her blood ran cold and she nearly dropped the phone.
“Oh my God. Martin.”
She dialed his number but it went right to voice mail. She checked the call history to see what time he’d left the message. When she rang his condo and he didn’t pick up, she called Dom.
“Everything all right, Kenz? I’m sensing—”
“Martin, they have Martin.” She relayed the contents of the brief message to Dom. “That was the class I was supposed to teach last night.”
“I’ll head over to the art school at dusk to check it out.”
“We can’t wait that long. That’s in six hours. I’m going now.” She rushed down the stairs from the terrace and burst through the door into the hallway of the loft.
“No, you’re not,” Dom yelled at her through the phone. “You’re staying right there. It’s not safe for you to be out alone.”
“I can’t just sit here. You can’t go out and neither can any of your people. That leaves me. Since the Darkbloods won’t be out, either, I’ll be fine.”
“Goddamn it, Kenz. You’re not going anywhere.” The line went dead.
She didn’t know how far away the field office was, but she was determined to be gone before he arrived. She grabbed her purse and hoped she’d be able to quickly find a taxi. After waiting a moment for the slowest elevator in the world to reach her floor, she decided to take the stairs. She’d only made it down one flight when a deep voice boomed from above.
“Where in the hell are you going?”
She let out a little yelp and kept going. “Don’t try to stop me,” she called over her shoulder. “Martin needs—” She smacked into Dom’s chest at the next landing. She would’ve fallen to her knees if he hadn’t caught her. “How the hell—” He grabbed her wrist and started to yank her up the stairs. “Let me go.” She dug her heels in and leaned back with all her weight, struggling to break free. When Dom kept hauling her up the stairs as if she were a naughty child, she kicked at his shins.
Without a word, he hoisted her up and slung her over his shoulder. She tried to kick, but he held her legs tight at the ankles, so she pummeled his back with her fists. “Goddamn it, Dom.” She was sobbing now. “I’ve got to get to Martin.”
He kicked open the steel door of the loft and stomped down the hallway to his bedroom. With another hard kick of his boot, he slammed the door shut behind them and flung her onto the bed.
His eyes narrowed and the muscles in his jaw flexed as he ground his teeth together. She wasn’t surprised to see the tips of his fangs. With the exception of that night in the cabin when he’d left, she’d never seen him so angry, but she was determined to stand against him this time.
“I told you to stay put and I meant it.” His words sounded different with that mouthful of teeth.
They probably weren’t conducive to speaking. Well, screw that.
She jumped to her feet on the bed, empowered by the vantage point of looking down on him. Seeing his teeth should’ve frightened her, but all she felt was pissed off and frustrated at being forced into his room like this. Fangs or no fangs—no one ordered her around like this. She poked her forefinger solidly into his chest.
“How dare you tell me what I can and cannot do? Martin is a dear friend. Something happened to him because of me. You sure as hell can’t do a fucking thing about it at this time of day, but I can. So get out of my goddamned way.”
“You don’t go anywhere without me or my approval.” He spun on his heel and strode out the door before she could jump from the bed. When she heard the sound of a deadbolt sliding into place, she grabbed the lamp off the nightstand and swung it at the door like a baseball bat. It shattered into a million pieces and she sank to the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A THICK, OPPRESSIVE blanket of clouds covered the sun, reducing the UV output dramatically. With a skull cap, long sleeves and his collar pulled up, Dom hoped he’d be able to withstand the daylight for a short while before noticing an energy drain.
He arrived at the art school just as his buddy on the Seattle Police Department, Johnny Sinclair, pulled up in an unmarked vehicle. They’d first met when Johnny