Byrne took his seat on the cart. “You wouldn’t be that stupid.”
“Hrrm.”
Byrne shot an incredulous look at Hannah, and then Fin. “Seriously?”
“Seriously, what?” Fin asked, even though he knew he shouldn’t. This conversation shouldn’t even be happening right now.
“You jumped him?”
“And what’s so hard to believe about that?” Fin demanded, before he could stop himself. Idiot.
“You’re you.”
Fin waved a hand in the air, encompassing himself. “And who wouldn’t want all this?”
“Well, since you’re so irresistible, keep yourself away. I do not want to put up with you two doing gross shit when I am around. It’s bad enough I can still fucking smell it.”
Hannah’s cheeks went a little pink. “You can?”
“Yes. Now, let’s change topics. We’re only a few hours out of Pinton, and I want the nausea to wear off before we get there.”
Fin shuffled back in the cart, further away from the were. He wasn’t sure if Byrne was irate or amused and he didn’t want to risk being hauled out of the cart to have some sense shaken into him. It had happened before. More than once. It was too bad Byrne hadn’t seemed to work out that the technique wasn’t achieving the desired result.
Fin was still a fool.
Chapter 55
Pinton City
Another body had been found.
Male, and naked as the day he’d been born, it was now lying on the steel bench in the morgue — Alice had gone out to the crime scene to retrieve it, but there’d been nothing to learn from the site.
This victim had been left in the chrysanthemum podium, one of the elaborate gardens of the Crystal Palace. Alice hadn’t barely gotten to see any of the floral displays when she was there, and she’d heard murmurs of how stunningly beautiful this one was. But her mind had been on the location of the dump site. It was a strange coincidence that the body had been found at the palace, considering their meeting had been held there the night before.
The killer must be someone who worked in the palace, otherwise, how would they have known about the meeting?
Alice inspected the body — one stake wound was visible and the corpse was in rigor — before pulling on her gloves. She stared at the surgical equipment lined up on the metal tray next to the body. It didn’t really feel worthwhile, doing an autopsy now. It was pretty obvious how the vampire male had died. But Alice liked to ensure everything was done by the book.
“So, this is annoying.”
Alice whipped her head around. Elle was jammed in the doorway, pressed up next to the vampire who’d Chosen her, and her eyes dark with irritation. Behind them both, Kyle loomed.
Elle was in her guard uniform, her hair tied back in a bun, while Dante was still horribly attractive in his afternoon aristo finery. Alice looked away from them before her heart bounced right out of her chest. It was embarrassing how being around these vampires made her feel.
It wasn’t fair that they were so pretty.
“Well, if you stepped out the way, then we wouldn’t be crammed in the doorway, now would we?” That calm voice had to be Dante. Alice couldn’t picture anyone else talking to Elle in that way. Kyle certainly wouldn’t. He valued still being able to walk.
“Fuck off.”
“So mature.”
“Will you guys just bloody move?” Kyle must have shoved them then, because the two vampires burst into the room. Elle glowered at her partner, whereas Dante simply flicked the sleeves of his crisp white shirt and straightened up.
“Do that again, and we’ll see how quickly your hand will heal after I break it.” Elle put both fists on her hips.
“Just because you’re a vampire now, with super strength, doesn’t mean you can go around threatening your partner.”
“What? This isn’t a new thing. I used to threaten you before I got Chosen.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t a real threat then.”
Elle opened her mouth to say something, but Dante snapped, “Stop being a jerk. You have been in a mood all day. Kyle was just expediting the situation.”
“But—”
Alice decided to interrupt. “What can I do for you, Elle?”
Maybe being Chosen turned the part of one’s brain that governed social awareness to mush. Maybe when she did this autopsy, Alice would pay more attention to the brain tissue to see if there were any macroscopic differences between vampires and humans...
