He heard screams across the parking lot and knew Aksel was cleaning up his side of the battle with a little more brutality and showmanship. Kai preferred efficiency and subterfuge. Aksel had a flair for the dramatic and a need to make a big impression.
Behind him, Kai heard a grunt and seconds later, a sharp pain tore through his hip.
“Motherfucker,” he grunted. Some asshole had just tried to shoot him in the back.
He turned just as the man in black fatigues raised the rifle toward his chest.
Shit. He might be immortal, but a shot to the vampire heart would seriously slow his healing abilities and his capacity to fight.
A blur from the assailants left flashed into Kai’s line of vision and he let out a breath he’d held on to. Aksel had appeared out of nowhere and obliterated the guy like an all-pro linebacker on a quarterback. A scream and a sickening gurgle let Kai know Aksel had finished the job.
“You shot, boss? Aksel noted the circle of blood on the side of Kai’s shirt widening.
“Yeah,” he said. “I think so. How are the boys?” He pointed up to second floor. He’d be fine. Eventually.
“Lemme check.”
Like a comic book hero, Aksel used his vampire abilities and flashed away, racing toward the room where their injured comrades had held the attackers off.
Kai surveyed the parking lot and swore. There were at least nine dead bodies strewn around and the gunfire would mean the police were surely on their way in minutes. This was one hell of a cleanup job.
Before he could start to develop any sort of response to the very messy situation they were about to leave behind, Aksel was back. His face tight, his jaw clenched and what Kai could only guess as fear in his eyes.
“What is it? Are they okay?” He motioned toward the room. Aksel nodded.
“Something’s wrong,” he bit out, his eyes darting madly about. “I don’t know, Kai—I just feel it. Something’s not right. Almost like I can feel Melody’s fear or hear her screams in my head.”
Kai pulled his phone out to call Ember. Before his thumb could hit the dial button, he was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of emotions. He staggered under the weight of his mate’s terror as it shot through him to his very core. She was afraid. Very afraid.
In a rage, the beast inside Kai rattled the bars to be set free to save his mate.
With a roar, Kai let his vamp out and raced toward Ember.
Chapter Ten
Ember dragged her eyes open and took in the details of her surroundings.
It was black. She couldn’t see inches in front of her face. There was a strap of material bound around her mouth, gagging her. Her hands and feet were both bound, as well. She hit resistance each time she tried to move. And beneath her—was that the sound of tires on a road?
Shit.
Ember was in the trunk of a car right now and it didn’t take a genius to guess that she was in the back of a black sedan—or that New Dawn was behind what had just happened to her.
From what she could tell, she was alone in the trunk. There was no sign of Melody. Had something happened to her sister? Had she managed to escape?
In her hazy fog of sleep, Ember had remembered Kai pressing a warm kiss to her lips and whispered promises that he’d return shortly—that he had no choice, but it would be quick. She’d drifted back to sleep and what felt like moments later, Melody had screamed.
Glass broke. The sound of wood splintering. Melody’s hysterical voice beside her in her loft.
“They’re here,” she cried, shaking Ember to wake her. “Please wake up, Ember, we have to go!”
Her eyes had flown open, but her vision swam.
Despite the effects of her turning, Ember had the clarity of mind to understand that she and her sister were in mortal danger and that Kai and Aksel were too far away to help them.
“Go,” Ember whispered to her sister. “Out the window and hide in the woods down by the lake where Dad used to fish.”
Melody protested and tried dragging Ember from the tangle of sheets around her legs. Though she was upright, her head swam violently. No, Ember wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re going to get us both caught if you fight me on this, Melody,” Ember rasped. “Please. Get out of here and then help Kai find me. Memorize details. Anything you can give him. Please, Melody. Go.”
And, as if she finally understood what was at stake, Melody had gone.
The men in her cabin weren’t delicate in their search. Glass shattered. Furniture was destroyed. Her life turned upside down and the tears pricked at her eyes just like they had when she watched her dad’s bar up in flames.
