Page 1 of Soul

Chapter One

Chase

She’s gone, but I can still feel her. My soul aches to be with its mate. If Gillian was dead, I would know it, for I too would cease to exist. One cannot live with only half a soul. I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep, not with her still out there. It’s been three days with very few leads. Austin is still unconscious. He barely survived the lethal dose of the Etorphine the stalker gave him. Every day that passes is another day the woman I love is with a madman.

The resort performed a forced lockdown at my insistence. Every hotel guest was offered a couple free nights off their stay for their inconvenience, and each person was questioned. One couple gave the best lead. Right around the time that Gillian was kidnapped, they were walking the path behind the bride’s room. Said they saw a man, wearing a uniform, pushing a laundry cart. The staff confirmed that the laundry service is far more discreet and doesn’t wear the grey utility uniforms; they wear the standard black and white, connoting the housekeeping service. And the staff knew not to be anywhere near the location of the wedding, at the time, unless specifically requested by my assistant, Dana.

The two only remembered that the individual was a white male and built. Meaning, he was either overweight or worked out a lot. They couldn’t recall any descriptive features, aside from him being very tall, a few inches over six feet. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow things down at all. We were at a complete dead end until Austin woke up. He’s the only person who saw the kidnapper face-to-face, and he’s unconscious in a hospital bed, in another country. We’re still in Cancun, Mexico. The city where I was supposed to marry the only woman for me. Also, the place where my Mother took her last breath.

Deep gut-wrenching pain sears through my gut, twisting and swirling. For the umpteenth time I swallow and convulsively grip my stomach. I cannot lose it. Staying strong is the only thing I can give to Gillian. As it is, I can’t keep any food down. Coffee is my only salvation. Reflexively, I clench both hands into fists and stare unseeingly at Austin’s prone form and close my eyes. Once again she comes to me.

Red hair spills over porcelain skin. The towel is covering her lower half as she dips a toe into the steaming water. My gaze focuses on the skin of her rounded shoulder, the slight curve of her spine where her back arches and her waist slopes in. The small indents at her lower back catch the light, and I salivate, wanting nothing more than to press my lips against those smooth patches, maybe even bite down until she purrs.

With one hand, she sweeps the fiery locks over a bare shoulder exposing her silky back to my view. It calls to me like a homing beacon. A halo of light sparkles around her as she turns her head slightly. I can now see the swanlike column of her neck, except something’s not right. I shift my gaze the moment the towel drops away. Her heart-shaped ass is glorious. My love turns just the side of her face but her eyes, are dark, hollow, tortured. They’re not the stunning green of the most perfect emerald like they usually are.

I gasp but no sound escapes. I try to move toward her but cannot. As I watch immobile, something red trails down the pearlescent skin of her back like paint dripping down a canvas. Her head tips back and a gnarled gaping black hole stretches along the front of her neck from ear to ear. She turns completely around and purple and green bruises mar every surface of her face. It’s swollen, bloated and splotched with dried rusty colored blood.

“No! Gillian!” I scream but nothing comes out.

Her eyes close and that’s when I become aware of her entire body. Dark black and blue bruises cover her breasts, her ribs, and stomach as blood pours down her chest and sternum from the wide cavernous hole at her throat, mimicking a bloody waterfall.

I yell and shout and battle with my unmoving limbs, trying desperately to get to her, but I can’t move.

With everything I have and through sheer force of will alone, I send her love. All that I have to give, the grief, the sadness, the ache of not being with her. I need to be with her.

I open my eyes and she finally speaks. “Wake up, Chase,”

Gillian’s body shimmers and disappears as white light pierces my eyes and a hand presses down on my chest.

“Chase!” Dana shakes me, and I push her away forcefully, jump out of the chair, and back up until I hit the wall, still stuck in the gnawing clutches of the sick and twisted dream. Three sets of eyes are staring at me. Dana’s, Jack’s and Austin’s. “You were dreaming; you’re okay,” Dana whispers, eyes brimming with tears.

I suck in a breath, rush to Austin’s side and clasp his arm. “Can you speak?” I swallow down the bile stuck in my throat.

Austin blinks and licks his dry lips. Dana rushes over a cup with a straw. Austin takes it between his lips and sucks the water down. I can hardly breathe as I watch him take one, two, three, gulps before looking back to me. His eyes water. “He got her,” he croaks.

I close my eyes and breathe in slowly, tamping down the desire to shake him, yell, or pound my fists into every surface within a mile radius of us. Instead, I nod.

“I’ve seen him before.”

Jack comes close to the other side of the bed. “Where?” His voice is tight and all business. Thank Christ someone here has a level head.

Austin swallows, and his voice comes out sounding pained. “Pictures, you have them.” He sucks in another breath, grits his teeth, then closes his eyes. “She knows him.”

Jack pulls out his phone and pulls up something. “From the pictures I showed you?” Jack asks. Austin tips his chin.

“The penthouse. Her stuff that we moved in,” the tone turns into a scratchy roll of words. Dana brings him the water, and he drinks more. Once he’s got his fill, he pushes it away clearly frustrated. He tries to sit up, “have to go there. He’s in the pictures in her stuff. Blond, blue eyed. Big fucker. Huge.” The southern drawl is in full affect. Something that Gillian loves about the bodyguard.

Both Jack and I notice the moment he goes for the IV in his arm. I push him back against the hospital bed as Jack grabs his wrist before he can rip out the lifesaving meds being pumped into his arms. The doctor said once he woke up he’d be in the hospital for a while. He needs the antidote, which is helping to stabilize his vitals. Besides, he’s no good to us dead. Not that some part of me doesn’t want him dead, for allowing the sick fuck to get to her.

Blaring alarms start in the room from the various medical equipment. “I have to get to her!” he roars. “It’s my fault; he’s going to hurt her!” Austin’s eyes look wild, completely black, like a man about to lose it.

Several doctors rush in, one holding a needle. “Everyone out!”

“No, no! He knows who took Gillian! We need him awake!” I press through the doctors trying to get to Austin. I make it to his bed as random arms claw and grab at me.

Austin holds my arm. “Scar, scar on his hand…like a…like a burn,” he says, his breath coming out in a rush of compressed air. That’s when the doctors stick a needle into the port for his meds, and I sink to my knees. The tears finally come ripping down my face. I grip my hair and pull on it. She’s gone. I fucking need her!

A heavy set of arms lifts me up and drags me out of the room, before slamming me against the wall. “Chase, pull yourself together man! We have a lead on him now!” He holds me against the white wall outside of Austin’s room. Jack’s eyes are focused, and his mouth held into a snarl. “We need to move. Call the girls. See if they know him?”

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