~ FOUR ~

BLURRING HIS IMAGE, TOBIAS shifted into his human form as he landed on the pavement. He took two steps and then stumbled, doubling over from a sharp pain on his right side. When he looked down, expecting to find a wound, he had a vision of the woman he’d been merged with being flung over a male’s shoulder.

The male disguised his features and form, distorting his image. While he couldn’t identify the male, he knew the bastard was another demon. Deep-seeded rage burned in his gut, smoldering as never before. The demon deserved to die for daring to touch her, to cause her pain. He would find him. He would kill him.

It didn’t make sense. His kind didn’t kidnap women. They didn’t abuse women. It simply wasn’t done. Male demons were powerful. Too damn powerful to feel the need to prove it to a female by hurting her. Clearly, while he was enjoying his time away, everything had gone to hell. In his mind, there was no reason, no justification for a male demon to abuse a female. It was reprehensible.

Forks of lightning crisscrossed the sky. Deep rumbles of thunder echoed all around. Pushed by strong gusts of wind, horizontal rain fell heavily, soaking everything. Needing to cool off, he didn’t bother to shield himself from the rain and wind as he walked down the center of the street.

After a few minutes, he found the storefront window that he’d used to see her and let her see him. He stood in front of it for a few minutes. Then, following trace remnants of her presence, he followed her footsteps. He found her car. She stopped to get a weapon from the trunk. He placed his hands on it. “Show me.” He felt fear, loneliness, and determination.

“A gun,” he whispered. She’d retrieved a gun from the trunk and stuffed it in her bag. Then, a second later, she’d been ambushed and taken away. He tried to merge with her mind rather than just pick up on memories imprinted in the atmosphere. He couldn’t find her. When he reached for her he felt emptiness. A black void. She was unconscious or dead.

Something was taken from her and tossed away. He looked to the left and to the right. He walked around the car and found a set of keys. He knelt and picked them up. The instant he touched them, he focused on her energy stamped on them. Her name came to him right away. “Jessie,” he smiled, “Jessie Kraai.”

He began to pick up on the moments leading to her abduction. She had very powerful psychic abilities. Most humans wouldn’t have sensed the sudden change in the atmosphere when her stalker approached her. It would’ve been too subtle for most humans to detect. But for her, it was a drastic change. She knew better than to ignore it. She didn’t know how her psychic abilities worked, but it didn’t matter—she knew they were reliable.

She wasn’t a quitter. He felt her fear. But rather than give up, she fought to survive. She refused to surrender to evil, to die. She was fragile. Easily broken. Vulnerable to death. And yet, she didn’t allow despair to rule her. He felt small, nearly nondetectable vibrations of dread, of hopelessness. Nothing more. She wouldn’t accept defeat.

Suddenly, he experienced a clearer echo from the moment she’d been taken. For a second, she’d considered calling out to him for help. But she didn’t. Not because she feared him. She didn’t want to put him in danger.

He focused, expanding his mind to reach for hers. He still felt nothing. Every single cell in his body reached for her. But it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t detect a hint of her existence. Rage smoldered in his gut, stirring the most dangerous, darkest portion of his soul, the dragon. He would hunt down and destroy the demon. A deep, ominous growl, a promise of quick, brutal vengeance rumbled in his throat as he expanded his mind even more to pin down her exact location. But he still felt nothing. No hint of her existence or location.

He controlled the most violent forces of nature with a thought. Now, responding to his dark, volatile emotions, the storm intensified. Thick black clouds, streaked with blueish silver flashes of sheet lightning, billowed in the sky and thunder cracked and rumbled loudly. He kept reaching out, searching, attempting to lock onto her, but it was no use. The demon hid the path, using ancient spells. Eventually, he could unravel them and find her, but it would take too long.

He’d never felt so entirely helpless. He unlocked the car and opened the door. Her scent, sweet, warm vanilla, filled his lungs. Immediately noticing the position of the driver’s seat, he realized that she couldn’t be more than five feet tall. After pushing the lever to release the seat, he got in and sat down. He searched the entire car for something to identify the demon, but he didn’t find anything. The car was clean. Too clean. He didn’t even find a scrap of paper.

Once again, he closed his eyes and focused on her. Expanding his mind, he searched for her. Nothing. He still felt absolutely nothing.  He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the remnants of her addictive scent as terror and rage grew in him.

“We’re supposed to be hunting a demon.” Otaktay walked up to the door. “What the hell are you doing sitting in a car? And why the hell are you messing with the weather? It’s hard enough to track the bastards down without you washing their stench away.”

