by Mari Carr
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“Ex-something,” she murmured. He put his arm around her, and for a moment, she snuggled in, but she quickly came to her senses and put a few feet between them. “Hey, now. The rules still stand as prearranged.”
Eric smiled and went obediently to his corner of the elevator.
“And stop smiling!”
* * * *
Jesus, that fucking woman! Gav seethed with jealousy and anger, and beneath that lust. Something in the man she was with had triggered an almost primal reaction in him. He’d felt his skin ripple with the first signs of shifting. His animal side wanted to screw anything and everything that moved. It was only his rage that kept him from doing the unthinkable. Lose control. That guy had to be an other worlder, but what kind, Gav couldn’t say. His reaction to the man’s scent had been intensely, almost painfully, physical.
As it was, he had more important things to worry about. Like a sadistic butcher. The murder on the plaza baffled Gav. He’d never seen the likes of it before. The victim, a male in his late forties, had been skinned from head to toe. The crime scene techs were thorough, and the killer hadn’t even left a hair follicle behind. His sense of smell wasn’t as developed as a werewolf’s but it was well-honed. He picked up faint odors beneath the blood and rot of the corpse. Ash, copper, and some kind of sweet floral scent. Maybe Plumeria, but he couldn’t be certain without further tests.
Was this crime other worlder? Again, maybe. There were too many questions to be certain about the answers.
His phone rang. It was Doctor Azan, the pathologist. “What you got for me, Doc?”
“I dyed the wound on the back of the head. I’m sending you a picture. I don’t know what he was hit with, but I thought maybe you might be able to find out.”
“Thanks. You think it is…”
“Other worlders,” Azan said. “Likely. I don’t see a human skinning someone with this kind of precision.”
Azan was a dagar, the equivalent of what humans thought to be an elf, but he didn’t have pointy ears or pale blond hair or shiny braids. Nor did he go around with a longbow shooting orcs from the back of mutant pigs. That was strictly fiction. He was, however, an educated and keen observer.
A double beep notified him of an incoming text. Gav pulled the phone from his ear and looked down at the screen. It was a crisscross pattern. He put the phone back to his ear. “That looks like the same pattern from that young woman on the docks last month.”
“Good eye,” said Azan.
Shit. “Thanks again, Doc. Call me if you find out anything more.”
“Will do.”