“Dude,” said Darren. “I can’t help it if some of them can’t take it.”

“This one can, though,” assured Blake. “She’s already a player.” He laughed, the menacing sound raising chills on my arms.

“Sweet,” said the voice of a guy I didn’t recognize.

“She smells sweet, too,” said Blake. “Don’t worry. You’ll all get a taste before we sell her.”

I refused to flinch when I felt him lean in and whiff the skin of my neck.

“I’ll take her,” said someone I hadn’t heard in the mix.

This voice was deep and commanding, more so than Blake.

“What the hell?” swore Darren.

“Boys, meet our secret partner.”

One of the others laughed. “No fucking way.”

Another guy clapped his hands. “Finally, we meet the kingpin. How am I not surprised, fucking Ivy League.”

“I guess we should’ve known it was you,” said Darren. “Damn Bellingraths.”

The new vampire didn’t respond to them, but I felt the heat of his body right in front of Blake when he said, “Give her to me. No time to fuck around.”

Then I felt the cold, long-fingered hand of this new vampire, who could only be Blake’s brother, brush the bite on my neck. That time, I couldn’t suppress the shiver that trembled through me. His magic was powerful. He had more than just vampire magic. He gripped me under the jaw and forced my face toward him.

“Fuck, Blake. I know her. She’s a witch.”

“No, she’s not. She’s reading like a human. She’s out cold.”

His long fingers slid to my throat and squeezed till I couldn’t breathe. I coughed and opened my eyes, staring up into Adam Bellingrath’s sinister eyes.

I’d checked out the entire family on their Facebook pages before tonight. I knew his father was a powerful vampire and his mother a witch, a Divine Seer like Violet. Which meant he very well could possess some of her psychic abilities.

“This little bitch is definitely a witch,” he said, steel-blue eyes slit like a snake’s. “What are you up to?” A wave of persuasion glamour pulsed against my skin.

I glared, refusing to say a word, his glamour bouncing off of me.

He pulled something from his pocket. “Open wide, sweetheart.” He gripped my jaw in a bone-breaking clasp.

“No!” I tried to pull away, but he was far too strong.

He shoved a pill in my mouth and forced it closed with his cold hand clamped tight. He peered closer, his face right in front of mine. “Swallow it,” he commanded. “Or choke on it.”

I shook my head, but the pill was already dissolving, my head feeling foggy. When I couldn’t help it any longer, I swallowed, but the pill had already started to work, my eyes slipping closed with unnatural drowsiness. The last thing I remembered was Adam tossing me over his shoulder with brutal force and tracing away right before I fell into darkness.

Chapter 31

~DEVRAJ~

We followed the special trackers strapped to our wrists like watches, which took us to an empty pier near the river. But when we came out of the trace, there were four vampires there and no Isadora. Rage pumped hard through my veins. This operation was different from the beginning with Blake scouting alongside Darren.

“What the hell is this, man?” croaked one of the scouts, Brent, fear skittering across his eyes as Gabriel zip-tied his ankles, shoving him to the pavement.

Roland and Sal had the others bound and on the ground by the time I swept the area for signs of her. This didn’t make sense.

“I have rights. My dad—” said Blake, the only one still standing.

Ruben gripped Blake’s throat, silencing him at once. “Listen to me, son.” His voice was quiet and deadly. I’d heard Ruben sound like this before, and it was when he was teetering on the edge of control. “Where is the girl? Where is she being taken?” Ruben tilted his head, staring the boy down, and whatever Blake saw in his eyes, it had him gulping hard, his eyes widening. “Tell me now.”

Ruben removed his hand as I strode over and stood in front of the ringleader.

“You have two fucking seconds to speak, or I’ll take what I need by force.”

“Wh-what?” asked Blake.

I didn’t have time for this shit. I stunned him with glamour, knocking him unconscious, and crashed into his brain, flying through the last month of memories at lightning speed. If he was conscious, the effect would make him spill his stomach, so this was me being nice as I punched through like a runaway train.

I watched with harrowing fear and fury pumping through my veins everything that had happened in the bar tonight up until one minute ago when we arrived on scene following the trace.

When I pulled out of his mind and let him go, he mumbled, “I’m going to puke.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Where’s your brother taking her?”

“Where the other ones are, man,” whined Blake, rubbing his head, hands bound.

“And where is that!” I screamed.

“I don’t know. He moved them again. I don’t!”

