Kerrelyn Sparks: Eat Prey Love

S ean Whelan banged on the door at Romatech Industries, then shouted at the nearby surveillance camera. “Open up, damn you!” These damned Vamps kept the place locked up tight at night. It was infuriating that he had to beg entrance in order to see his own daughter and grandchildren.

“Open up!” They had to know he was here. The guard at the front gate would have alerted them.

The door opened and he burst into the foyer to find Shanna and that damned bodyguard, Connor Buchanan.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” Shanna asked. “Is Mom okay?”

He gritted his teeth. “Do you know where Caitlyn is?” He spotted Phineas McKinney rushing into the foyer. “Where the hell is my daughter?”

Phineas gave him an exasperated look. “Relax, dude, she’s okay.”

“Then you know where she is?” Sean demanded.

“Yer daughter is on assignment,” Connor replied. “Angus saw her last night, and she was fine.”

“The hell she is! I just got a call from the State Department. A hill tribe contacted the American consulate in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and reported she was missing. They heard gunfire—”

“What?” Shanna interrupted.

“You heard me,” Sean snapped. “The tribe said there was a gunfight, and Caitlyn was taken. The consulate asked the local police to investigate, and they found a bunch of dead bodies in the road.”

Shanna gasped. Connor pulled a cell phone from his sporran.

“They also found an abandoned car and two backpacks,” Sean continued. “One had Caitlyn’s passport inside, and the other had a Brazilian passport for Carlos Panterra.”

Phineas nodded. “They’re on assignment together.”

“You sent my daughter into the jungle with a damned shape shifter?” Sean shouted.

“We’ll contact Angus as soon as possible,” Phineas began. “He won’t be awake just now.”

“I have his voice mail.” Connor talked into his cell phone. “Angus, it looks like Caitlyn and Carlos have been abducted. We’ll e-mail you the details.”

“You’d better find her!” Sean yelled. “You can tell Angus that if something happens to her, I’ll hold you all responsible. I’ll hunt you down—”

“Dad, please!” Shanna hissed. “We’re just as upset about this as you are.”

Sean fisted his hands, attempting to regain control. “Can you track her whereabouts? Don’t the MacKay employees have some kind of homing beacon implanted in their arms?”

“We did that after Robby was kidnapped,” Phineas said. “But only for the Vamps. We didn’t think the shifters or mortals would ever be targeted.”

“Well, you were wrong, weren’t you?” Sean growled.

Phineas motioned for Sean to follow him. “Come to the office so we can get all the information you have. I’ll broadcast it to all MacKay employees. It’ll be our top priority.”

Sean scoffed. “A lot of good that’ll do. It’s daytime in Thailand, so your Vamps won’t be any help at all.” He glanced over his shoulder. Shanna and Connor were following them down the hall. “This is your fault, Shanna. You just had to drag her into this foul world of yours.”

Her face turned pale.

“Enough, Whelan.” Connor glared at him. “Ye were going to do the same, offering her a job on yer bloody Stake-Out team.”

Phineas opened the door to the MacKay security office, and Sean strode inside. He paced about as Shanna took a seat and Connor stood by the door, glaring at him.

Phineas sat behind the desk. “I was just reading the report Angus filed. He left Caitlyn and Carlos with the Akha tribe.”

“I want to read that report,” Sean demanded.

Phineas glanced at Connor, who frowned.

“Verra well,” Connor said. “Let him see it. The information is most likely related to her abduction.”

“What information?” Shanna asked.

“Evidence of a powerful Chinese vampire who appears to have mortals assisting him,” Connor explained.

“They call him Master Han,” Phineas added.

Sean snorted. “I should have known a vampire was involved in this. He could teleport Cait anywhere on the planet. We’ll never find her.”

“We have employees all over the world,” Connor said quietly. “We will find her.”

“Why should I believe you?” Sean sneered at him. “You’ve been looking for Casimir for years, and you keep failing.”

Connor’s eyes narrowed.

“We’ve been kicking ass,” Phineas insisted. “We’ve killed off a bunch of his minions.”

Sean shrugged. “They’ll keep coming as long as their leader’s alive, and you can’t even find him.”

Connor’s jaw clenched. “We’ve located Casimir twice.”

“And he always escapes.” Sean enjoyed seeing the red flush of rage on Connor’s face. “If anything happens to my daughter, I’ll raze this place to the ground. I’ll destroy you all.”

Connor zoomed over to him in a blur of vampire speed and seized him by the shirt collar. His eyes blazed with anger. “Mind yer manners, Whelan. Ye need us.”

Sean wrenched himself free. That damned Connor. Once he started killing the Vamps, he’d make sure Connor was second on the list, right after Shanna’s damned husband.

Carlos blinked his eyes open. The place was dark, but his eyes adjusted quickly. The floor beneath him vibrated slightly, and he could hear the hum of engines.

“There you are,” Caitlyn whispered. “Welcome back.”

He planted a hand on the floor to push himself into a sitting position, and felt something tug at his wrist. He was in handcuffs with a foot of chain between his hands.

He sat up and felt another tug at his neck. “What the hell?” There was a collar around his neck, and a heavy chain extended from it to a metal bar. “We’re in a cage?”

“Yes.” Caitlyn sat beside him, leaning back against the bars. There were no handcuffs or chains on her, and she had a blanket draped around her shoulders. “They kept you drugged for hours. They’re scared to death of you.” The corner of her mouth tilted up. “I can hardly blame them. You can really kick ass.”

He grasped the thick chain in his fist and tugged. With his added strength, he might be able to break it. “Where are we?”

“On a plane. In a cargo hold.” She wrapped the blanket tighter around her. “We’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

“We?” He glanced around and spotted Rajiv, the were-tiger.

The young man was dressed in baggy pants. His long black hair hung over one shoulder in a braid, and there was a silver collar around his neck. His hands were also cuffed. He said something in his language.

“He’s glad you’re all right,” Caitlyn translated.

“I didn’t know he’d been captured,” Carlos said.

“Well, you have a good excuse.” She gave him a wry look. “You were knocked out and dying at the time.”

“Better me than you.” He thought back to their hike through the jungle. “I thought I heard a tiger.”

She nodded. “He followed us, then tried to help us. Pat was delighted to capture a second cat shifter since you were dying at the time.”

He arched a brow. “Do I detect a little anger?”

“I’m a bit peeved because you keep dying all the time. You don’t have an unlimited amount of lives, you know.”

Neither did she. Carlos’s gaze drifted to the bite mark on her neck. It was true. He’d bitten her. His mind was so fuzzy with the aftereffects of tranquilizers that he’d hoped he had only imagined biting her.

“It’ll be all right,” she whispered.

He hung his head, closing his eyes.

“I was talking to Rajiv while you were sleeping,” she changed the subject. “He’s Raghu’s younger brother. Only twenty years old. He hasn’t fallen in love with any of the girls in his tribe, and his brother will be head of the tribe for life, so Rajiv decided to leave in search of adventure.”