“Stalking? I just got the orders to take you this morning. Our techs narrowed down your location, and we followed you from your home today. Thank you for making it so easy.” He patted her knee.
“I didn’t see you following me.” She pushed his hand away.
He nodded. “We’re good at the job.”
She shook her head as the fear rose in her until it was difficult to breathe. “You’re talking in riddles. Did you or did you not send me the white roses?”
“I don’t send roses.” He leaned in to examine her eyes and ignored the fact that she shrank back. “Did I give you too much chloroform? Sometimes I get it wrong.”
“Please stop playing games.” There had to be a way to reason with him. “It sounds like somebody else ordered you to kidnap me.” If so, who the hell was her stalker? “Was it Raine?”
“Never heard of Raine,” Jon said. “Our techs found you based on a report filed in Dallas that mentioned a probable stalker with a mating marking on his hand.”
“Mating marking?” The only person she knew with a tattoo on his hand was Raine.
“Yeah. I’m sure the nerds caught wind of a marking and traced it back to you.” He leaned in to sniff her. “It hasn’t been transferred yet, so you’re free game. We’ve been collecting enhanced females for a while.”
She didn’t like the idea of being collected. “Stop this. Now. Take off the mask.” Her voice trembled but she faced him directly.
He sighed and leaned toward her. “You take it off.”
Fine. She grabbed his neck and searched for the mask. Nope. Was it a whole body suit? Glaring at him, she pulled on his wig. The hair remained in place, and he winced. That was his real hair? She felt along his hairline for the mask. Nothing.
He smiled again. “See? It’s all me.” Then fangs slowly lowered from his mouth.
She screamed.
* * * *
Raine nearly lost his mind when he reached Mariana’s and discovered she was gone. A quick call to Tabi confirmed that she’d headed out and hadn’t told anybody where. He ran to his brother’s rented car and jumped in. “Let’s go.”
Only Cade would find a new Camaro to rent in the middle of Indiana. He gunned it. “Where are we going?”
Raine pulled his phone out of the bag supplied by the cops when he’d been released. “I put a tracker in her purse. Head to the Interstate and go north.”
Cade laughed and sped up. “Of course you did.”
Raine dug into the computer tracker he’d placed on her phone to see she’d made a reservation at a spa retreat three hours to the north. His shoulders slowly unbound. Okay. If she was at a spa, she was safe. “Just hurry up,” he muttered.
Cade shook his head. “Do you want to explain to me why we’re speeding after your wayward mate?” He took a corner on two wheels and sped up onto the Interstate. “This is like a lot of trouble for a female you have no intention of making yours.”
“She’s in danger,” Raine gritted out.
Cade passed three cars on the right. “It seems as if she has taken precautions to keep herself safe. If you’re not making her yours, perhaps you should leave her alone.”
“No.” Raine checked the app on his phone to see the route she’d taken. She’d stopped at what appeared to be a rest stop, and then she’d taken a detour in the wrong direction of the spa. Was she just being careful or had something gone wrong?
Everything in his gut told him she’d had no intention of going east. He quickly dialed Benny again, putting him on speaker this time.
“What, dude? I’m in the middle of trying to rescue my mate, who doesn’t know she’s my mate, and I need to get kidnapped and have the crap beat out of me each time in order to just find her fucking location. I don’t have the energy to deal with you,” Benny grumbled. “Make this quick.”
There was too much to unpack in that statement. “I’m sorry. Don’t you have a hacker in your merry band of misfits? Somebody who can break into traffic or surveillance cameras?” Raine asked.
“Of course, and she’s right here in the computer room trying to find my next place of being kidnapped. You can borrow her for three seconds. Raine, this is Mercy. She’s a Fae and is just as crazy-assed as rumored to be, so ask her for a favor and then prepare yourself to someday pay up. Mercy? This is my buddy, Raine. He helped Ivar out not too long ago.”
“Yeppers?” A soft female voice came over the line.
“Hi. I need a favor and am happy owing you one,” Raine said.
The woman chuckled. “Any friend of Benny and Ivar’s is somebody who’d I’d like to owe me a favor. What do you need?”
Raine rattled off the time and place of the rest stop. “I need to know what happened to my woman there.” He waited.
His brother glanced at him but wisely didn’t say anything.
“Okie doke.” Rapid typing came over the line. “There is a CCTV camera at the rest stop, and somebody is in the process of wiping it…right now.” Her voice rose, and the speed of the typing came faster. “All right. It’s going quickly. A woman meeting that description was taken by…holy crap it’s a Kurjan in daylight. Well, there’s rain and a storm, but they really can go into daylight now.”
It was a new development for their species and one Raine didn’t have time to ruminate on right now. “Was she hurt?” he growled.
Mercy stopped typing. “The video is gone. It looked like he drugged her and carried her off. I can’t see where they went, but I can start looking for traffic cameras.”
“No you can’t,” Benny argued in the background. “You’re working on my project.”
“It’s okay,” Raine said. “I have a tracker on her and they obviously took her purse with them. I’ve got a bead on her.”
Benny sighed loudly. Very loudly. “Do you need backup? I could fly there.”
“No. My brother is with me,” Raine said. “Good luck on your next mission, and Mercy, I owe you one.”
“Yes, you do.” The female ended the call.
Raine flipped back to the app. “Mariana is stationary at a small and private airport.” Then he looked at the raging storm outside. “Hopefully they won’t try to fly in this.”
Cade passed two logging trucks, and they were just a blur. “How did the Kurjans find her?”
Raine’s chest ached with a fire that burned beyond his body. “I have no idea. Hurry up. We’re running out of time.”
Chapter 12
Mariana couldn’t breathe. Was she drugged? She had to be on drugs. There’s no way that guy’s face was real. Kurjans, vampires, and shifters? Also demons? This was too weird. What was that about the marking on Raine’s hand that they’d been talking about? None of it was making sense. This had to be a cult, and she had to be seriously drugged right now. “What did you give me?”
Jon shook his head. “You should be okay now. Take a deep breath.”
A monster was telling her to go Zen? This was ridiculous. The only explanation besides a drugging was that he’d had his face surgically changed. Her legs started to tremble. It was a good thing she was sitting. “All right. Say I believe you, and I’m not sure I do, what’s the plan here? Why have you kidnapped me?”