The Psy-Changeling Collection (324 page)

Clay understood—first the cop would find his mate. Only then would he give in to the demons tearing him apart. With that in mind, he followed Max’s line of thought, his eyes on the oil. “You know anyone else who might want your J?”

Rage turned Max’s blood to fire. “Bonner—the Butcher of Park Avenue.” Forcefully wiping away the red haze that would just get in his way, Max moved around the car,
checking for anything that might give him a clue as to where Bonner may have taken her. “The only good thing is—if the bastard does have her, he won’t kill her.” No, unlike with the doctor, Bonner would play with Sophia in the cruelest of ways.

His hand fisted.

“The car crash,” Clay pointed out, raising his voice to be heard above the rain pounding on the wreck, “could’ve gone very wrong.”

“No.” Max shook his head. “It was planned very well. Look at where we are—right after a curve, so their speed would’ve been low.”

“The car had to be on wheels for this to work,” Clay said. “And they were—doesn’t make sense with the rain.”

Realizing the sentinel was right, Max examined the side of the vehicle, focusing on the section that he knew controlled the hover system. “Does that look like a bullet hole to you?” He pointed to a distinctive hole in the plasmetal.

“Here’s another one,” Clay said from the other side.

“He must’ve tailed them from the apartment, overtaken them at some stage to set up the oil slick,” Max said, well aware of the Butcher’s intelligence. He would’ve checked his vehicle’s nav system, discovered this road had no turnoffs, no side streets. “All he had to do then was lie in wait and shoot.” Squatting, he stared through the broken wreckage of the car. “The straps in the back have been cut through—but it’s obvious Sophia was strapped in far more securely than either of these two.”

“And if he was stalking her, Bonner would’ve seen them strap her in.” Clay’s eyes were leopard-bright in the rain dark. “Acceptable fucking risk.”

“For him, yes.” Rising, Max began to consider and discard options, refusing to let Clay’s anger feed his own. Not yet. He had to think, had to find Sophie. “Bastard’s got money. His family’s helping him stay on the run. He won’t be out in the open or even in a cheap motel, but he’ll be close.”

Clay walked around to stand beside Max. “It would
make more sense to take her as far as possible, give himself room to breathe.”

“He’s . . . impatient.” Max swallowed his fury for the thousandth time, told himself he could scream at the heavens later. “He’ll want to have her to himself as soon as possible.” And if the Butcher touched her, the viciousness of him might just shatter her mind.

Forever.

No
. Teeth gritted, Max hunkered down, blocking the rain with his body as he examined the vehicle again. Bonner had apparently had no problem with the front seat passengers. Either one or both had been unconscious at the time. There were absolutely no signs of a struggle.

He moved to crouch beside the window that Sophie had been dragged through. That was when he saw something glint in the headlights of Clay’s car, right below the window itself . . . where Bonner might’ve braced his foot to gain leverage. He bent down, until his nose almost touched the earth, using the built-in light of his cell phone to illuminate the area.

Tiny particles that glittered and glimmered, having been hidden from the rain by the angle of the wreck.

Sand
.

But there was something strange about it. Picking it up in between his fingertips, he brought it even closer to the light. Sparkles of yellow and crystalline red, along with the odd flicker of what looked almost like blue. “Clay!”

Max’s eyes fell on a tiny white shell just as the leopard ran over. “What’ve you got?” the sentinel asked.

Max showed him what he’d found. “The sand’s not natural. I don’t think we’re talking a beach house.”

“Wait.” Clay took the tiny shell, brought it up to keen changeling eyes. “I think this is coated with something. Protective plas would be my guess.”

“You know of any place nearby that might use this stuff? It’ll offer enough isolation that Bonner will feel comfortable—but won’t be too rugged.” That wasn’t the Butcher’s style.

Clay’s eyes narrowed. “Kit and the boys were laughing about some kind of a fake ‘beach resort’ about an hour from here.” He pulled out his cell. “I’ve still got the web address saved. There—says it has bungalows set ‘discreetly apart,’ laundry and room service.”

All the comforts of home for a killer who liked to work without lowering his personal standards. It
fit
. Max rose to his feet, trying not to think about what Bonner might be doing to Sophia—if he did, he’d shatter, and Sophia needed him to hold it together. “Send the location to my phone”—he was already running to his car—“I’ll hook it into the nav system.”

