by Deanna Chase
Elise was tempted. But even though Anthony had refused to be fuck buddies, he still had feelings for her. Complicated ones. She hadn’t given up on Lincoln yet—and, selfishly, she cared more about her odds with the deputy than having backup.
“Stay in Vegas,” Elise said, grabbing a couple of shirts that looked like they would probably fit. “But keep your schedule open. I’ll let you know if something changes.”
“You know I’ve got your back,” Anthony said.
“I know,” she said, heading for the counter. “Give me a call when McIntyre finishes getting through the photos of the bites.”
“Yeah, of course. But if James fucks with you…”
“He won’t,” Elise said. She wouldn’t let him.
Anthony hung up without saying goodbye.
Elise dropped the phone into the pocket of Lincoln’s jeans, then took the clothes to the counter. “Find everything all right?” asked the cashier.
She fingered James’s necklace where it hung between her breasts. “Unfortunately,” Elise said.
Elise checked her reflection in the mirror on the counter as the cashier rang up her purchases. The tooth marks hadn’t healed yet. She added a scarf to the pile of clothes she was buying.
The bell over the shop’s door jangled.
“Morning,” the cashier called over Elise’s head. “Nice to see you again.”
“You too,” responded a sweet, youthful female voice. The bite marks on Elise’s throat ached. Her bicep throbbed.
She turned, and came face to face with Rylie Gresham, Alpha of the werewolf pack. Evidently, she had recovered from the seizure induced by Elise’s blood, and looked otherwise unharmed. She was wearing another white sundress, cowboy boots, and a nervous smile.
“Hi, Elise,” Rylie said. “Can we talk?”
Thunder rolled through the looming gray clouds, and it began to drizzle. Elise still took shelter underneath a tree outside the consignment shop—more from the dim sunlight than the rain. She had a great view of the Bain Marshall statue from where she stood. He was a good two stories taller than any other building in downtown Northgate.
In the daylight, Rylie was deceptively cute, considering that she had been a bloodthirsty wolf the night before. With the top of her head barely at Elise’s shoulder and a constant blush glowing from her cheeks, she hardly looked Alpha enough to lead a pack of killer monsters.
But Elise had underestimated her once. She wasn’t going to do that again.
“Where are your bodyguards?” Elise asked. Rylie looked adorably confused. Her brow furrowed, her lips pouted. Someone save me from teeny boppers. Elise elaborated by adding, “Where are the brothers, Seth and Abel?”
Rylie’s eyes widened. “They’re not my bodyguards.”
“Boyfriends?”
Her blush turned a deeper shade of pink. She stepped sideways, moving deeper into the shelter of the tree. Rain pattered on the grass in a hushed sigh, misting the earth. “Look, I came here to apologize.”
Elise folded her arms. Apologize? For Abel shooting her in the face, being chained up in spotlights, getting her throat torn out by a wolf?
At the expectant silence, Rylie continued to speak.
“I don’t think you’re the killer,” she said in a breathless rush. “I believe what you said last night. Nash told me that you’re new to the area, and these murders have been happening for weeks. It couldn’t be you. So, I believe you.” Rylie grimaced. “Abel shouldn’t have shot you. He saw you lurking, and with these murders, he’s been on edge, and…” Rylie shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“If ‘Nash’ is talking, does that mean he’s recovered?” Elise asked.
“Mostly,” Rylie said. “He’s been…lapsing. It’s like, sometimes, he’s still in the war.” She picked at her thumbnail, as if unable to meet Elise’s eyes. “The old war between angels and demons.”
Elise knew exactly what war Rylie meant. Eve remembered watching ancient human city-states burn under infernal and ethereal assault. The battles between Lilith and Adam had carried on for centuries after Eve died, too. It only ended when Metaraon finally locked Adam in the garden, and the Treaty of Dis was forged to seal humanity’s safety.
Rylie lifted her gaze to Elise’s. The girl’s eyes were shockingly, unmistakably gold, but there was no shyness in them. She didn’t hang her head because she was afraid to look at people. She was trying to conceal the beast within.
