21 Shades of Night, page 288
All she wanted was to turn her MINI around and escape back to her tidy house where no one expected anything more of her than to be weird, freakish Shay.
What the hell that said about her, that she preferred to be looked at as a freak than a bargaining chip and cash cow, she wasn’t sure.
Sighing, she drove over the pot-hole filled dirt road, bypassing family members crafting their wares and dark-haired children who waved as she passed. The Evernight family had owned this property for more than a century, but all Shay felt inside its borders was suffocation.
It took her another five minutes of driving to reach Phoenix’s trailer. While the shades were drawn and it looked uninviting, she had no doubt her grandmother was home. What Shay couldn’t gauge was what the closed-off appearance was trying to warn her of, because if there was one thing Phoenix could be relied on, it was having a purpose for everything, down to every flutter of her eyelashes.
“You should have told him.” Gemma hissed.
Shay hesitated on the rickety metal porch of Phoenix’s trailer. The air surrounding her went frigid, frosting over the plastic of the screen door in front of her and sending a deep ache into her bones. Gemma shot forward from her left side, her translucent face a mask of raw fury as she sent another blast of cold at her.
“Weak, useless slut!”
“Whoa.” Fisting her hands at her sides, Shay slowly turned her head to meet the ghost’s gaze. “Out of line, Gem.”
“You’re going to kill him! You know it! You saw it!” Gemma’s fingers slashed out, ripping at Shay’s arm with her fingernails. “You were supposed to save him!”
Razor-sharp pain hazed her vision, staggering her sideways. “I broke it off—“
“Bitch!”
Unexpected pain burst behind Shay’s eyes as she hit the ground hard, and the last thing she saw as her world turned gray, was her grandmother swinging an iron fire poker at the furious ghost.
Chapter 13
“I DON’T GET it.” Tyler shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans before he gave in to the urge to reach across the slab and strangle the medical examiner.
Short, round, and squirrely, with thick-lensed glasses, greasy brown hair, and an apparent dislike of anyone with an actual heartbeat, Charles Long was as unlikable as he was unpleasant.
“There’s a surprise,” Long muttered. He rolled his eyes. “The brain-dead bodybuilder doesn’t get something.” Sighing, he turned the file around so the words faced Tyler and Deacon, then tapped his pudgy finger on the page, half-way down. “It’s pretty easy, so even you jugheads should be able to follow along. Raven Evernight’s heart did not explode.”
Deacon frowned. “Then why did the previous medical examiner list that as cause of death?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” Pushing his coke-bottle glasses up his pug nose, Long shrugged. “A heart can’t explode. Not without some kind of outside help—like a 50 cal bullet.” When Tyler and Deacon both stared at him, waiting expectantly, he sighed. “My predecessor wasn’t a messy record keeper, and he didn’t make mistakes in his reports. Either someone altered Raven Evernight’s file, or…”
sighed when his voice trailed off, snapping, “Or?”
“Or someone blackmailed him into changing it.” Long closed the file and handed it back to Deacon. “Are we done here?”
“Almost.” Planting his fists against the metal slab of the exam table, Tyler leaned forward. “Let’s talk hypothetical. What could make a heart explode?”
Long took a step back, his beady eyes wary. “An outside projectile.” He scrambled past them toward the door. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have patients to see to.”
“One more question.” Tyler ignored Long’s rolling eyes. “What shape was the body in? There’s no mention of wounds or trauma, outside the heart.”
For the first time, a tiny spark of interest lit in the guy as he re-opened the file. “That’s the weird part. Her body was a mess of perimortem wounds. The notes don’t say anything else about them, but I remember that day. Raven Evernight had been carved up.”
A quick glance at Deacon showed he handled that information about as well as Tyler, whose stomach had taken a long, sickening roll. “Perimortem—that means around the time of death, right?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Deacon didn’t say anything until after Long had shut the door in his face. “Am I the only one creeped out by the fact that fucker refers to dead people as ‘patients’?” He glanced over as Tyler dug his phone out of his back pocket and checked his messages. “All right, I’m just going to say it. What the fuck is going on in my town, Wade?”
Shoving his phone back into his pocket when he hadn’t received anything from Shay, he stopped walking and waited for Deacon to face him. “You sure you want to know? There’s no going back from knowledge like this, Deke.”
“Fuck no, I don’t. Not when you put it like that, asshole.” Spearing his fingers through his hair, he turned and started down the hallway. While Tyler gave him ten steps, it only took seven before Deacon turned around and spread his feet, his arms crossed over his chest. “All right. I’m listening.”
Tyler’s respect for the man bumped up. Not a lot of people—hell, basically no one—handled this kind of shit without breaking down and denying it. “Without photo proof, it’s only a guess, but I’ve only heard of a body being carved up around time of death for one reason. A sacrifice for raising demons.”
Deacon stared at him for a full twenty seconds before he threw his head back and laughed. “Of course. Why the hell wouldn’t it be demon raising?”
