Chapter 62
Chapter Sixty-Two
Syke
I shadow walked out of the party, and it hadn’t taken me long to find the group of four orcs idling in a beat-up truck across the road. Honestly, I didn’t even need to look. The dented vehicle stood out like a neon flashing sign. I watched from the darkness as they fought like toddlers.
“I’m just saying that they are going to be in there eating for at least another hour. We could get some food and be back before it’s time to do anything,” one of them grumbled.
The one in the driver’s seat glared. “Shut the fuck up, you fat fuck. You can go fifteen minutes without eating. If we fuck this up, the king will kick our ass, and being hungry for five minutes will be the least of your worries.”
The phone—covered in cracks, with a picture of a human with her tits out as the home screen—lit up on the dash. The passenger grabbed it and opened a message.
“They are movin’. You know what to do,” he snapped at the rest of the car’s occupants, and I saw them pull out guns and check the clips.
“Keep your bullets to the worm if you can. The king doesn’t want any grief from the other species if we accidentally kill the wolf or something.
If the human gets a stray bullet, though, there are plenty more where that came from. ”
The phone chirped again, and I decided that was my cue. I coalesced in the shadows of the back seat of the truck, between Hungry Orc and Stupid Orc. They stared at me dumbly for a moment before lifting their guns and firing at me.
Unfortunately for them, I was fast and hard to kill. I leaned forward, and while Stupid’s bullet went through the window, Hungry’s bullet got his comrade right in the forehead.
“Eesh, good shot,” I said as the scent of brain matter filled the car’s interior. I hated that stench. I took his gun and shot him and the driver in rapid succession.
Finally, there was just the passenger left. I put the gun to his temple.
He was breathing hard, his mouth opened in a snarl. “This is unfortunate for you, but if you answer my questions, I might let you leave tonight.”
The orc just stared at me. I wouldn’t, and we both knew it.
“Fine, I won’t make it hurt, and I can make it hurt more than you can fathom. I can shred parts of you that you didn’t even know could cause pain.”
He grunted, and I was going to take that as a yes.
“I’m going to assume you were sent here to assassinate Eric. Are there any other teams lying in wait?”
The orc said nothing but finally shook his head. “Just meant to put him down and hope it was enough of a warning so no one would try that shit again.”
I hummed. That was good news. We both watched as my bond mates strode through the doors of the event center, and the valet rolled up with the car. The whole time, I kept the gun to his head. We observed as they piled in then left, pulling into traffic on their way back to safety.
“Is there a bounty on his head?” I asked the orc, and he nodded again.
“A hundred grand for anyone who deals the killing shot.”
I almost laughed in his face. A hundred grand wasn’t nearly enough, not for the hell that would rain down afterwards, but orcs had no concept of loyalty.
We watched as the orc king and two of his enforcers were escorted from the building not long afterwards, turfed out on their asses by the gargoyles who had invited them to this fucking farce of a party.
The car the valet brought up for the king was a Ferrari, and he barely wedged himself inside it.
This guy had his side mirrors taped on.
“Nice car the king has. Wonder how many of his people starved for him to afford that.” My tone was mocking, but the orc with a gun pressed to his temple stiffened.
“He’s the king.”
“He’s a disgrace to the title,” I spat.
Suddenly, pain like nothing I’d ever known flowed through my chest. I shouted, my free hand clutching at my heart. Fear raced through my veins and froze my blood.
Something was wrong, very wrong, with Hailey. I could feel it in every cell of my body.
I pushed the gun farther into the orc’s head. “You fucking lied to me!” I screamed at him. “There was a second ambush.”
“I didn’t, I fucking swe—” I pointed the gun at his knee and fired three rounds into the joint. I didn’t want to hear his lies.
I shadow walked out of there, flying in the direction of Hailey’s fear, then she was just gone.
I coalesced in an alley, running toward a familiar SUV on its back like an overturned bug. Humans were pouring out of a beat-up bus, waving AKs and firing on the truck. Fuck!
