Chapter 1

One

" C ody's gone, Phil."

"What?" Phillip Darque had answered the phone on a whim. He usually didn't pick up when it rang in the middle of the night. But then again, it usually wasn't Thack, the arena manager of the rodeo company Phillip co-owned.

And it definitely usually wasn't Thack telling him his business partner, Cody Knight, had disappeared.

"He's gone. Just… zip." Thack's tone held an urgency he couldn't ignore.

Phillip blinked. "Well, he does go walkabout on occasion. Check with January. He should know where Cody is."

January was Thack's assistant, and he knew everything that happened at the Midnight Rodeo. Hell, he probably had a magical chart showing everyone's movements throughout the day stashed somewhere.

"No. His trailer is here, Phil. His earth is here."

Now his hearts began to race in counterpoint to each other. "His horses?"

"Both in the trailer."

Fuck. Oh, fuck. Phillip rolled out of bed and pulled on yesterday's pants. "When was the last time anyone saw him?" he demanded.

"During the show last night. He rode out to wave at the crowd. Anniversary year and all." The irony was heavy in Thack's voice.

"I'm aware," Phillip said, his own voice as dry as Cody's crypt dust. "Who was looking for him at three a.m.?"

"Kyler Dean. He showed up to ride last week. He was going to Cody's trailer to have a drink. Found it deserted."

"So that's a?—"

"Three-hour window."

"Fuck." He tugged on a shirt, then grabbed his phone charger and his laptop to stuff in his go bag.

"That is one way to put it, Boss." Thack now sounded calm and cool as cucumber. Phillip could feel the lie of it in the core of his belly.

The truth was this terrible, deep panic that Thack was swallowing. Phillip hadn't felt anything like that from his old demon buddy since Thack's mate, Uri, had taken off.

Thack cleared his throat. "I'm going to start sending out feelers everywhere from here, and see what we can find. I've got a couple of wolves who can sniff around, a few vamps, but I need to know what you what me to do. Should I send out the ghost riders?"

"Don't touch anything. Leave Cody's trailer alone. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

"From Florida?"

"I'll take the demon express." He could pop in and out of dimensions if he tried hard enough. This warranted it.

"I'd tease you about being absent so long if it's that easy, but it's really not appropriate."

Not appropriate at all, but Thack was too vitally important to be sent back to Hell.

"Stop it with the projected rage, Phillip. You don't have time to fuck with me. See if you can make it in ten. Call in favors if you have to, but the boss needs to come home."

"I hear you. Twenty minutes." He shoved the phone in his back pocket once he rang off.

He needed half of those minutes to pack that go bag and to get his shit together. He collected his bag, shoving things in, willy-nilly, before walking over to the little golden birdcage hanging over his bed and unlocking the door. "Come on, my dear."

Flaming red eyes opened, an infernal light in a pure black face crowned with horns, and her tiny little hands rubbed together, her wings unfurling.

Selena didn't speak; she couldn't, but her eagerness was obvious. She loved to play.

Phillip thought he might need her and her unique abilities if someone had dared to actually do Cody any harm. "That's right. Somebody's messed with what's mine, and you know how I feel about that."

Her smile was the only flash of white in her entire countenance, and those teeth, though tiny, were malicious, sharp as needles. There was only one thing in heaven, hell, and earth that he loved more than this little imp.

And Cody was now missing.

Cody sure as fuck had no idea where he was or what the sam hill was going on, but he did know that everything burned. His entire goddamn world was like lightning slamming into him over and over again.

It wasn't sunlight—that he couldn't survive—but it was something bright and awful and endless. And it hurt.

Cody wasn't sure what the fuck had happened. A knock had sounded at his trailer door, interrupting his nightly review of the accounts, and then?

Nothing.

He knew he'd fought. He could still taste demon blood on his fangs, which was handy because it could keep him going for a week, maybe more. He had no doubt they were going to starve him, whoever they were.

They always went for starvation. Demons were predictable, after all, and vampires needed blood to survive, but they could linger for a long time with tiny sips.

Low-hanging fruit.

Starving wasn't what Cody was worried about. What he was worried about was that he wasn't home, he was surrounded by light, and he wasn't going to be able to sleep. Not even for a second.

Not without the earth of his homeland nearby. He kept it under his bed in a carved wooden box, carefully hidden where it didn't become a conversation piece or a temptation to steal.

Starvation was hard, but not being able to sleep? That could make a guy crazy.

"What are we supposed to do with him now?"

Cody stilled, trying to catch more snatches of conversation, trying to recognize who the threat was, because then he could know how to kill it.

"We're supposed to take him to Jean-Luc."

He tilted his head. Jean-Luc? Interesting.

The only Jean-Luc he knew, who would have demon blood attached, was Phillip Darque's uncle.

Figured this would have to do with Phillip's people, and Jean-Luc was the worst.

Stupid son of a bitch didn't bother to research that he and Phillip had been broken up for what? Decades, give or take a few years.

Darque and Knight had been around when people called them traveling bands. Minstrels sometimes.

Wild West shows.

That was when it had really gotten started.

Minstrel shows had been fun, sure. The food had been decent, the crowd interesting and well-soaked, but Wild West shows were where Cody had tied on and where he'd truly flourished. Cowboys crawling out of the dark, hungry for excitement late at night when the sun had left the land.

Looking for something special. Something risqué and perverse and not quite mundane.

Oh, Phillip had been fun then—the demon had loved watching the men feed their desires, pour their hard-earned money into one temptation after another.

The sex had been phenomenal. Phillip knew just how to turn him inside out, leave him blood-glutted and boneless and ready to go again the next night.

He had absolutely gotten over it.

Still. Cody was going to have to have a talk with Jean-Luc the idiot, because it didn't matter if they had kidnapped him, if they were going to kill him, what have you.

Phillip didn't care.

Phillip had other things to do.

Phillip was busy.

Phillip was a giant gangrenous dick, and Cody would rip his head off just as soon as see him.

Fuck that ice-cold prick who could just walk away from all their years together and sit in an icy, air-conditioned penthouse in the land of the happy mouse.

Still, there was a very quiet part inside of him that hoped that, if he didn't survive this whole going to see the uncle, head of the demonic family of assholes thing?

Somewhere. Phillip would know.