by Gaja J. Kos
But for all I knew, Liva had already ratted on me, and if I waited, the scolding Lana would dish out would only be that much worse. I definitely didn’t need a pregnant Nightwraith’s chiding on top of the bloody mess I was already in.
With quick, precise movements, I drew the intricate summoning symbol on the ground. It was similar to what Alin had used for his gang-related lair, only now, the sigil in the very heart of the design was a skeletal hand, engulfed in fire. Lana and Alin’s powers, joined into one.
When I stepped inside, the summoning circle flared blue almost instantly, and before I could even feel the sweep of magic, I was already broken down into particles, rushing towards the lair. I landed on reformed feet, mildly disoriented from traveling through an artificially constructed umbilical cord.
There was just something off about it—like cars running on electricity instead of gas.
I closed my eyes for a second to scatter the lingering unease, but before I even managed to gather my bearings, Lana’s arms wrapped around me and drew me into a rib-crushing hug.
“Gods, the hellion is kicking me right in the gut,” I rumbled, though laughter lined my words.
Lana gave me another squeeze before she stepped back, running a hand across her well-rounded belly. “He’s quite the fighter. Honestly”—she rolled her eyes—“I don’t know where he could’ve gotten it from…”
I snickered at the mischief dancing in her dark gaze, and the shadows that had been creeping inside me retreated in light of the satisfied glow Lana radiated. Oh, she was plenty pissed—concerned, too—but it still wasn’t enough to push back the happiness that had taken up residence inside her core.
I snorted inwardly. Pregnant women ranked high on my most-annoying list, but my sister proved not all of them were that bad. In fact, the little demon growing inside her seemed to have taken some of the edge off her usual seriousness, as well as muted the stern air of responsibility that tended to trail in her wake. It was a good transformation.
Now the only question that remained was whether it would last throughout our meeting, too.
“So the prodigal sister returns,” a smooth voice said.
I glanced over Lana’s shoulder and winked at Alin, his russet hair gleaming like fire under the artificial light.
“Liva told us what happened,” he added.
“Though it would have been nice to hear it from you,” my sister chipped in rather pointedly.
I took her hand in mine, and together we followed Alin into the kitchen area of their remote home. During daylight hours, the windows stretching along the wall gave off a spectacular view of Maribor’s rolling hills. As it was, all I saw was my own ragged reflection.
Mercifully, the rich scent of coffee chose that precise moment to hit me like a drug. I glanced at the pot with such longing, Lana couldn’t hold back a chuckle—although she clearly wanted to.
“I’ll make you a cup,” she offered.
I started to protest, but Lana held up a stern hand.
“Alin babies me enough. He means well, the soft-hearted demon lord. But the hellion gets restless if we don’t move around, and I have no desire to endure another one of his solo fights.”
“Thanks.” I smiled, then sat behind the table, feeling the weight of Alin’s gaze on my skin.
He knew as well as I did that this, unfortunately, wasn’t just a social call.
“Liva mentioned Yelena dropped by,” he said. “Anything particular dear mother-in-law wanted?”
While Yelena spared no great love for Alin, he actually didn’t mind our mother’s eccentric ways. Or her lack of warmth for a rival demon. If anything, the Shadow Queen made up for a lot of laughs on his part, and right now, I was grateful for it.
Sadly, I also knew the mood wouldn’t last beyond this one stolen moment.
“She certainly didn’t visit to send any goodwill your way, old man, that’s for sure,” I said with a grin, then wrapped my fingers around the steaming cup of coffee Lana slid my way. “But she did want me to ask you something.”
Alin raised an eyebrow, my sister mirroring his expression almost to a T.
“What?” Disbelief dripped from his tone, and I couldn’t blame him.
Yelena wanted as little to do with Alin as she possibly could. I had played messenger before, on the odd occasion she needed something, but the approach had never been this straightforward.
I drank a scalding hot sip, then said, “Tevan is missing.”
