Vampire: A Dark Protectors/Rebels Novella by Rebecca Zanetti (love letters to the dead .txt) 📕

favor and then prepare yourself to someday pay up. Mercy? This is my buddy, Raine. He helped Ivar out not too long ago.”

“Yeppers?” A soft female voice came over the line.

“Hi. I need a favor and am happy owing you one,” Raine said.

The woman chuckled. “Any friend of Benny and Ivar’s is somebody who’d I’d like to owe me a favor. What do you need?”

Raine rattled off the time and place of the rest stop. “I need to know what happened to my woman there.” He waited.

His brother glanced at him but wisely didn’t say anything.

“Okie doke.” Rapid typing came over the line. “There is a CCTV camera at the rest stop, and somebody is in the process of wiping it…right now.” Her voice rose, and the speed of the typing came faster. “All right. It’s going quickly. A woman meeting that description was taken by…holy crap it’s a Kurjan in daylight. Well, there’s rain and a storm, but they really can go into daylight now.”

It was a new development for their species and one Raine didn’t have time to ruminate on right now. “Was she hurt?” he growled.

Mercy stopped typing. “The video is gone. It looked like he drugged her and carried her off. I can’t see where they went, but I can start looking for traffic cameras.”

“No you can’t,” Benny argued in the background. “You’re working on my project.”

“It’s okay,” Raine said. “I have a tracker on her and they obviously took her purse with them. I’ve got a bead on her.”

Benny sighed loudly. Very loudly. “Do you need backup? I could fly there.”

“No. My brother is with me,” Raine said. “Good luck on your next mission, and Mercy, I owe you one.”

“Yes, you do.” The female ended the call.

Raine flipped back to the app. “Mariana is stationary at a small and private airport.” Then he looked at the raging storm outside. “Hopefully they won’t try to fly in this.”

Cade passed two logging trucks, and they were just a blur. “How did the Kurjans find her?”

Raine’s chest ached with a fire that burned beyond his body. “I have no idea. Hurry up. We’re running out of time.”

Chapter 12

Mariana couldn’t breathe. Was she drugged? She had to be on drugs. There’s no way that guy’s face was real. Kurjans, vampires, and shifters? Also demons? This was too weird. What was that about the marking on Raine’s hand that they’d been talking about? None of it was making sense. This had to be a cult, and she had to be seriously drugged right now. “What did you give me?”

Jon shook his head. “You should be okay now. Take a deep breath.”

A monster was telling her to go Zen? This was ridiculous. The only explanation besides a drugging was that he’d had his face surgically changed. Her legs started to tremble. It was a good thing she was sitting. “All right. Say I believe you, and I’m not sure I do, what’s the plan here? Why have you kidnapped me?”

“Smart question,” Jon said, his eyes more amethyst than reddish-purple now. “I was starting to doubt your intelligence. I’ll explain this to you as if you didn’t know any of it, which is often possible, except you’ve brought out an immortal’s mating mark, so I think you might be playing a game.” He didn’t sound too put out by the idea, though.

She shook her head. If the guys at the door would go back outside, she could kick Jon in the face and run for it. Oh, chances were slim that she’d make it, but it was her only chance. Wait a minute. “Where’s my purse?” Her gun was in it.

Jon tilted his head toward a few bags in the corner of the hangar. “It’s over there with my equipment, and your weapon is still inside your bag. I’ll need to confiscate it, though. Sorry.”

“Right.” Should she go for the gun or the door? Probably the gun. “You were saying?”

He stood and stretched his back. Man, he was tall. So were the guys at the door. “There are different species in the world besides humans, but some human females are enhanced with otherworld abilities like physic powers, empathic powers, telekinesis…there are many.”

Mariana moved to the edge of her seat. “You’re saying I’m psychic?” She wasn’t. Not at all.

“No. I’m saying you have an ability beyond human. The most common is empathic powers, and since you’re a psychologist, perhaps you felt that deep down in choosing your career.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter much.

Yeah, she’d always felt empathic to a small degree but had just figured she was sensitive to others. “So this ability makes me…enhanced?”

“Yes, and enhanced human females can mate an immortal,” Jon said casually.

“Mate?” She jumped to her feet. “No. Absolutely not. Not a chance. I am not mating anybody.” She sidled away from him.

He pivoted and put his body between her and the corner. “Your agreement isn’t necessary but I’m sure would be appreciated. We have a war coming, another one, and we’re gathering as many enhanced females as we can before the well is depleted, so to speak. You have a new future. Life is easier if you just embrace it.”

Oh, she was going to embrace his face with a bullet. Was he actually believing this stuff?

“We found you because of the ‘tattoo’ the police in Dallas ran through a database. It’s actually a mating mark. We traced it back to you, and here you are.”

A mating mark? “Wait a minute. You’re saying that Raine’s tattoo led you to me? That he’s a Kurjan, too?” Was Raine involved with these weirdoes?

“Did he look like a Kurjan? No.” Jon’s red lips turned down. “Since he has a mating mark, which arose on his skin when he met you, he has demon blood in him somewhere. Oh, he may be mainly another species like witch or vampire, but anybody with demon blood gets the brand. It’s supposed to transfer to you during the mating process.”

She