Ashton jumped on his bike, totally naked, and peeled out of the parking lot after Isabella. The vampire who’d taken her drove so fast and with such precision, he left Ashton far behind.

It didn’t matter; Ashton knew where the intruder was taking her, back to her father. The vampire coven house was notorious in Mystic Harbor. Ashton had lived in this town his whole life. The kids used to dare each other to go trick-or-treating up there on Halloween. Even the human kids were in on the joke.

He sped through town and continued north on the highway until he came to the compound’s driveway. He cut his motor and pushed his bike into the dense underbrush before he came to the big, iron gate.

The entire compound was surrounded by a stone wall, ten feet high and the gates were closed. Good thing Ashton could jump the wall with no problem. He shifted into cat form and prowled toward the wall, sniffing for her scent. She was definitely here, or she had been recently. The tang of vampires singed his nose. He grumbled low in his chest, and jumped the wall.

Landing with feline grace on the top of the wall, he opened his heightened animal senses to his surroundings. The mansion stood against the dark sky at least half a mile away. He dropped from the wall and prowled through the manicured gardens along the tree line, toward the house.

Her scent grew stronger, but so did the scent of other vampires. Her smell was softer somehow, more human, more alive. His mouth watered at the thought of her. He knew she didn’t want to go with the man who’d taken her. Her father must have been some bastard to send his goon to kidnap his own daughter.

He’d heard bits of the conversation between Isabella and the man who’d taken her. Her father promised her to that guy. How draconian was that? Forced arranged marriage in this day and age? No. Ashton wasn’t cool with that.

Isabella was a hot girl and a good lay. He liked her a lot, but mostly he wanted to get her out of this on principle. Ashton liked a good joke and a laugh, but he had a keen sense of right and wrong. What her father was doing was definitely wrong.

He approached the house trying to pick up her trail. He panted in the pale moonlight, drawing the smells down his lungs. Where was she? He passed a small window near the ground and smelled her more strongly there. Pressing his nose to the glass, he smelled her distinct scent.

There were voices below him, a loud smack, and a scream. Isabella. They were hurting her. He had to find a way in. He had to get her out of here. Anger boiled in his stomach. He thought of the girl he’d had his hands all over all night. She didn’t deserve this. She deserved so much better, so much more.

He growled and clawed at the ground. He’d never get in this way. The window didn’t open from the outside. He’d have to break it, and that would draw attention. He had to get in silently. He didn’t know if he could take a full vampire. Isabella was half human and tiny. She was not an example of the kind of power these older, full-blooded vampires possessed. He didn’t think he could take one, let alone three or more.

He circled around the back of the house, looking for a way inside. Above him, he saw a balcony on the second floor overlooking the back gardens. He pounced and landed on the railing, barely hanging on. Clawing with his hind legs, he scrambled up onto the patio. Panting, his heart pounding, he hurried into the shadows of the porch.

Voices echoed from within, behind a curtain. He couldn’t tell who it was, but he could make out a muffled conversation.

“She’s downstairs, but she refuses to play along,” the first man said. Ashton recognized him as Domingo, the man who’d taken Isabella.

“Then we will go ahead with the plan. Whether she agrees to it or not, she really has no choice. She’ll see the error of her ways once she’s changed,” said the second voice. That must be Santiago, her father. That dude had been in Mystic Harbor for hundreds of years and the locals pretended like they didn’t notice. He passed on his name and estate to a new “Santiago” every century, but the other paranormals in town knew what he was.

Shifters had extended lives, but not like vampires. Vampires were immortal. Shifters lived to a ripe old age of a hundred and fifty or so. Witches tended to live to be very old humans. But vampires outlived them all. Everyone knew, and nobody talked about it. Most of the paranormals avoided the vampires like the plague. Those assholes were dangerous.

It was a good thing they kept mostly to themselves, and there weren’t any strange killings that involved bloodless corpses, at least on in the last hundred years or so. The vampires behaved, and the rest of the community tolerated them. Mystic Harbor was a safe haven for their kind, even the vampire coven.

Ashton knew that interfering in vampire business was risky, not only for himself, but for the town. The wrath of the vampires was not something anyone wanted. He could start a war in their little city that could destroy them all.

Part of him wanted to jump off that balcony and never come back. Isabella was just a girl he’d screwed. There had been plenty of those. When you tattooed tourists all day and looked like Ashton, getting laid just came with the territory.

But Isabella was different. He had to admit that to himself. He’d never felt as powerful or as free as he did with the little vampire. Even her incessant biting made him hot. He had to help her.