Page 69 of His Captor

I nodded to him all the same, then rushed out to the hotel’s front desk to have a word with the manager.

The first few police officers had already arrived by the time I made it to the desk.

“Is something the matter, Mr. Canton?” the manager, Mrs. Elgar, a highly competent female beta in her early fifties who I’d actually spoken to before when I’d stayed at the Grand on one of my initial visits to Barrington, asked.

“You’re Mason Canton?” one of the police officers, a tall, thin alpha asked, approaching me along with the manager.

“I am,” I answered the officer, then turned to Mrs. Elgar to continue. “My omega, Mr. Hayden Kipling, has been kidnapped by my former business associate, Mr. Colin Gregory, and is being held somewhere nearby, I don’t know where. All I know is that Hayden has been drugged and is unconscious, and in the video call I had with Colin, it looked like they were in a mostly empty room with white concrete blocks for walls and a plain concrete floor.”

“You received a video call?” the officer asked, already adjusting his stance like he was settling in for a long question and answer session. “Does this Colin Gregory person?—”

“I don’t have time to answer your questions,” I snapped, not even regretting it. I turned to the manager. “Are there places inside the hotel that fit that description? Anyplace nearby?”

“Now just a minute, Mr. Canton,” the officer said, stiffening. “The police department can handle this?—”

“Is there anyplace like that?” I asked again, cutting the officer off.

Mrs. Elgar looked askance at the officer, took a breath, then faced me and said, “This is a huge hotel. There are all sorts of rooms like that, both on this level and levels below us.”

“Then we need to search,” I said, moving forward.

Mrs. Elgar was more than happy to lead me on toward a small staff corridor. The officer wasn’t happy about it, though.

“You can’t take matters into your own hands,” he tried to say, following us. “This is an official police investigation now and we?—”

I rounded on the man, rage most likely making me look bigger than I already was. “Are you standing in the way of me finding and rescuing my pregnant omega?” I demanded in a booming voice.

The officer must have had some idea of what that felt like. He blew out a breath, standing down. “I’ll call for backup.”

“Det. Shirley is already on her way,” I said, turning and marching on.

The staff corridor quickly opened into a series of halls and utilitarian rooms. It was clearly the heart and lungs of the hotel’s operations. The problem was, not only was the entire area a warren of different rooms and corridors, all designed so that the hotel staff could take care of business for the guests without getting in their way, word had already spread that something unusual was happening, and our way was blocked by everyone from the bellboy to the floor managers stopping to ask Mrs. Elgar what was going on.

“This is taking too long,” I huffed, half to myself and half in the hope it would make people move out of the way, after we’d been searching in vain for about ten minutes.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Canton,” Mrs. Elgar said as yet another staff member approached her. “Feel free to go on ahead of me.”

I nodded in thanks and marched on.

After about two steps, I sucked in a breath, my eyes going wide. It was almost like I’d walked straight into a brick wall that I hadn’t seen, the feeling was so strong. All of a sudden, the other end of whatever bond tied me and Hayden together was no longer blank. Instead, I felt Hayden’s presence so acutely that I could almost smell his fizzy soda scent.

“He’s not here,” I said, growling with panic and frustration. “He’s not in the hotel.”

I wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, but a passing housekeeper heard me and stopped what they were doing.

“I can go tell the police,” he offered.

I nodded, amazed at how fast word had gotten around the hotel, then pushed myself forward, following the bond like it was Hayden sending out a homing signal.

Following that instinct took me through one corridor after another until I found myself at an emergency door. I didn’t even care that an alarm sounded as I pushed through it and out into a parking lot. The more emergency personnel who showed up at the Grand the better.

The sun had set more than an hour before, but the parking lot still radiated early-summer heat. I paused to glance around for a moment, trying to figure out which direction the feeling I had about Hayden was coming from. We were in a busy part of the city, and there were several buildings nearby. Buildings I might have trouble accessing.

I ignored the potential problems and walked forward, trusting in the bond.

“I’m coming, sweetheart,” I said, scanning the area for any further clues. “Hold on.”

A second later, my phone rang in my pocket. Convinced it could be Hayden, I yanked my phone out and tapped to answer the call from a number I didn’t recognize.

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