Chapter 16

Robin's eyelids flickered open. He was outside, on his back with his arms outstretched and he couldn't move. It took several minutes for his brain to catch up and for him to realise he was tied down with something stronger than normal rope, as his vampire strength wasn't helping. He tried to look around but he couldn't see much more than he was lying on a flat roof and the sun was rising. He struggled against his bindings, but the more he did the more resistance they put up, and he realised they must be magical in origin.

Whoever had left him here couldn't have known he had a higher tolerance to daylight than most of his kind, although he wasn't completely immune, a few hours wouldn't hurt him and someone should already be searching for him. By the position of the sun, he must have been unconscious for several hours. The last thing he remembered was Simon being dragged away through a portal. He stared around to see if he was here but couldn't see him. A sense of dread crept through him. Where the fuck was Simon?

He tried not to panic, but he had no idea where he was and his husband was missing—anything could be happening to him and he was stuck here, unable to get to him. There were distant sounds of traffic, meaning he wasn't too far out of the city, but not central and being tied to the top of a building meant limited opportunity to be found by a random passerby. Perhaps someone would have tracked his mobile phone, but he wasn't even sure he still had it. He tried to remember everything that had happened. He'd been so pleased to get the viewing for the house he hadn't stopped to think there could be something amiss. But there were only two ways this could have happened, first, that it was staged and Simon was in on it… he couldn't bring himself to believe that, not when Simon had said several times it didn't feel right, and Robin should have listened. Or, second, someone had found out he was house-hunting and set a trap. His gut told him he wasn't the target, and it was Simon. As heir to the Calanti throne and the Dark Viscount of MacLove, he would be considered important enough to demand a sizable ransom. It seemed too pedestrian a reason, but he didn't have another answer and neither did he have an idea of who was responsible.

Apart from the sun rising he had no idea how much time had passed, he wasn't the Boy Scout type who was able to guess the time by the angle of the sun, and there was nothing else. He was beginning to get over-warm, the sun's effects starting to take their toll, meaning he'd been in contact with the sun for at least two hours, but it had been dark when they'd looked at the house so he could have been here several hours.

The sound of flapping shocked him out of his delirium, he squinted upwards and saw the unmistakable silhouette of a dragon in full flight. He must be seeing things because dragons were strictly limited to when and where they could fly, but blinking didn't clear his vision and instead the dragon circled overhead. As it got closer he recognised the scale pattern.

"Dorian!"

Moments later, the dragon landed and the telltale sound of Dorian shifting into his human form followed, stark bollock naked. "Robin, I thought it was you, but I thought I might have still been high from the hot smoke I took last night. What the hell are you doing here?"

Not even Dorian's nakedness could distract him from his current predicament. "Simon's been kidnapped and whoever did it knocked me out and left me tied up—I don't even know where I am."

"You're in the Tyfal area."

Tyfal was one of the closed districts in the southern suburbs where Dorian lived as there were no restrictions on his flight paths, although if any of his fans asked he lived in Beverley Hills. Humans didn't live here, and it was unchartable, making it a very desirable part of LA for the elite members of paranormal society.

Dorian crouched at his side and pulled at his ropes, they didn't budge. He shifted his hand so his dragon claws could make short work of the bindings, slicing through them. Robin sat up, rubbing his wrists and Dorian pulled him to his feet. He checked his pockets, but his phone was nowhere to be found. "I take it you'd not heard I was missing?"

"No. But then I've only just got up and this is my morning flight." Dorian grimaced, and reached out and ran a finger over Robin's cheek. "Let's get you out of the sun, you're starting to get crispy."

He didn't argue as Dorian shifted into his dragon form. His red and gold scales had always been eye-catching. Dorian grabbed him around the middle, after giving him a withering look when Robin suggested he got on his back. "I'm not a fucking pony, Robin. Don't wriggle and I won't drop you."

He'd never flown with Dorian before, at least not in the literal sense. Although a line of coke and a great fuck had resulted in some pretty stellar shared experiences. He felt surprisingly safe in the grasp of Dorian's talons and at no point thought he would need scraping off the ground. They weren't airborne long, and Dorian set him down in the grounds of an impressive house which must have been his home. "Come in. I daresay you'll need to contact your people."

Despite their on/off entanglement, Robin had never been here, Dorian coming to whichever apartment he was using at the time. As he entered the house he was surprised at how homely it was, none of the garish colours or outlandish furniture pieces he would have expected, given Dorian's taste in clothes. He wondered where his hoard was.

"I don't have my phone."

Dorian shifted back into his human form, and covered himself with a dressing gown that had been hanging by the door. Dorian grabbed his phone from a side table and threw the unlocked device at Robin. "There you go."

He wasn't sure who he should call first, but Claude seemed the most obvious. He dialled the number, and it was answered on the third ring. "Hello."

"It's me."

"Robin, thank fuck. Where are you?"

"Dorian's. He found me tied up on a roof and brought me to his house," he said, making sure there was no mistake that he'd not gone over to an old flame's for anything nefarious. "Is Simon with you?"

"No, hang on." Claude was gone for a moment. "Someone is coming to fetch you. The fae have been able to reconnect and have locked onto your location."

"But Simon?—"

A portal opened and Yerial marched through it, he had a black eye and split lip. "Thank fuck. We thought you might be… er… dead-er."

"I don't think I can get dead-er."

Yerial grabbed his arm. "You knew what I meant. You need to come with me now."

Simon turned to Dorian. "Thank you, I won't forget this."

Dorian waved him away. "I'd quite like to play James Bond."

"Consider it done."

