Page 34 of Tempest Blazing
Her absence left a void that made my teeth ache, made my hands shake with the need to do something, anything, to get her back.
Movement in my peripheral vision.
Shadows peeled away from the corner like living things, coalescing into a figure that shouldn't have been able to approach without me sensing him. Tall, lean, with silver-streaked dark hair and eyes like winter storms. The fury radiating off him hit me in waves—cold, controlled, and absolutely lethal. It made my teeth ache, made every instinct Ihad scream warnings about predators and power far beyond my own.
Threat.
Raw instinct took over—ten years of training compressed into a single, violent impulse. Protect. Eliminate. Find her. I launched myself at him before conscious thought could intervene, a decade of combat training taking over. My fist connected with his ribs, but he twisted with liquid grace, shadow wrapping around my wrist like a living restraint.
His elbow drove toward my solar plexus. I caught it, used his momentum to spin him around, but darkness erupted from his skin like smoke. It wrapped around my throat, not quite solid but pressure enough to make breathing difficult.
I grabbed for his jacket, hauling him closer so I could drive my knee up, but he anticipated it. Shadow-slick fingers found pressure points along my arm that sent lightning down to my fingertips.
We broke apart, circling each other like wolves, when he snarled a single word that stopped my heart.
"Tess."
We both froze.
His eyes—impossibly dark, like staring into deep water—locked onto mine. Recognition flickered there, followed by something that looked like reluctant acceptance.
"You're Draven Loto." Not a question. His voice carried an accent I couldn't place, cultured but with edges that suggested violence was always an option.
I kept my stance loose, ready to move. "And you are?"
"Ciaran." The name meant nothing to me, but the power rolling off him in waves meant everything. Ancient. Predatory. The kind of supernatural heavyweight that could level city blocks without breaking a sweat.
"Are you a threat to her?" I demanded.
His laugh was bitter as winter wind. "She's my mate."
The words hit like a punch to the solar plexus. Mate. I'd seen enough supernatural bonds to know what that meant—the kind of connection that went deeper than choice, deeper than logic. But the possessive snarl that rose in my throat surprised me with its intensity. She wasn't mine to claim. Hell, I barely knew her. That didn't stop the sick twist of jealousy from carving through my chest, or the way my incubus nature recoiled at the thought of another male's claim on her.
"Then where the hell were you when she got taken?" I snarled.
His eyes flashed dangerous. "Where wereyou? I can smell your magic all over this place—you were watching her, weren't you?"
Heat crawled up my neck. "I was three tables away—"
"And you let her get within arm's reach of a demon with a portal coin." His voice dropped to something that promised violence. "A decade in private security, and you couldn't spot a basic snatch-and-grab setup."
"How do you—" I cut myself off. Of course he knew who I was. If Tess was his mate, he'd have run background checks on everyone in her orbit. "You want to trade accusations, or you want to find her?"
Neither of us moved first. Neither of us blinked.
But we were both listening for the same thing: her voice, her heartbeat, any sign that she was still alive somewhere we could reach.
The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken fears. A human woman in the hands of demons. The terrible things they could do to someone so fragile, so unprepared for the kind of cruelty that lived in the supernatural world's shadows. My imagination supplied a dozen scenarios, each worse than the last—torture, experimentation, slow death designed to break her spirit before it broke her body.
Ciaran crouched beside the magical residue, fingertips brushing the floor with a gentleness that didn't match the murder in his eyes. "This wasn't random," he muttered. "Someone marked her. Targeted her specifically."
My heart slammed once, hard enough to bruise my ribs. I nodded—tight, reluctant. The professional in me recognized the truth even as every other part of me wanted to deny it.
"Yeah," I said, voice rougher than I'd intended. "I think I know who."
The magical signature, the precision of the snatch, the way Garanth had played it—all of it pointed to the demon crime lord who'd been a thorn in my side since my PRISM days. And ifhehad her...
The silence that followed was jagged, heavy with unspoken blame and the weight of our shared failure. I scraped a hand through my hair, jaw tight enough to ache.
