CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lex insisted that Chase stay at the mansion until they found Ari. He was fine with that. At least there, he felt some bit of his sister around him. Even if he couldn't feel her essence, or hear her thoughts, or feel her emotions, Chase knew some part of her was there in that house.
Thirty-Six hours she'd been missing. Thirty-six hours since he'd slept, or ate, or felt whole. Each hour that ticked by took with it a little more of Chase's hope that they'd fine Ari and the babies all safe. All he could do was come up with difference scenarios of what might be happening to her, if she was even still alive.
The only comfort in any of this was that Willow had barely left his side, just as she'd told him. He was grateful for it. Without her there, he might not have been able to hold it together. It wasn't until a couple hours ago that her brother had gotten her to leave him to work on some spells.
He felt different without her, empty, cold. As much as he'd fought against his feelings, none of it mattered anymore. He could work all that out later. Right now, he just wanted her there.
"Chase?" She knocked and peeked her head into the door of the guest room he was staying in. "Okay if I come in?"
Her dark hair was pulled up into a messy bun and she was dressed in simple black clothes. Nothing leather, nothing low-cut, nothing sexy, but she was the most beautiful woman Chase had ever laid his eyes on.
Without answering, or waiting for her to enter, Chase went to her, took her hands in his and pulled her into the room. She followed, without a word, looking up at him with those damn big eyes and pouty lips. Chase needed to feel her warmth, to have her make everything in his mind go away. He needed her, the way that she'd needed him that day she came to him.
He leaned in to kiss her, to lose himself in her mouth, but she stopped him.
"Chase, I think we should talk."
He didn't want to talk, or think, or do anything but be in that place between worlds where they existed as one being. He shook his head, not even wanting to speak any words that might put him further from that peace.
Once again, he leaned in to kiss her. She didn't stop him this time. Instead, she returned the kiss, matching his urgent need. It wasn't why she'd come in there, or what Chase intended when he'd wished she was back by his side, but once he looked into her eyes, he knew it was the only thing that would keep him from losing it altogether.
Chase tugged at her clothes, trying to remove any barrier between them. He wasn't gentle and she didn't seem to mind. After her clothes were in a shredded mess at her feet, he went about adding his own to the pile. He needed the feel of her skin against his, more than he needed to breathe when he was still human.
For a brief pause, Chase looked Willow over, really taking in her beauty for the first time. But looking at her that way brought emotions, and Chase needed to avoid emotions. With one swift move, he lifted her and pushed her against the wall. She wrapped her legs around him and he supported her with one arm. They made eye contact for a flash, then he was inside her.
Thrust after thrust, he slammed inside her, smacking her into the wall with a loud thump. She dug her nails into his shoulders, holding on. Her hair fell in dark waves over her face and shoulders, covering her perfect silky neck. Chase used his face to nudge it out of the way so he could watch her blood throb in her vein, in time with her heart.
She pushed her neck up toward his mouth, wanting him to bite her. Her little impatient moans and the way she squirmed around on him told him just how much she wanted it. Chase wasn't going to last long, so there was no time to make her wait. He leaned in and sunk his fangs into her, sending them both over the edge at once.
He stood there, holding her against the wall, with his mouth still against her throat, panting, for a long time. If he didn't move, the magic wouldn't be broken. He could pretend like everything was all right and what just happened was because he wanted Willow, not because he needed to be anywhere but in reality.
It wasn't that he didn't want her. There was no denying that anymore. In fact, there was no one he'd have allowed to distract him from the chaos at hand, than her. But what happened wasn't about sex. It wasn't about how his feelings had grown for the obnoxious little witch, or how damn sexy she was even when she didn't try. It was all about taking his mind off what was going on before he lost his shit for good.
"Chase?" She pushed the hair out of her face and looked up at him through her lashes.
He didn't answer, couldn't answer. If he'd had the energy left in him, he would have told her not to speak. As it was, it took everything he had left just to hold her against the wall without dropping her. Maybe if he ignored her, she would wait until later.
"We have to talk."
Well, so much for that idea.
Chase took a deep breath and lowered Willow to her feet. He wanted to slide right down to the floor there and stay until someone told him Ari was found. Instead, with the help of Willow, he made it over to the bed and sat on the edge. He wasn't sure what she wanted to talk about, but he knew it probably wasn't something he wanted to hear. Nothing good ever came from a woman saying we have to talk.
After a long pause, she took both his hands in hers and looked him in the eyes. "We really need to talk, now."