“Over here,” a gruff voice yelled. It was closer than the others. They must have found the hidden staircase that led up to Ember’s bedroom.
Bodies filled the doorway and one man pushed his way toward the front.
“Ready to play your part as bait?”
It was the one named Mitchell—the arrogant jerk who’d manhandled her in her own bar. Buzz Cut, she called him.
“Bait for who?” Ember asked with a shrug, but she saw Mitchell’s eyes go straight to her neck, obviously noting the claiming mark Kai had left behind.
One man to Mitchell’s right let out a low whistle.
“His mate, huh?” Mitchell asked as he cocked his head to the side. “Well this just got interesting.”
He wasted no more time and strode toward Ember. Her reactions were dulled and she couldn’t fend off the attack—a needle straight into her neck.
And then, nothing.
Her eyes slid open and she winced at the bright light.
How long had she been out? Looking around, she took in her surroundings. It was a warehouse of some sort. A large cavernous space, Ember tied to a chair in the middle. A single lightbulb hung down from the ceiling and swayed above her head.
Ember also noticed her senses were heightened beyond anything she’d experienced before her turning. She could smell humans—in the distance—but there, nonetheless. Far away, she heard the rushing of water. A river, likely.
Glancing down, she noticed she was no longer in her shorts and tank top, the last thing she remembered wearing before Kai had claimed her.
She was now wearing faded blue hospital scrubs. A long dark braid fell over her shoulder and smelled like shampoo. Seriously? One of these sick fucks had bathed her, washed her hair, and then dressed her?
Rage boiled just below the surface. She tested the bonds holding her hands together behind her back. They didn’t budge.
“It’s no use,” a smooth voice said from the darkness in front of her. Footsteps clacked against the stone floor as the speaker moved toward Ember.
When the figure came into the light, she didn’t need to guess who it was. Scala.
“You’re still highly sedated and those ropes aren’t just any ropes. They have wards built into them to negate a vampire’s strength.”
Fan-freaking-tastic.
“Rouvin Scala,” she said and didn’t miss the blink of surprise that flashed in his eyes. He hid it away quickly, but she’d seen it, nonetheless. He was handsome, she’d give him that. Tall and broad, with tanned olive skin and dark features that cast him as the perfect brooding antagonist.
“Very good,” he said, clearly impressed. “I apologize for my lack of hospitality. And had you not allowed yourself to be turned into one of those beasts, I would have been able to let you leave once we had Malakai Arkos.”
There was a but coming, Ember felt it.
“…but now you’re a vampire and that simply won’t do,” he said, a false pity in his voice. He was toying with her.
There was no use in trying to deny what had happened between her and Kai. It was pointless, and the beast inside her scoffed at the thought of her denying that she belonged to Kai—his pull, his essence, that strong. He’d mentioned a couple times the fact that he was an alpha, and now that her new senses were starting to clear from the transitioning fog, she could feel just h
ow strong Kai was.
And that he was coming for her.
The pull in the bond between them flexed and rippled in her core. She felt his rage. His pain. And his fear—for her.
“Why are you doing this?” She asked, looking up and blinking. The bright lights still hurt her eyes.
“Arkos didn’t tell you?” Scala cocked his head to the side.
“He mentioned you’re afraid of wrinkles and your company is trying to come up with some crazy effective anti-wrinkle serum,” she said, a grin pulling on the edge of her lips at the scowl on his face.
She didn’t get to revel in the victory long. A pain cracked across the right side of her face and she winced against it. The asshole had backhanded her.
“Shut your dirty whore mouth, beast,” he leaned forward, breathing hard, just inches from her face.
Her senses caught it then. A different smell to him. Not completely human. There was more to this Scala person that he might even know. There was a frequency to him that was oddly familiar. Not identical, but a trace of something she recognized.
