Chapter Twenty-Two
The place his queen had brought him to was shocking in its obvious neglect, the smell… but suddenly, before his eyes, things began to change. The musty, dark interior transformed to a softly lit, romantic bower draped with pale gauzy fabric, and the room smelled like peppermint, his favorite scent. Kane stared in wonder, but a moment later, he’d forgotten what things had looked like previously, or any question that may have arisen as to how things could have possibly changed so drastically. His queen was leading him to a bed fit for royalty, piled high with an assortment of fat throw pillows. There, he would make himself worthy of her by pleasing her. There, he would redeem himself in her eyes.
Kane watched her move, hips swaying seductively as she strolled toward the bed and laid herself upon it in a decadent feast for his eyes. Her hand lifted, beckoning him forward. “Come, my love, worship me.”
Yes, was a whisper in his mind as he approached. Yes, I will worship her. I will adore her.
Joining her on the bed, his eyes devoured the perfection of her features as that whisper continued, He would never feed from her vein, never mar such flawless flesh with his bite. He was unworthy of such an honor.
An image of another throat popped unbidden into his mind, long, graceful fingers running down the length in an invitation, and then that same throat later, marked by his kiss, as a voice that seemed so familiar told him, ‘I’ll wear a scarf’. The memory caused him to wince as a lance of pain speared through his skull and a feeling of guilt suffused his chest. He should know who she was, he thought. Why couldn’t he remember? He attempted to dig deeper, tried to chase that elusive memory until that whisper once more invaded his head. His queen was before him, she was all that mattered.
The pain immediately eased and he watched, entranced as his queen bared her perfect breasts to his gaze. His hands cupped them, lush globes that overflowed his palms. His fingers spasmed as he recalled another pair of breasts, rosy-tipped and small, but perfect just the same. That feeling of guilt overtook him once more. That was his queen, not this woman beneath him, his mind screamed, and a name suddenly formed on his lips – “Sophia.” His dragon.
Another whisper of protest invaded his mind but he fought it, holding on to the memory of Sophia St. John. Yes, that was her name. Sophia St. John, a dragon and his. She would give him strength.
Pain ripped through his head like hot pokers, and Kane fisted the sides of his hair with a groan of agony.
An unholy screech echoed around him and he was suddenly flung back from the bed to land on the floor. “You bled on me, you miserable slug!” the woman said, wiping at the drops of blood on her chest with stiff fingers.
Covering herself, she rose with all the regal dignity of the queen she had tried to convince him she was.
“Witch,” Kane accused past the blood bubbling up into his mouth as he mentally fought to hold on to himself, to hold on to Sophia.
She stared at him intensely for a moment, a look of wonder on her face before she threw her head back and laughed, her hands clapping together in glee. “Oh, my goodness. You’re fighting it. How absolutely astonishing.”
Blood trickled from his nose, and a tell-tale tickle beneath his left ear told him he was bleeding there as well, but still, he refused to listen to the barrage of whispers battering at his mind, seeking a crack they might slip through. Even more determined, he reminded himself that he was Kane Alexander Fletcher, former Hunter, territory-holding Born, in love with a dragon named Sophia. He was not a puppet, and this witch was not his queen.
In a sing-song voice, the witch told him, “You’ll give yourself an aneurysm if you continue to fight me.” She tried peering deeply into his eyes, so Kane closed his and continued his mental recitation. Better to die with Sophia’s name on his lips than live as a shadow under this bitch’s control.
He heard a long, drawn-out sigh. “I underestimated your strength, vampire. That’s twice now. There won’t be a third.”
He felt the clamp around his mind release and opened his eyes. The illusion slipped away and the room was once more a dark, dingy warehouse that reeked of rotting fish and the witch before him was now holding a gun pointed straight at him.
He felt the bullet punch into his thigh before he heard the loud report and Kane hissed in pain, gripping the wound with his hand in an attempt to halt the bleeding.