“Deke—”
Deacon held up a hand. “Just give me a fucking moment, Ty.” Finally, he sighed and met Tyler’s gaze again. “All right, so the rumors are true. Shay’s family is mixed up in some nasty shit. That doesn’t answer the most important questions, though.”
Tyler nodded. “Who used her to raise the damn thing, and if they actually succeeded.” He impatiently checked his phone again. All this talk of demons mixed with her family had him all kinds of pissed off and nervous. “My guess on the latter would be no, or you’d have known about it way before now.”
“That’s something, I guess,” Deacon muttered. He rubbed his neck as Tyler scrolled through his phone for the hundredth time. “Still nothing?”
“No.” He scowled at his phone, trying to shake the uneasiness scratching along his spine. “That’s five unanswered texts and phone calls.”
“She could be busy at the shop.” He stopped and tapped Raven’s file against Tyler’s chest. “I thought you wanted to figure this out?”
Tyler grunted, but honestly, the autopsy on Shay’s mother had lasted this long unsolved. It could wait a little longer. They had no more answers than they’d started with, and he was starting to think it was a dead end. Hell, the only thing he could think about was Shay. She’d sent him a message two hours ago saying they needed to talk, but she hadn’t responded to any of his texts or calls since. While he couldn’t explain it, and wasn’t sure if he’d want to even if he could, there was a definite sense of foreboding pressing down on his shoulders. Every instinct he had screamed it had to do with Shay.
He looked at Deacon. “What’s Hayden’s number? Maybe she’s seen her.” At Deacon’s dark look, Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’m not hitting on her, for fuck’s sake.”
Deacon relaxed and rattled off the number. “I’m going to grab a cup of coffee then head back to the station. You know where to find me if you need anything.”
Yeah, I need you to find Shay.
Dragging a hand down his face, he shoved his phone into his back pocket and followed Deacon toward the cafeteria. “You know this town better than I do. If Shay’s not at her place or her store, where would she be?”
Deacon punched the down button for the elevator, then rolled his neck as they waited. “At noon on a Wednesday? I’ve never known her to be anywhere but at work during the day.”
That’s what he was afraid of. The elevator doors opened and Tyler went in first, vaguely aware of the way the other inhabitants immediately greeted Deacon. The chief chatted with them as they headed to the main floor. His tone was easygoing and casual, two things Tyler didn’t have in him to feel at the moment.
Not with the damn gypsy taking up all the space in his head.
Wishing he could force the elevator to fucking move, he was ready to plow through everyone in front of him to get the hell out when the door opened. His head was down, not wanting to make eye contact and encourage any conversation as he stepped out, only to come to an abrupt halt as he saw the small figure waiting to board the elevator.
The first thing he noticed was the fatigue shadowing her whiskey eyes. Guilt and worry sucker-punched him, but before he could apologize for his part in her exhaustion, his gaze lit on the white bandages wrapped around her left biceps.
He stalked toward her until her back hit the wall opposite the elevator.
He just slapped his hands on the painted brick on either side of her head, caging her in. “What. The. Hell.”
* * *
WITH HER MOUTH open to tell him to back off, to remind him they weren’t together, he said her name, and the mixture of pain and guilt in his voice straight-up weakened her knees.
He ducked his head. His eyes scanned every inch of her face and exposed skin, looking for any other wound. “Shay.”
God, had anyone ever said her name that way? Or looked at her that way? Like the idea of her being hurt broke something inside of him?
Instinct had her hands slipping around his waist, and her head tilting back. She threw common sense to the wind, telling herself she at least owed him the truth. Right?
Hell, she didn’t know anymore.
Of their own accord, her fingers slipped under the hem of his flannel shirt, like they craved skin-to-skin contact. “Hey, it’s okay. Just a couple of scratches.”
“Unacceptable.” The words ground out of him. Lifting one hand off the wall, he touched her cheek, and then growled. “What happened?” He moved in closer before she could answer, wedging her tightly between his large body and the wall. “The truth, gypsy.”
Deciding she’d worry later about how he knew she was about to lie to him, she let her head fall back against the wall as her gaze locked with his. “Your mother was angry at me.”
He didn’t move, or even so much as blink for several long moments, but just stared with a frown marring that gruff, permanently pissed-off face. “Why?”
She wanted to tell him he couldn’t demand answers from her. Or look at her with that hunger blazing in his eyes. She should be reminding him she’d broken things off, and standing this close to her was a bad idea. But his surfer-blond hair was a mess, as if he’d dragged restless fingers through it a hundred times, and despite herself, that mental image softened everything inside her she was trying so desperately to harden against him.
“Shay.”
Blowing out a breath, she ducked under his arm and grabbed his hand, pulling him with her as she started down the hallway. After a few minutes, she found an unoccupied room and led him in to it.
In an effort to prologue the inevitable, her eyes lit on the bed, the chair, even the television secured on the wall, anything but him. His gaze never left her face as he shut the door behind them and leaned back against it, his arms crossed over his mountain-sized chest.