“Done!” the cat called out after him. “We’ll continue the search here, just in case!”

He was five minutes into the drive—too fucking slow—when his phone beeped. It was Nikita, wanting an update. “Councilor,” Max said, telling her where he was heading, “how many teleporters do you know?”

He didn’t expect help, not now that it was a human sociopath who’d taken Sophia, rather than another Councilor’s interference. But she said, “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

Sweat trickled down Max’s spine.
I’m coming, baby. Just hold on
.

Sophia’s stomach roiled,
nausea filling her mouth. Drugged, she thought. She’d been drugged. The Psy brain didn’t react well to narcotics. A moan whispered out of her as she was jostled about, her already battered body unable to stop its jerky movements.

“Sorry.” A smooth, charming voice with . . . excitement, yes, it was excitement that bubbled beneath the surface. “We’re almost there. This road’s the private one to my bungalow. Made to look like a natural pebbled road. They should’ve sealed it. At least the rain’s stopped.”

Sophia only understood about half of what he’d said. But she knew he’d taken her, and that he wasn’t a man she wanted to be alone with. He smelled wrong.

A laugh, almost amused. “I’ll shower when we get to the bungalow. Got a little sweaty and bloody saving your life.”

A snapshot of memory, her legs kicking out in futile panic, her limbs too heavy to do much damage as he cut away the straps that held her in the car, as he pulled her out. Rain on her face. Glass on her legs.

Reaching down, she touched her thighs, touched the damp material that covered it.

“You’re not injured,” the man with the wrongness in him said as he brought the vehicle to a stop. “A few cuts and bruises from the crash, but otherwise fine. Not even that wet. My arms got nicely sliced up coming to your rescue—I’m sure you’re dying to thank me.”

A buzzing in her head, a dizzying splash of words and images, her mind twisting out of control for a frightening instant as the drugs punched at her again. But she came to enough to flinch when the man exited his side of the car and came around to hers.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Lying, she thought, he was lying. “Don’t touch me,” she forced out through lips that didn’t work right.

His expression changed, becoming mean in a way she couldn’t describe. “I’m in charge now.” His hand clamped over her upper arm, and he lowered his head, as if he would kiss her.

Even in the depths of her narcotic induced state, she knew that if she told him the truth, it’d give him another weapon with which to torture her. But if she didn’t, he might inadvertently break her mind, kill her by making her relive the horrifying ugliness of his blood-drenched memories. And she had to survive.
Because Max didn’t know
. “No,” she whispered, swallowing the nausea inspired by his mere presence. “J. Can’t . . . contact.”

He stilled, his hand tightening on her arm. “You telling me direct physical contact can hurt you? Is that why you were always wearing those gloves?”

She tried to nod, but her head fell forward, and she had so much trouble bringing it back up. “Yes.”

“Then I guess I’ll just have to be careful.” Unsnapping her safety belt, he lifted her out of the car and into his arms.

Her clothing protected her, but this close, her remaining telepathic shields shredded by the drugs, she couldn’t help but drown in the fetid evil of him. He appeared normal, human. But he wasn’t. He was so twisted up inside, so viciously mutated that he wasn’t even close to human.

A slam, her body being laid down on some sort of a soft surface, that handsome blue-eyed face going in and out of focus. Her stomach revolted at the same moment, and she pitched over the side of what turned out to be a sofa, her stomach twisting in agony.

“There, there . . .” He was wiping her face with a wet cloth, his voice solicitous. “I’ll clean that up. Let me take you into the bedroom.” A smile that made her blood chill. “That’s where we’ll be playing our games anyway.”

CHAPTER 42

Take care of my heart won’t you, Sophie? It’s a little odd having it outside my body—but I’m planning to steal yours to make up for it.

—
Handwritten note from Max to Sophia

Max overrode his
car’s safety instructions for the fifteenth time but knew he was going to be far too late. By his calculations, Bonner was almost fifty minutes ahead of him. Even if he made the journey to the resort in half the time, that still gave the Butcher an eternity too long to torment a confused and drugged Sophia.

