CHAPTER 20
CHLOE
Chloe hustled back to the room as fast as she could while still pretending she was in the grip of a sudden vomiting bug. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her she straightened up.
Twenty seconds to rinse her mouth and spit in the sink. Ten to pull the dragon scale from its hiding place in the lining of her bag. In less than a minute, she was out the door again, the scale tucked safely into her bra.
Less than a minute—but out of how many minutes total? On an island full of shifters, it couldn’t be too long before someone noticed she was missing.
Chloe put her head down and marched toward the main building. She turned her back on the tower that housed the fighting ring, aiming for its counterpart at the other end of the building. The one place left that she had never managed to get into, even when she was on the housekeeping roster. The rooms there were off-limits to everyone except senior staff.
And one senior staff member in particular always finished her evening shift around now, while the boss was being entertained by his prisoners…
Chloe jogged up the steps to the veranda that looped around the second story. She felt incredibly exposed—until she looked down and saw nothing where her shadow should be. Chloe gulped. The world seemed to tilt.
She really was invisible.
This is nuts, she thought, and bit back a sudden gurgle of laughter. Seeing her feet move over the pale stone and no shadow following made her feel like a badly-rendered computer game character. Now all she needed to do was complete her fetch quest.
Chloe sped around a corner and had to throw herself sideways as she almost barreled straight into her old manager.
Nora was hurrying along the veranda with her head down, rubber gloves clenched in one hand and the other dragging her cart of cleaning equipment. She didn’t look up as Chloe yelped and clattered out of the way, almost tripping over her cart.
She can’t hear me. She has no idea I’m even here. Chloe’s heart leapt. She’d imagined sneaking up on Nora while she worked and grabbing her keys. But this was going to be much easier.
Chloe kept pace with Nora inside and waited while she hit the button for the clanky, old-fashioned elevator. Her keys were on an elastic cord at her waist. She jingled them absently as she waited for the elevator.
And when it arrived, and she stepped forward, Chloe reached out and unhooked the ring of keys from her waist.
Simple as that, Chloe thought smugly, and fled.
She knew exactly where she was going. Back along the veranda, feet slapping on pale stone. Across the courtyard spotted with twisted trees in shallow pots. Right to the door set in the side of the second tower.
Chloe looked up at the stone tower, heart thudding in her ears. This is it. If her hunch was right, this was where she would be able to find a way out of here, for her and Mathis and everyone else trapped on this hellhole island.
And if it wasn’t…
Her fist clenched around the keys. It has to be.
Even though Chloe knew no one could see her, the back of her neck was itching like crazy. This courtyard was visible from almost every window in the building. Unfortunately, the door here was the only way into the tower.
Which has got to be deliberate, Chloe thought. She slotted the key into the lock. So I’ve just got to hope that no one is watching right now… Please, Mathis, make your distraction a good one…
The key turned. The door swung open. Chloe darted inside and forced herself to ease it shut instead of slamming it. The scale only silenced her, not anything she crashed into.
She leaned back against the closed door, panting. Her whole body felt electrified. No turning back now.
The first room in the tower was dark, and it took Chloe’s eyes a moment to adjust. No windows, she thought, and her eyes went immediately to the floating staircase that wound around the edges of the room. No light poured in from where it opened out onto the next floor. So no windows there, either.
Which was weird, cos it sure as hell had looked from the outside like there were windows in the tower.
Chloe stepped forward. The entrance-level room was furnished in the style she’d come to expect from Harper: gaudy bordering on tacky. Chloe hadn’t even thought you could get sofas in gold leather. And then there was what looked like a fur-covered beanbag thrown carelessly under the staircase. The whole place was garish as hell… And perfectly clean. Nora must have just finished up in here when I caught up with her.
She slipped one hand into her pocket, feeling the reassuring smooth edge of her cellphone. Right. Time to explore—
Two things happened at the same time. First, her cellphone started beeping and buzzing like the Fourth of July was going off in her pocket.
Second, the fur-covered bean bag under the stairs surged up, and Chloe found herself staring into the eyes of the polar bear that had tried to tear her to pieces three weeks ago.
He can’t see me, she told herself. The bear raised its muzzle and sniffed the air. He can’t see me and he can’t smell me. Oh God.
She had to get out. She was still leaning against the door. All she had to do was turn the handle and she’d be out. Lock the door behind her. That would stop him for a few minutes, at least. Enough time for her to run.
But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t even move her hand to the door handle.
She could barely breathe.