A huge fist smashed out the windshield, and Otis and Ilyas climbed out. I ripped the door closest to me off its hinges, and Louis passed a bleeding Eric out. I pulled him out, dodging bullets spraying around us.
“Where’s Hailey?” I shouted above the gunfire.
The look of devastation on Louis’s face made my heart constrict in my chest. “She’s gone.”
I reeled back. No. She couldn’t be dead. I dove into the car, determined to bring her back from the dead. Ilyas grabbed me, dragging me back.
“She isn’t dead. She’s missing. Vanished in the blink of an eye. She was in the seat, and then she was gone.”
We only had handguns and ammo in the back of the SUV, and the back of it was jammed up. Otis put his fist through the metal and grabbed the lockbox, ripping it open with his bare hands before throwing a gun to Ilyas and me. I caught it on instinct, but my focus was entirely on Ilyas.
“What do you mean she’s fucking gone?” I shouted. “Can you feel her?” I asked Louis, and he looked pale and shaken. His head was bleeding, and he was staunching the bleeding on Eric’s temple. “She’s there, but she’s… far away? What could steal her like that?”
I looked at the humans, many who were shirtless, with preservers of humanity tattoos painted across their bodies. I thought of Vander’s warning. “A demon could,” I growled.
Wherever she was, I couldn’t reach her. I could hear sirens blaring down the street, and I grimaced as something snapped inside my chest. That careful balance of light and dark tipped, and they were about to see what really happened when a demon went bad.
Handing the gun to Louis, I snarled in the direction of the humans. “Finish this,” I hissed.
Otis snapped his hand out, wrapping it around my wrist. “Where are you going?”
I shook him off. “To get answers.”
* * *
It was impossible to shadow walk into the archdemon’s office, but I could still kick the fucking door down. “Vander!” I shouted, and a few imps scurried away from me. “Where the fuck is she?”
The demon in question appeared from his office, followed by the archdemon.
“Syke, why are you bellowing in my office right now?” Mohan sounded pissed, and normally pissing off the archdemon would ensure a one-way ticket down, but I didn’t care.
“Where is Hailey? Someone plucked her from a moving vehicle without her mates seeing a thing, and we both know there are few beings that could do that.”
Archdemon Mohan frowned. “Come into the office, Syke.”
It wasn’t a request, and I ground my teeth. I didn’t want to sit in his office and play nice. I wanted my bond mate back now.
Vander ushered me in. “We’ll help you find her, but not out here, Syke,” he told me quietly, and I growled low. I was wasting time. What if she was injured? What if whoever took her fed on her pain and was torturing her?
I felt sick.
Still, I walked with leaden feet into Mohan’s office.
“When you said you bonded with the human, I thought you were just creating a convenient alibi for the death of that shit stain you murdered, but you really did bond with her, didn’t you?
” the archdemon asked softly. I didn’t even think he possessed softness.
Vander looked at Mohan. “Demons can’t have bond mates.”
Mohan raised an eyebrow. “Can’t they? We don’t call them that. We call them soul chains, because you tie them to you. Being tied to a demon isn’t a pleasant thing most of the time, but basically, you gave her your soul, and yours will wither when hers does.”
Vander gasped. “He made himself mortal?”
My entire body went hot then cold again. It didn’t matter right now. None of that mattered except her safety. “I don’t fucking care, not while she’s in trouble. Who is the demon in control of the human hate groups? You have to know.”
They looked at each other, and something passed between them.
Mohan cleared his throat. “Shadow walking is a unique skill. Only a few demons can do it with any real precision, the type you’re talking about anyway.
To pluck a human from a moving car and transport her alive to another location?
You would struggle with that, and you are one of the best shadow walkers on the mortal plane.
” He gave me a burning look. “I could do it, as could Vander, but we’d have nothing to gain from that, but you know who could easily do it? ”
Dread coated me, because if the subtext was correct, then we were fucked.
Mohan gave me a sympathetic look. “A celestial. We think an angel is behind the riling of human hate groups. If that’s the case, then an angel has taken your soul chain.”