The surge of desire overtook the crappy feeling that was my current state, filling me up with sexual endorphins I would much prefer. I vividly recalled how she sighed out when I trailed my lips softly along her skin, how her breath quickened a fraction whenever I kissed a main artery. For once in my life, I wished I was a vampire just so I could sink my teeth into her and feel the pull of her blood filling me. I was a demon, so I could just cut her and lap at her blood, still getting the same result but not the effect I was going for.
A flash of a syringe coming for my neck and my too-late reaction as she pushed the liquid into my veins assaulted me, making me jerk. Disappointment and misery filled me at the same time. She drugged me and left me. I knew it was a possibility, the leaving, but I’d hoped she would take my offer to just run away from all this, rid ourselves of all these troubles, obstacles, and problems and just live for each other.
I knew that wasn’t Ray’s style, but I still had to put it out there, see if she would take the bait. She was Syndicate through and through, and I was having a hard time being mad at her for it. She was fiercely loyal, to the point of making it deadly, and that was one of my favorite things about her.
“Come find me, my sweet stalker. I’ll be waiting for you.”
1Those were the last deliciously sweet words she spoke in my ear before I conked out, and my lips tipped up. I knew kidnapping her was a risk, it could’ve gone either way, really. She could’ve never wanted to see me again, and I would’ve had to settle for stalking her the rest of her life, but she didn’t hate me. She embraced me. Accepted my stalker ways, and even made a cute nickname for me.
My heart was beating so fast thinking about her. Fuck, I was so in love with that woman. She was more than I could’ve ever wished for, more than I could’ve dreamed up. She was so fucking perfect in her natural state, a perfect fit for my unorthodox ways, and I was hooked. Addicted. Obsessed. My soul was tethered to her whether she felt it or not, and I was most definitely coming for her. I just needed to plan it right.
I wasn’t lying to her when I asked her to leave with me. After meeting her, smelling her scent on my pillow, having her in my arms, and fucking her with my horns, I knew I would abolish the Devil name if she asked me to, but again, that was not Rayla. She would never want me to do that because she would never do that. Being a Desmond was so ingrained in her that she didn’t see where she started and being a Desmond ended.
With my uncle hell-bent on ruining the Syndicate and Rayla’s dedication to the Syndicate, I was being put between a rock and a hard place. Actually, it was more like a rock and a piece of chocolate. Like, of course, I was going for the piece of chocolate, that was a given, but I felt bad for the rock since it had been with me since the beginning.
The added problem was that if my uncle caught on to me wavering in the plan, I had no doubt he would find some way to lock me up until everything was over and then deal with my anger afterward. No, I needed to play this smart if I wanted to be with my mate for the rest of time.
I quickly sat up, and the pounding in my head started up again, and I winced at the pain. Give me a stab wound, a knee to the groin, hell, a kick to the head, and it would be better pain than this annoying pounding that pulsed its way from the front of my head to the back of my neck. I was making a promise right now to never use that shit again on her. This sucks, and all she did was yell down for me, which probably had more to do with the kidnapping than the actual drugging. Rayla was a beast.
I found my pants on the floor, shoved my legs in and buttoned them before I looked around for my shirt and realized she left with it. She took a memento. My insides were giddy with excitement that she didn’t want to part with it so much she took it with her. It was almost like she took a piece of me with her, or really, a tracking beam for me to follow.
Gods, that woman revved my engine and made me feel alive. It had been so long since I felt this way and craved something like this. It was different from just watching her before. I had the real thing, and I wouldn’t ever go back to just watching... well, unless I wanted to. I had a feeling it would be much harder to kick the watching habit than I thought, but my rose was fine with it. I bet she would find some way to make a game out of it.
I went to the dresser and pulled out one of the backups I kept in this house, threw it over my head, and went down the stairs. I needed to do some damage control with my uncle before I went looking for my rose. Plus, I already knew where she was, it was more planning on how to get in without being detected that would be the tricky part.
