Nikolas by Faith Gibson Page B

room.”
    “Now, wait just a minute, Yvonne. You can’t go disrupting someone’s privacy. I won’t stand for it,” the older man grabbed the woman’s arm. She jerked her arm away and started to give him a piece of her mind, but a caretaker from the inn stopped her.
    “Excuse me, Mrs. Waterford. I must insist you leave this matter to me. We take our guests’ privacy seriously, and I’m sure if you were in the same position as Mrs. Nightingale, you would feel the same way. Now, Miss…”
    “Miss Verga. I do apologize for the commotion. I was only hoping Mrs. Nightingale could tell us what she saw. It is unnecessary to disturb her at this time.” Kallisto grabbed Sergei’s hand and pulled him outside. “We know she’s there. Now we’ll wait until she leaves. She can’t hole up in there forever. Let’s take a look around, make sure there’s not a back way she can escape.”
     

     
    Nikolas arrived at the Nile Grand to find the building had been evacuated. He pulled out his cellphone and dialed Sophia’s room, doubting she would still be in the building. He got no answer, so he looked around the crowd for her. Firefighters were allowing guests to return to their room, so she might be on her way upstairs. Nik hovered around one of the emergency vehicles, close enough to overhear two men talking. A fire alarm had been pulled on the ninth floor, but no fire or smoke had been found. They chalked it up to a kid playing a prank. Hotel surveillance would give them more information. Even though it was the ninth floor, Nik needed to see that video feed for himself. First he needed to find his mate.
    He took the stairs up to the tenth floor and used the key card to let himself into Sophia’s room. He fully expected her to be right up, even though he hadn’t seen her downstairs. While he was waiting, he called Julian to check on things back home. He didn’t tell his brother about running into Sophia. He would wait and give him the good news once they were mated. After thirty minutes had passed, he began to get worried. She should have been back by now. Another thirty minutes later and Nik wrote a note for her, telling her he was going to his hotel to run the license plate of the SUV. He remembered to write down his cell phone number for her.
    The one time he wanted to run into someone in the hall, the strangers who were following Sophia were nowhere to be found. Nik made his way to his own hotel room where he plugged in the license plate number. Next, he opened one of the tiny bottles of whisky in the mini-bar. He swallowed the liquor in one gulp and opened another. These little samples were just enough to piss someone off. He checked the computer, and as he suspected, the SUV was a rental. It was assigned to someone named K. Verga. The initial K didn’t give him much to go on, and if they were smart, it was an alias.
    His cell phone pinged with an incoming text. He grabbed his phone and frowned. The number was unknown, but he opened the text anyway.
    In trouble, please help.
    Fuck! Nik texted back… On my way
    Sophia had to be at the hotel, or she wouldn’t have known his number. She must be using a burner phone, or else she had her name blocked for security. All this back and forth was getting on his nerves. As soon as he got his hands on her, he was going to chain her to him. A lesser man would already have an ulcer. Since Nik wasn’t really a man, he would be fine. Eventually.
    Guests were still milling around the lobby of the hotel, but the emergency crews had left the premises. Nik kept his shifter senses open, especially his hearing. He blocked out all sounds except for voices and then he listened for anything that would alert him to Sophia’s followers.
    He stopped when he was outside the door to her room. He didn’t hear any movement inside, but he did feel a presence there. Oh, gods, what if she was hurt? Nik slid the key card in the slot and shoved open the door when it unlocked. Instead of Sophia,