“I can’t have you running away,” she told him matter-of-factly, and then to someone else, Kane hadn’t even realized was there, “Bind him.”
Kevin Thompson, the final rogue Kane had been searching for, emerged from the shadows, his steps slow and cautious as he approached.
The witch, who could only be Evangeline, Kane decided, leveled the gun at Kane’s head though her words, rife with impatience, were directed at her vampire minion. “Hurry up. He’s not going to attack you when I’ve got a gun on him, you idiot.”
Kane thought about it, he really did, wondering if he could garner enough energy to break apart into a cloud of bats or transform into mist, but the pain in his thigh was too intense, throbbing with seemingly its own heartbeat, and he was losing too much blood too quickly. Within moments, his hands and ankles had been bound tight with wire.
“Put him in with the girl,” Evangeline purred with a malicious glint in her eyes. “She might provide a tasty little snack for him when he gets hungry.”
Kane was unceremoniously hauled up and thrown over the vampire’s shoulder, the move leaving Kane feeling like his head was spinning. A few moments later, he was dumped, impossible as it seemed, in an even dirtier, windowless room illuminated by a single bald light bulb. The heavy door was slammed shut behind him, and the next moment, he heard the thunk of a bolt being thrown.
He heard a whimper and blinked his eyes to try and clear the spots that still hazed his vision thanks to his light-headedness. The wolf shifter, Nicky was huddled in a corner, bound and gagged with clean tracks, caused by tears, streaking her dirty face.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
Seeing her nod, he told her gently, “It’ll be okay, Nicky. We’ll get out of this. You’ll see.”
She nodded again, fat tears of relief leaving more tracks on her face as Kane attempted to scooch across the floor to get closer. It was slow going thanks to the bullet in his leg, but he made it. Turning so that his back was to Nicky he told her, “Lean down to my hands and I’ll get that gag off.”
Nicky quickly complied and as soon as the gag was free, she croaked past a dry throat, “I’m sorry, Kane. I’m so sorry.”
“Shh. Hey, no. Don’t do that. This isn’t your fault.”
“I couldn’t control myself,” she sobbed, “I did everything she told me to do.”
Fucking mind control, Kane mentally snarled, and then to Nicky, “You don’t worry about that.”
“There’s something wrong with her.”
“Yeah. She’s fucking psychotic,” he replied darkly.
Nicky shook her head, her eyes closed tightly shut and her lips set in a grimace. She swallowed hard. “No, I mean something wrong with her power or something.”
Intrigued, Kane scooted even closer. “Tell me.”
“While I was still under her control, I watched her doing a spell, I don’t know what it was for,” she said with a shake of her head. “But the lights flickered, and everything shook, and then she screamed like she was in pain, and suddenly, she no longer had control over my mind, and her looks…” Nicky trailed off, swallowing audibly once more. “She was hideous, Kane. Old, almost skeletal, and her veins were black and they like, stuck out from her skin all over like the blood flowing through them was solidifying. It was nasty.”
Kane grimaced, completely agreeing with Nicky’s statement, just the description was nasty, he couldn’t imagine witnessing it first-hand. But, it was a potential weakness – not that he knew what to do with it, but Jourdain might.
Glancing down at Nicky’s ankles that he happily saw were bound with rope instead
of wire, Kane told the girl, “We’re going to get you out of here. They didn’t search me and there’s a knife in my boot. I’m going to get my feet as close to your hands as I can. I need you to pull that knife out for me. Got it?”
Nodding eagerly, Nicky shifted around to make things easier for him. It took some time considering her hands were bound behind her back so she couldn’t see what she was doing, but Kane talked her through it. As soon as the knife was free of the boot sheath, Nicky turned the blade in nimble fingers like a pro and began to saw through the bindings at her wrists.
“Have they been feeding you?” Kane asked suddenly as her hands popped free and she went to work on her ankles. “Are you strong enough for a run?”
Nicky nodded, assuring him dryly, “Even if I was half-starved I’d still have enough in me to run away from this place.”
