Vampire Cadet by Nikki Hoff

come back?”
    His eyes flowed with tears and a sob escaped his lips. “I forgot my stuff. Ra’ad said…if I don’t get back with it within two hours, he would personally kill me.”
    “Bryce, get the first aid kit,” she ordered as her mind worked out a strategy. If they needed to capture Ra’ad, they had to leave now. After Bryce brought the first aid kit, she tied up James’s hand, injected him with a painkiller, and led him through the forest to their jeep.
    They followed his directions to the apartment building. Taking out a pair of handcuffs, she tied him to the jeep’s door handle and left him in the parking lot while they took the stairs to Ra’ad’s apartment. Shannon put her ear to the door as she listened for any noise. Not a soul stirred inside the apartment. Since Ra’ad was a vampire, she wouldn’t have heard his heartbeat even if he was there, but still Shannon had a nasty feeling that the apartment was devoid of any presence.
    Either they were too late, or Ra’ad had already moved out. Everything pointed to the fact that he was an extremely careful person. If he suspected that his underling had made a mistake and left something back in the forest, he might have shifted already in order to avoid being captured.
    Still, she listened for a long time until she could say with eighty percent certainty that the apartment was empty. Shannon gestured to Bryce and he handed her the small pouch he carried. Opening it, she took out tools to open the door. After opening the lock, she pushed the door slightly and listened intently. Not a soul stirred in the apartment. Shannon slipped inside. She moved from room to room with the stealth of a silent tiger.
    No one was in the apartment but there was stuff thrown about the room, indicating that people had left rather hurriedly. He must have disappeared immediately after his underling left for the forest. Damn it! She couldn’t believe he had escaped her clutches once more. Not a clue was left to give them any hint as to where he had gone. Once more, they had nothing to pinpoint them in the right direction. Shannon cursed loudly.
    What the hell was she going to tell her superior? She had so boldly claimed that she would have Ra’ad within a week, and all she had was a certain knowledge that he was many steps ahead of her. Angry and disappointed, Shannon marched back to the parking lot. And much to her shock, James wasn’t in the jeep where they had left him. The handcuffs lay on the floor but there wasn’t any sign of him.
    She resisted the urge to stomp her feet. The gesture didn’t befit her age, but it sure would have felt better to throw a tantrum. “What the hell? How could he have escaped?”
    “That man was a trained mercenary. Do you think he wouldn’t have been able to flee in the time we left him alone?”
    She glowered at her assistant. “If you suspected that he might escape, why the hell didn’t you warn me?”
    Bryce jumped on to his seat and started the jeep. “I wanted him to go back to his boss. Do you really think he told us everything he knew? Surely, he would have kept back something as insurance. Given time, he may have spilled all the beans, but you were in such a hurry to rush here, you didn’t think to question the information he so willingly parted with. I am sure he knows his boss’s other hiding places.”
    “What the hell is the point of allowing him to go back to his boss? How would that serve us?” Shannon glowered at him. What was he playing at? If Bryce had known that James would make an attempt to escape, why didn’t he stop him?
    “Shannon, dear. We need James to lead us to Ra’ad. While you were busy intimidating the hell out of him, I planted a tracker on his shoes. It’s a flat, button-sized devise that would emit a signal of his location every three minutes, and from that signal, we will be able to track his movements. James doesn’t know it yet, but he is going to become the reason for Ra’ad’s