GRAYSON’S CONSCIOUSNESS RETURNED in fragnts.
Cold tal beneath his cheek. Vibrations running through his body in rhythmic waves. The sll of diesel and sothing else, sothing chemical that burned the back of his throat.
Moving. I’m moving.
Grayson tried to open his eyes. His eyelids felt like they’d been weighted down with iron, each blink requiring monuntal effort. Blurred shapes swam in his vision—darkness punctuated by thin strips of light that bounced and swayed.
A vehicle. He was in the back of a vehicle.
He tried to move his arms and discovered, with distant surprise, that they weren’t bound. No ropes, no chains, no supernatural restraints. His hands lay free at his sides, fingers curled loosely against cold tal flooring.
But he couldn’t move them.
Couldn’t make his body obey even the simplest command. It was as if soone had severed the connection between his brain and his limbs, leaving him a passenger in his own flesh.
What did they give ?
His demon nature should have burned through any sedative, any poison. Three centuries of existence had made him resistant to substances that would kill lesser beings instantly. But this—whatever this was—had bypassed every defense, every supernatural immunity, and reduced him to this: helpless, weak, barely conscious.
Panic tried to surface, but even that felt muted, distant, like an emotion happening to soone else.
Mailah.
The thought cut through the fog with crystalline clarity.
She was waiting for him. At the altar. In her wedding dress. Probably terrified by now, wondering where he’d gone, if he’d changed his mind, if three centuries of loneliness had won after all and he’d fled rather than face happiness.
He tried to speak, to call out, but his throat refused to cooperate. Only a rough exhale escaped, barely audible over the rumble of the engine.
Grayson forced his eyes to focus, straining to see through the blur. Shapes resolved slowly—the interior of a van, stripped of seats, only bare tal and shadows. And there, near the front, a silhouette.
His captor.
Who?
The figure turned slightly, and even through his compromised vision, Grayson caught a glimpse of profile—elegant, precise features that triggered recognition sowhere in his addled brain.
I know you.
But the knowledge slipped away like water through fingers before he could grasp it.
The van hit a bump, jostling him against the tal floor. The impact jarred sothing loose in his throat, and a single word erged—rough, barely audible, but unmistakable.
"Varrow."
The na of the pain-feeding demon who’d tortured Elin. The obvious suspect. The entity who’d made threats, who’d promised retribution, who had every reason to want this wedding stopped.
The silhouette went still.
Then laughter—bright, genuine, utterly unexpected—filled the van’s interior.
Definitely a woman’s laugh. Musical, almost delighted, carrying notes of amusent that felt completely wrong given the circumstances.
"Oh, Grayson," the voice said warmly. "That’s adorable. But no. Not Varrow."
He tried to focus, to see her face clearly, to understand who would do this and why, but his vision was darkening at the edges. The chemical fog was pulling him back under, dragging him toward unconsciousness despite his desperate fight to remain aware.
"Don’t worry," the voice continued, closer now, as if she’d moved toward him. "You’ll understand soon. Once you wake up properly."
Mailah, he thought desperately. I have to get back to Mailah.
"Sleep now," the woman said, and he felt a hand—soft, gentle, completely at odds with the kidnapping—brush across his forehead. "You’ll need your strength."
The darkness rushed in like a wave, overwhelming his resistance, pulling him under.
His last coherent thought before unconsciousness claid him completely:
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
************************************************************
"SOONE WHO DOESN’T WANT this wedding to happen," Liora finished.
The words echoed in the stone passage. Through the entrance veil, the music continued its elegant processional, oblivious to the catastrophe unfolding backstage.
Mailah’s mind spun through possibilities at lightspeed.
The Council—but Liora said they were still seated. Varrow—but he’d been dealt with, warned off, supposedly neutralized. Grayson’s ex-wife? One of his brothers? So enemy from three centuries of existence finally choosing today for revenge?
"We need to—" she started.
The archway darkened as multiple figures filled it simultaneously.
Grayson’s brothers.
All four of them, moving with synchronized purpose that spoke to centuries of brotherhood, appeared in the narrow passage.
Lucson in the lead, Mason close behind looking thunderous, Ravenson and Carson flanking them like predators scenting blood.
They were wearing formal suits, carefully arranged features. But their true nature bled through the edges: Mason’s eyes too dark, swallowing light. Carson’s movents too fluid, barely contained energy.
Ravenson’s presence heavy with sothing that made the air feel thick and difficult.
Lucson looked the most controlled. But even his carefully maintained composure showed cracks.
"Tell ," he said to Liora, voice deceptively calm, "how my brother vanishes from a venue saturated with protective wards and supernatural witnesses."
"I don’t know," Liora said flatly. "One mont he was there. The next, gone. No one saw anything. No one sensed anything."
"Impossible." Mason’s voice carried an edge that made Mailah’s instincts scream danger. "You can’t just disappear an incubus from his own wedding. Not without power. Not without planning."
"Then soone had both," Liora shot back.
Carson was pacing—short, tight movents that suggested barely leashed violence. "The wards should have scread. Any hostile entity crossing them should have triggered every alarm."
"Unless," Ravenson said quietly, "whoever took him wasn’t hostile. Or wasn’t detected as hostile."
The implications hung heavy.
"Soone Grayson trusted?," Mailah said, her voice cutting through their speculation. "Soone who could get close without raising alarms."