The bear shambled to its feet. It moved heavily, as though its limbs were weighted down. Chloe gulped. She remembered how those heavy paws had slammed into the wall only inches from her head. The bear’s limbs weren’t weighted down. They were just heavy as hell. Massive, claw-tipped mallets of flesh and bone.
It tipped its head on one side and Chloe had to remind herself, over and over, that it couldn’t see her it couldn’t smell her and it couldn’t hear her. It couldn’t. The scale kept her safe.
The bear huffed and lumbered towards her.
It can’t see me it can’t hear me it can’t smell me.
Long, broken claws clacked on the floorboards as the bear shambled towards the door. Chloe’s feet were glued to the floor.
Maybe it couldn’t smell her but she could smell it. The thick, rotting smell that clung to the bear filled her nostrils, choking in her lungs. It was four feet away. Three. So close she could feel its foul breath.
Mathis—
Mathis couldn’t help her. She was in this by herself.
Chloe threw herself sideways. The bear’s paw just grazed her side and there was a table right in front of her, covered in glitzy ornaments. Delicate, shatterable, noisy ornaments.
She twisted in midair, landing on the floor inches away from the table. Inches away from making a noise that would have betrayed her presence.
If the bear’s paw grazing her side hadn’t done that already.
Chloe sprawled on the floor, too terrified to move. If the bear had noticed her—she didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t have any weapons. She was helpless, and afraid, and out of ideas.
The bear swung its heavy head around. It sniffed at its paw. It would have been almost funny if Chloe wasn’t so terrified.
And then it turned away, fumbled at the latch with one massive paw, and left.
The door swung shut behind it, and Chloe collapsed like a puppet whose strings had all been cut.
It didn’t see me. She gulped in a ragged breath. And it was too stupid to figure out I was here. Thank God.
And my phone…
Chloe’s gasping breaths dissolved into desperate giggles. Her phone was still buzzing. In her terror, she hadn’t even noticed it.
And neither had the polar bear shifter.
“Fucking hell, Harper,” she choked out between giggles. “You run your own fucking death island, and you have an unsecured Wi-Fi network in your villain’s lair?”
She pulled out her phone. It had automatically connected to the network the moment the door opened—there must be some sort of dampener in the outer walls of the tower. And now hundreds and hundreds of notifications were pouring in. Months’ worth of them.
So many that Chloe could barely do anything on the phone without one popping up. She swiped them away, hissing with irritation and trying not to read them.
Friends. Family. Names flashed by but she couldn’t let herself pause long enough to read them. She had to focus.
Then maybe she’d see them again one day.
She blinked until her eyes cleared enough for her to navigate to her email app. She typed in the address Mathis had given her—his sister’s—and the short message they’d agreed on.
Coordinates. Names. A secret phrase that meant Francine would know just how serious things were.
Mathis had told her his sister must know something was wrong. They had a special connection, being twins and shifters. They could always tell when the other one was in danger.
Well, her Spidey-sense must have been going haywire for the last month, Chloe thought. I hope she’s ready and waiting to hit “go” on a rescue mission…
Fingers crossed, Chloe hit Send.
Sending. Sending… gone.
Chloe was about to leave when her phone buzzed again. Another new email.
An out-of-office.
From Mathis’ sister.
Chloe read it, hardly able to believe what her eyes were seeing. Francine Delacourt was on indefinite leave. Urgent messages to be sent to the acting CEO. This email is being monitored but please allow forty-eight hours for…
Chloe’s fingers clenched around the phone. She didn’t have forty-eight hours. Neither did Mathis. And they sure as hell didn’t have forty-eight hours for some assistant to flick over the email and probably pass it off as spam or a phishing scam.
Why didn’t I ask him for more addresses? Chloe’s hand was shaking. Their plan had relied on workaholic Francine, whom Mathis had assured her was constantly glued to her phone, receiving the message. Email only. Apparently billionaire heiresses didn’t do phone calls from unknown numbers.
And now it turned out she was on freaking vacation.
“What the hell am I meant to do now?” Chloe asked the empty room, her voice cracking.
Whatever you can.
Chloe blinked. The voice was hers, but also… not hers. She shivered, then steadied herself.
All right, voice inside my head. You have a good point.
Do whatever she could? She could only think of one thing. And it was sure as hell not going to make Mathis happy.
Chloe opened another app and started to upload the video of the fight between Mathis and the wolf shifter. It was slow. Too slow.
She checked the Wi-Fi connection. It had picked up the notifications okay, but it wasn’t strong enough for the plan slowly taking form inside her head.
She needed to get closer to the source. The router.
It must be upstairs.
