I remained unmoving in Blake’s hard grip. Not that I could do anything against him anyway. Not only was I nulled from using any telekinetic magic, which I wasn’t powerful at to begin with, but he was remarkably strong. I sensed that well enough in the ripple of his muscles as he traced away.
When the dizzying sensation of tracing stopped, I kept my body still, my head against Blake’s shoulder. He smelled of some too-strong cologne. Other men’s voices overlapped.
“Got a good one, Bellingrath?”
“Let’s see her.”
“Yeah. Wasn’t trusting Webber this time,” came his rumbling reply as he walked toward the voices with me in his arms. “Not after that last chick was a dud.”
“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 wi
nd 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.
“He’s unconscious,” said Ruben.
“He’s lucky he’s not dead,” I growled, heaving in deep breaths and trying to come back from the maddening rage. “How’d you get here so fast?”
“My grim got another signal right after you left.” Ruben let me go and nodded toward Adam. “I’ve got him. Go to Isadora.”
Isadora.
I wrenched away and marched to her. I knelt in front of the mattress, trembling with uncontrollable fear at the thought of her in harm’s way. Ruben had arrived on scene first, his speed much faster than his other men. He was older and stronger than them.
I brushed her hair away from her face, which had fallen from the ponytail. Moving my hands to her neck, I checked for new wounds with trembling hands, but I found none and breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
By the time I’d gotten my shit together and pulled her into my arms, Ruben had zip-tied Adam’s wrists, though he was still comatose and would be for a while if the sting on my knuckles had anything to say about it.
Ruben crooned to the girl paralyzed with fear, “It’s all over, Kara. You’re safe now.” She didn’t believe him, but then a wash of glamour draped the room as he pulled her into his web. It was necessary. These girls had been through an ordeal and would need glamour to wipe the fear away so Ruben could get them out of here and to a supernatural healer. Then they’d need their memories erased before they were delivered back to their families.
“I’m taking her home,” I told Ruben as he removed the restraints around Kara’s wrists.
“I’ll text Jules and tell her you’re on your way.” He stopped and looked up at me. “Is she unharmed?”
Meaning, did that fucker have time to bite her?
“She is. Though she’ll have a headache from the heavy dose of Rohypnol he obviously used on her.”
He gritted his teeth and pulled his phone out to send a text, Kara now sleeping from his glamour. “Jules is going to kill me.”
“What’s new?” I asked, trying for levity now that Isadora was cradled safely in my arms.
Ruben had a fucking mess to clean up and set straight with the vampires under his district. And no doubt, Jules would give him hell for letting it get this out of hand.
Roland, Gabriel, and two others suddenly appeared, a gust of wind coming with them. They quickly scanned the open garage.
Ruben nodded to the container next door. “Get the other girls. Use glamour to put them to sleep. They’ll fear your intentions. Let’s get them out of here. Gabriel, text Barbara and tell her we need the cleaning crew down here ASAP.”
“Done.”
Then an unexpected but familiar face appeared in the torn doorway. In stepped the black-haired, black-eyed grim who’d helped us track and catch these assholes. He walked into the enclosure, surveying the situation, especially Adam, bloody and unconscious on the floor.
“Nice work.” He seemed pleased and impressed by my carnage. Not sure what to think other than I liked this grim.
He stepped over to me where I crouched with Isadora half across my lap, her head in the crook of my arm. I held out my other hand for him to shake. “I can’t thank you enough for your help.” And I sure as hell meant it.
“Looks like you didn’t need it in the end.” He leaned over and shook my hand. “Henry Blackwater.” Then he exited, pulling out a cigarette to light as he watched the rest of the rescue unfold.
I glanced at Ruben as I lifted Isadora in my arms, snickering at that strange exchange. “Did you see that?” I’d finally gotten the grim’s name.
“You have a grim’s admiration. Not an easy feat,” said Ruben, grinning while wrapping the sleeping woman Kara in a blanket.
With that, I nodded to Ruben, then took off, tracing as quickly as possible back along the interstate shoulder. Once I’d gotten off the interstate, I took backroads through neighborhoods to finally make it to Magazine Street and then the doorstep of the Savoie house. As if she sensed me, the door was wrenched open, Jules standing there with a furious glare. Thankfully, she didn’t bite my head off. Just said, “Come with me.”
I followed her upstairs to Isadora’s bedroom, all five sisters right on my heels.
“What the fuck happened?” demanded Violet, hot on my tail.
“Is she okay?” demanded Livvy, still wearing the dress she had to the bar.
“He dosed her with Rohypnol, but she’ll be okay,” I said as I entered Isadora’s bedroom and set her gently on the bed.
Clara had already peeled back the covers. Evie stood on the other side, worry creasing her brow.
“Clara, go call Tia and get her here at once. I know she’s on standby for the other girls, but I want her here.”
Clara zipped out of the room.
I leaned forward and put my palm to Isadora’s forehead. “It should wear off soon.” I wouldn’t admit that I was worried, too. Knowing Adam, he was aware she was a witch and probably dosed her too much to ensure she’d go out quickly. The thought of him snatching her right underneath me, the fear she must’ve felt before she went under, had my blood boiling again. I fisted one hand, relishing the sting on my knuckles from pounding his face.
“You seem to care quite a bit about our sister,
Devraj,” said Livvy, her big blue eyes focused on the way I had one hand on Isadora’s cheek, the other spread across the blanket over her torso.
“Because he does,” said Violet on a heavy exhale.
Evie, Livvy, and Jules all swiveled their heads to her. Violet just shrugged. “What? I’m a Seer. They belong to each other.”
At that moment, I loved that foul-mouthed sister almost as much as I loved Isadora. Then I looked at my girl, remembering the Tarot reading Violet had done for me. She’d said my determination had to match my intentions. Otherwise, I’d lose.
She was right. And there were a few things I had to do to make that happen. She’d given me a gift with spilling her feelings onto a piece of parchment, weaving my name with the magic in her heart. Now it was my turn.
I leaned closer, pressed a long kiss to her forehead, and then stood and marched for the door.
Violet grabbed my arm as I passed her. “Where are you going, Stygorn?”
I glanced back, recognizing that sting in my sternum for what it was. The clenching of my heart. The longing to be with this woman for all time. I huffed out a breath and turned back to Violet. “Need to take care of some things.” Then I gave Violet a wink. “So she knows I’m all in.”
Her eyes gleamed, sparkling with her Seer magic, as she smirked. “It’s about fucking time.”
With that resounding vote of confidence, I set off to find Ruben.
Chapter 32
~ISADORA~
* * *
I woke to the sound of low voices and light laughter. When I peeked open my eyes, the sunlight pouring through my open balcony doors had me squeezing them shut again against a piercing pain.
“There she is,” said Tia, hopping over and sitting on the edge of my bed. “How do you feel, sweetie?”
“Like crap,” I muffled, my head pounding like mad. “Nauseous.”
The headache was so bad I wanted to vomit. Tia put both her hands on either side of my head, cradling me in her palms.
“You need a little Tia love, my friend,” she said sweetly and then washed me with her Conduit power.
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