’t matter. We won’t stay long, I just want to make absolutely sure Sera hasn’t been here.”
Despite the dim lighting, I could see the layout of the room. The apartment was divided into two main rooms, this living space and a bedroom, with a small but well-appointed kitchen and bathroom off to the side.
There were a few pictures on the walls, but nothing that stood out as particularly Sera-esque. Her couch was clean, with no throw pillows or blankets strewn across it. A few candles sat on one shelf along with some books, but that was it. Sera wasn’t an overly sentimental person.
