He wouldn’t be offended by me saying it, because me being human wouldn’t change anything about how I loved him. Desmond returned my smile and touched my upper arm ever so briefly. The gesture was delicate and uncertain, as though he wasn’t sure it was okay to put his hands on me. Or if he really wanted to.
As if he hadn’t fucked the living daylights out of me only the night before.
Holden cleared his throat. “If this lovely discussion about Secret’s hopes and dreams could wrap itself up, what I’d asked was, would you like to go find your missing friend?”
Way to rub salt in the open guilt wound there.
I pulled away from Desmond’s hand, overwhelmed by the nagging feeling that while I stood here thinking about my messed-up love life, Kellen might be somewhere inside the dark building in front of us. And I hadn’t run in headlong to save her. That nugget left a bad taste on the back of my tongue.
“What are you waiting for, then? Lead the way. ”
I understood immediately why the building looked abandoned from the outside. The apartment complex had been converted into a garment manufacturing space, and the inside was a shock to the system. The layout of the structure had been completely changed to make room for the large rolls of white cotton and machines used for cutting, measuring and laying out clothing.
In the center of the main floor was an old cage-style elevator, but the walls where the previous apartments had been were torn out. Even the ceilings had been modified. Unless these apartments had once been able to brag about twenty-five-foot, exposed-beam ceilings, it appeared as though they’d actually combined the first and second floor for more space.
The machinery all lay quiet, and there was no one at work to question why we were around. Gawking at the equipment and the strangeness of finding it here, I followed the men to the elevator. As weird as this was, it still wasn’t a nightclub. I couldn’t hear any music, and the air around us was thick with silence.
Closing the cage door brought my wolf out of her love stupor and gave her something new to focus on. We were locked inside a cage. It didn’t matter that it was an elevator car, or that logically I knew we would be out of it in less than a minute. To her, there was no way to explain it in a satisfactory manner. A cage was a cage, and she was freaking the fuck out.
I broke into a cold sweat, and my heart hammered.
Both Desmond and Holden recognized the change.
“Are you okay?” Holden asked.
He was a vampire, so small spaces didn’t mean much to him. Desmond was the one who understood what the reaction meant. “She’s having a panic attack. ”
I swallowed the knot in my throat but didn’t speak, just kept my eyes fixed on the handle while we rose up and up through more hospital-white rooms filled with more equipment and no signs of the club. We’ll be out soon, we’ll be out soon, we’ll be out soon, I chanted. My wolf replied with a resounding growl.
Holden inched away.
Turns out my growl hadn’t been so internal.
Desmond pulled my ponytail to the side and placed his warm, slightly rough palm on the back of my neck. The sensation of his skin directly on mine made the beast within relax a degree or two. He leaned close and whispered in my ear, “It’s fine. ” Two words, no promise of freedom or safety, but still the wolf relented.
I let out a sigh.
There was no way I was getting through this next full moon without her busting free. My days of keeping my inner werewolf chained were behind me.
Chapter Twenty
Considering what the rest of the building had been, the eleventh floor was a surprise.
I was the first off the elevator, practically itching out of my skin to be free of the cage, even after Desmond had simmered me down some. He followed behind me, keeping an eye on my behavior. I could tell he was watching for some sign I was about to slip. It wasn’t impossible this close to the full moon for a werewolf to change forms. Control was harder to maintain the closer the cycle came. How I’d managed to fight it off for twenty-three years seemed miraculous and impossible to me now.
We waited for Holden who was the last off, and then stood shoulder-to-shoulder looking at a boring, typical wooden apartment door. 11A.
“Should we ask if their neighbors are home?” I suggested, trying to lighten the mood.
Ignoring me, Holden indicated the long, dim hallway to our left. “Let’s go. ”
Was this club some shitty apartment? Were the young elite of New York so hard up for new ideas and themes that hanging out in a crappy one-bedroom suddenly titillated them? I wouldn’t put anything past the realm of possibility, but it felt a little strange to me.
The door for 11B was at the end of the hall, and we passed no other apartments along the way. Where 11A had a nice walnut-colored door, the one for 11B had been painted a lacquered black, and the numbers were red. The door had no handle, but there was a place for a key. Without being asked to proceed, Holden inserted the key he’d gotten from Kellen’s friend and unlocked the entrance.
When the door swung open, all I needed was a glimpse through the passage to know this was no ordinary nightclub. This place reeked of magic on such a scale even a human should be able to recognize something was off about it.
We stepped through the door, Holden reclaiming his key before shutting it behind us, and the moment it clicked the entire frame vanished. Awesome. My wolf stirred uneasily, but since we were in a wide-open space she wasn’t in a full panic yet. I hoped to keep it that way.