“Hair from Philip and from Melvin Booker.”
“I can get it for you.”
“I need to collect it myself.”
She touched his arm, sending fire straight to his dick. “I asked about Mettes having a girlfriend because it struck me Aislinn might know someone who’d be perfect for him.”
He resisted glancing down at the emerald-green stone in her bracelet. “Let’s go. Hospital first.”
So he could square things up in his head. Because yeah, he wanted to know he’d done everything he could for Freeman, even if this was all some kind of mental placebo effect.
He’d heard the way she carefully avoided making any promises to Mettes. But she hadn’t taken his money, she hadn’t made herself a heroine, hadn’t even vilified whoever made the doll. She’d stepped up immediately to help a cop she didn’t know because it was the right thing to do.
He steered her toward his car, trying not to think too hard about the warmth soaking into his palm where it rested at the base of her spine. Or how he was already violating the no-touching rule.
Steps away from the vehicle he remembered the ring on the passenger-side floor, and fuck, he didn’t want her to see that. He took his hand off her, careful not to catch her expression when he said, “I’ll follow you to the hospital.”
Chickenshit.
Yeah. It’s called self-preservation.
It’s called doing the right thing. For him. For her.
He got in his car. “Dodged a bullet there,” he said, thinking about what it would have been like, to smell her perfume every time he needed to drive somewhere.
At the hospital, his badge got them in after visiting hours. He recognized Kuklin, the uniformed cop posted there for Freeman, and corralled him, giving him a line about Seraphine being important to Freeman and maybe being able to reach him, draw him out of the coma.
Husky murmurs came from the bedside as he blocked Kuklin from seeing Seraphine take the hair. He didn’t know what she was saying to Freeman, but he thought having her at his bedside would be enough to make him fight to get back to her. And Jesus, this might be total bullshit, but was it hurting anybody?
It was kind of like the stuff Aislinn sold.
You love the woman, you accept what comes along with her.
And the reverse? Is that how it was for his mother? You love the man and you accept the hell he puts you through until you can’t anymore.
Yeah, well, that particular cycle was going to end with him.
Thankfully Booker was still in the morgue and not at a funeral home or in the ground. He forced himself to watch as Seraphine removed a small pair of scissors from her purse, whispered something before snipping a lock of hair and placing it in a baggie.
“Thanks for doing this,” he said, the words coming straight from his heart and Jesus, he wanted to say them with her in his arms, his nose buried in her glorious hair and his lips against her neck.
She glanced up, her gaze colliding with his and heating up the airspace between them.
Invite me back to your place
, his cock begged.
When she didn’t, he made sure she got to her car safely. He watched her drive away then headed home, refusing to acknowledge the ring on the passenger-side floor and doing his best not to think about the blond he’d seen her with.
Chapter Eleven
Exhaustion slammed into Dylan as he entered his apartment. He didn’t bother trying to determine just how much sleep he’d gotten in the last seventy-two hours.
He glanced at the recliner, his favorite piece of furniture. Crash there for a while? Or on the couch?
His thoughts moved to the trashed mattress, to Old Tomas, dead next to a stinking Dumpster. Fear crawled through him. Dread. Anger at Seraphine for being more than a witch playing a con, at himself for knowing he was like his old man and still not being able to keep away from her.
He grabbed some blankets from the closet and went into the bathroom. It was the only place other than the kitchen without carpeting.
For a long moment he contemplated making his bed in the tub. Fuck. He didn’t want to live like this. He made his bed on the floor.
Despite the exhaustion, sleep was a long time coming. His cock ignored his edict not to think about Seraphine. His heart throbbed with cold ache, exposing the hope he hadn’t allowed himself to consciously hold.
He wanted what he had glimpsed at Seraphine’s house. He wanted the future where the two of them were part of the change taking place in the lives of the other detectives. Trace, Miguel and Conner, Storm—hell, even Brady—leaving the fun of single for the excitement and challenge of committed. He wanted to remain on the inside of a tight-knit group instead of becoming the only man standing, the one on the outside, forever looking in.
