“Rosa says she thinks her sister, Angela, will take him. She’s talking to her now.”
“Thanks.”
After what seemed like forever, Jake said, “Angela said she’d be happy to have a baby in the house again. Gather up the kid’s things and we’ll come get him.”
“Thanks, Jake.”
Ten minutes later, Kincaid and Rosa were at the door. “I had no idea the witch had a boyfriend,” Jake said.
“Yeah. We thought she’d made him up.” Saintcrow turned toward Rosa. “The kid’s upstairs in the crib.” To Jake, he said, “His things are in that bag by the door.”
Jake nodded. “What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. I can’t find her. I think this guy is a witch, too. He’s worked some kind of spell to shield Kadie from me. Elowynne said he was a vampire, but if he is, he isn’t as old as she claimed.”
“We’re ready,” Rosa said, coming down the stairs. She had wrapped the baby in a furry blanket. “Don’t worry about him. Angela will take good care of him.”
“As far as I’m concerned, if something’s happened to Kadie, your sister can keep him,” Saintcrow said curtly.
Because his life wasn’t worth living without her.
~ * ~
Saintcrow tracked Kadie to the store in Cheyenne. Her scent, though faint, lingered in the air. He followed it down the street. A deep breath carried another scent, a male. He followed Kadie’s scent another block. He found her phone in the gutter, along with a bag of baby formula and a few other items. He picked up the phone and tossed the sack in a nearby trash can. He muttered an oath as he recognized the strange scent on Kadie’s phone. It was the same as the one that he’d caught earlier in front of the store.
He walked slowly down the sidewalk, his senses probing for the kidnapper’s scent but it ended where he’d found the phone. Standing on the corner, he wondered what his next move should be.
He was about to return home when Kincaid materialized beside him.
“The baby’s in good hands. Angela says she’ll keep him as long as necessary.”
“I don’t give a damn about the brat,” Saintcrow muttered. “Nothing matters but Kadie.”
“Hey! Calm down. We found Luca, didn’t we? We’ll find Kadie.”
Saintcrow didn’t want to be calm. Muttering an oath, he ripped the copper band from his wrist and shoved it in his pocket. After taking several deep breaths, he said, “Kadie’s wearing Izabela’s bracelet. No one can remove it except Izabela. If it’s working the way it should, whoever has Kadie can’t conjure any dark magic to use against her.”
“Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t mean he can’t kill her,” Saintcrow growled, his hands clenching at his sides. “Just that he can’t use dark magic to do it.”
Kincaid grunted softly. “What do you think this guy is after?”
“Revenge, I would imagine. I killed his lover. He’s taken Kadie. A life for a life.”
“Maybe. But if he just wanted to kill her, he’d do it and send her to you in a body bag. I think there’s more to it than that.”
“What else could he want?”
“Beats me,” Kincaid said. “Unless he wanted you to know he has her so you’ll worry and fret, all the while imagining a hundred kinds of terrible things he could do to her first.”
“Yeah, well, if that’s his goal,” Saintcrow muttered. “It’s working.” The hell of it was, Trelaine held all the cards as long as Kadie was in danger and they both knew it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Kadie tugged against the thick silver shackles that chained her arms to the block wall behind her. The silver burned her skin. She could feel the blisters rising. The floor beneath her was made of cement, hard and cold. The air smelled of old blood and death. The room was pitch black, making her grateful for her vampire vision, although there was nothing to see other than the man who held her captive.
From the moment she had awakened in this place – which she feared was a deserted crypt – she had tried to contact Rylan, but the man pacing back and forth in front of her had worked some kind of preternatural magic that blocked her ability to link to Saintcrow. It wasn’t dark magic. She knew what that felt like.
