Warrior (Relentless #4)(71)

Chris was in the water when I got back to the cliff. Wordlessly, the two of us began searching. We’d covered a half-mile radius before boats arrived to help with the search. Maxwell had alerted the authorities that a girl had fallen into the ocean.

A police boat came, equipped with large search lights since it would be dark soon. They were joined by at least a dozen fishing boats and pleasure craft as word spread and the townspeople came out to help. The police organized the civilians, and they began searching several miles up and down the coast.

It was late into the evening when they called off the search for the night. They planned to come back at first light and resume their search. I heard snatches of a conversation about divers and a recovery operation. They already believed she was dead.

The only reason I left the water was that I knew without a doubt Sara was not there. A rope had been lowered to us from above, and Chris and I used it to pull ourselves up.

Erik’s team had shown up before the police, and along with the wolves, they had removed all the vampires before the humans saw them. The team had also set up a temporary campsite in the field near the cliff to use as a base while they searched the woods. Maxwell’s best trackers were out there as well looking for any sign of Sara.

Roland and Peter ran up to me as I climbed over the top of the cliff. Their hopeful expressions fell away when they saw my face.

“Nothing?” Roland asked.

“No,” I replied harshly. I softened my tone when I saw the pain in their eyes. “We’ll find her.”

I spent the rest of the night searching the woods. Roland and Peter refused to go home, changing into wolf form to search with me. By dawn, the two of them were exhausted, and I tried to get them to go home, but they wouldn’t leave. Finally, we went back to the Mohiri campsite where the wolves curled up on the ground and were asleep in seconds.

I was standing on the cliff, watching the boats resume their search, when Chris joined me. He’d been out in the woods all night too.

“We’ve covered at least ten square miles of ground so far. Erik rented a boat so he and Raj can search along the shore.”

“Good,” I replied, barely listening to him. I was racking my brain with the same question that had plagued me all night. How had Sara been there one second and gone the next? It didn’t make sense, and I was going to drive myself insane until I had the answer.

Several hundred yards out, the police boat dropped two divers in the water. Chris watched them for a minute then cleared his throat. “Nikolas, we need to think about the possibility that Sara is –”

“She’s not dead, Chris,” I bit out. “I’d know.”

He fell quiet for a few minutes. “We’ve never really talked about… Is the bond the reason you know she’s alive?”

“Yes.” I looked at him, trying not to see the sympathy in his eyes. “When I’m near her, I can sense her. I felt her in the water, and then she just vanished. I know she’s alive because our bond is still there and it doesn’t feel empty. I don’t know how to explain it.”

He nodded solemnly. “How does someone disappear like that? Could it be some kind of magic hiding her from us?”

“I don’t know.”

I’d thought about that and a hundred other scenarios throughout the night, but I couldn’t find any that were plausible. It would take an extremely powerful glamour to block a Mori bond. Other than the Fae, only a handful of warlocks could be strong enough to pull it off.

Trolls were cousins to the Fae, and they had some Fae abilities, which had given me brief hope that her friend, Remy, had secreted her away to help her. But I could scour this area for a lifetime and never find the trolls’ home. They lived in underground caves that were so well warded they were impossible to locate. I also didn’t think Remy would let Sara’s family and friends suffer unduly, not knowing where she was. He cared about her too much.

Chris pursed his lips. “You should get some food and sleep. You were out all night and you’re still wearing your wet clothes.”

“I’ll sleep after I find her.”

“We won’t stop looking. And you won’t be any good to Sara if you run yourself down. You’re immortal, not invincible.”

I knew he was right, but I couldn’t think about sleep. I had to call Tristan and break the news to him. But first, I had to go see Sara’s uncle. I’d promised him I would bring her home, and I’d failed. He deserved to hear it from me, not someone else.

Erik had brought my bag from the safe house, so I was able to change into clean clothes. I needed a shower, but that would have to wait.

Ten minutes later, I parked my bike next to a familiar blue Toyota outside Sara’s building. Roland’s mother, Judith, opened the door and invited me in.

“Nate’s in the living room,” she said in a low voice. “He’s in bad shape. Max came last night to tell him about Sara.”

She grabbed her coat from a rack in the hall. “I need to go to work. I’ll be back later to check on him.”

I went into the living room where Sara’s uncle sat in his wheelchair, staring out the window. He didn’t look my way when I came in.

“I keep expecting to see her walking along the wharves,” he said hoarsely. “She loves it down there.”

“I know.” I’d watched her walk on them many times in the last month.