***
The last thing Willow had on her mind when she went to Chase was sex, but when he looked at her like that, with that familiar broken look, she couldn't deny him. If anyone understood what that felt like, it was Willow.
She'd given him what he needed, but now they had to talk. She'd been going over it in her mind and it was time to talk it out. Maybe she was crazy, but maybe she was on to something, and someone had to know. Chase, had a right to know. She probably should include the King in on the conversation, but if she was wrong, she wasn't sure how he would react.
Now time was up.
Chase sat on the edge of the bed, with his hands in hers, waiting for the world to be pulled out from under him. If she could avoid it, she wouldn't force this on him, but after many hours of going over and over it, she knew it had to be done.
"Look, if you're going to tell me you don't wanna see me anymore I—"
"No. This isn't about us. And, just so we're clear, I do want to keep seeing you, even though you are insufferable most of the time."
A small smile fought its way to the corner of Chase's mouth. It wasn't much, but she would take it.
"You like me."
"Yes, Chase." Willow rolled her eyes. "I like you, now shut up."
Willow took a few deep breaths. She didn't want to take away his smile, or bring him down from his sex high. She wanted him to have the break in his mind from all this shit he was going through. But she had to do it.
"This is about your sister, or more specifically, who is responsible for what happened to her."
Chase sat up straight and pulled his hands out of hers. "You know something? Did one of your spells work? Do you know where she is?"
"Calm down. I don't know where she is."
Chase got up and started pacing the room. "What then?"
"I've had some suspicions, but I didn't want to say anything because I didn't have proof."
"Since when do you need proof to speak your mind?" Chase stopped pacing and stared at her, his expression unreadable.
"Since what is on my mind could get me kicked out of here if I'm wrong."
"What are you talking about?"
Willow trusted Chase, but she still hated to say the words, especially in a house full of vampires, when it was never clear who might overhear.
"Maybe we should go for a walk before we have this conversation."
Chase followed her eyes to the door. "Don't worry about them. They're all busy arguing in Lex's office. No one is paying any attention to us. Now tell me what you know."
"Like I said, I don't know anything. However, I think Samuel is involved."
Chase narrowed his eyes. "The King's cousin? You think that the guy who is blood-related to Lex, trusted by the vampire emperor dude, and next in line to run like half the country, abducted Ari and her newborn babies?"
"I do."
She knew it sounded ridiculous, but if she was right, and she said nothing, she could never forgive herself if something happened to his sister and her twins.
"Do you have any proof?"
"Not exactly."
Chase scrubbed his hands over his face. "Okay." He went back to pacing before he spoke again. "So why do you think he's involved then?"
"Before your sister went missing, when we were all focused on the vampling kids, I did some unauthorized spells." Michael was actually the one to do the spells. She'd only helped a little on a few, but she wasn't about to throw her twin under the bus. So she would just let everyone think it was her. It wasn't like she was innocent. She had done a few of them herself.
"What kind of spells?"
"I may have put a tracking spell on everyone who came in contact with the kids. I had some suspicions that whoever was taking the kids was someone we trusted."
"Makes sense, but you didn't say anything about the kids. Do you know who was involved with their disappearances?"
"No, that's the thing though. Not one of the people in contact with the kids, came up suspicious."
"I don't get what you're trying to say here." Chase shook his head. "Is any of this supposed to make sense?"
"Just hear me out. So, no one seemed involved, but we know someone had to be involved."
"Do we?"
"Yes. Because they were being taken from a protected area with security all around them. Someone trusted had to be involved."
"Okay, but you don't know who, so how does this help?"
"Because, when Ari went missing, I started looking at the people who had access to both the kids, and your sister, and that's a much smaller number of people, most of which were part of my tracking spell."
Chase leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Okay, and?"
"And Samuel was one of those people."
"So was Gabe, Dex, Jayce, hell, even me and your brother. How does that mean Samuel was involved?"
"When I looked closer at each person who had access to both, something wasn't right. Samuel never left the immediate area. He was always at the training facility, or the mansion."
"So? The guy does nothing but work. Why would he be anywhere else?"
"Because he was. I saw him in the park talking to someone I couldn't make out one morning. Yet the spell didn't register him as being there. That can only mean one thing."
"That your spell is defective?"
"No." Willow snorted. "My spells are never defective. It means that he's had a witch do a cloaking spell on him. He must have anticipated that I'd try a tracking spell, or maybe even that I'd be suspicious of everyone, so he was prepared."
"Okay, so he maybe had a cloaking spell done on him. Does that really mean he was involved? Maybe the guy just likes his privacy?"