She’d survive, he told himself. J-Psy were tough in every way. And his Sophie had proven her strength over and over. He’d find her. There was no other option.

He’d just overtaken a sedan going at exactly the speed limit when there was a slight
shift
in the world to the right of him. He had his stunner out and pointed to the head of the Psy who’d teleported into the passenger seat before the thought cleared his mind.

“That won’t be necessary, Detective.” A voice so cold, it was beyond ice, beyond emotionless. “Nikita asked for a favor. Where do you need to go?”

Making a split-second decision, Max lowered the
stunner and crossed lanes to the blaring of warning signals, coming to a full stop on the verge. “To Sophia Russo,” he said to the man in the passenger seat.

Councilor Kaleb Krychek wore a razor-perfect charcoal gray suit and had eyes of pure black filled with white stars. But unlike Faith’s or Sascha’s, his eyes were remote in a way Max simply couldn’t explain. It was as if Kaleb had never felt, as if not even an echo of the boy he must’ve once been lived in his eyes.

“I need a lock,” the Councilor said, and they could’ve been discussing the weather, not the life of a woman who had fought for her right to live every second of every day. “I can only teleport to locations I’ve either seen or have a recent visual of.”

“Can you go to people?”

“Yes, with certain qualifications.”

Max held out his hand. “Take her image from my head.”

Kaleb didn’t touch him. “You have a natural shield.” His tone said that that made taking anything impossible.

Not giving in to frustration, Max quickly routed to the Internet using his phone. “There,” he said, bringing up an image of the beach resort. “Can you get me there?”

Kaleb brought out a slim device that appeared to be a high-end organizer and pulled up several more detailed pictures of the place. “Yes.”

There was no touch, no warning.

Max only just kept his balance as they appeared in front of the massive glass lobby that fronted the resort, the air heavy but clear of rain. The gaping doorman snapped his mouth shut. “Councilor Krychek,” he managed to croak out. “I wasn’t aware you had a reservation, sir.” Max went through the door before Kaleb, heading to the desk.

Slamming down his ID in front of the receptionist, he brought up Bonner’s photo—from a newspaper story—on his cell phone and showed it to the blond male on duty. “Which room?”

“Ah . . .” The man looked left, then right. “I have to ask my manag—”

“If she dies,” Max said with absolute intent, “you die next.”

Going sheet white, the receptionist shook his head. “I haven’t seen—”

“Single male, probably checked in within the past twelve hours, isolated bungalow.”

The blond began working his computer. “We’ve only had one arrival in the past twenty-four hours. But Mr. White’s—”

The ice in Max’s bloodstream turned to liquid fire at the sound of that name, a name the Butcher had no right to use. “Where!”

“Bungalow Ten, right at the end of the Eastern Route.” The receptionist brought up a holographic image of the resort without prompting. “We’re here. Bungalow Ten is here.” He pointed out the locations. “About a twenty minute walk.”

Max saw Kaleb walk in, turned to him. “Can you teleport there?”

“This image is representational—a 3D map,” the other man said at once. “I need a shot of the actual building.”

“I’m sorry.” The receptionist spread his hands. “I don’t have anything like that on hand. I could try our PR depart—”

But Max was already running through the doors.

Sophia rolled off
the bed and began to stagger to the door. He hadn’t tied her up when he went to have his shower, and that was his mistake.

Her leg went out from under her after three halting steps, her knee hitting the floor hard enough to send pain shooting up her leg. Biting off her cry, she gripped the edge of the bed and pulled herself up again. It took too long. She could hear him whistling in the smoked-glass enclosure a
bare few feet away, obscenely cheerful, a man without a care in the world.

The bedroom door swayed then stretched sideways, making her grip the end of the bed for balance. Forcing herself to let go of the anchor, she lurched forward, desperate to get through that twisting, stretched door. She could almost hear it laughing at her. “Stop. Stop.”

The laughter turned into chuckles. “And where do you think you’re going?” Damp around her waist, skin so close to her cheek. She flinched, trying to hide her bare hands under her armpits.

“Now walk back . . . there you go.”

She knew she had to do what he said, because his semi-nakedness was on purpose, a threat. “Why?” It came out raw, but it was also from the center of her brain, the part that hadn’t been compromised.