Four sets of eyes turned to her—ancient, powerful, suddenly rembering she existed.
"The human bride speaks," Mason said. Not quite mockingly, but not friendly either.
"The human bride," Mailah said with more steel than she felt, "wants to find her groom. So either help or get out of the way."
Sothing flickered across Mason’s face—surprise, maybe, or reassessnt.
Lucson studied her with an intensity that felt like being dissected. "What makes you think we’d help you?"
"Because he’s your brother. And despite whatever complicated demon politics you’re all playing, I don’t think you want him dead."
"Bold assumption."
"Am I wrong?"
Lucson’s expression shifted infinitesimally. "No. You’re not wrong."
"Then stop posturing and help find him."
Mason moved closer, and Mailah forced herself not to step back. The nightmare-feeding demon lood over her, darkness seeming to gather around him like a cloak.
"You’re either very brave or very stupid," he said.
"I’m terrified," Mailah admitted. "But terror doesn’t change what needs to happen. Grayson’s missing. We find him. Everything else is secondary."
"She’s really not what we expected," Carson said, stopping his pacing to examine her with open curiosity. "Grayson always chose... softer partners. Less spine."
"Maybe that’s why those relationships failed," Ravenson observed.
They moved as a group through the archway, past the entrance veil, into the courtyard proper.
The music had stopped. Guests whispered among themselves—supernatural beings who’d sensed sothing wrong, who understood that the ceremony’s delay ant more than simple nervousness.
At the altar, beneath the archway drowning in white roses, stood an empty space.
Mailah’s heart clenched seeing it. The place where Grayson should be waiting, where he’d promised to be, now vacant.
Oliver materialized from the crowd, looking haggard. "I checked everywhere. Storage rooms, gardens, the parking area. Nothing. It’s like he vanished into air."
"Teleportation," Carson suggested. "Soone with spatial abilities."
"Through our wards?" Mason shook his head. "That would require serious power. Council-level, at minimum."
"The Council’s here," Ravenson pointed out. "All three of them. Sitting right there." He gestured to where the ice woman, shadow-being, and shifting entity sat watching the proceedings with expressions Mailah couldn’t read.
"So not them," Carson conceded.
Lucson had moved to the exact spot where Grayson should have stood. He crouched, placing one hand flat against the stone. His eyes closed, and power rippled outward—subtle but unmistakable, a pulse that made Mailah’s teeth ache.
Then he looked at Mailah directly.
"You want your groom back?"
"More than anything."
"Good. Because you’re going to help us find him. Your bond with Grayson—it’s a connection. One we can potentially use to track him."
"How?"
"We’ll figure it out." Lucson glanced at his brothers. "Mason, check your sources. See if anyone’s heard whispers of a capture. Ravenson, Carson—work the supernatural grapevine. Soone saw sothing, even if they don’t realize its significance."
He turned to Liora. "Keep the guests calm. Tell them there’s been a delay. dical ergency, family crisis, anything that buys us ti."
"And the Council?" Liora asked.
"Leave them to ." Lucson’s expression hardened. "If they want to observe the bond, they can observe how we handle a crisis."
Mailah looked at the empty altar where Grayson should be standing. Where they should be getting married right now, binding themselves to each other permanently.
Instead, he was gone. Taken by soone with enough power and knowledge to bypass every defense. Soone who knew Grayson intimately enough to predict his movents, his vulnerabilities.
Soone who’d been watching them this whole ti.
"I’ll get him back," she said quietly. Not to Lucson or his brothers or the gathered supernatural beings. To herself. To the universe. To Grayson, wherever he was. "Whatever it takes. I’ll bring him ho."
"We know," Ravenson said unexpectedly. The conflict-and-despair-feeding demon studied her with sothing that might have been respect. "That’s why you’re perfect for him."
Around them, the wedding guests whispered and speculated. The Council watched with inscrutable expressions. The venue sat perfect and unused, decorated for a ceremony that wasn’t going to happen.
And sowhere, Grayson was unconscious in the back of a van, being taken farther away with every passing second.
"Co on," Elin said softly, taking Mailah’s arm. "Let’s get you out of that dress. You can’t search for him in a wedding gown."
"Actually," Lucson said, "keep the dress on. Whoever took him might wants Mailah specifically. Which ans they could reach out to her, not us. She needs to look exactly like what she is: the bride desperate to get her groom back."
"That’s manipulative," Mailah said.
"That’s strategy. And right now, strategy is all we have."
Mailah looked down at her beautiful dress, at the veil still trailing behind her, at the bouquet soone had retrieved from where she’d dropped it.
She looked like a bride.
She felt like a soldier going to war.
"Fine," she said. "I’ll play the desperate bride. But when we find whoever did this?" Her voice went hard. "I want five minutes alone with them."
Mason laughed—sharp and unexpected. "Oh, I like her."
"Assuming we find him alive," Carson muttered.
And sowhere in the distance, beyond the venue’s walls, beyond the Tuscan countryside, Grayson remained unconscious while his captor drove him toward an unknown destination for unknown purposes.
I’m coming, she thought, sending the ssage along whatever thread between them with every fiber of her being. Hold on. I’m coming.
Whether he could hear her or not didn’t matter.
She’d find him.
Even if she had to tear the supernatural world apart to do it.
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