The last of her bindings fell away and she turned to Kane’s bound wrists, hesitating. “Will this cut through wire?”
“With enough pressure,” he assured her with a nod as he scooched back so his wrists were against the wall. “Press the blade to the wire and push against the wall.”
Kane heard the satisfying ping of the wire snapping and his hands were free. “Good job,” he told her, holding his hand out for the knife so he could free his feet.
“The door’s locked,” Nicky pointed out. “And there’s no way to pick it from this side.”
He nodded. “I’m going to go pound on the door. That should bring the vampire running. As soon as he sees we’re free, I’m hoping he’ll open the door to rectify the situation. That’s when I’ll grab him and you make a run for it.”
“What about you?” she asked, her eyes growing wide with dismay.
Kane shook his head. “I’ve lost too much blood. I’ll only slow you down. Besides, I’m hoping they won’t go after you since it was me they wanted.”
“You can drink from me,” she offered, thrusting her wrist toward him.
Kane licked his lips, his eyes flashing red before he wrestled himself back under control and shook his head. “I’m grateful, I am, but it wouldn’t be enough. I’d drain you.” Nor would he drink from any woman other than his dragon. Taking another woman’s vein, even when injured, would feel too much like a betrayal of Sophia.
Nicky’s eyes glittered with panic as she slowly shook her head back and forth. “I won’t leave you here.”
Gripping her shoulders, Kane looked her dead in the eyes. “You will. I need you to go to Destin Jourdain,” he said, giving her the address. “Tell him what’s happening and everything you saw. Tell him how to find her and then, I need you to go home. The pack is worried about you.”
Her eyes flooded with tears and in a small, almost childlike voice, she asked through trembling lips, “They were?” she shook her head and swallowed. “When no one came, I thought…”
“That they had abandoned you?”
She nodded and Kane lifted her chin with his fingers. “They didn’t. They just didn’t know where to look.”
Nicky let out a broken sob, her shoulders shaking, and Kane allowed her a moment to expel her relief through tears before he prompted, “Are you ready for this?”
Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and nodded.
Kane mentally crossed his fingers and pounded on the door.
A minute, and then five, and then ten minutes passed before Kane lowered his fist that was now swollen and bruised from the force behind his pounding. No one was coming, he realized with chagrin. They either couldn’t hear him, which he doubted, or Evangeline and her little vampire minion had left. He’d give it a little more time and try again, in case they were still in the building and choosing, for the moment, to ignore him. After all, Evangeline didn’t seem like the type who would patiently tolerate such a ruckus disturbing her beauty sleep for long. But if they had left, all Kane and Nicky could do, was wait.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sophia threw herself into her training with vigor and determination that was impressive, even if she did say so herself. Every target was that woman’s face, taunting her, smug in her assurance that she’d ripped Kane from Sophia’s arm. On every tree and bush in the distance during her run through the bayou, she saw Kane, walking away from her and leaving her behind, prompting her to increase her speed if only to catch up with him.
Unfortunately, her control had regressed to the point of nonexistent. She’d blown up the temporary shooting range in a burst of fiery rage, nearly bit Jamie when the vampire had put her hand on Sophia’s shoulder, and she’d snarled “Get away from me,” at Morgan, her voice more dragon than human, when the Born had attempted to calm her. Thus, why she was now training alone.
She didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to answer their questions or see the pitying expression when she told them what happened, nor did she want to hear the equivalent of any ‘I told you so’s’ when they attempted to explain away Kane’s behavior. As for Travis, she’d been avoiding him. He’d comforted her last night, both of them in their dragon forms, his wing over her back as he nuzzled her cheek with his snout. That was enough. She didn’t need her brother to get all riled up on her behalf. Sophia was angry enough for both of them, not to mention the pain… Oh, such pain. Let Travis think she had simply lost control because she was in a crowd and something had startled her. It would be better for all involved.