"You can thank your knight in shining armour later. We need to get you somewhere safe." Yerial yanked him through the portal without further explanation.

They arrived, not in the fae realm or at MacLove Castle but at Crofton Hall. "Why are we at Ben's place? Is Simon here?"

"No one is likely to come looking for you here."

"What's that meant to mean?"

Yerial didn't answer but pulled Robin along the main downstairs hallway and into a reception room. "I've got him."

Claude was there, as were Sebastian, Liam, and Simon's parents. James was on his feet and before Robin could react James had his hands on the side of his face and muttering a stream of words he thought were in one of the fae languages but he couldn't understand. The rush of James's magic unnerved him but he couldn't move, as if he were frozen to the spot, the tendrils rippled through him. It wasn't unpleasant, but neither was it something he'd care to repeat. With a frustrated growl, James pushed him away and Robin stumbled backwards, landing on his arse.

"Nothing, not a trace." James turned to Liam. "Even the bond is refusing to pull through."

Yerial helped Robin back to his feet. "Will someone tell me what's going on?" Robin asked. "Where's Simon?"

"My son is missing, you disappear without a trace, if anyone has questions to answer it's you," snarled James.

"James," Liam said, it was softly spoken but no less of a warning. "If Robin was involved I doubt he'd have been stupid enough to call his sire and allow us to find him. But I am sure he'll cooperate and tell us everything he knows that might help find Simon."

Sebastian guided Robin into a chair and handed him a glass of blood. "Drink this. Then you best start from where you went to and what happened. I'm willing to believe you're not behind Simon's disappearance, for now, but if you are implicated I will drain you myself."

He hadn't expected to be thought an accomplice, he was as much a victim here as Simon, but hysterics wouldn't help him. "I've been looking for somewhere for us to live in Los Angeles, and there was a house I'd seen I thought would be a great option, so had asked a realtor I've worked with for years to enquire. The offer I made was more than generous but I hadn't thought it would be successful so when I got a call that the owners were willing to discuss I made plans to visit. We shared the details with Yerial before we left."

"Captain Yerial informed us that there was something stopping him from accessing the property, a ward of some kind, and it took a significant extra time to break through. Didn't Simon notice something wasn't right?" asked James.

"Not really, he mentioned it was a bit odd but I thought it was him not liking the style of the house. Maybe instead there was an undercurrent he was picking up. We decided to see the master bedroom as he wanted to give the place a proper chance. But then three green portals opened, and we were rushed. I wasn't able to move and then Simon was dragged away. One of the invaders hit me and the next thing I know I wake up tied to a roof."

"How many were there and what did they look like?" James asked.

He had to think, but it had all happened so fast. "Six, no seven, I think. Dressed in black, wearing full face masks, even their eyes were covered. I couldn't stop them, and Simon's magic wasn't working."

"You said they left you on a roof," Claude said.

"Yes, they mustn't have known I'm relatively sun-proof by vampire standards. A dragon-shifter I know was taking his morning flight and spotted me. I swear I didn't know it was going to happen, I wouldn't hurt Simon. I couldn't…"

The pain of knowing Simon was gone hit him harder than anything he'd felt before, the loss immeasurable, as if he didn't want to exist anymore.

"I believe him," James said. "But we have no idea who has Simon or where he is. I couldn't even pull down on their bond to get a trace. There's some fucking nasty magic at play here."

"But why take him? Is it ransom? Revenge?" asked Robin. "He's not done anything to anyone."

Another portal opened, and Ashley Niven, Ben's partner and Senior Warlock, stepped out of it, followed by Alex Reynolds, the elf who was Ben's secretary.

"Ah, you're back," said Sebastian. "What did you find at the house?"

"A magical signature that was so distorted there was no way of tracing it, or even identifying the owner. It takes a very dark power to pull that off. I've personally never witnessed it before," said Ashley.

"The elves of the Ischua tribe have a way of masking their signature, but it didn't feel like that to me. A possible elvish undercurrent but not pure, maybe demon-tinged," said Alex. "I think we should ask Karl to have a look. Demonology is more his thing."

"Agreed," said Ashley.

"Who?" asked James.

"He's Ben's valet, and level three demon. Not sure it'll help to be honest. I couldn't even get a trace off the bodies."

" Bodies ?" snapped Robin.

"Not Simon," Ashley said quickly.

"One was a woman in the master bedroom, who from her identification was the realtor," Alex said. "And there was another couple, the owners, who had been stuffed in a cupboard under the stairs with their throats cut."

"But why was Simon taken in the first place?" Robin asked.

Alex wrinkled his nose. "I have a theory, but I'm not sure you'll going to like it."

"Go on," said James. "I've not liked anything else about this situation, so no reason to start now."

"From what you told me earlier, Simon was in the transition to his full vampire-fae physiology, his magic erratic but growing. I think in his current state, his magic could be siphoned off and used by someone else."

Robin knew he was slow-thinking, or he didn't understand the connotation, but James's reaction was one of fury and disdain. "Whoever has him can bleed him like a battery. Until he feeds, he could be a constant power source."

"We have to find him. Please. I need him back," Robin said, the words came out choked. Having a reason didn't make it any better.

Sebastian squeezed his shoulder. "We'll get him back, Robin. And we'll make whoever took him see the error of their actions in the most painful way we can."

Robin sobbed. He ached to see Simon, he couldn't explain the desolation of him being gone. There was an emptiness he'd not realised before. The constant low comfort that had been with him all those years was no longer there. Added to it was another pain, that he'd not told Simon he loved him. It wasn't the bond talking, what he felt for Simon transcended hocus-pocus. He would tear the world apart if he had to, but he would bring Simon home.