Chloe took the steps two at a time, balancing with one hand against the wall. She thought she would feel light-headed, but instead her head was clear as glass.
The upload bar sped up. She was getting closer. Time to start drafting. Mathis wasn’t going to like it—hell, she didn’t like it—but it was what she did best, after all.
She started typing. Hashtags. Keywords. Tagging in influencers. SEO, optimized for a very specific search engine, one she was certain must exist from everything Mathis had said about his shifter friends.
Five drafts. Ten. One of them must go viral. Especially with the footage she was attaching to them. She selected all the distribution channels she had accounts for, and paused with her finger over the send button.
Please don’t hate me, Mathis, she prayed, and hit Send.
“Shit.” Of course. Nothing was instant, even on the internet. The Pending icon blinked, maddeningly slow.
She had to stay here until it was done. It could take minutes, and maybe she didn’t have minutes. But she had to risk it.
And while she was here…
Chloe tore her eyes away from the blinking icon. A watched Tweet never twits, she thought, and there’s plenty else to look at here. Hell. Heaps plenty.
She hadn’t looked around when she sprinted up the stairs. Her eyes had been glued to the phone.
The upstairs room was an Aladdin’s cave of crazy shit.
Chloe dropped her phone to her side as she stared around, and her mouth fell open. The entrance-level room had been glitzier than Glinda the Good Witch’s underwear, but this was something else. It was still garish enough to make Chloe wince, but it was organized.
Like the world’s trashiest museum, Chloe thought.
She’d expected, somewhat nauseously, that this would be the bedroom. Instead, a grid of glass-covered cabinets filled the floor. There wasn’t a speck of dust on any of them; Nora had been very thorough.
As for what she’d been dusting…
Chloe frowned as she made her way down the aisle between two rows of display cases. It was just… stuff. Shoes. Some hair doodads. A few cellphones. Earrings, but not expensive looking.
Wallets. Photos. Chloe started to feel sick.
These weren’t museum cases. They were trophy cabinets. And she thought she could guess what a man like Harper kept trophies of.
People like her and Mathis.
Chloe gulped and averted her eyes. Her gaze fell on a larger cabinet at the end of the room. There was something different about this one. It was set apart from the others, with a leather-cushioned sofa in front of it. As though Harper liked to lounge in front of it and look at his treasure.
She stepped closer. The case was different to the others. More complex. There were clear tubes running along the inside of the glass, filled with some sort of swirling black smoke. There was a strange lock on the clasp that held the glass lid on. Chloe leaned closer. It almost looked as though it was set up for the glass tubes to break if someone forced the case open—but what purpose would that serve? Covering the objects inside with glass shards and smoke?
The objects inside the case gleamed, lit from below by soft display lights. It was too dark for her to see them clearly from here. Chloe had an impression of swirling blues and purples, like the colors made by spilled gas on concrete. Smooth curves.
Chloe gasped. They looked like eggs—but not any sort of eggs she’d seen before. Each one was as big as her head, with a dimpled surface that made them seem to change color in the soft white light. Green. Blue. Purple. Black.
There was a sound behind her. Footsteps? Chloe ignored them. No one could see her, after all. And she had to wait until her messages were sent. She leaned over with her hands on her thighs, staring at the eggs.
What sort of creature laid eggs like that?
Take a photo. Chloe’s fingers itched, but she didn’t touch the camera app on her phone. Getting evidence of Harper’s insanity out there was one thing, but these eggs must be one of Harper’s pieces of leverage. And Chloe had a pretty good idea who he was using them to control.
“Feeling better, Ms. Kent?”
Julian Rouse. Speak of the devil.
Chloe’s mouth went dry. She spun around, trying to slip her phone back into her pocket, but Julian’s hand darted out and grabbed her wrist.
“How did you get in here?” Julian’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve got one of my scales on you. Where?”
Chloe’s hand flew automatically to where it was hidden. “Uh… basically, my cleavage…”
Julian snatched his hand away. “Ah,” he said. His mouth made shapes, as though he was looking for more words and completely failing to find them.
“If you want it back…”
Julian stepped back, his face becoming absolutely expressionless. “That won’t be necessary. Though you should be thankful Harper sent me to fetch you, instead of one of the staff. If anyone else had found your bedroom empty the whole island would be on high alert by now.”
“Sent to fetch me? What are you talking about? And how did you find me here, anyway?”
Julian waved her question away. “I can tell when people are using pieces of my power. But that’s not important right now. You need to come with me.” His eyes went dark. “It’s Mathis.”