Elle took a deep breath and then smiled, closing the distance between her and Alice. “I brought Dante to try and identify the body. His husband, the baron, is otherwise occupied and Misty is with the king.”
“I told you I wouldn’t be much use,” Dante muttered.
“You certainly haven’t been so far,” Elle snapped back.
Alice waved a hand at the corpse. “By all means.”
As she grabbed her notes she heard Dante cross the room to stand beside her — which meant he was being polite, since she hadn’t heard him move at all the last time. But then she realized he was reading over her shoulder. For a moment, she forgot that he was a vampire, an aristo, and someone she should be afraid of. Reading over someone’s shoulder was rude.
“Do you mind if I read your notes?” Dante asked. He grabbed the clipboard from her and began scanning the information she’d written there.
Alice stood confused, hands empty in the air. What was she meant to do now?
Elle was walking around the body, inspecting it closely when something grabbed her attention. Alice hadn’t noticed anything odd about the inside of the man’s elbow, but Elle sure was pondering it. Then the vampire sniffed. “Dante, you’re meant to be identifying the victim. You’re not meant to be stealing Alice’s notes.”
The tall vampire held up a hand, telling Elle to wait.
“So, anything different from this victim to the others?” Kyle asked her, apparently oblivious to the bickering between the other two.
“No. Apart from the fact this one was found naked.”
Kyle rocked back on his heels. “Huh.”
“That would indicate an increasing level of derision toward his victims,” Dante announced, handing Alice the clipboard.
“What?” Kyle said.
“Well, he used to clothe them. Putting clothes on people protects their modesty. But Misty’s mother was left in a half-undressed state. Combine that with the additional stake wounds, I suspect that some other emotion was driving the killer during his attack on the countess.”
Alice studied the vampire, but she couldn’t pinpoint any emotion emanating from him. This was his stepmother he was talking about, but he seemed disinterested, aside from recounting the facts of her murder.
“They weren’t particularly close,” Elle said.
“Sorry?” Alice said.
“Dante and the countess. They weren’t particularly close. That’s why he doesn’t seem too torn up about it.”
Dante gave her a bland look.
Heat rushed up to Alice’s cheeks. Had she accidentally said her thoughts aloud? Working on her own quite a lot meant that she sometimes muttered things while she was thinking. Normal human hearing wouldn’t pick up on it, but a vampire might. She didn’t think she’d said anything, though.
“Moving on from my lack of familial relationship with my stepmother, shall I continue?”
“By all means,” Kyle said.
“So I suspected that the killer had either a certain antipathy toward the countess, or women in general.”
“That’s a big assumption,” Elle said.
“Yes, but there were two male victims and one female. The male victims were both clothed and stabbed once. The female victim was only partially clothed and stabbed multiple times. Even though the stake wound to the heart would have caused catastrophic cardiovascular failure, the killer persisted in injuring his victim.”
“But this victi
m was found naked.” Elle pulled herself up onto the stone bench.
“True. I think when he fails to dress them after he kills them, it’s a sign of disrespect. I could be wrong.” Dante gave an elegant shrug. “It’s not like human psychology is a strong point of mine.”
“Interesting.” Kyle was rubbing his chin with his thumb and index finger. “But it still doesn’t tell us who the killer is.”
Dante leaned forward then and sniffed the air above the cadaver. “Well, the victim is wearing a specific cologne, if that helps.”
Elle shook her head. “Not unless the killer was wearing it, too.”
“Well, I can’t smell another type of cologne on him. So either the killer doesn’t wear one, or it’s the same.”
“There’s cologne?” Alice asked. She bent over the body and sniffed, but detected nothing aside from the odor of death.
“It’s a vampire cologne,” Dante explained. “They’re made so they don’t overpower our sense of smell, but so they’re still noticeable.”
“Huh. The were ones are even less detectable.”
“Stronger senses of smell,” Kyle added. That’s right, she thought. Kyle was buddy-buddy with Elle’s fiancé now.
