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“All right, all done,” he said after snapping the last pic and proceeded to march out of the room.
He paused just inside the front door, keeping one ear on Hazel’s movements, still alert to any threats around her. His skin felt too tight, like a thin, brittle layer stretching over a bundle of nerves, tense muscles, and a pulsing mess of need. It was like someone had removed everything inside him and replaced it with pressure, pushing outward against the crumbling veneer of his equilibrium. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, making him the kind of antsy that would only be relieved by either violence or sex.
Or, you know, mating his chosen female.
Nothing in his life had ever been as bad as this. Not even the constant starvation in the rotten dungeon of the fae had made him suffer this way. He was losing his mind, one breath at a time, losing control of the darker parts of him.
He’d never snap and force the bond on her by making her drink his blood against her will; that much he knew. Some demon species actually did that, not really caring about consent. In their view, when their mate didn’t kill them after, it was approval enough.
Fucking barbarians, the lot of them.
But even knowing he’d never coerce her or take the decision from her, he also felt, deep in his bones, that if he didn’t make his move soon, the pressure of it all would tear him apart. Going on like this, with his mating urge growing stronger by the day, while being confronted with situations such as this, where the circumstances would poke at his instincts like one would stir the coals of a fire, it would corrode him from the inside out. Like a starved body that was starting to digest itself for lack of nutrition.
In an ideal world, he’d have more time to court her, to soften whatever resistance she had against making this official—and she obviously had some blocks where that was concerned. She’d made that pretty fucking clear when she’d all but shoved him in her closet to hide his presence from Basil and make sure no one would know about Tallak’s involvement with her.
Like she was ashamed of him.
The thought stung, stabbed him right in the part of his ego that was bruised already by the time he’d spent as Roana’s hidden lover, brought back memories of how she’d put him off from month to month, unwilling to leave Faerie with him even though staying endangered his life. He’d been good enough to keep around and warm her bed, but not worth it to commit to him and make him her priority.
It was only when she’d gotten pregnant with Basil that she’d decided to finally leave Faerie for good.
So yeah, this was kind of a sore point for him. He might have been okay with keeping everything on the down-low between him and Hazel in the beginning, but that was when he’d been foolishly convinced he could just fuck her out of his system and dust his hands off.
Ah, yes, that worked well, didn’t it?
He rubbed a hand over his face.
Even if it weren’t for the mating urge pushing him to level up this relationship, he wouldn’t be content with keeping things casual and secret. Not anymore. That was the problem when the get-her-out-of-your-system approach made you realize that your hunger for her wasn’t a bug—it was a damn feature.
“Okay,” Hazel said, emerging from the house behind him, her scent wrapping around him like the sweetest ambrosia. “I’m done.” She paused when she glanced up at him, and whatever she saw on his face made her features gentle in compassion. She laid a hand on his arm, her voice soft. “That bad, huh?”
You have no fucking idea.
“If there’s a rotting body at the next site, you don’t have to stay there with me.” She squeezed his arm a little, and his heart jolted. “I’m sure I can manage to snap the pictures myself.”
He forced a smile where there was none. “Don’t worry ’bout me, love. I’ll live.”
Her eyes shone with warmth as she rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for coming along, by the way. I thought it’d be fine to do this alone, but having you here…it helps.”
And there she went, melting something inside him again.
“Anytime,” he muttered, handing her back her phone.
She glanced back at the interior of the house, her brows drawing together. “I hate to just leave the body here like this without alerting anyone. That poor man deserves a proper burial.”
“Babe, you just splashed your blood across three walls right next to that ritualistic murder site.” He leveled her with a hard look. “Do you want to be arrested? Because that’s how you get arrested.”
“I know, I know.” She sighed. “Plus, I may need to come back and take another look later, depending on what else I’ll find out about these kills. Once the human authorities get wind of this, it’ll be that much harder for me to investigate, especially when they connect this murder here with the first one we found.”
“We could always come back and dump the body somewhere else for the cops to find once we catch the witch who did this.”
She nodded, her eyes hard. “At least then he’ll be buried with dignity, and whatever family he has can be informed of his death and have closure.”
CHAPTER 28
The next location took them north of Vancouver, again on the Washington State side of the Columbia. Another rural area, the mark on the map and the pull of the pendulum leading them to a nursery—abandoned, which seemed to be a theme for these murder sites. Made sense, of course. Killing someone without being detected, let alone in a complex ritual, would require a degree of seclusion.
Following the draw of the pendulum, Hazel stepped closer to the large greenhouse, the rain misting the air around her. Some of the glass panels in the building were shattered, and some had graffiti or vines crawling over them. Tallak’s demon energy—subdued during the day, but still noticeable if she focused on it—brushed against her as he moved in front of her.