Ember narrowed her eyes at Scala and licked the blood from her lips, deciding to drop it for now.
“That hurt,” she said simply. Smiling. Scala backed up and wiped his hand on the back of his expensive looking black pants.
“Arkos had made my life miserable and now I’ve finally got a pawn that could bring him to his knees.”
The words were obviously meant for Ember, but the man was wandering in and out of the dim light and rambling.
“She’s going to be so proud of me,” he continued. “No more failures. No more pain. This will end it.”
Ember frowned. The man was violent, ruthless…and just a little insane?
“She who?”
His head snapped back to Ember and he bared his teeth.
“I warned you once to shut your mouth,” he said quietly. “I’ll remove your tongue next.”
Ember blew out a slow breath and weighed her options. She wanted to keep him talking and just a little unbalanced to buy Kai a little time.
“I have a feeling this goes way beyond an immortality serum,” Ember said quietly. Loud enough for Scala to hear it, but not so overt that she sounded petulant.
“You have no idea,” he said quietly. “No idea what those monsters have done to my family. I wish you’d be around long enough to hear the full story, but the minute Arkos arrives, I’m afraid I have to kill you. I need him to come unglued and it seems that murdering a mate in front of an alpha is the best way to shatter their power.”
Fuck.
This wasn’t good. Panic washed over Ember and she pulled at the bond between them, trying to close it down—to keep Kai from tracking her with it before she could come up with a plan. But it was pointless. The more she tried to block the sensation, to push it away, the harder she felt Kai pushing on it from his end.
And he was so much stronger than she was. Calm replaced the panic she was feeling and she realized that Kai was forcing the emotion on her—that he was capable of calming her across the bond. His power and his energy spread across her skin.
Just like that, Ember wasn’t scared anymore. She’d felt just a fraction of Kai’s power across the bond and she knew he’d let his own beast out.
New Dawn, and especially Rouvin Scala, had severely underestimated the power of an alpha male like Kai.
Scala must have felt the change in her and he turned back, his lip peeled thin over his teeth.
“Nothing is going to stop what’s coming.” He meant it as a threat. He didn’t know just how right he was.
Ember smiled at the prick and closed her eyes.
Hell was coming and this poor idiot didn’t have the common sense to be terrified.
Yet.
Chapter Eleven
When the dilapidated building came into view, it was all Kai could do not to rip the roof open with his claws and jump free.
“Easy, Malakai,” Aksel warned from the driver’s seat. “You know it’s a trap. They’re going to try to destroy you using her.”
Kai didn’t answer, but the monster inside him snarled.
Let them try.
Aksel killed the engine before they got too close, though the humans had probably already seen them coming. They weren’t exactly trying to be stealthy.
“Give it one minute,” Aksel was almost pleading. “Let the rest of them catch…”
Kai’s reply was a slamming door in Aksel’s face.
“Son of a bitch,” Aksel gritted through is teeth behind Kai. “This is going to be ugly.”
“Damn right it is,” Kai growled. “I’m going straight for Ember. You clean up behind me.”
Three more vehicles killed their engines behind them. Good. The cavalry was here and now every single human would pay for daring to touch a hair on his mate’s head. He’d tolerated New Dawn for the most part up until this point—playing their cat and mouse game and trying to figure out who ran the organization and what exactly they were after.
Now, Kai didn’t care what their motives were. All he knew was that every single one of them was about to meet their end in the most violent and gruesome way he could manage.
A steel door barred the entrance to the building. Seconds later, he’d ripped it off its hinges and sent it flying into the trees that lined the parking lot.
“EMBER!”
His voice shook the rafters as he stepped inside.
Kai was aware of the humans now. They hid along the sides of the large, empty building in the shadows. There were some above on the second floor, overlooking him.
Let them look. He’d deal with them soon enough.
And then he saw her.