Lana bristled, hands stilling on her belly while Alin visibly tensed. She glanced at him, then met my gaze, concern lining her beautiful features.
“Tevan?” she whispered. “How?”
“Mom doesn’t know. But she wanted me to find out if you heard anything about him—or if any demons under your reign have suddenly dropped off the radar.”
Alin and Lana exchanged another all-too-revealing look. Great. Just great.
“What’s going on?” I asked, already hating the answer.
“All our subjects are alive and present—”
“Although I wouldn’t mind if a few of the assholes got lost,” Alin rumbled under his breath.
“—but we have heard some unsettling rumors in the last month.” She chewed on her lip, looking more uncomfortable than I’d seen her in a long, long time. “We wanted to investigate them, even had Ilya scour the underground for anything that might point us in the right direction… But nothing came up, only the whispers on the grapevine that someone is attempting to play god. We—we didn’t know Tevan has been taken.”
Trepidation crawled down my spine, the choice of her words crashing and rolling through me in a vicious echo, but I forced myself to ask, “Playing god how?”
A bitter smile pulled on Lana’s lips. “They believe they can harness demonic powers.”
Chapter 9
The day was disgustingly beautiful and completely inappropriate for such gloomy thoughts.
Harnessing demonic powers. Missing girls. Lila.
For the first time in a long while, I wished I could escape reality. Just slip someplace where none of this ugliness would reach me and I would be able to lose myself in the heat of pleasure with a light heart and a clear mind.
I tilted my head towards the sky, letting the sun warm my skin as I allowed myself to be swept away, even if only for a moment, by the illusion I knew would never take flesh. I imagined Caz, his amber eyes gazing down at me and his dark curls gleaming with sweat as his body towered over mine, as he made me cry out his name, again and again. Hunger swept through me—a brilliant, pure rush that tightened my insides with eager anticipation. The vision crashed…
But only to be replaced by something far more alluring. Far more real.
I cracked open an eye and saw Caz leaning against his Wrangler. He was dressed in black jeans and a fitted tee that hugged his honed torso, his badge gleaming on his hip as it caught the sunlight. I took in the wild, tempting mass of curls that framed his handsome face, but what struck me the most was the blunt need brimming in his eyes.
Despite our argument yesterday, he wanted me.
He didn’t move as our gazes met, but simply allowed me to feel the pulse of his power, the craving, so similar to mine, that begged to be released.
Caz could give me the oblivion I sought, however temporary.
But I knew that if I were to accept, there would be nothing temporary about what would manifest between us.
“Are you ready to go?”
The strain in his voice was as evident as the bulge in his pants, but he didn’t act on the barely leashed desire. For a moment, the urge to close the distance between us and crush my body against his threatened to overcome my mind. Too easy. It would be too easy.
I hauled the bag off the ground and nodded instead. “Ready.”
We passed the first few minutes in silence as the serene, open landscape of Celje and its surrounding villages drifted by then gradually changed, the hills pressing closer and losing some of their lush, green
vibrancy. I glanced at Caz, his gaze fixed on the road and elegant fingers gripping the wheel as if the control he had established was still on the verge of slipping.
I hated myself for hoping that it might.
“I’m sorry,” I said to shove down the flicker of heat—and to do what, whether I liked it or not, was right. “About yesterday. I should have called sooner.”
“Yeah, you should have.”
I winced inwardly. “It wasn’t like I wanted to keep you in the dark, Caz. My mother dropped by on an unexpected visit just before the grenade crashed through my window, both of which threw me a little off my game, and afterward I fled to my sister’s place to tell her what happened… And warn her.”
A glimmer of amber flashed my way. “The attack was demonic?”
“I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “But the reason behind it might have been.”
Quickly, I told him of Yelena’s unexpected appearance, then filled him in on what Alin and Lena suspected. I kept the details brief since it was still Shadow World business I was discussing and Caz was an outsider, but substantial enough that the detective in him wouldn’t press me for more.