Willow sighed. "Chase, nobody just does cloaking spells unless they have something to hide."
"Having something to hide and being the one who abducted my sister are not necessarily the same things. Did you check out Cole? I feel like that creep has to be involved. I went to Samuel, but he won't even question the guy. He just keeps telling me he has it handled."
"Cole didn't have access to your sister and the babies. I can't say for certain whether or not he was involved, but I'm telling you, Samuel was."
"I don't know, Willow. The guy is an asshole, but I'm not sure he's the kind of psychopath that would kidnap his own cousin's mate and her just born babies. Why would he even do that? What does he get out of it?"
"I have no idea. This is why I didn't say something sooner. I was hoping I could get some proof, or something that would back up my argument, but I can't find anything. I felt like you had a right to know." Willow walked over to Chase and took his hands in hers. "I couldn't live with myself if something bad happened to your sister and he was involved, but I didn't say anything."
She took a deep breath and continued. "You can share my theory with Lex if you want. I wasn't sure what to do about him. That's his family and I don't know him well enough to know how he'd take it. Even you don't believe me, so whatever."
Chase hooked a finger under her chin and pulled her face up to his. "I believe you."
She searched his eyes for something, anything, that would tell her more. She didn't just need him to believe her. She needed to know how he felt, about her, but she couldn't be the shit person to ask him something like that with what he was going through.
"You sure about that?"
He leaned down and brushed his lips over hers. "I'm sure. But we do need to tell Lex. He has a right to know what you believe, whether you're right, or not. Maybe he knows things we don't that will make more sense of this."
Willow nodded. She wasn't crazy about going to the king. She'd already imagined how that would work out, probably with Samuel right there, staring her down. Not that Willow couldn't handle a little conflict, she certainly could handle anything that asshole could throw her way, but she didn't want to do anything to get kicked out. It wasn't just about what was best for Michael anymore. She had her own feelings to think of.
***
Alexander sat on the sofa clutching one of the baby's blankets, not saying a word. Chase went over Willow's theory the best he could, asking her to clarify when necessary. Every once in a while, Lex nodded or raised a brow, but he refrained from saying a single thing until Chase was finished and he and Willow stood there waiting for a good five minutes.
At first, Chase was sure he would get angry, throw Willow out on her ass and give Chase some long-winded speech about what a moron he was. Then, he thought maybe Lex wasn't even paying attention to any of it, that he was too lost in his grief. The way he was stroking the tiny yellow blanket worried Chase.
But none of that happened.
When the silence couldn't get any more awkward, Lex stood, walked over to the liquor cabinet, and poured a double whiskey. He gulped the whole thing down in one swallow, then walked back over to where Chase and Willow stood waiting.
"You're accusing my cousin of abducting my mate and newborn babies?" Lex stared at Willow with an unreadable expression.
Chase's hands tingled and he wanted to step between the two. He wasn't about to let Lex lash out at Willow for trying to help.
Willow nodded. "I am and I realize that is a big deal. I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't fully believe it."
"But then, you didn't exactly come to me. You went to Chase and he came to me. You hardly even said anything the whole time."
"True. But I'm here. Look I get it, you don't want to think your family could be involved, but you'd be wrong." Willow held her ground.
Chase had seen Lex toss people in the dungeon for less. But Lex didn't seem angry. He seemed as if he was considering her theory. It wasn't until Chase saw Lex really think about Samuel being involved, that he let himself fully embrace Willow's story. Even Chase didn't want to think the guy was involved. He'd trusted him with his sister's life and now he may be the one responsible for taking it.
"What if you're right?" Lex asked, proposing the question to both Willow and Chase. "What if Samuel is responsible for Ari and the babies going missing? If we can't trust him, how do we know we can trust anyone else?"
"You can't possibly think Gabe or Dex are involved?"
"Or Michael." Willow raised her voice, making sure that her twin being involved was definitely not on the table.
"Of course I don't think Gabe or Dex are involved, but that leaves quite a few people to consider." Lex placed the blanket down on the couch and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
"Then we don't trust anyone else," Willow said. "We have a small circle of those we can trust and we leave it at that. If you actually think I might be right, and I'm thinking that you do, I say we get that small group together and see what they think."
"Okay," Lex said. "We'll meet at Gabe's in one hour. Bring your brother."
Lex disappeared at vampire speed, leaving Willow and Chase standing there. Things had gone better than Chase expected.
At least with Lex.
Now they had to convince Gabe and Dex.