Deal with it.You’ll only tear Seraphine apart the same way you did Heather, the same way your old man did your mother.
Only he couldn’t see Seraphine standing for the shit his mother had.
She’d probably turn me into a frog.
Grim humor that didn’t prevent the hot scrape of raw emotion from raking through his chest and gut as he thought about her going home and having the blond waiting there for her, the two of them fucking against the door. On the kitchen table. In bed.
He was probably some professor, given the long hair. Probably a friend of Storm’s husband, somebody who though the witchcraft was
fascinating
.
Dylan couldn’t hold the images of her being with someone else, not when the memory of being sheathed in her hot, tight channel was so fresh. Not when he could remember in exquisite detail the feel of her lips and hands on him, the smooth press of her skin to his.
Why the fuck not? he asked himself, capturing his cock, working it, trying to find relief and justifying it by telling himself this would help him sleep.
But even after he’d coated his chest in a hot rush of semen then taken a shower before once again stretching out on the bathroom floor, his mind fought his body, afraid to slide into helplessness and create an opportunity for the whispers and screams to take over.
They came anyway, as they had the night before. In a nightmare he struggled to rise from but couldn’t.
His heart thundered, frantically beating inside his head only to slowly fade, draining away through his wrists. Panic freed him again. He jerked awake, thoughts going to the strawberry-blonde he’d stood over, understanding colliding with denial and winning this time.
He’d felt her death. Just as he’d felt this one and knew there’d be another body to stand over.
He sat in darkness, the screams and whispers loud again. Insidious.
Raw terror swept through him at what they might lead him to do. He lifted his hand, felt it shake. A cold knot formed in his chest at wondering if he’d get to the point where he didn’t trust himself to touch his gun for fear of eating one of his own bullets.
He didn’t need to feel blood streaming across his palm and dripping onto the floor to know what he’d find when he turned on the light. He got to his feet. Flipped on the switch.
Another murder scene greeted him. The blanket was soaked. What it hadn’t absorbed was pooled on either side of where he’d lain, like small lakes of red surrounded by creamy ceramic sands.
There was enough of it he should feel dizzy, lightheaded. He didn’t. But this time he wasn’t shocked by the discovery.
He took the charm off its necklace, pressed it to the cut across his palm. The screams subsided to tolerable. He laughed at that description, and the sound was scary in itself.
The whispers eased a little bit. Not enough for him to be on the job and functioning the way he needed to be.
Sweat coated his skin as he gathered the blankets. He tossed them into the washer, saw to the task of cleaning the bathroom floor, delaying the inevitable until he no longer could.
He called Trace. “We need to find the witch—warlock—whoever’s got the fucking blade and stop them. There’s been another sacrifice.”
“Then there’s going to be a body dump. The patrol units are watching for one.”
They both knew it could happen anywhere, anytime, and completely out of their jurisdiction.
“Seraphine have any suggestions?”
“I don’t know.”
Trace gave an exaggerated sigh. “You’re not with her?”
“No.”
“We need more, Dylan.”
When he didn’t jump on the excuse to see her, Trace said, “Fine. I’ll give her a call in a few hours. It’ll hold until then.”
And perversely, he countered, “I’ll do it.”
Hours ticked by at a slow crawl as he tried to fill them with mindless TV, refusing to show up at her doorstep and discover the blond in her bed. Or get sucked into the ceremony she’d told Mettes she’d perform at dawn.
Morning light came as he got in his car, catching on the green stone in his ring and he couldn’t leave it on the floor. He shoved it in his pocket with all the other junk he kept there, only to catch himself fingering it through the fabric of his trousers.
Son of a bitch
.
Gritting his teeth, he refused,
refused
to put it back on. Accepting certain truths when it came to Lucifer’s Blade, even accepting that for some couples—namely Trace and Aislinn—heartstones might indicate a perfect match, didn’t have anything to do with him and Seraphine.
