The van skidded to an awkward halt, making him topple sideways. Her mind distantly registered the driver’s door being pulled open, Len screaming in pain, and the sounds of flesh smacking flesh. And then the back doors of the van were heaved open.
She tried fighting the tug of sleep as people piled into the vehicle, but it was no use. A dark, smoky scent with notes of cinnamon spice wrapped around her just as the lights winked out.
*
Fighting to keep his touch gentle when all he wanted was to punch something, Tanner carefully scooped up Devon’s unconscious form and cradled her against his chest. The warm weight of her in his arms unraveled one of the many knots in his curdling stomach.
Jesus, she was so still and pale. But she was breathing, he reminded himself. She was alive. And not on her way to some fucking stranger who may or may not want her dead.
Tanner closed his eyes as a wave of relief hit him so hard that he was surprised his balance didn’t waver. Fuck, kitten, you gave me a scare, he said, even knowing she wouldn’t hear him.
He quietly let out a slow, centering breath. When he identified and found the fucker who was behind all this, Tanner was going to put him through a world of blinding pain. And with his centuries-worth of experience in torture, he knew a great many ways to make someone suffer deeply without killing them too quickly. It was a skill he took pride in.
Sweeping his gaze over her kidnappers, he noticed that the only one still breathing was now trying to army-crawl his way to the doors, bloody and broken. Tanner snarled. Motherfucker. The other male’s nails scrabbled at the floor of the vehicle as Tanner yanked him backwards by his broken ankle.
Still holding tight to Devon, he flipped the bastard over and snapped his hand tight around his throat. That was when his hound pushed for supremacy.
Seething, the entity lifted its captive and hauled him so close they were nose-to-nose. Nostrils flaring, the demon chuffed out a breath. A thick, dark gray, noxious mouthful of air dived up the male’s nose and poured down his throat. He jerked, eyes wide and panicked. Coughed, hacked, struggled. Then his eyes rolled back in his head.
The demon watched, detached, as violent convulsions wracked its captive’s body harder and harder until, finally, the life leached out of him. Satisfied, the entity dropped the corpse. Aware of the four gazes on it, the hound peeled back its upper lip, warning them to keep their distance. Then it retreated.
Once more in control, Tanner cricked his neck. He raised a brow at the four demons who were watching him warily.
Lex blinked hard. “I’ve heard of hellhounds breathing out smoke or sleeping gas, but nothing so poisonous that it can kill.”
Tanner only shrugged. He didn’t use the ability often because he preferred combat, just as his demon did. But he hadn’t been willing to put Devon down for a second—not even to kill that little fucker. Had the guy not been so close to death, Tanner would have kept him alive to question him.
“Is she all right?” asked Rhonda, flexing her fingers.
Feeling his jaw harden to stone, Tanner held Devon closer to him and glared at the imp. “She’s fine.”
Rhonda winced at his curt tone. “We didn’t do our job, I know. It just all happened so fast …”
Tyson put a supportive hand on the female’s shoulder. “This fuck up is on all four of us,” he said, his eyes briefly darting to Enzo and Lex, who both nodded.
Yeah, and Tanner wanted to rip them all a new ass hole, but this wasn’t the time or place. What they all needed right then was action. Humans would have noticed the kidnapping and the crash, and steps would need to be taken to cover up as much of the demonic activity as possible—which was why he’d telepathically reached out to Knox and the other sentinels, who were now all on their way, as he drove.
They’d done this dance many times before. Knox mostly took care of tweaking memories, Larkin would edit or delete any incriminating CCTV footage, and the others would stage the scenes in whatever ways were necessary … just as Tanner often did. Today, though, he was sticking with Devon.
Rhonda scrubbed a hand down her face. “I haven’t panicked like that in God knows how long.”
Tanner could say the same about himself. By nature, he wasn’t an emotionally overreactive person. He was in control of his emotions, and he was always steady in times of stress or danger. But when Enzo told him that Devon had been taken, his mind had turned into a whirl of chaos.
With adrenaline pumping through his veins, he’d sped around the streets like a fucking crazy person, desperate to get to her—his mouth dry, his heart pounding, his ribs feeling too tight. His only comfort had been the knowledge that her kidnappers would have been ordered not to harm her, just as the others had been.
He’d managed to close in on the van just as the imps took the other vehicle out of the equation, but the car collision had caused a block in the road, so he’d had to abandon the Audi and pursue the first van on foot. And when he’d merged his mind with hers and realized how close she was to unconsciousness, he’d nearly lost his shit.
His hound had gone ballistic, demanding freedom, craving vengeance. The only thing that had stopped it from bashing its way to the surface was the shock of the sight it found when Tanner hopped into the van. Three of the bastards that had taken her were dead on the floor of the vehicle, and the other was barely alive—all looked like they’d been trampled on by a freight train. Several times.
Now, he knew just how sharp his kitten’s “claws” really were. The power inside her was as dark and hungry for violence as the hound that lived within him.
Enzo picked up a syringe and sniffed it. “I don’t recognize the smell.”
“It’s liquid mercury,” Tanner told him. The damn stuff was leaking from her pores, tainting her luscious scent. The injection would keep her unconscious for a few hours, maybe longer. “They already hit her with one dose of it. Looks like they were thinking of hitting her with another.”
“Wouldn’t that have killed her?” asked Lex, checking the pockets of the deceased and getting a good look at their bruised, bloody faces.
“Yes,” replied Tanner. “They probably only brought the second syringe as a spare in case they lost the first. But when they realized they were dealing with someone far more powerful than they’d been prepared for, they were willing to use the second syringe, even if it meant killing her.”
Lex sighed. “None of these guys have any ID or cell phones on them.”
Because that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? Tanner took a brief look around and then spoke to Enzo and Lex. “Find out who this van belongs to and who the fuck they were.”
“It’ll be done,” Enzo assured him.
The van rocked slightly as Keenan hopped inside. His brows shot up as he took in the scene. “I’m guessing she’s fine, since you haven’t gone off the deep end.”
It had been a close call. “She’s fine … albeit drugged up to her eyeballs with liquid mercury.”
“Liquid mercury?” Keenan echoed. “Fuck me.”
Hearing sirens blaring in the distance, Tanner said, “I need to get her out of here.”
Keenan nodded. “We’ll take care of everything and feed the authorities a false story—you concentrate on Devon.”