His mate. Bound to a chair like some specimen. There was blood dripping down the side of her mouth as though she’d been struck. Her eyes were on him, pleading, as she shouted through a gag. He couldn’t understand her words, but he understood her panic. She wanted him to run. To leave and seek safety. Without her.
As if he even could. As if his inner immortal would allow him to leave her behind now.
Above him, windows shattered as his enforcers, members of his clan, breached the human’s buildings. Scala hadn’t counted on just how many people the Arkos clan kept at the ready. Everywhere. All the time. Kai didn’t set foot anywhere off of his island without a serious contingent plan in place.
Rouvin Scala and New Dawn had seriously underestimated him and it made him and his beast very, very happy.
Kai was a predator. Moving in the shadows toward that ring of hazy light that held Ember in the middle.
Bodies flew at him, attempting to subdue him and render him unconscious again with their serums. Kai separated heads from spinal columns. He ripped out throats. He snapped bones like twigs as the humans rushed him.
His vampire feasted on the bloodlust that grew. Here, in this raw state, the ancient spirit in him was at home. A born warrior with a taste for revenge and gore. The more that rushed him, the stronger he got.
Up above, the humans that had been posed to shoot him with tranquilizer darts had met equally bloody ends at the hands of his enforcers.
Screams and the sounds of death ricocheted through the building. It was a bloodbath and nothing short of scooping his mate up in his arms and disappearing with her could be better for the state he was in.
The chaos died down as the last few New Dawn agents lay dead or were in the process of dying. From the upper level, Arkos enforcers dropped to the ground level along with Kai and Aksel and began closing in on the terrified looking Rouvin Scala, who had moved to the small circle of light next to Ember.
Kai roared in anger when he saw the six-inch blade of the knife Scala was holding against Ember’s neck.
“She dies, Arkos,” he said. Kai could smell the fear roiling off the man. He’d lost and had realized the fact. Now he was looking to harm Kai with his last remaining trump card.
“Kai,” he heard Aksel whisper behind him. “If we truly want this
to end, we need this asshole alive. He’s the key to taking the rest of the New Dawn down.”
The words were true, but Kai didn’t want the coward to live. He wanted this motherfucker’s head on a pike.
“Keep walking toward me and I slit this throat wide open,” Scala screamed. Kai could feel emotions roiling off the man. He could also smell something new.
“What clan are you from?” Kai ground out, trying to stall the man and slow his own rage. If he kept walking forward, the man would panic and do something stupid. Then he’d have to tear his limbs from his body and they’d have to start all over with New Dawn.
What a predicament.
The man looked momentarily confused.
“I’m not one of you,” he spat. “I hate vampires.”
Aksel continued for Kai, obviously picking up on the man’s strange scent.
“But you are,” his second said, approaching from Scala’s right. “Very distinct bloodline to you, too.”
Aksel shot a quick glance to Kai, who merely raised an eyebrow.
I have no idea, the look said.
“Fuck it,” Kai said, ending the standoff. He launched himself forward at the same time Aksel came from the right. Aksel got there first and hurtled Scala’s body with him into the wall. Kai reached Ember and scooped her up, crushing her to his chest as he inhaled her scent.
“You came,” she said as tears began to flow.
“The devil himself couldn’t stop me from getting to you, anasa mou.”
“He’s secure?”
Aksel’s voice came through on the other end.
“He is. Scala’s transport landed in Cyprus and they’re transferring him to the facility on the island later tonight.”
That was good news. His clan would work on the interrogation while Ember recuperated in the States with him.
“Kai,” Aksel continued, a wariness in his voice. “Has Ember heard from Melody?”
Kai frowned. Odd.
“Our men found her a few towns away yesterday.”
“Is she safe? Is she okay?” Aksel prodded.
ROMANCE: PARANORMAL ROMANCE: The Vampire´s Bride Awakening (Alpha Male Shifter Kidnapping BBW Romance) (Paranormal Young Adult Protector Romance) Page 5
