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My blood ran cold, and I felt as if the ground had been ripped out from beneath me. I released him, then turned and rushed inside, forgetting everything else except the primal instinct to protect my mate. My team followed hot on my heels, and we split up, scouring every inch of the courthouse for any sign of Mariah. My desperation grew with each passing second.
I couldn't lose her. Not now.
Panic and dread threatened to consume me when one of my guards called out my name. I turned to find him staring at me, face pale as he held out Mariah's purse. It was covered in blood.
“Where did you find this?” I said in a rasp, my vision blurring as rage and fear surged through me. This was Tomas’s doing, I had no doubts. Rosalind was worried Tomas would do something, and she’d been right. He'd taken Mariah from me once again.
“Outside,” the guard said, trembling. “By the side entrance. There was—” He swallowed. “There was a trail of blood leading away from the building.”
I roared in fury. “Who was supposed to be with her?” I demanded. “Get back out there and start looking. Now!” My words were ice-cold, even lethal.
The leader of the security team came to me. “Evan. Let's check the security footage. Maybe we can see what happened.”
I nodded. I was asleep. This had to be a nightmare. I’d wake up at any minute and be back in the penthouse, celebrating our victory with Mariah.
I tried to hold back as the guards got the courthouse staff to comply. They led us to the security room where they pulled up the footage.
My knees felt weak as I watched the monitor, my gut roiling, and I kept my eyes glued to the scene unfolding before me on the monitors. There, just outside the side entrance, Mariah and one of our guards were approached by a figure dressed in black. Within seconds, the guard had been shot point blank, his body slumping to the ground.
“Damn it!” I roared, clenching my fists so tightly my talons jutted out, digging into my palms. My heart raced as I watched Mariah fighting tooth and nail against her attacker, putting up a brave resistance despite her tiny frame, but it wasn’t enough. As I looked on in horror, she was overpowered and knocked unconscious, and her limp body thrown into the back of a van like a rag doll.
“Get the license plate,” I said, my vision now tinted red. Smoke billowed from my nostrils, and my wings threatened to sprout of their own accord. Tomas had managed to worm his way into every aspect of my life, always one step ahead. Each time I thought I had the upper hand, he found a new way to strike back at me, making sure I never knew peace.
“I’m on it,” one of the staff members said, terror on his face as he took me in, then quickly focused on the blurry plate numbers. “I’ll pass this along to the police.”
Not that the human police would be as useful as my own team of shifters. My security team exchanged grim glances while they awaited my next order.
I was filled with a rage beyond anything I’d ever felt before now. I didn’t know where Mariah was, but I knew one thing for certain: I wouldn’t rest until Tomas was dead and Mariah was safely back in my arms.
Chapter 24
Mariah
My mouth was dry as if it’d been stuffed with cotton, head pounding like I had the worst hangover of my life. I groaned, wishing I could go right back to sleep, but something said I needed to wake up.
I opened my eyes, then had to immediately squeeze them shut again once the lights from above nearly blinded me. I tried again, squinting this time as the room spun, and for a second I thought I might be sick.
What happened? I gingerly pushed myself into sitting up, wincing as I felt a sharp pain in my temples. I took a deep breath and tried to look around, realizing right away that I’d seen a similar location in Jax’s video feed.
“Ah, you're finally awake,” a familiar voice said. I gasped and looked up to see Tomas Hawthorne sitting in a chair on the other side of the glass cage I now found myself in.
My stomach sank like a stone as I tried to recall how I’d gotten here. We’d been at the courthouse. Rosalind had dropped the suit. Then…there’d been gunfire, I’d been herded back inside, and the guard…
Nausea came over me at the memory of him being shot in the head.
I’d been kidnapped. Again. The thought nearly broke me, and it took all my strength to hold it together as I stared Tomas in the eye. I couldn't believe this was happening. We’d taken every precaution. I’d had the Careys’ elite security team watching my every step. How had Tomas managed to take me right from under their noses?
Tomas smirked and looked like he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You really should be more careful, my dear.”
“Go to hell, Tomas,” I spat. I didn't care how weak I felt, I refused to let him intimidate me. He merely chuckled at my response.
“Such spirit.” His cold eyes studied me as if I were a specimen under a microscope. “It’s a shame we have to break it.”
His words sent a shiver down my spine as another memory surfaced, just over a month ago, when Tomas imprisoned me in his fortress in upstate New York. The way he’d looked at me, even as he taunted me with torture. I clamped my mouth shut and looked around.
This was nothing like that ridiculously over the top estate. I’d been given a room there, treated well even as his prisoner, but this place…it seemed like a dungeon. There was another cage in the opposite corner, but I couldn’t see if it was occupied. Either way, I needed to find a way out of this cage.
I gathered all the courage I could muster and glared at Tomas. “Don't you have anything better to do than kidnap people?” I was dripping with contempt, and proud he couldn’t see how petrified I really was.