Every word tasted bitter on my tongue, the thought of someone experimenting on Tevan a shadow weight that crowded my chest and made it hard to breathe. It was bad enough that some demons liked to tweak their offspring into becoming stronger than nature intended them to be, but for someone not of our race to steal and use our powers… The Koldunya within me recoiled violently. But so did the demonic side.
“Shit,” Caz whispered as we came out of the final tunnel on the other side of Trojane.
I finally fell silent, the harsh facts laid bare between us.
“What do you think would happen if they succeed?”
“Enhanced humans? Maybe some new horror we couldn’t imagine even if we tried…” I sighed and rubbed my temples. “I really don’t fucking know. But whatever this creation would turn out to be, it would go against all laws of nature.”
He looked at me, a silent question swirling in the depths of his eyes.
“Half Koldunya,” I explained before he had to ask out loud. “I know that I’m a bounty hunter, but life and nature are still as sacred to me as to any of my father’s kin. I don’t expect you to understand—”
“I do,” he said simply. “We’re predators. But that doesn’t make us evil.”
His response rendered me speechless. I sank deeper into the seat and watched the woods whisk by. Could someone who wasn’t born of light and darkness truly understand what it was like? I chewed on my lip, sampling the answers my mind churned out.
Caz was ancient. A Perelesnyk. A hunter. And hunted.
Maybe he knew the struggle even more intimately than I did.
“So what’s our plan?” I asked after a few minutes rolled by in silence.
I brought the travel mug to my lips, savoring a taste of perfect, aromatic coffee, courtesy of Caz. He glanced my way, a sorrowful but cryptic smile flirting with the corner of his mouth.
“First, we pay our old friend a little visit.”
While I must have supplied them with a lot of bodies over the years, this was the first time I’d ever set foot in Ljubljana’s central morgue. Caz led me through the maze of sterile corridors with the surety of someone who’d been here often, but despite his unwavering confidence, I couldn’t help the unease pooling in the pit of my stomach by being surrounded by so many officers of the law.
I might have had a few good-natured run-ins with them in my time, as well as the PI cover working in my favor, but that didn’t mean I wanted to flaunt my presence in front of a bloody stream of cops with eager eyes. And yet Caz never flinched. He simply pressed his hand to my back whenever I started falling behind, taking me through another set of doors or down a flight of stairs. We stopped only when we reached a wide reception area that was just as impersonal as the rest of the place. I plopped myself onto a couch to catch a breath while he went over to talk to the woman stationed behind a massive, sleek desk.
As the scent of disinfectant and death whirled around me, I wondered if Lila’s body rested just beyond those double doors, too. Wondered how much of it there was even left.
Luckily, Caz returned before my brooding developed, and the words that came out of his mouth were a hard enough slap to scatter any residual thoughts.
“The M.E.’s a sensitive, and he knows of the supernatural. If you want to keep your human cover intact, I suggest you shield well.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Does he know about you?”
“He thinks I’m a sensitive, too. No one even remotely connected to the job is aware of the truth, except one close friend. And you.”
“You consider me connected to the job?” I choked on a laugh. “Maybe the kind of connection you put into cuffs.”
Caz smiled. The effect was so brilliant it knocked the wind straight out of my lungs. Then something heated slipped into his gaze, and although nothing in his posture indicated we were anything but business associates, the velvet of his voice spoke volumes to the contrary.
“The next time you find yourself chained up, Lena,” he drawled, “those cuffs will be strung around my bedpost.”
Lust curled through me, hard and strong, the flair in Caz’s eyes indicating he knew full well just how badly I wanted that promise to take flesh. Gods damn me, but I did. Caz leaned closer, the tip of his knee brushing against mine, and I didn’t know whether he would fuck me right there—
I never got the chance to find out.
