Slowly gathering his wits, Niko glanced around the empty kitchen, his abused heart slamming against his ribs.
“Angela?”
Arel grimaced. “Gone.”
“Goddammit.”
Niko surged to his feet only to lurch forward as his legs refused to cooperate. Thankfully, Arel was swiftly rising to catch him before he could do a face-plant.
“Before you have a meltdown, I can track them,” Arel hastily assured him.
“I don’t doubt your skill, amigo, but—”
“No, it’s not about skill,” Arel interrupted, making sure that Niko could stand on his own before he stepped back and pulled a phone from his pocket. “Look.”
Niko blinked to clear his bleary gaze, then focused on the road map that was visible on the phone screen. Leaning closer, he noticed the tiny light that was blinking.
GPS.
And if he knew Arel, then the blinking red dot was Dylan.
“You tagged her?” he demanded, afraid to hope.
Arel smiled with grim satisfaction. “I set a trigger on the back porch before I came in. As soon as Dylan opened the door it attached itself to her shoe.”
Niko released a shaky sigh despite the cold chill that inched down his spine at the realization of how easy it would have been for Dylan to disappear with Angela while he was unconscious.
“What if she hadn’t come through the back door?”
“I might have set a few others,” Arel admitted. “You know me. Better safe than sorry.”
“You?” Niko snorted. “Safe?”
Arel gave a casual lift of his shoulder. “Okay, call it overkill.”
Overkill. Yeah. That was definitely more Arel’s style.
“How long have I been out?”
“At least half an hour.”
Niko growled in frustration. Dylan might need Angela alive and relatively unharmed if she was to get what she so desperately wanted, but that was no guarantee of her safety. The female Sentinel was as volatile as she was unstable.
A lethal combination.
“We have to go.”
Arel moved to block his stumbling path toward the door. “Dammit, Niko, you can barely stand.”
Niko glared at his friend. “Don’t even start.”
“Be sensible. I could travel faster without you.”
Niko was shaking his head before Arel finished. “This is an argument you’re not going to win, so give it up.”
“Stubborn bastard.”
Moving like a drunken sailor, Niko sidestepped Arel and continued across the room and out the back door. He’d made it past the pool when Arel caught up with him. Offering Niko a frustrated scowl, the younger Sentinel led him to the garage where he’d hidden his vehicle.
Niko lurched into the garage, giving a lift of his brows at the sight of the large four-wheel drive pickup with massive tires that looked like they should have been on a tank.
“Christ,” he muttered, struggling to lift his foot high enough to reach the running board. “Overcompensating for anything, amigo?”
“I just like power,” Arel said, giving Niko a shove in the ass to get him up and in the passenger seat.
Slamming shut the door, Niko waited for his companion to swing behind the driver’s wheel and start the engine.
“If you say so,” he mocked at the throaty roar that filled the air.
Arel shot him a jaundiced glare, pausing to attach his phone to a mount on the dashboard before backing out of the garage.
“You’re not in any condition to question my manhood.”
“Which is the only reason I’m questioning it now,” Niko confessed, leaning his throbbing head against the seat. “You can’t kick my ass when I’m hurt.”
“Don’t count on it.” With an evil grin, Arel shoved the truck in gear and took off like a bat out of hell. “Hold on.”
“Shit.” Niko braced his hands against the glove compartment, clenching his teeth as the truck swerved around a corner and bounced across a shallow ditch to head straight across an empty field. “Is there something wrong with the road?”
“Shut up,” Arel muttered, his gaze shifting between the dark field and the map on his phone.
Niko bit his tongue, closing his eyes so he could try and concentrate on recuperating his strength. Dylan had clearly gone over the edge. There was no reasoning, no hope of compromise with the female.
This was going to be a fight to the death.
He managed to maintain his silence until Arel rammed through a fence at a hundred miles an hour and nearly sent them into the lake.
No one was more anxious than he was to get to Angela. No one. But he was just beginning to shake off the effects of the shockwave. He couldn’t afford to be injured before he even reached Dylan.
“I could drive,” he rasped.
Arel slowed as they neared the signal still blinking on the GPS.
“Has anyone told you that you have control issues?”
Always.
“Never,” he lied as Arel pulled the truck to a halt just outside a trailer park.
“Dylan’s close,” Arel murmured, his nose wrinkling at the stench of garbage and human misery. “Damn. Why here?”
Niko allowed his gaze to search the heavy shadows that shrouded the park, briefly puzzled by the tug of awareness that flowed through him.
Was this a new trick of Dylan’s?
Then, as the sensation settled deep in his heart, he realized this was no trick.
And it had nothing to do with Dylan.
“Niko?”
Belatedly realizing that Arel was studying him with a worried gaze, Niko returned his attention to their grim surroundings.
“If she intended to have a hostage she would want to be isolated from nosy neighbors.”
“True.” Arel pointed across the narrow parking lot. “There’s her car. Stay here and I’ll find out which trailer she’s in.”
“No need.” Niko nodded toward the trailer set a short distance from the others. “It’s that one.”
Arel turned to frown at him. “How can you be sure?”
Niko pressed a hand to the center of his chest. “I can feel Angela.”
Arel’s golden eyes widened in shock.
On very rare occasions a high-blood could be so deeply connected to another that they formed a bond that could be felt on a physical level.
Niko had always pitied the poor schmucks who allowed themselves to be melded. Why would anyone want to be leashed for their entire lives?
It was . . . abnormal.
Now, he accepted he hadn’t known a damned thing.