“Don’t tell me we don’t match,” he ground out against my lips, squeezing my nape. “Don’t tell me this is just sex.”

I almost laughed because his cock was still throbbing inside me. But he was right. Whatever this was—this connection, this craving, this obsession—it went beyond the physical. I knew that, which was why I was trying to build a little distance. But Devraj would have none of it. He wanted all of me for the time we were together. And I honestly couldn’t deny him. Not anymore.

My heart pounded hard against his chest where I could feel his own. I pressed a palm there, willing to surrender all to him. He was more than sex. But I still couldn’t say it aloud. Somehow, I knew that would make it that much harder when this assignment was over and he was off to the next.

His gaze softened. “Come here.” He tucked my head in the crook of his shoulder and brushed a hand over my hair, his other arm anchored around my waist, our bodies still joined.

Anyone could’ve walked up and seen us, especially my bare ass on full display. It was only late afternoon. But I didn’t care. His strong arms and gentle hands, his mouth pressing into my temple was the comfort I needed. I decided I’d enjoy today and worry about the pain of tomorrow when tomorrow came.

After he soothed me for what felt like a half an hour but probably wasn’t quite so long, he whispered, “You really know how to use my stick.”

I laughed against his chest. “So do you.”

His dick jerked inside me, and I gasped, sitting up with my elbows on his chest. I could feel him growing harder by the second.

“Again?” I arched a brow at him.

His hands slid to my bare cheeks, grabbing hold and slowly rolling me forward. “Definitely again.” He kissed me hard. “And again.” He nipped down my jaw to my ear. “I’m never letting you go.”

And for one blissful moment, I believed him.

Chapter 29

~DEVRAJ~

By the time we got our clothes back on, Isadora had slipped back into her distant, quiet mode. And I didn’t like it.

Too frustrated to talk about it now, I opened the door so I could walk around to the driver’s side. A sound hit me like a punch to the chest.

“What is it?” she asked.

I’d frozen in place with her door open, listening to the familiar bong of the church bells from Emma’s memories.

“Devraj?”

Pulling out my phone, I called Ruben, my blood racing like mad, pushing me to hunt. He answered on the first ring as I rushed around to the driver’s seat.

“Track my phone and get here now. Bring three men.”

“On my way.” Then he clicked off.

I revved the engine and took off, rolling the windows down.

“What the hell is going on?” Isadora asked, belting herself in.

“Those church bells. They’re close to where the other women are being held.”

“How do you know that?”

She stared a moment but then went silent, realizing I needed to listen. I charged out of the lot and wound my way toward the chiming bells down St. Charles Avenue. I veered to a sudden stop in front of a small Catholic Church just as the bells died.

“Are you sure those are the same bells?”

“Positive.” My sense of hearing was so acute I recognized the twangy ring of the third bell in each chime, exactly as it was in Emma’s memory. “He’s holding them within hearing of this church. Northwest of here, I believe.”

We both hopped out and stood on the sidewalk in front of the church, peering one way and then the other. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, catching a very faint, familiar scent. Jennifer. The young woman who’d been captive the longest.

My instinct was to bolt, but I couldn’t leave Isadora alone. Not this close to the kidnapper’s lair. When I looked at her, she seemed to read my mind.

“Give me your keys. I’ll lock myself inside. This isn’t exactly a dangerous part of town.”

“I’m not worried about you being accosted by college kids, and you know it.”

She held out her hand. “Give me your keys. I’ll be fine.”

Just as I did, Ruben appeared, a wake of wind nearly knocking me over, whooshing Isadora’s hair. Then Gabriel and two of his other men, Roland and Sal, appeared.

“Perfect timing. I need one of you to stay with her.”

“I’m fine,” snapped Isadora, opening the car to slip inside.

I glared at Ruben. “Leave one of them with her. We’re too close to this asshole’s nest to leave her alone.”

I was probably being unreasonable because this crew’s MO wasn’t to nab a girl off the street. But I wasn’t taking any chances.

“Roland. Stay with Isadora.”

Roland was big and badass with a shaved head, the most intimidating on first glance of Ruben’s men. I breathed a sigh of relief then traced at minimum speed down a side street, the scent coming from that direction. I stopped, Ruben, Gabriel, and Sal with me.

