Rhys paced his office the next morning. He hadn't been able to sleep well all night. He kept waking up to nightmares of Amarantha on top of him, her nails ripping open his flesh as she rode him. He had kept waking up with a start and would reach for Feyre only to find she wasn't there and he was on the couch in Azriel's living room. He had reached for his phone a few times but Azriel had taken it to make sure it was bug free and virus free. Especially because there were several pictures he and Feyre had taken together on his phone.

The last time he had woken up, Azriel had been there with a cup of coffee and a promise to stop by his favorite bakery on the way to work. Assured Feyre was coming to work, he had gotten her a piece of the coffee cake she had loved the other day as a partial apology for the night apart.

He arrived well before she would and set the coffee cake on her desk and set about making himself coffee and her coffee just to keep himself occupied. He imagined well in his mind that the elevator doors would open at 7:55 like they always did. She would walk in, right past her desk, and straight into his arms. He would apologize a thousand times over and make his final peace offering. An isolated cabin he owed in the mountains in Illyrian territory they could escape to for a week or more if she wanted. They would get away and have a nice vacation. She could paint and he would be content to watch her. Once he made his offer he would kiss her senseless, likely to Cassian's disgust, because Cassian would come up with her. He was supposed to be the one picking her up.

But 7:55 rolled around and Feyre didn't come. Rhys felt his heart drop a little, but he reasoned that she would likely not be on time. Cassian had to stop and get her from the hotel. She would have to pack up and check out. Perhaps Cassian would take her out for breakfast, since that was the sort of man he was. He would simply have to wait for her.

By 8:30, the longest he was willing to wait, Rhys called Azriel simply to confirm that Feyre was indeed coming.

"I'm sorry, Rhys," Azriel murmured on the other end of the phone. "Cassian was supposed to check in with me half an hour ago when he was supposed to get here. He isn't answering his phone and my tracker shows his car at the hotel, as it has been for an hour." There was a pause. "I'm on my way out now to check on them. Perhaps she just overslept or… there's a very nice restaurant in the hotel. I could see Cassian treating her to breakfast. You know how he is."

"Right," Rhys sighed. It was exactly his lines of thinking and he was grateful Azriel was going in person to check. "But I'd like to come with you."

Despite the assurance that Azriel did have it covered and that Rhys was supposed to appear to have a strictly professional relationship with Feyre, he couldn't be swayed from his decision and Azriel waited as Rhys ran down to join him in the garage.

It was a tense drive to the hotel. It was further away than he would have liked, but it was truly one of the best. Azriel went in search of Cassian whose phone showed him still at his car once they got there. Rhys went to the front desk.

"Can you tell me if Miss Archeron has checked out yet?" He asked the pretty girl at the desk.

"She's a popular one," the girl giggled. "And so many handsome men looking for her." The girl giggled again and typed into the computer. "I thought the red head with the one eye was handsome, or his blonde friend, but you take the cake by far."

Rhys felt his heart stop. There were plenty of blonde men in the world but only one he was aware of that traveled with a red head with one eye. Tamlin and Lucien had been here. They had come looking for Feyre.
"It looks like Miss Archeron is still checked in. Can't give you the room number though. That's against our privacy policy of course," she giggled. It reassured Rhys that even if he was handsome, she still wouldn't give out the room number to him. That meant Tamlin and Lucien only knew she was there, not where she was exactly.

"Can you call up to her room for me?" Rhys asked with a nod to the hotel phone. "You can just dial the room number for me and I'll close my eyes so I don't see."

"Of course." She picked up the phone and Rhys made a show of closing his eyes, hopefully charming the young woman enough that she wouldn't notice how he opened his eyes enough to see her dial in 1680, one of the suites at the top of the hotel. The girl tapped his shoulder to get him to open his eyes and handed the phone over as it rang, and rang, and rang, and finally went to a generic voicemail.

"Miss Archeron, this is Mr. Nox. You missed our important meeting this morning so I thought I'd come check in personally. Please call me when you get this message." Rhys decided to play the game and he saw the girl at the front desk gasp when he said his name and quickly advert her eyes. Then he hung up the phone and smiled at the girl. "Thank you."

"Y-y-you're welcome, Mr. Nox." Gone was the giggle, replaced by a stammer that likely came from fear rather than some sort of admiration.

He walked away then, out of the girl's sight, just as his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He expected Feyre. Hoped it was Feyre. That she had just gotten out of the shower or something and had listened to his message, or perhaps had been screening her calls. But the ID showed Azriel.

"We have a problem," came Azriel's voice on the other end. "Cassian is unconscious in his car. Drugged, it looks like. I don't know what room number Feyre is in to check on her."

"I know where she is. I'll go look. You try and get that brute to wake up." Rhys hung up the phone and felt panic start to claw at his chest once more. He was to the elevator a moment later punching the button for the 16th floor.

Everything was fine, he kept telling himself. Everything would be fine. Feyre just hadn't gotten the call from Cassian because Cassian had been attacked in his car. She was screening her calls, or was indeed in the shower. Something, anything. He grasped at wisps of logic to try and keep him from jumping to anything else.

But on the 16th floor, the door to 1680 was open. Not all the way, but not latched. He knocked and pushed it open.

Instead of the immaculate suite he expected, he was greeted with a disaster area. Lamps were shattered on the ground. The mattress was overturned and the bedding was strewn everywhere. The chairs around the table and from the desk were overturned and some were broken. Both security guards that had been placed on her for the night were unconscious. But it was the bathroom door that had Rhys breathing far to shallow and quick for his own good. It was ripped off of its hinges. The shower curtain had been torn from the curtain rod and appeared to be missing. And the mirror in the bathroom was shattered in one place… with blood and long strands of long golden-brown hair imbedded in the glass.

"Feyre," he whispered as he went to touch the hair. Then he lifted his phone and called down to Azriel. "We have a bigger problem."