“Maybe I should help Coroner Alice with her autopsy,” Dante suggested.
Alice clutched her clipboard to her chest. “What?”
“Well, I might be able to notice things that she can’t, with my better vision and superior sense of smell.”
A little huff escaped her.
“I can’t give you permission for that,” Elle said.
Kyle shook his head as well. “It’s up to Alice.”
Three sets of eyes focused on her. Great, she thought, just great. But even though it galled her to admit it, Dante had a point. He might notice something that she couldn’t.
“Do you know what an autopsy involves?” Alice asked him. She gathered he had medical training of some kind, but some people — even relatively impassive ones — could find dissecting a body a bit too gruesome.
Dante let out a short laugh. “This wouldn’t be my first. Well, it would be my first legal one.”
Legal one?
Alice decided she didn’t want to know.
Elle jumped off the bench to stand beside the vampire. “Alice is very particular with how she does her work. You do what she says, when she says it. And try to keep the creep factor under control. Plus, try and identify the body if you can.”
Dante raised one dark eyebrow. “Creep factor?”
“Yeah, try and be a little less...you.”
Chapter 56
Pinton City
Thank fuck they had finally reached the city.
The stench of the place pervaded his senses; the odor of urine from the dye warehouses that ringed the southern side of the river mixed with the sting of blood and death from the tanners and butchers. Coal smoke permeated everything, a heavy, itchy overlay. And then there was the scent of vampires. That prickle of half-frozen blood that got beneath his skin. Funny how he didn’t mind how Hannah smelled; she was like frozen strawberries. It went surprisingly well with Fin’s verbena and lemon.
The pair of them were like produce.
Byrne wasn’t sure he could have handled sitting in the cart with the two of them for much longer. Not because they were being all lovey-dovey — the opposite, in fact. They were acting disgustingly normal. What ate at him was that they’d done something that could ruin the little family they’d built.
Whoa, slow down there.
But it was true.
Even though he spent more time wanting to throttle Fin than not, he still loved the idiot like a brother. And Hannah had managed to win him over the moment she’d tied that terrible diaper on Rena. Any woman who took time from fighting against her own demons to save a baby deserved any help he could give. The fact that she also happened to be a nice person who could tolerate Fin’s blather was a bonus.
Well, she more than just tolerates it, he thought.
Oh, shut up.
Byrne had been to Pinton before, but a long time ago; passing through when he’d been a bit younger, before he’d been held prisoner. The dialect here was very similar to Skarvs, and so far he’d had no trouble making do.
Fin sat next to him in the front of the cart, eyes scanning the cobblestone roadway ahead. They’d left the top on the wagon, so passersby would have trouble reaching in to touch Hannah, for whatever reason. Their experience with the hawker had taught them all to be cautious. The cart also provided protection from the wind for Rena. Hannah, stashed away in the back of the cart, was cradling Rena in her lap, bobbing the cub up and down.
“So where are we meant to be going?” Hannah asked.
Montrose had given them an address of an inn where the duchess would be staying. She had explained that Tatiana had chosen not to reside at the palace — even though she technically could expect the king’s hospitality, being one of the four rulers of Skarva. But because Tatiana was technically in town on family matters, rather than on a political visit, she’d wanted to keep some distance between her and the other monarch.
“Rutherford Hotel, Pittbrough Street,” Byrne said.
Foxtrot was in the harness, with Baldy and the goat following behind the cart. They crossed the stone and steel bridge over the river, with Foxtrot giving the horses passing in the opposite direction a disdainful flick of her tail.
On the other side of the river, Pinton came alive. Shiny carriages and brightly colored hackneys trundled by, with people hustling and bustling along the sidewalks in a purposeful manner. Humans and vampires were dressed in a range of attire, from worn calico to silk shirts and linen trousers.
Fin leaned out the side of the cart and read a street sign.
“We’re on Bridge Road.”