“Nash has been out of it for a long time,” Rylie said. “He was isolated from other angels and normal people up until a couple of months ago, so you have to take it easy on him. He’s been having a hard time adjusting.”
“Are you helping him adjust?” Elise asked. She meant to say, Are you fucking the angel, too? But Rylie didn’t seem to hear that implication.
“It’s mostly been my…um, my sister,” Rylie said. “Summer’s taking care of him. But the whole pack helps.”
An angel under the care of a werewolf pack. Nashriel must have fallen a long way to need that kind of help.
Elise’s mouth twisted. “There’s a murderer in your pack.”
“No way.”
“I’ve seen the bodies, kid. They’re werewolf victims.”
Rylie’s eyes sparked. “Kid? I’m the Alpha. You have no right to talk to me like that.”
Elise chewed over her response, studying this so-called Alpha. Rylie wasn’t much to look at. Elise could have taken Abel seriously, maybe, but not a diminutive blond in cowboy boots.
“I measured the bite radius of the injuries you inflicted on me last night,” Elise said. “I’m going to match it to the radii on the cadavers. If it’s a werewolf bite, I’ll know soon.”
“But until then, there’s no evidence,” Rylie pressed. “Do you have pictures? Did you find fur at the crime scenes? Claw marks? Blood samples?”
Elise hadn’t actually found anything at the crime scenes, because she hadn’t had access to them yet. Lincoln had sworn to take her before he went into work that afternoon. “I don’t know,” Elise said acerbically. “What do the files that Seth and Abel stole from the Grove County Sheriff’s Office say about it?”
Rylie looked like she had been slapped. “What files?”
So she hadn’t known about that. Seth and Abel had lied—if not overtly, then by omission.
Elise went on. “You’ll have to ask your boyfriends. Better yet, let me ask them. I want to see what evidence they’re trying to hide.”
Rylie recovered quickly from her shock. “There’s no evidence that we’re guilty in those files. You’ve got to realize that.”
“I’m not convinced of your innocence—you mauled me.”
“You hurt Nash first.”
“I was trying to break free of your imprisonment,” Elise said. “You captured me for no reason.”
“You mean, when you were watching us last night, you didn’t have any plans of hurting us?” Rylie asked, folding her arms, standing firm in the face of Elise’s accusation. “You were chasing Trevin out of…what, curiosity?”
Touché. Elise had been on the verge of stabbing a wolf. If Abel hadn’t shot her, there would have been a body on the ground. But she wouldn’t apologize for that.
Rylie took a step closer, squaring her shoulders, as if preparing for a fight. “When I bit you last night, I saw something that I don’t understand. There were images in my mind.”
The Alpha waited, as if prompting Elise for some kind of answer.
But Elise remained silent.
“I saw a garden,” Rylie continued softly. “I saw you in pain, with blood on your hands. And I think…I think I saw into your heart.” Her brow furrowed. “I saw sadness.”
Elise fought to keep her expression straight, her jaw clenched.
Rylie had tasted Elise’s blood and seen the garden.
It was a private, painful memory. Elise hadn’t given Anthony or McIntyre, who she considered her only friends, details about what had happened to her there. Yet this girl, this c
hild, barely out of adolescence, had walked through the black gardens in Elise’s mind.
“Did you see anything from me?” Rylie asked. Her tone had dropped to a whisper.
Elise shut her eyes, remembering the swollen moon, and jumping from the top of a mountain.
She had felt something strange in that memory. It was the same thing that she had felt in the garden, the same sense of immense power and destiny. Rylie had been touched by gods, too. Maybe not the same ones that Elise had, and in a very different way, but she was touched.
They had something in common. Something very important.
Elise said, “I didn’t see anything. You must have been hallucinating.”
Rylie didn’t look convinced. “Your blood tastes weird. It’s like apple cider.”
Elise reached into her pocket. Rylie tensed, gold eyes flashing, but Elise only extracted Lincoln’s cell phone. “Give me your phone number.”
