So Marcus waits for the man to shake his head before drawing back. “Wilder, you’re going with us for some questions.”
“I’m under arrest?” he asks in disbelief.
Marcus turns his narrowed eyes onto him. “You’re going to answer some questions. DeGray, Karsyn, while we’re taking care of this, will you scout around back? See if you find anything?”
“Of course.”
Together, we head back outside, taking the open window since it beats walking around the entire building again. Once out there, we follow the trail the abductor had left behind.
“He clearly knew what he was doing. He wore some thick cologne to hide his natural scent,” Alexei says as he waves his hand over his face.
I nod. While the smell is quite trackable, it’d keep us from noticing if he left any scent behind. “It’s stinging my nose. He clearly doesn’t care we’re following him. He probably got in a car off the highway to avoid any security cameras on him,” I say as we cut straight through the batch of trees and over to a wire fence. We climb over the fence and walk up to the highway where the smell abruptly ends.
“He either had someone pick him up or had left a vehicle waiting here. Let’s see if we have any cameras on the premises and search for any tracks,” Alexei says.
We head back and finish at the motel, getting some analysts in to see if they can get prints on anything even though Wilder stated that his attacker never took his gloves off.
I stand on the other side of the one-way glass watching Marcus and Finn talk to Wilder. Clearly, the man is hiding something.
He likes to pretend he doesn’t know anything by folding his arms over his chest and looking extremely stubborn. “I don’t fucking know! Why would you believe some psychopath who abducted me and tied me up to a fucking chair and threatened to kill me? He shot me! He fucking shot me, yet you believe him over me?” the man asks. It’s clear he’s pissed about this whole thing but more than anything, he’s defensive. He’s doing everything he can to push the blame off himself, and in doing so, making himself look more guilty.
Marcus and Finn have been in these situations so many times that they already know something’s going on, but the man is taking it to his grave, and there’s no reason or way for us to hold him. So we have to do our best to protect him from whoever got ahold of him and keep it from happening again.
“We are aware you can protect yourself, but this person has already gotten ahold of you once and threatened to do it again. If you need us, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.”
“The fucker knocked me out somehow. I’d think you’d be more worried about that,” he says.
“We will definitely look into it and would like to ask you questions about where you were when it happened,” Finn says.
“I don’t have time for this shit. If I’m not under arrest, I’m leaving,” Wilder says. “You have no way to keep me here.”
Finn sets a hand on Marcus’s chest, most likely to keep him from popping the man’s head from his body for having raised his voice with Finn. “That’s fine. Here’s our information if you think of anything else.”
Wilder glances at it then stands up and heads for the door without taking it. Marcus grabs the card and the man in the same breath. Then he smacks the card down onto the man’s hand so hard, I’m surprised he didn’t break his hand. “I insist you take it.”
“I’m honestly surprised Marcus hasn’t torn someone’s head off yet for sassing Finn,” I say as Alexei comes into the room.
“It’s coming. It’ll be a fucking mess. Blood everywhere, maybe some guts and brain matter.”
I snort. “And he’ll get away with it.”
“Of course he will. Those two are wicked. Finn just bats his weak little human eyes at people and gets what he wants, and all Church has to do is growl.”
“They’re both terrifying at what they do,” I joke.
“Nah, Finn’s scarier,” Alexei says.
Chapter Two
RIVER
Today has been rather shitty. My morning started off with a raging headache that kept me in bed longer than I wanted, then I accidentally cooked my oatmeal for six hundred seconds instead of sixty seconds—at least I caught that blunder after only a few minutes but long enough it was a bit black in the middle—and to toss the cherry on top, I stepped on my cat’s tail and she looked at me like I broke her heart. But now everything is good. It has to be or I’m gonna just crawl in a ditch somewhere and wait until morning.
I pull open the door to the small café bookshop and head over to the line that seems unreasonably long for this time of day. I should probably be doing something a bit more useful, but right now, sitting on my ass for an hour, reading a book and sipping a strawberry smoothie sounds like the best way to turn around this mess of a day.
When a vampire steps into line behind me, the hairs on the back of my neck instantly rise and my entire body tenses. I can feel his aura, but he’s clearly not trying to exude it. I try not to focus on the vampire because the man is probably just here for something to drink, maybe something to read, and I’m letting my thoughts run wild. I rub at my neck uncertainly.
Fucking vampires. With their annoyingly good looks, and their superior attitudes, and ability to murder with ease.
“Hi, how can I help you?” the barista asks with a smile.
Realizing she’s talking to me while my mind is fixated on the vampire behind me, I lunge forward. “Sorry! I’d like a medium strawberry smoothie, please.”
“Alright, that’ll be three seventy-five.”
I reach for my wallet and realize that the ditch better be ready for me because here I come with my pity party. After I stepped on the cat’s tail, I tripped and the wallet that’d been in my hand had gone flying. I ran after Banshee, my cat, in hopes of convincing her that I truly do love her and not to leave me for the neighbor who smells like catnip and weed.
“Sir?” the woman asks as I realize that I was wrong. I wasn’t waiting until the ditch for my pity party, it was starting now as I stood in dead silence.
“I’m sorry, I forgot my wallet. I apologize!” I say, horrified and embarrassed. Thank god she didn’t make my smoothie first.
“Here.” The vampire behind me reaches past and I pull back instinctively before realizing he’s just passing the woman his card. “And I just wanted a number two.”
I turn to him as the woman takes the card. “You didn’t have to do that!” I say. “Really, it’s fine, I’ll just come back later.”
The vampire gives me a soft smile, but I notice he shows me no fang. Far too often, they love throwing in a hint of fang, like they have to remind people just what they can do and what they are. His smile is kind and gentle as he says, “It’s no problem at all.” His smile reaches his blue eyes as he looks at me. Then he turns back to the cashier as I’m left watching the back of his head that’s covered in short blond hair with a crazy cowlick in the back, making a bit stand up at an odd angle.
While I feel weird taking this offer, I know I can’t really back out now that he already paid for it. But does he expect something out of this? To him, am I in some type of weird vampire binding now?