Dark Love

B2P52

"Fuck!"

That one word, heartfelt as it was, just about summed it up. Everyone's sentiment in a nutshell.

"That changes nothing."

Both Svennett and Darr turned to stare at Cade.

"Saera is still missing," he spat out the reminder on a roar. It was clear he thought nothing of what had the Prince's so wrought up about. Their pending nuptials, rightly enough, held no meaning to him.

"Where can she have gone, Cade?" Returned Darr, exasperated. "Her home is the Shore Mansion. It has been home to all the Shore witches. She will return when she's ready. Where else could she go?"

"She's no doubt pulling one over you, like she did before at the Academy," suggested Svennett, recalling the trouble they had sussing her out then when she went into hiding.

But Cade was shaking his head. "No," he said. "Something is wrong this time. I know it." He turned his menacing glare on each men. "And the Shore Mansion no longer belongs to the Shores."

"Wha..?"

"She left it to me," said Cade. "Well to my pack, to be exact."

"The fuck she did," growled out Darr, his face contorting into his vampire features and his teeth elongated turning him into the blood sucker he really was.

"Do you see now, why I am so frantic?" Cade growled his question out.

"You don't think...?" Svennett trailed off unable to give voice to the thought they were all sharing.

"She's not fucking dead!" Declared Darr, unable to even consider it at all. "She's just hiding, like she did before."

"You said you tracked her up to the warehouse," said Svennett, scrambling to find an angle he could deal with. "We should begin our search there. We'll start with Nick's friends..."

"I've already tried that. They're gone too!"

"Fucking hell!"

Svennett didn't hesitate, he lifted his hands to swirl his power into a vortex opening a portal straight into the heart of the night market district. It was daylight at the moment so the market would be shut, but they had to start somewhere and knowing Saera's disappearance was for real was enough to set heart thumping with anxiety. It was too soon, too soon from the last time he almost lost her and feeling just as helpless now as he did then wasn't helping.

They walked through the portal right in the centre of the empty warehouse. Not hesitating he slipped from one spell to the next, searching out any life force in the vicinity. The place was devoid of the living. Not even the whiskers of a rat twitched in its dark corners. That in itself was unusual. It served to prickle the prince's awareness. As one they exchanged glances of mutual understanding, then Darr was reaching out to Svennett. Their hands clasped then fisted together and the chants that left their lips sounded very much like witchcraft rather than magery. But they were not prince's for nothing, they knew their shit and was unafraid to explore power and its many possibilities.

This particular spell was darker than the darkest of Darklings' arse. But it did it's trick and a moment later a shadow of all that occurred recently in the warehouse fluttered before their very eyes.

They saw Cade bursting in on all four paws only to find the warehouse as empty as then as it was now. They  muttered their chants once more almost fervently. It was working, allowing them to see what went on, but the further back they went the more vague they smoky residue became. But they persisted through, winding back flashback till they caught a barely there glimpse of Saera stepping through a porthole with an unfamiliar male by her side.

"Who the fuck is that?"