I glanced at Darren, who glanced at the others before he said, “We never even knew Adam was the kingpin till tonight.”

Scorching flames seared through my body. I needed to follow her scent, still fresh on the wind. My fists balled, itching to wrap around the throat of that motherfucker. He was a dead man if he hurt her.

Ruben appeared beside me.

“I’m going to sever his spinal cord from his body,” I ground out, fangs long and sharp.

“We need to find him first,“ he replied calmly, glancing at his phone. “Incoming from my grim.”

My body was vibrating with rage and the need to move, to act. To find her. Fuck’s sake, I was going to lose my mind. But I didn’t know where to go. He could be taking her anywhere.

“Speak,” Ruben answered then listened. “You’re fucking kidding me.” A pause as he looked down at the tracker on his wrist. “That’s not good enough. Get me a signal.” He hung up, gritting his teeth.

“What?” I demanded.

“They lost track of them. Bellingrath took her beyond the camera’s lens, past Metairie. Fucking technology.”

Just at that moment, two black SUVs pulled up to the end of the pier on the street. Ruben’s other men who’d followed the coordinates by vehicle were just arriving.

Ruben barked orders while I honed in on the scent of Isadora, filling my lungs with the traces of her floral aroma in the air.

“Sal, you make sure these men get back to The Green Light while we go after the last one.”

Sal nodded, taking Blake by the arm and heading for one of the SUVs where two black-clad vampires were striding our way.

My magic burned a white-hot line through my blood, urging me to hunt down Bellingrath, to find my woman. I strode across the lot in the direction he’d taken her.

“Hey!” called Ruben. “Where are you going?”

I snapped my head around. “To fucking find them. I don’t need a tracker.” He nodded, then I traced away without waiting. Adam had taken her beyond the city limits. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know a Stygorn was on his trail. There was nowhere he could go that I wouldn’t find him. Find her.

The wind pushed against me, resisting my insane speed. I powered forward with the strength that ancient vampire had bestowed on me, racing into the night and following my prey.

While minutes stretched, feeling like hours, my mind slipped to Isadora. My Isadora. Her sweet smile, her curious looks, her pensive expressions that made me want to kiss her until she smiled again. The very thought of something happening to her set my gut on fire. Put poisonous, deadly thoughts in my head.

I couldn’t live without her. There was no doubt of it now. No matter that she was afraid or didn’t trust our relationship, I’d make her see reason. When I found her. When I got her to safety. When I’d pummeled Adam within an inch of his life.

The scent of her veered off the interstate into the city of Slidell. I zipped off of the interstate’s shoulder and blurred onto a frontage road off the next exit, easily following her scent. I traced right onto a dark road, which led me to a large fenced-in, solitary lot. A storage unit. He’d moved the women to fucking storage.

Jumping the fence, I crept forward stealthily and followed her scent, weaving down the rows of garage-style units. This close, I could smell her so powerfully, like she was standing right next to me, calling to me. But her scent was actually coming from the backside of the lot from a storage container facing some woods. I also instantly scented the other girls. This prick.

Without hesitation, I ripped open the corrugated steel door, tearing a gap from the floor halfway to the ceiling. Within two seconds, I bent it back so that I could step through. And there was Adam, staring at me with wide eyes and a sudden jolt of fear.

“You better be scared, motherfucker.”

Isadora was unconscious on one mattress on the floor, her hair hiding her face. Another girl was curled into a ball, watching with a similar expression as Adam. But she had nothing to fear. Not anymore.

Then I was on him, pummeling him to the floor with one punch to the face. But I couldn’t stop. Falling to straddle him, I kept on wailing. I had enough sense to pull my punches so I wouldn’t crush his skull. He would stand trial. He would face the Guild’s Court because I wanted the Bellingrath’s name to be dragged through the mud. Killing this asshole was so tempting. So very, very tempting. But public humiliation and the removal of his powers by Jules would make a deeper mark than a Stygorn losing his fucking mind and killing a blood thief. I didn’t want to waste a minute of my time facing the Stygorn Guild to defend my excessive actions. But I still wanted him to pay.

I’d moved my punches to his ribs, cracking a few with great satisfaction when arms grabbed mine and hauled me back bodily.

“Stop, Devraj,” growled Ruben.

I did, standing over the bloody mess of Adam Bellingrath, fallen son of a high family, blood thief whose time was up.