“What? Why?”
“I told you that I’m doing some investigating today. If you’re innocent, I’ll contact you.” Elise lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Maybe together…maybe we can figure out who’s trying to blame these murders on your wolves.”
Relief flooded Rylie’s features. “We can do that. That would be great.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You don’t know what I’m going to find.”
“You’re going to find that the bites don’t match my jaw, because my pack and I are innocent,” Rylie said. “We’re not monsters. I’ve got everyone under control, and all we want to do is live in our sanctuary in peace.”
“Is that what those cottages are? A sanctuary?”
“Yeah. And I hope that someday, they might be home, too,” Rylie said.
The earnestness of it plucked at some deep, tender part of Elise. Probably not Elise, actually—Eve was a sucker for that kind of talk. Elise wanted to roll her eyes. But she nodded, as if Rylie needed her consent to have a werewolf sanctuary, and the conversation was over.
Rylie dictated a phone number. Elise saved it to Lincoln’s contacts, then returned the phone to her pocket. The girl started to back away, heading for a steel blue Chevy Chevelle that was parked on the curb.
Elise blew out a sigh. “Either way, however this turns out…tell Nashriel I’m sorry. For everything. And he really is forgiven.”
A smile flitted across Rylie’s face, brightening her features like the sun breaking through the clouds. “I’ll tell him that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lincoln was dreaming of Hell again, but this time, Hell wasn’t a fiery pit. It was his bedroom. Blood poured from his walls, tracking amber stains on his family photos, spilling off of the crucifix mounted above his TV. His carpet was on fire. The only place that didn’t burn or bleed was his bed, and he couldn’t go there. She was waiting for him there.
Save me, the Devil said, reaching for him with black-nailed hands. You’re my salvation, Lincoln.
She lounged on his bed, utterly naked. Brown nipples tipped perfect, round breasts. Her hairless pubis led to the gash between her legs, where the flower of her vulva unfolded to reveal a flaming pit, screaming souls, endless wasteland.
But her face was innocent, doll-like. The blackness of her eyes was balanced by the need in her stare. Full red lips twisted in a fearful grimace. She was afraid of what she had become, afraid for Lincoln’s sake and her own.
He wanted to take that fear from her face. He wanted to join with her lonely body in that darkness and help her become whole.
She was evil embodied, as much a gateway to Hell as she was part of its fabric, and it would be death to plunge his arousal inside of her.
But Lincoln couldn’t stop himself. He was drawn to her suffering. She needed him.
He climbed on top of the bed, which was no longer made of wood and cotton. It was cradled in huge, leathery hands, with claw-tipped fingers and callused palms. Eyes stared at him where the headboard should have been. Bat wings churned the air, rocking the bed gently from side to side.
The Devil’s legs and arms wrapped around his body, pulling him tight to her breasts. Her nipples brushed against his chest hair. Her thighs clutched his hips.
Save me, Lincoln, said the Devil, her lips against his throat.
“Tell me what to do,” he said.
Let me bleed you. The hard edge of her teeth brushed the artery in his throat. Take me, and I’ll take you.
The angel was watching from somewhere above, disapproving and deadly.
But the Devil didn’t care.
Save me, Lincoln.
He buried himself inside of her, and she buried her teeth inside him. He filled her with his body. She drank his blood. The bed trembled with the roar of the demon holding it.
Lincoln was gone.
He woke up with a guttural cry tearing from his throat and orgasm seizing his body. He gripped the pillow to his chest, bit the sheets, thrust his hips hard into the mattress. He emptied himself onto the bed. When he was done, he collapsed, soaked with sweat.
His mind was blank. Numb.
The reality of his bedroom—sunny, warm, and quiet—was a far cry from the bloody chaos of the dream. It had been so vivid. So very real. Being inside of Elise had been…sin. The kind of sin worth going to Hell for.
Lincoln smothered his face with the pillow.
Lord, forgive me, he thought.
It took him a few minutes to gather the strength to shower. He still had a few of hours until he needed to be at work, but he feared the dream too much to try to sleep again.