His dick begged to differ, swelling with further denial of his claim when he turned onto her street just as she left her house—alone. Christ, she was beautiful. He wanted her and it wasn’t all about sex or getting answers.
His heart sped up. And if it felt like the ring was burning through his pocket, that was pure bullshit, nothing more than the spread of heat from having all his blood rush to his cock.
She was heading to her car, left in the alleyway leading to a stand-alone garage at the back of the house. He didn’t speed up to intercept her.
She was probably going to work. Just as well. It would be better to talk there than risk going inside.
The insidious whispers made it a lie.
His fingers were white on the steering wheel by the time they reached a parking garage on campus.
He hesitated before entering it after her, decided that showing up now or in her office five minutes from now wasn’t going to make much difference to his pride.
The spaces on the third level were all marked reserved. She pulled into a slot toward the end, close to a stairwell.
He claimed a spot at the front to buy some time before contact, figuring odds were good he’d be gone before some professor showed up and called security to have him towed.
Seraphine got out of her car.
He did the same.
She glanced in his direction and smiled.
Desire burned a path between the two of them and it was more than just lust.
He wanted her. Jesus he wanted her.
Instead of heading toward the back stairwell, she came toward him. Longing swelled in his chest and cock, a chaotic mix he fought to ignore, a clamoring that overrode the whispers.
Cop instinct jerked his attention away from her just as a man emerged from the stairwell wearing a ski mask. He was followed by a second one, both of them rushing toward Seraphine.
Dylan had his 9mm liberated without it being a conscious thought. “Police! Stop!”
The guy closest to Seraphine swung his arm up.
Dylan saw the gun and reacted with two rapid-fire bursts, going for center mass and dropping the assailant before shifting his aim to the other man.
He was trying to grab Seraphine and force her toward her car.
She flipped him.
But even as Dylan rushed forward, the second assailant scrambled to his feet and fled into the stairwell.
“Kick the gun away,” Dylan said as he raced passed Seraphine, calling for backup as he rushed down the stairs in pursuit.
His gut said they wouldn’t catch the runner. Sweatshirt and jeans. Pull off the mask and slow to a walk, it would be too easy to merge into the college population or escape the campus altogether.
By the time he got to the base of the garage, he saw students in the distance, too many to question and he refused to get too far away from Seraphine. He left the stairwell, slipped into the parking area and knelt, looking for someone crouched, using a car for cover.
Nothing. No one.
He cleared the space, sirens telling him backup was close.
He returned to Seraphine. Damn if she didn’t look kickass and in control, like she could take on any challenge and overcome it.
He paused long enough to check the assailant he’d shot for a pulse then pulled her into a hug. Slammed his mouth on hers.
Jesus. He’d nearly lost her.
Her trembling matched his.
She returned the feverish kisses, her lips clinging to his, her tongue rubbing, twining with his in desperate hunger. His heart thundered and he didn’t bother telling himself it was from the righteous kill or the chase or anything else. He inhaled her scent, tightened his arms around her.
Christ. If he hadn’t followed her…
Her arms were tight around him, her body heat soaking through his clothes so all he wanted to do was get her back to her place and fuck her hard, fast and probably into tomorrow.
He could hear the first patrol car enter the garage. Somehow he managed to take his mouth off hers.
“Nice demonstration of self-defense,” he said, forcing himself to start thinking with the big head instead of the little one. “Any reason to believe they were targeting you specifically? Any problems with students or faculty? Any threats?”
“No.”
He closed his eyes. Rubbed his cheek against her hair. He had a second, maybe two of remaining contact. “What about spillover from the other stuff? The…”
“Witchcraft.”
“Yeah. That.”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“As positive as I can be, Dylan. Blood magic is not necessarily black magic.”
He left her arms an instant before the first radio car hit their level.
More followed.
And after those, paramedics who wouldn’t be needed.
Internal affairs. The coroner.