A blond, muscular man strode through the double doors, his spectacled gaze falling on the two of us. Caz stood up—as casually as if we hadn’t been on the verge of having sex right in the bloody reception room of the morgue—and held out his hand.
“Dr. Vidmar. The circumstances never change, but it’s always nice to see you.”
The M.E. offered Caz a smile. “Detective Zeman.”
“Let me introduce you to Lena Ambrose,” Caz said as I scraped up my dignity and managed to get my ass off the couch.
My cheeks carried only the slightest heat of a blush—something I wrote off as a response to how handsome the blond man was. Even if he paled in comparison to the Perelesnyk standing beside him.
“She’s the PI helping me with the case,” the Perelesnyk offered.
“Nathaniel Vidmar.”
I shook the man’s hand, nothing the firm, self-assured grip. “Pleasure.”
“Come. Follow me.” He tipped his head to the left. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your work for too long.”
Like good little soldiers, Caz and I fell in step with the M.E. He led us through the double doors and down another corridor, then into a steel-lined room I immediately recognized as the cold chamber. Sever’s body was already laid out on the gurney, a white sheet covering him below the waist and the Y incision, now stitched up, creating a sharp contrast to the paleness of his dead skin.
“I already have all the results waiting in my office, but I figured you wouldn’t mind taking another look,” Vidmar said as he stretched a box towards us, and we both dutifully pulled on the fresh latex gloves.
“Found anything of interest?” Caz asked, but I was already prowling closer to the body, disbelief wreaking havoc on my mind as I tapped into that faint, familiar trace clinging to Sever’s cold flesh.
I’d missed it before, in the woods. I must have been too pissed by finding his corpse, and when Caz pulled the gun on me, I was preoccupied with not getting shot—or losing my panties—to do a proper search.
But here, in this chamber devoid of anything else but the reek of decomposition and Sever’s essence marring the air, there was no chance in all the realms for me to overlook such a jarring fact.
What clung to him—what was coming from him—was a trace of supernatural. And its origin…
It was demonic.
Chapter 10
The drive to Kranjska Gora was torturously long. My mind was adamant to stretch in a thousand
directions, right up until the point where I was drowning in a sea of bad thoughts I wished I’d never crossed paths with. But while all demanded my attention, I focused on the one that was loud enough to give me a splintering headache.
Just how deeply was I willing to involve Caz?
He wasn’t a member of the Shadow World, and our rules frowned upon the involvement of outsiders. Sure, nobody cared if you brought extra muscle to a fight, even if it was to take care of an internal struggle, but what we were dealing with here… It wasn’t some brawl for power. These were intimate matters of our court. Of our kind.
And Caz wasn’t part of that.
I let out a silent groan and sank deeper into the seat, more bothered than I should have been by the stench of the outright lie that last thought was—by what the truth resting beneath it actually meant.
Gingerly, I lowered the shields on my energy, just enough to feel the faintest brush of his against mine. Warmth and exhilaration spread through my veins, through my very being, the familiar and intoxicating presence of his essence stirring a nearly overpowering desire for more. Shit. With our staggering compatibility, it would have been unspeakably easy to make him a part of the Shadow World—to bind him to me as my mate, granting him every single privilege I possessed.
And, well, my life right along with it.
A double-fucking special.
I shook my head, fingers curling into fists. I’d rather face whatever punishment the demons flung my way for involving him than becoming involved myself. And that was a distinct possibility.
“Fine,” I grumbled and peered sideways. “I’m breaking some major rules here, but since you can’t hand your case over to me and I can’t let you investigate mine, we’ll… We’ll have to work together.”
A soft chuckle left his lips. “Oh, don’t contain your excitement on my account.”
I cut him a glare. “I can still change my mind, you ass.”
“Now that’s conduct unbefitting of a lady.”
“Right.” I snorted, but amusement slithered through my mind. “I hardly think a lady would try to jump your bones in the morgue.”