All vampires had extraordinary senses, but they didn’t hold memory scent like Stygorn did. I’d memorized all of the women’s scents the day after I arrived in New Orleans, so they’d need to rely on me to take the lead until we were very close.

They watched and waited in silence while I sought their scent. Once I found it, I traced again, slow enough they could follow, trailing Jennifer’s faint smell on the wind. Her scent grew stronger again until we all stopped in front of a tall, nondescript building.

“Looks like a dorm,” said Gabriel, peering in a window. “An abandoned one.”

An orange Renovation in Progress sign was pasted on the double doors. Looked like renovation got put on the backburner due to lack of funding or some other bureaucratic issue.

Ruben and I shared a glance before I nodded. “This is it.”

Gabriel wrenched the locked door open with a metallic crack, then we stood in a lobby/lounge area, musty and moldy from disuse. There were doors on the right and the left marked as the stairs leading to the upper floors.

“Ruben and I will take the right, you both take the left.”

Sal and Gabriel nodded and took off, then so did Ruben and I, tracing down the hall of the first floor then up to the second and repeating the process. Still, I could smell her presence close. So close. By the time we reached the landing to the fourth floor, I halted in my tracks.

Ruben stopped and marched back to me. “What do you—?” Then he glanced up the stairs, his nostrils flaring. The scent of humans in the building was detectable to him as well now. “Fifth floor.”

We moved as one, tearing up to the fifth floor and tracing directly to an open room. An empty room. No lights or signs of life anywhere. We didn’t need light to see anyway.

“Here.” Ruben crouched on the floor and lifted a blanket, bringing it to his nose.

I met him and did the same. “That’s her. Jennifer.”

A drop of dark blood stained the edge of the blanket. Ruben reached over to the bed and lifted a leather cuff chained to the bed. “For fuck’s sake.”

He’d kept them chained. Fury lashed through my chest at the fear this asshole had instilled in these girls, at him taking what wasn’t rightfully his. Ruben traced out and to the next room. His fuming growl dragged me there, too.

An empty carton of cup-of-soup littered the floor next to an empty water bottle, but what had Ruben’s silver gaze cutting the room with rage was the paint chipped away by someone’s fingernail to write her name: Kara.

“I’m going to beat him bloody once we get him,” promised Ruben. And I didn’t doubt him for one second.

This was Ruben’s territory, his responsibility to protect humans from our kind getting out of hand. Not only was this a sin against these girls, but it was a challenge to his authority. I had no doubt he’d use Blake Bellingrath as an example once we found the fucker.

I swept the room but found nothing, then went to the next where I smelled the remaining scent of Emma. When I scanned the room, nothing but old mattresses on the single beds, I did find a half-empty cup of soda sitting underneath one bed.

I was sniffing its contents when Ruben asked behind me, “What is it?”

“Coke. But something else, too.” I inhaled deeply, trying to dissect the scent. Then it hit me, and I cursed under my breath. I’d come across this smell before in my dealings with low-life motherfuckers around the world. Most vampires didn’t need it. They could use glamour or the paralysis of their bite to subdue their victims, but some still dabbled in man-made drugs.

Ruben took the cup from me and smelled. A glint of silver rolled over his eyes, his jaw clenching as he said, “Rohypnol.”

“That would definitely make his victims go quietly from the places he abducted them.”

Because they’d likely be unconscious. Yet, he was still using it on them during captivity. The women were likely still fighting back. Good.

Gabriel and Sal suddenly appeared in the doorway, slightly winded since they must’ve completed the search of their entire wing then come to meet us.

“He’s moved them,” said Gabriel.

“He’s cautious, I’ll give him that,” I said to Ruben.

“Yeah, enough not to stay in one place too long with the girls. He may not want his customers to know where the girls are after their feeding.”

I couldn’t help the sneer at the thought of these terrified women being hauled around like cattle.

“Let’s head back.” Just the look of this place, thinking of these women in captivity, had my beast clawing to get back to Isadora. I didn’t like her so near here.

We traced back within two minutes. Roland was leaning his back against my car, his gaze vigilant on the streets while he chatted with Isadora, who had her window down.

“No luck?” he asked.

“Some,” said Ruben.

Isadora popped out of the car. “You found where he was keeping them?” Her green eyes rounded with shock.

“Was,” I emphasized. “He’s moved them.” I turned to Ruben, all of us gathered beside my car now. “He likely has several places scouted so he can rotate their locations.”