Sweat was dripping off of her when she finally collapsed at the base of a tree, her breath leaving her lungs in heaving pants, and she had a nasty stitch in her side. She’d overdone it, she knew, but at least now she was semi-confident that she had expended far too much energy to accidentally shift, so, that was a good thing.
Was Kane with that woman right now? The thought, unbidden and unwelcome invaded her mind as she imagined the two of them twined together in his bed, a bed he had shared with Sophia just the night before.
Sophia released a scoffing snort. Had he even had time to change the sheets? The unfaithful wretch. That womanizing bastard.
“Soph?”
Ah, so her brother had found her anyway.
Turning to glance over her shoulder, she pasted a pathetic excuse for a smile on her face.
His hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans, he came closer. “Some of us were going to go down to the river, see if we can pick up any sign of that missing girl. Do you feel like learning to track?”
God, did she ever. She didn’t think she had ever needed a distraction quite so badly. “Give me a few minutes to shower and dress?”
“However long it takes,” he solemnly told her, both of them aware that that promise wasn’t simply about a shower.
Touching his cheek as she drew abreast of him, this time her smile was genuine. “I love you, big brother.”
“I love you too, little sister.”
The search down by the river was undertaken by four teams, dragons and vampires on one team while the other three were comprised of wolves. Each team had a grid section to clear, and all were given a sample of the girl’s scent to follow.
Sophia had raised a surprised brow when she saw Morgan breathe in the scent as well. Seeing the expression, Morgan grinned. “I have some odd genetic anomaly when it comes to my nose. A super sniffer.” She shrugged, “Comes in useful as a Hunter.”
“Or she could have become a world-class perfumer,” Jamie chimed in with a chuckle. “Everyone needs a plan B.”
Once the merriment died down, they all turned their attention to the job at hand. Grid after grid was cleared with no luck, but the area they were trying to cover was immense, not to mention, there was no telling whether the girl was even on this side of the river. Add to that, they couldn’t exactly search inside all of the buildings, and any external scents would have been washed away by the rain. The task seemed impossible.
Archer Langley seemed to share Sophia’s estimation, his face grim as he called a temporary halt to the search for the night. “Head home,” he told the exhausted and defeated looki
ng tracker teams. “Eat, rest, we’ll begin again fresh tomorrow.” His eyes flashed the silver of his wolf as he firmly added, “We will find her.”
They were on their way back to the bayou, the silence in the car weighty as they each contemplated their own thoughts, when Jamie’s phone went off. The vampire frowned at the screen before answering. “Edward. What’s up?”
With Sophia in the front passenger seat and Jamie in the back behind Travis who was driving, she couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation but Jamie’s frown of concern couldn’t be missed. “No, he’s not with us.”
A minute more of Jamie listening and then her eyes flicked up to look straight at Sophia. “Did you see Kane last night?”
Oh, yeah. She’d seen the cocksucker all right. Her eyes shifted and a low, clicking growl rumbled in her chest.
Jamie’s eyes widened and she quickly said, “Listen, Edward, let me call you right back,” and disconnecting the call, her attention was fully on Sophia and the reaction she hadn’t been able to hold back. “What happened?”
“Yeah,” Travis chimed in. “What did happen? Was Kane responsible for that shit last night?”
“Wait,” Morgan piled on. “Something happened last night? You said everything was fine.”
Well, the cat was out of the bag, wasn’t it?
Clearing her throat, Sophia took a few steadying breaths and then shook her head. “I can’t. Not in the car.” She was way too on edge to trust that she could stay in control in an enclosed vehicle while trying to verbalize the painful betrayal she’d felt when she’d seen Kane with another woman.
It appeared, however, Travis wasn’t willing to wait to get home to get his answers, pulling off to the side of the road not far from where he’d made his own path through the trees the night before.
Sophia quickly got out and walked a distance, the others trooping behind her. Finally, she turned, and said in a rush, “We were supposed to meet up last night, but instead, he left with another woman.”
A Hunter Found: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Hired Hunters Series Book 3) Page 13
