A Chase of Prey (A Shade of Vampire #11)(11)

I didn’t need much imagination to guess what they might do with me. These people were probably human traffickers, or worse. I dreaded to think where they were taking me now.

I was beginning to lose all hope when a thump sounded on the roof. Luis and the men looked around wildly. Metal creaked and before I realized what was happening, two bloody fists appeared through the top of the ceiling, tearing holes right through the metal.

At first, the men all looked too shocked to do anything. But when the hands gripped the newly made holes and began tearing the metal apart, they began shooting.

Once the hole was large enough, Caleb dropped down into the vehicle. His shirt was so ripped, he might have been wearing none. His chest was peppered with bullet holes and soaked with blood. I struggled frantically against Luis, trying to knock the gun out of his hands as he aimed it directly at Caleb’s head. I winced as bullets shot into Caleb’s chest, one narrowly missing his face.

But Caleb didn’t allow the firing to go on for long. He gripped the two men closest to him by the neck, his claws shot out and he dug into their skin. He jerked his hands backward, ripping through their jugulars.

Luis and the other men paused, too stunned to even hold a steady aim, as Caleb’s fangs protruded from his mouth. Caleb felled the next man closest to him in the vehicle. Now only Luis and one other man remained. They scrambled out of the truck which had halted to a stop. Caleb leapt out after them and pounced on Luis. Knocking the gun from his hands, he pinned Luis to the ground and sank his fangs into his neck. Luis convulsed as Caleb took deep gulps of his blood until he became still.

Caleb stood up and looked after the last man sprinting away in the distance. Caleb didn’t seem to feel the need to go chasing after his cowardly ass, and it was better he didn’t. The sun was still shining and it seemed that Caleb had lost his suit in the struggle with Julio.

Hurrying over to me, Caleb pulled the gag from my mouth and with two swipes of his claws, he’d freed me from the ropes. I gasped, clutching my throat.

He lifted me up and walked me round to the front passenger seat where he sat me down and fastened the seat belt around me.

Then he walked back over to the corpse of Luis, lying on the ground a dozen feet away. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Caleb bent down and scooped up Luis’ dark sunglasses, still miraculously intact. Then he limped back to the truck and heaved himself into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and starting the ignition.

Donning Luis’ shades, Caleb pressed down hard on the accelerator and made the engine roar.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter 7: Sofia

Our decision to stay in The Shade while Ibrahim and Corrine went to look for our daughter was probably the hardest Derek and I had ever made. Every fiber of my being screamed out to chase her down again. But Corrine had managed to talk sense into us. If anybody had a chance of finding Rose, it was them. Derek’s and my absence would only weaken our island at a time when we needed to be at our strongest. The Shade’s king and queen simply couldn’t abandon their people at a time like this, not even for their daughter. After Mona, Corrine and Ibrahim were the most powerful witches we had. And since there was no way Mona could leave, the two of them had volunteered to go.

Their departure brought back memories of the time I’d been separated from my twins at birth. While Derek had been scrambling around trying to piece our family back together again, Ibrahim and Corrine had kept Rose safe. They were already like second parents to her. There was nobody I trusted more than them.

And so they left us. I didn’t even know where they were going to start their search. Derek and I were still clueless about where our daughter was.

Soon after Rose was discovered missing, we’d realized that Micah was too. It had sent shockwaves throughout the island that one of our guests could have kidnapped the princess, and I was worried that we might have an uprising on our hands as members of our council began demanding that the werewolves be kicked off the island entirely.

Of course that would have been impossible, since they had close ties with Mona and none of us would even have an island without Mona. We couldn’t afford to upset her.

Although it pained me, I couldn’t deny that a part of me suspected that Rose might have gone willingly. She’d been acting so recklessly of late, I couldn’t dismiss the possibility. And to my further sadness, Derek confessed the same. Sometimes it felt like we didn’t know our daughter any more.

The other possibility, of course, was that Micah had made off with Rose. We’d searched for miles around our island in hopes of finding them. We reasoned that they couldn’t have gone that far in the missing boat. But when we hadn’t found them, Ben and Griffin had stepped forward with a more chilling theory—that perhaps it hadn’t actually been Micah who’d made off with Rose. They’d told me how they’d saved Micah from being stuck outside the island. He’d given an excuse that he must have been absent during the time Mona gave everyone permission to enter the island. Mona had confirmed that it was not true. She said she remembered distinctly Micah being there.

Saira and another werewolf named Kira—the two wolves who’d known Micah most closely—also spoke up in defense of him. They said Micah had been behaving strangely of late. Kira had said that he’d developed an obsession with the princess, while he had shown no interest in her before.

Even I found it hard to believe that Micah could have done something like this. I’d met him only briefly, but he didn’t strike me as someone who would have kidnapped my daughter.