Grabbing my orb from the foyer table, I headed to the door and found that the keys to the BMW bike were gone, and I smiled as I snagged the keys to the car. With my hand on the knob, I remembered I had grayed out the barrier around the house.How did that tricky little minx get out?If she was a mage, I would’ve taken different precautions, but she wasn’t... which meant she had something on her or with her that made it so she could get out.
I tried to think about it as I made my way over to the car, slid into the front seat, and put my orb on the floor of the passenger seat before I put the car into reverse and drove out of there like a bat out of hell.
First stop, the compound to play the good nephew card, then off to stake out the Desmond compound to find a way in to snag my mate. Life was looking good right now.
As I rolled up to the compound, the looming square cement building that looked more like a prison than a home had this uneasiness fill my gut as I saw more guards out than I ever had before.
Maybe this had to do with Rayla tripping one of the barrier alarms, and my uncle thought he needed more protection? I didn’t know why since you had to either have a Devil tattoo on to see and get onto the compound or be escorted onto the compound with someone with a Devil tattoo. It was one of Kevin’s twisted mage rune spells he had perfected over the years.
I rolled up, and the guards all nodded at me as I opened the door and passed them. We didn’t say hi or have any conversation, my uncle liked to keep everything strictly professional. It made them all into living drones for me, which made it handy as I didn’t care if they lived or died. So, when my uncle was in one of his fits and went too far with one of them, I easily let it all happen, not giving a flying fuck about them.
Then I saw how Rayla was with the Desmond clan members. She was firm, not taking any shit or disrespect, even being brutal when need be, but she treated them all friendly and fairly. She didn’t ignore them or kill them without a second thought. If punishment was given, it was usually something they knew was coming.
Now that my head was clear, my mind focused on one goal, I could see through the blind rage and hurt feelings I’d harbored. The stark difference between how the Desmonds ran things and how my uncle ran things was almost night and day.
I believed my uncle’s words all my life, making them my own until I started to watch Rayla, and day by day, I felt like she was chipping away at the granite rectangle block that was my heart. She was like a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci, sculpting something beautiful out of me with just a chisel, hammer, and an unyielding will.
I went through the double doors and could feel the heavy tension in the air as I made my way to his office. Her utter shock and disbelief when I told her what started this all was her father’s, and the other bosses’, ambition to get rid of me and take over the Devil clan, flashed before my eyes. It was something she could not fake, but he might not have told her. No matter how well I thought he raised my mate, he could harbor secrets he was not willing to tell her.
“Do we only recruit idiots into the Devil clan? Is there some reason that they couldn’t get rid of one little vampire Syndicate girl?” My jaw clenched as my fists were begging me to go in there and punch him in the face for saying that about my mate. I reminded myself I needed to play this smart. Going in there to kick his ass over what he said about Rayla would for sure be labeled as not smart.
I heard a loud thunk before he bellowed, “Are you saying you’re not better than that little fucking slut? That some pampered Syndicate bitch was able to beat thirty of our fucking seasoned men?!” I was breathing heavily from my nose, and my whole body shook in fury at how he was talking. I wanted to tear him into pieces and feed him to a pack of rabid werewolves while spelling him to stay alive until they ate every last scrap of meat.
My body turned, my hand punching the stone wall to get out the rage that I was feeling at that moment. There was no way I could go into that room feeling the way I did and make it productive, so I needed a painful reminder.
My knuckles cracked, and a shooting pain went up my arm, and I looked down at it and laughed. I would heal, that wasn’t the problem, but being overcome with pain so I didn’t take something too far was more important for the moment.
I put my hand down at my side as he called out, “And where the fuck is Lex?! He should’ve seen the texts by now!”
I guess my time to get myself under control was up. I took a deep breath before I walked into the room, masking all emotions from my face as I said, “You’re looking for me?”
My uncle’s head swiveled toward me, and his brown eyes pierced me where I stood as he stomped over to me. It took me one second to brace myself as he backhanded me across the face. “Where the fuck were you? We had that Desmond bitch in our grasp, but you were nowhere to be found! Because of that, she got away, and we lost a prime opportunity to get rid of one of them, weakening their structure.”
