ADAM FELT A FLASH OF PAIN THAT HAD HIM STAGGERING to his feet, heedless of the monitor that crashed to the ground, because it wasn’t his pain—it was Mercy’s. As the echo of that flash hit the pack bonds a breath later than it had hit his mating bond, he sensed the readiness that shivered through the pack as they also rose, alarmed, alert, and awaiting his orders.
“What happened? Is it an accident?” Darryl asked. “Is she okay?”
His Mercy was fragile in body if not in spirit. Fragile by werewolf standards, anyway. The whole pack was aware of her vulnerability and driven to protect her to a degree that would infuriate his wife if she knew about it.
“Not good,” Adam said decisively, used to covering terror with logic and action. He started for the stairs. “I’ll—”
Then silence fell in place of the pain.
The next thing he knew, Adam’s shoulder hit the front door, knocking the sturdy (and expensive) steel door out of its frame and sending it flying out of his way. The wolf wouldn’t allow him to stop for a car, instinctively knowing that he’d be faster on his own feet.
Adam braced himself to fight off the change—because that, too, would slow him down until he was finished shifting completely. But the wolf didn’t try to do anything but give his feet more speed as he sprinted down the driveway and onto the road toward the last place they’d felt Mercy. Dimly, he sensed the pack running flat out behind him, heard the sound of engines—some of the more practical-minded figuring that a car or two might come in handy.
Cold sweat that had nothing to do with the effort of his muscles and everything to do with the way his mate bond ended in nothingness slid down his back as he pushed his body for another ounce of swiftness. His heart beat so hard that he could barely hear the footsteps of his pack.
He smelled the accident before he could see it. Diesel fuel, air bag, her blood—
There was a moment of time that was forever blank after he smelled her blood.
He came to himself standing on the hood of the remains of his SUV, staring into the empty cab. A semi tractor had entwined itself in the glossy black body of the SUV. The glass of the SUV was shattered, and something very strong had torn out the steering wheel to get to Mercy. Her seat belt was cut, and there was too much blood in the seat. Blood, broken eggs, and chocolate chips.
His human half fumbled a second, wondering if the person who had freed Mercy had been him, because he couldn’t remember. But Mercy was gone, and his wolf knew better.
Someone had been here ahead of them.
Someone had hit Mercy with a semitruck, then stolen her away from them.
They had left her purse, small and tidy because Mercy didn’t like to be weighed down by anything big. It lay unopened on the passenger seat.
Adam leaned forward until his head was through the broken window and inhaled deeply. Along with the scent of Mercy’s blood, raw eggs, and himself, he found the scents of four vampires. Vampires. Three of them were strangers. The fourth . . .
He turned his attention to the semi that had T-boned the SUV Mercy had been driving. He jumped easily from the SUV to the semi-tractor door, finding hand-and footholds in the damaged metal side that allowed him to open the door to examine the interior. When the door proved too bent to open, he simply drove his fist through the glass, gripped the door, and ripped it off. The sting of pain as the glass sliced his hand was oddly seductive—so much less painful than what was going on in his heart and his head at the moment.
His first find was that the tractor was new despite a very bad paint job. He took a better look at the outside and saw that someone had painted the whole tractor matte black, including surfaces that had probably originally been chromed and shiny. This vehicle had been painted so that it could be used to take Mercy totally by surprise. She might have heard the engine—though since she was driving his own diesel SUV, maybe not.
He could smell the vampire who’d driven the tractor over the leather and the new-car scent. That vampire had been hurt in the crash; there was a bit of blood somewhere. But he had not been killed or seriously injured. There was no smell of stress—fear, anger, excitement. Even vampires left the scents of their emotions behind. Most of them. That meant that this vampire had done such things before.
A professional. A vampire who specialized in accidents for assassinations or kidnapping. He fought the eagerness with which he wanted to embrace the idea of a kidnapping. He had to keep to the facts—and the amount of blood in the SUV meant that unless she had gotten immediate and professional emergency care, Mercy was in serious trouble.
He snarled, his lips pulling back from his teeth in helpless fury. She could be dying, and his mate bond could not tell him where she was or how she was. The only thing that kept him from surrendering to the wolf who needed something to kill, to destroy, was that he had not felt her die. She was just gone. He would assume that she was alive and needed him until there was proof that said otherwise.
“Adam,” called Darryl’s strained voice. “You should come here.”
Adam looked through the driver’s-side window and saw the pack gathered around something on the ground on the side of the road. He opened the driver’s-side door and hopped to the ground. As he approached, the wolves—most of them midchange thanks to his wild flare of emotion—backed away from him, and he got a good look at the body on the ground.
He bent his knees and examined Stefan—the single vampire whose scent he’d recognized. The wolf fought to kill their rival, but Adam reined that part of himself in with cold truth. Like him, Stefan had a bond with Mercy. Likely that was what had drawn him here. Maybe Stefan could find Mercy when Adam could not.
And Mercy, not jealousy or rivalry, is what is important.
At that firm reminder, the raging violent spirit inside of him settled. The wolf was a hunter; he understood patience. And even the wolf could not doubt that his Mercy was his. Jealousy had no place between them. Terror for her safety, yes. But not jealousy.
Stefan’s eyes opened and, for a moment, they were empty of personality, the eyes of a dead man. Then his face filled with expression, and Adam saw the mirror of his own rage and fear. The vampire exploded to his feet, turning in a circle to take in the wolves who surrounded him.
Adam rose more slowly. Stefan wasn’t going to hurt him, and it would do no harm under the circumstances to keep his own movements under control. The wolf wasn’t fighting him, but the beast was a cunning enemy, and if he had misread the wolf, Adam didn’t want Stefan paying the price.
Not when he could be the key to finding Mercy.
“Mercy?” Stefan asked Adam.
“Gone,” Adam said, fighting down despair. It wasn’t time for that yet. But if Stefan had to ask the question, then his blood bond with Mercy was doing him no more good than Adam’s own mating bond.
He gave the vampire the information he had. “They hit her car and took her. It looks well planned and professional at this point. They are vampires—and not Marsilia’s vampires.” He paused. “I’ve never heard of a professional team of kidnappers or assassins who were vampires.”
“There are some, but they keep a low profile.” Stefan rubbed his face with brisk hands, more as if something about it troubled him than a simple gesture of weariness.
“I felt the wreck,” he told Adam. “I imagine you did, too?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I came to this place immediately and found them already working to get her out of the SUV.”