“Reckon Pittbrough Street is further up?” Byrne asked.
Fin studied the streets as they passed, something that happened at an unfortunately slow rate. Traffic had picked up quite a lot on this side of the river, and Byrne could detect a street market further up the road; the smell of cloth, metal and hot food among the myriad other odors to reach him. The afternoon sunlight glinted off the glass windows of the three- and four-story buildings that lined the streets.
“Yeah, town seems to be laid out in a grid pattern.”
Which was unlike Skarva, with its streets twisting in on themselves once you moved away from the commercial areas. More defensible, that way.
At last they reached the intersection of Pittbrough Street and Bridge Road. The street here was quite wide, which would have allowed for a steady flow of traffic, but for the market that lined both curbs. Small stalls with brightly covered awnings were crammed together in front of hulking bluestone walls to the north, and a row of large buildings to the south.
Byrne was taking shallow breaths, to keep his senses from being overwhelmed, but without warning his every nerve ending came to life.
Something smelled absolutely amazing.
Without meaning to, Byrne inhaled deeply, and the warm, dark scent of chocolate and sin reached him. Tinged with a strange dash of formaldehyde.
“Byrne!”
Byrne shook himself. Fin was staring at him like he’d gone nuts. Shouting reached him next — while he’d daydreamed, he’d been sitting in the cart, blocking all the traffic from Bridge Road turning onto Pittbrough Street.
Fin nudged him in the shoulder. “Get moving.”
Flicking the reins, Byrne clicked Foxtrot into motion. But his body was thrumming with tension.
“Give those to me,” Fin said, grabbing the reins from him. Too stunned and shaken to protest, Byrne handed them over.
Hannah moved forward from the back of the wagon. “What’s going on?”
“Byrne’s temporarily lost his mind,” Fin muttered.
With Fin driving the cart down Pittbrough Street, Byrne was able to look around. They were passing a building with ‘City G
uard’ carved in large letters over the top of the double doors, and the smell seemed to be thick around the structure.
A woman emerged and walked down the stairs, and all the air left Byrne’s lungs.
She was a tiny thing, barely five foot five, but she had the most amazing curly auburn hair, which crowned a face he could only see in profile. Her skin was a light brown, and her nose straight, with full lips.
Fin poked him. “Dude, you are staring.”
Byrne didn’t care. He couldn’t take his eyes away. “Who is she?”
“As if I know. But I can tell you I haven’t slept with her.”
A low growl rose from deep within Byrne’s chest, completely unbidden. He glared at Fin.
Fin gave him an easy grin. “Thought that might get your attention.”
Byrne turned back to find the woman, but she’d gone.
“Fuck.”
“What is going on?” Hannah demanded, obviously sick of waiting for Byrne to explain himself. Or for Fin to stop being a dick.
She would have to wait a while for the latter, Byrne thought.
“I think Byrne just got his first hard-on in, like, ever,” Fin said. “Cover it up, man, you don’t want to make the rest of us look bad.”
“What?”
Byrne’s cheeks warmed. The stupid human was right. He crossed one leg at his knee.
Hannah leaned forward from the back of the wagon, but Fin put a palm across her eyes.
“No looking.” His normally jovial face was hard, despite his light tone. “I don’t need you to think my charming self is in any way inferior, because I’m not.”
He only dropped his hand when she sat back.
That’s when it dawned on Byrne. Fin liked Hannah. Not the normal way Fin liked women, but in a far more serious manner. The human was jealous of Hannah seeing Byrne’s state, even though it had nothing to do with the vampire, and was thankfully reducing as the delicious smell grew fainter. Not that Byrne thought Hannah had been sneaking forward for a peek. She was probably just a bit confused, as most people were around Byrne and Fin.
It was then Fin pulled the wagon to a stop. Taking a deep breath, he turned to look at Byrne and then Hannah. “We’re here.”
Bitten (The Graced Series Book 2) Page 27