“The owner of this car was abducted.”

“And suddenly you’re a detective.”

“I need to find her.”

“You don’t have time to waste chasing after a woman.”

“She needs my help.”

“Human?”

“Yes.”

“C’mon. Get your ass out of the car. I swear you have the attention span of a two-year-old in a toy store. We still need to find the demon and deal with the rogues.”

“A demon took her.”

“The same demon we’re hunting?”

Tobias shook his head. “No.”

“And you know it was a demon.”

“I do. And he treated her roughly. He threw her over his shoulder.”

“Well, damn it all, that changes everything. We’ll forget about the demon fixing to kill mass mortals and immortals and the rogues running around on a human killing spree to deal with a demon that treated a lady badly. Did you ever stop to think that they were enjoying a little foreplay? Maybe she’s his mate?”

“No.” The idea of her being intimate with another male caused his head to pound. “She was terrified. The son of a bitch hurt her. I felt it. I cannot allow a demon to get away with abusing a woman. He needs to be destroyed.”

“How are you going to destroy him if you can’t identify him? You haven’t even been able to put a name to the demon we’re already looking for.”

“Finding her is the only thing that matters to me right now.”

“Sitting here won’t do it. Get up off your ass and let’s get back to hunting.”

“She might get away and return.”

“From a demon?” He paused. “I know you don’t expect a human female to escape a demon.”

“I need to find her.”

“Well?” Otaktay asked.

“What?”

“Standing here and watching the damn car is a waste of time. We need to find two demons, a woman, and slaughter a pack of rogues. Do some of your super-duper hocus pocus shit on the car so you’ll know if she returns.”

“We need to question and then slaughter the rogues. And you don’t understand. She touched me and…”

“Shut the hell up!” Otaktay covered his ears. “What the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t like you enough to want to know what the hell happened when she touched you.”

“Not like that. She merged with me. She merged with my mind, my soul. Completely. And uninvited. I didn’t know she was with me for several minutes. She might’ve been with me longer. I was in my dragon form. You know that’s impossible, right? She managed to get beyond every single one of my barriers.”

“You’re really worried about her.”

“She’s important to me.”

“Stop fucking around with me. How important is she to you?”

“She’s everything. She’s…she’s my mate.” Saying it aloud caused his heart to thunder. “I need to find her.” His mate was human. Though he’d fought to protect humans nearly his entire existence, he’d come to believe that they were better off believing demons were evil spirits to be feared and avoided. In his opinion, demons were better off as well. Engaging in any form of a relationship with an easily broken mortal brought nothing but problems and sadness.

“Why didn’t you say that right away? Why are you just now telling me that you have a mate?” Otaktay looked around as he circled the car.

“I didn’t know she existed until an hour ago.” He shrugged. “Maybe less.”

“Do you know what she was doing when she was taken?”

“She was retrieving a weapon from the trunk when the bastard approached her.”

Otaktay walked over to the trunk and placed his palms on it. “Give me a minute or two.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I’m going to do my best to figure out how far away she has been taken.”

“You can do that?”

“Sometimes.” He nodded. “But I will only be able to pick up on a general direction and a distance. It doesn’t always work.”

“It’s enough. How often does it work?”

“I need you to shut the hell up. I can’t concentrate with you talking.”

“She was hurt. She was stabbed or shot. It was an injury to her right side. That’s what I’ve been feeling for hours.”

“Damn it, Tobias, I told you to shut up. I need to concentrate.”

“When the son of a bitch tossed her over his shoulder, she experienced a terrible sharp pain.” Tobias paced to the other side of the street and back. “I think she passed out. It’s a bad injury.”  He watched Otaktay for several minutes. “Well?”

Otaktay pointed. “She’s thirty to forty miles west of here.”

“That’s close to my property.”

“And close to the area the trap was setup. I normally can’t connect psychically with humans. She’s powerful. I assume you know she’s gifted. She has very well-developed psychic abilities. Just before she was taken, she sensed something different in the air. She immediately identified it as a threat. She felt its dark intent, its evil nature. She made a mistake by allowing herself to get distracted enough for it to get so close to her. She has been hunted for a long time.”

“I know.”

“She happens to be very good at hiding from supernatural beings.”

“I know you’re insinuating something. Spit it out.”

“Is it possible she manufactured the abduction to throw you off her trail?”

“No. We were merged. She was taken against her will.”