And she realized, he would have no problem waiting her out, even if it took her an hour to finally say the words.
“I have dreams sometimes.” Because that sounded so stupid—everyone dreamed—she made a face at herself and tried again. “I have visions that come in the form of dreams sometimes. And last night, I had one about you.”
He waited a beat. “I’m listening.”
God, why was he looking at her that way? For the first time in her life, she wished someone would look at her with distrust and accusation, rather than trust. It would hurt less. Make her want less. Remind her that she was a freak who didn’t deserve what he was offering her, even if she didn’t fully understand it.
“It started off good. Like, really good.”
Amusement flickered in his eyes. “We were having sex?”
“Amazing sex,” she clarified. “Your hair was a little longer, and you had a new, tiny scar on your cheekbone. So it was at least a few months from now. And then…”
As she drew in a breath, he flipped the lock on the door and closed the distance between them. “And then…?”
She decided it was time to go all-in. If he couldn’t handle her, he could be the one to walk away. “The dream-vision shifted. We were in the woods, and I was breaking your heart.”
He frowned.
She nodded, surprised she could talk around the lump of dread and pain in her throat. “I couldn’t stop. You were begging me, telling me you needed me, and I couldn’t give you what you wanted.”
“Okay.” His voice was soft, gentle, as if soothing a wounded animal. “What happened then?”
“I killed you. I ripped your heart out of your chest and left you lying on the forest floor.”
Silence.
She chewed on her lip. “Did you hear me? I killed you.”
He cleared his throat, his face expressionless. “You ripped my heart out of my chest.”
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Okay.” He took a step closer to her. Then another. “And I just stood there and let you?”
Slapping a hand on his chest to halt his forward momentum had about the same effect as telling a charging bull to slow down. “You’re laughing at me.”
He shook his head.
“No.” Plucking her hand off his chest, he kissed her palm, then hooked his free arm under her butt and lifted her, depositing her on the bed in one smooth motion. “I’m not laughing, Shay. I’m really far from being fucking amused.”
“Oh.” She leaned back as he braced his hands on either side of her hips. “Then why aren’t you yelling at me? Or calling me names or, I don’t know, doing something?”
He slid his fingers down the outside of her thighs, before gripping her knees and pulling her legs apart so he could step in between them. And whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t him wrapping his arms around her and pressing their brows together, his intense eyes boring in to hers.
“Because we both know I wouldn’t stand there and let anyone, even you, kill me. Which means the dream-vision had to be a metaphor for something, and whatever it is, it’s eating you up. I don’t like it.”
Feeling like she was drowning in him and quickly losing her way up, she scooted in closer and hooked her heels behind his thighs. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “I think it means being with me will kill you.”
“That makes more sense,” he murmured. Strong, callused fingers worked at the tension in her neck. “Any idea why?”
Her defenses gone, she tilted her head back to search his face. “My family. I don’t know how it’s connected to them, I just know it is.”
Chapter 14
“ALL RIGHT.” HE pressed his lips to her brow. “So, we figure out what your family’s up to.”
A faint, adorable frown line appeared between her temper-filled eyes.
“I just told you they’re going to kill you—as in, it will happen,” she snapped, “and your response is to figure out what they’re doing?”
“Yes.” Christ, she was so fucking pretty. He wasn’t sure what the hell kind of magic she was using to draw him in so completely, so goddamn quickly, but he’d be damned if he could find a way to protect himself against it. “One, because I’m starting to suspect they had something to do with my mother’s disappearance and two, because I’m not afraid of them. And I’m sure as shit not going to hide and stay under the radar.”
She searched his face for a long moment, before she bit the inside of her cheek and nodded.
“Okay. I get it.” She poked him in the chest. “You’re crazy.”
He lowered his head to look at where her finger drilled into his chest, but his gaze snagged on her breasts and like the animal he was, all rational thought fled. The lust for her that always lived right under the surface of his skin leapt to life, igniting into raw, unadulterated hunger. His fingers tightening on her hips, he dragged her closer and nudged her head back with his own, before trailing his mouth over the curve of her jaw.
“Maybe.” He nipped her chin, and then closed his mouth over hers and let himself feel her, just for a fucking moment, before hell crashed down around him again.
The deeper he took the kiss, the more essential her taste became. Until he craved it, hungered for it, was desperate for it. Spreading her thighs wider, he moved in, groaning into her mouth as she rocked against him, the soft heat of her fitting against him perfectly.
Her hands wrapped around his waist, and then slid under his shirt. The touch of her skin jolted him, and he tangled his fingers in her hair, tugging her head back so he could devour her. A soft moan escaped her and he ate it up, greedy for more. For everything.
He hooked his hand into the back collar of his shirt and yanked it off, and the way she licked her lips as she stared at him had a firestorm lighting up inside his bloodstream. His torso was covered in just as many scars as tattoos, but there was something close to worship in her eyes as she leaned forward and traced her tongue, followed by her fingers, over the taut muscles of his chest.