He scrubbed himself in the shower, trying not to think about Elise naked in his tub the night before, and then stripped the semen-stained sheets off of his bed.
He dressed in uniform, leaving the collar unbuttoned. His house was still too hot. He turned on the ceiling fan, cracked the window, and stepped into the living room.
Lincoln wasn’t alone.
Elise sat on his recliner, much as she had been waiting for him on the first morning. She had closed his curtains and sat in darkness again. The cutoff shorts and baggy t-shirt looked innocuous enough—less like the Devil, and more like a college student visiting during break. She might actually blend in around Northgate.
Lincoln struggled to banish the mental image of her naked in his bed, surrounded by flames. This Elise was passably human. Not the Devil.
Or maybe the Devil in a more subtle disguise, whispered a voice in the back of his mind.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“You’re taking me on a date to a crime scene today,” Elise said, rising to her feet. When had he agreed to do that? Around the same time that they had been kissing on his desk?
Lincoln put on his hat, jammed his badge onto his belt.
“This isn’t a date,” he said.
“That’s disappointing. I find murder scenes incredibly sexy.”
He shot her a look, but Elise’s face was expressionless. He couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.
Do you want me to bleed you? she had asked, in total seriousness, while stroking him to the brink of climax. During the day, with the sun peeking through the clouds outside and Mrs. Kitteridge puttering around the front walk with her umbrella, the answer was a horrified, “No.” But the night before, he had been about to say, “Yes, please.”
“Let’s go,” he said, offering his arm to Elise. She took it. They walked through the drizzle, got into the cruiser, and went on their first date.
Bob Hagy had died a violent death. The sheriff’s department had cleared the scene overnight, but there were unmistakable marks of the struggle that had resulted in his murder: Claw marks on the asphalt. A puddle of blood in the middle of the road. A tree ripped out by its roots, flung across the lawn. Shattered windows. Broken fence.
The farm was two miles outside of Northgate: close enough to be a brisk walk from the local church, but distant enough to be a part of unincorporated Grove County. Elise imagined that this had once been a beautiful home—not Bob Ha
gy’s home, but someone else’s pride and joy. Now it looked like nobody had lived in the farmhouse for years. The paint was peeling. The fields were overgrown with weeds. There had probably been nobody nearby to hear Bob Hagy’s death cries.
The overcast day sucked all of the color out of the barn, the swaying grass, the puddle of blood. The forest was thick on either side of the property. Dense enough to make it feel utterly isolated.
She looped a finger through James’s warding ring as she paced the perimeter of the property, scanning the evidence that the sheriffs hadn’t been able to remove. It would take a long time and a lot of rain to wash that blood away. The road would have to be repaved to cover the claw marks, too.
“Werewolves,” Lincoln spat, like it was a curse.
Elise kneeled beside the puddle of blood to take a closer look. She could feel Lincoln’s eyes on her as she spread her fingers across the claw marks, estimating the size of the paw. “Do these gashes seem messy to you?”
He pulled his hat off and lowered to her side. He tapped the brim against his knuckles. “Claw marks should be messy.”
“But they look chiseled.” She ran her finger along the inside of the gouge. She was wearing her fingerless biker gloves again, and her sensitive fingertips traced the ridges. “A werewolf’s claws are sharp. They cut through rock as easily as you eat Poppy’s cherry pie. This seems hand-tooled.”
Lincoln frowned, trying to understand the implications of Elise’s accusation even as she moved onto the next evidence.
The blood splatter didn’t look like the product of a murder. Elise had killed a lot of demons. She had severed arteries, bled them out, dismembered them. This looked more like buckets had been emptied on the ground beneath them.
The more she looked at Bob Hagy’s murder scene, the faker it seemed.
But she had known it wouldn’t be real before they even arrived.
“When did you say the body was found?” Elise asked. She already knew, but she wanted Lincoln to repeat it, forcing him to go through the same thought process.
“Yesterday.”
“When was the full moon?”
