Their captor threw them on the floor of the Jeep and handcuffed them to the back of the seat. Mackenzie shoved her body against his until he was jammed tightly against the side, as if to shield him. Corey heard the stomp of the man’s boots, a metallic click—oh God, a knife?—and then a dull thud right before the man climbed into the Jeep alone. Corey shivered as he managed to pull off the helmet with his free hand.
“You okay?” she mouthed in his ear.
Not able to form any words, he simply nodded.
“I’m sorry, my love,” she whispered.
How bizarre. She’d never called him that before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MACKENZIE’S FEAR RUSHED through Dom like a flash flood. He stretched out his senses, trying to get something more from her—thoughts, a mental picture of what she was seeing, something concrete like he had before. But there was nothing. All he felt was her emotion. And even that was faint.
He roared out his frustration inside the armored SUV, pounded his fists on the dashboard. His enemies had her. She was frightened and scared. And here he was trapped on a goddamn ferry in the middle of Puget Sound, still unable to vapor. His only hope was that her attackers were taking her to the testing facility. If their intent was to drain her like they normally did…
By the time it docked a half-hour later, a cold rage had settled into his veins. He didn’t give a shit about protocol or laws—vampire or human. No matter what it took, he’d find Mackenzie and destroy everyone responsible for her capture with his bare hands.
He vaguely remembered hearing brakes screeching and horns honking as he raced through the Seattle streets to the old high school. But when he saw Corey’s car and the weak, almost-dead-battery glow of the headlights, his heart sank even deeper into the pit of his gut. With her motorcycle lying in the driveway, there went his last hope that she had escaped the Darkbloods and was simply hiding out somewhere.
Mackenzie, where are you?
He pressed his fingers to his temples and stilled his breath, worried he might miss the subtlest of signs. Faint chills of panic—her panic—coursed through him. Their bond was too weak to pick up anything more.
He grabbed his cell phone. “Lily, talk to me. Tell me you’ve heard something. They’ve definitely got Mackenzie.”
“Oh, Dom, I’m so sorry. I’ve been texting my contact to see if he knows anything more, but I haven’t heard back from him yet. Security within the Alliance is tight, but he promised to get ahold of me as soon as he heard something new. But that was days ago. And I’m worried, too, Dom. He’s a…he’s risking his life. If they find out about him, that he’s been a mole inside the Alliance for years, they’ll kill him.”
“Where are you? How soon can you get back? You can track her scent.”
“I’m at least two hours south. I won’t be able to make it there by daybreak. Where’s the scent-tracker from your team? Layman? Layton?”
“Too far away.” Guess I’ll be going it alone.
He tossed the phone on the passenger seat and careened back down the driveway. Maybe he could pick up her scent or energy trail from her bike. He jumped out of the SUV and canvassed the scene. Adjacent to the Bonnie’s rear tire was a strip of fresh rubber on the pavement. Just beyond that was a pile of ash. Had she gotten off a shot and hit one of them with a silvie? It certainly wouldn’t surprise him, given her performance at the gun range. Had she injured the other one as well?
Buoyed by this revelation, he gripped the handlebars of her bike and concentrated on her presence. He filtered the scents, focused inward on her latent energy trail. But he picked up nothing. Just the foul stink of a newly dead Darkblood.
She was gone, and so was their blood bond.
AFTER THEY’D BOUNCED around on the floor of the Jeep for what seemed like forever, rough hands grabbed Mackenzie and yanked her out of the rig. She barely had time to look around before she and Corey were shoved toward an ominous concrete building with barred windows that reminded her of gaping black teeth. What the hell was this place?
When an icy blast of wind hit, the thin layer of sweat under her hair conducted the cold straight to her bones and she shivered. Glancing around the darkness that