Freyja met Loki’s gaze. Reflected in his eyes, Jace lay in the middle of a pool of blood while the light faded from his emerald pupils.
* * *
JACE JOLTED AWAKE. Cold sweat poured over his skin as he snapped upright, and he fought to calm his breathing. Fuck. The dreams had gotten the best of him again. He flopped back down onto the bed with a sigh, eyes closed. He wracked his brain to remember the names of the man and woman. Damn. The image of himself lying dead and bloody invaded his thoughts. It was so vivid. If he could just get back to sleep... Without nightmares.
He rolled onto his side and tried to let sleep reclaim him, but it was no use. He lay there, still groggy, until his bedside alarm blared like a damn foghorn. He cracked one eye open and glared at the clock. 3:00 p.m. He smacked at the buttons until he hit the right one. Why the hell had he set the alarm to go off this early in the afternoon? A nocturnal creature in all senses of the word, he waged an ongoing war against the sun, vowing to ignore its existence.
He sat up and stretched, his muscles tight. What the hell had he done last night? He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced down at his morning wood.
Shit.
He’d fucked a werewolf. His vision spun.
He slid off the bed and stumbled into the kitchen. Whiskey. He needed whiskey. Yeah, his head would clear after a swig.
Placing his hands on the countertop, he looked up at the top shelf. What the...? A small prickle of pain cut into his hand, and a droplet of blood pooled on his pinkie finger. Broken shards of glass and sticky, dried liquor covered the counter. Shit. The last bottle had broken when he’d...
His cock throbbed. She was so tight, and she’d ridden him like a pro. Those full breasts and those sweet, pink nipples had jumped like mad as he slammed into her. He could run his tongue over her all night long. He cracked a smile.
Hot damn.
Princess was like his personal nympho. He’d had her in every way he wanted. She’d...
Wait...
He wandered into the bedroom again. Nothing but his tangled sheets lay on his bed. He let out a groan.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” She’d hit it and quit it.
He grabbed his leather coat off the couch and pulled out a Marlboro. Slipping it in his mouth and lighting up, he looked at the bed again. Never once had a woman left him behind before.
The nicotine billowing into his lungs calmed him, and he mulled over the night’s events. Her dark brown eyes had shimmered with flecks of liquid gold as she embraced him, and her long, black hair danced around them. A burn erupted in his chest. He rubbed his hand over the area. Heartburn? Yeah, he hadn’t eaten much the night before.
After a short shower and a quick shave, he brushed his teeth and yanked on his clothes, then threw on his leather coat. His phone buzzed. A text from David telling him it was time for yet another bitch-fest meeting. Grabbing his keys, he hoofed it out the door and down to the street, where the sunlight hit his eyes, momentarily blinding him. Squinting, he jogged to the Hummer, grimacing at the cracks spanning the back window, evidence of Francesca’s fight for her freedom. With a disgusted sigh, he hopped into the driver’s seat, revved the ignition and sped off. He cranked up the radio and drowned his thoughts with the sound of classic rock. Anything to block out memories of last night. The last thing he needed to be thinking about was her.
When Jace entered the Execution Underground’s downstairs corridor, he wasn’t sure whether the headache throbbing in his temple was an unexpected hangover or a preliminary response to the sound of Damon’s voice. He stepped into the control room, as prepared as he was ever going to be to hear the usual spiel. David and Trent were sitting at their desks talking to one another in hushed voices, while Ash and Shane stood conversing over coffee. When Jace stepped inside, their heads all turned in his direction and silence blanketed the room.
“What?” He glanced at each of their faces in turn, looking for some explanation.
They all refused to meet his eyes.
Jace gritted his teeth. It was too early in the damn day for this. “David, what’s going on?”
His best friend glanced up momentarily before his eyes returned to the floor.
Trent finally cleared his throat. “I hate to say it, J, but you really choked this time.” His Jersey accent thickened to the point that he sounded like a cartoon character. His face was nearly hidden beneath his usual baseball cap, which he wore to conceal the severe scar across his left eye, earned in a fight with a crazed shifter “I was going to try and help you on the case, but I’m thinkin’ that possibility’s been blown outta the water.”
Ash Devereaux sat down and leaned back in his seat, brushing his fingers through his silky blond hair. “I have no idea what ya’ll been up to. Someone wanna tell me what’s been going on?” he said, his good-ol’-boy Louisiana drawl ringing clear and true. He had the pretty-boy face of a male model, but he’d never felt comfortable with the fast-paced life of the big city. Half the time he moved at snail speed, but Jace knew better than to fall for it. In a fight Ash was quick on his feet and deadly in his rage.
“You mind if I take a hit off your flask, Jace?” Ash asked. “Damn ghosts have been killin’ me lately, keeping me up all night talking. I need some sleep real bad.”
“Knock yourself out.” Jace reached in his coat and handed him the liquor.
Ash chugged a few gulps of the whiskey before he passed it back to Jace. “Thanks, man. I still ain’t used to so much talkin’. There are a lot of ghosts in New Orleans, but they’re all pretty quiet, even the ones that died partyin’ during Mardi Gras. But ya’ll Northerners speak too loud and too fast, even when you’re dead and gone.”
Laid-back and relaxed, Ash Devereaux put the dead to rest and ensured they moved on to whatever lay ahead of them in the afterlife. But after years of seeing the dead and hearing their desperate pleas, he attempted to drown out their voices in any way he could. Jace couldn’t fault the man for desiring some peace. Hell, he’d been drowning his own demons for years.
“You want to tell me what the hell is going on here?” Jace asked him as he slipped the flask back out of sight.
“I’m not gonna be the one to deliver the news,” Ash said.
Jace walked to his desk with a frown on his face. “Somebody better tell me.” He glanced down at a stack of papers as tall as it was wide. “And what the hell is this?”
His answer came in the loud clank as the door to the weapons room opened and Damon’s steel-toed footsteps made their way into the room. His hand slid into view on top of the stack of papers.
“This,” he said, “is the steaming load of shit you get for being so incompetent.”
Rage coursed through Jace’s veins as he looked up at his boss. “You mind elaborating?” The ice that filled his voice rivaled Damon’s own coldness.
“You have to ask? That’s pathetic.”
Jace stood and stepped forward, his hands balled into fists. David and Trent grabbed him, fighting to hold him back. His whole body shook from anger.
“What were you thinking?” Damon roared. “You could’ve blown our entire operation.” He reached inside his pocket and flicked a cigarette butt onto Jace’s desk. A Marlboro Red.
Damon snarled. “You left that at the crime scene where any cop could’ve found it, tested the DNA and followed the trail right back to you. You’re lucky we were there first.”
Jace fought back a string of profanities that would have made a sailor wince. Adrenaline pulsed through him. But screw up or not, no one talked to him that way.
“You need to back off,” he said in the calmest voice he could muster. He stared Damon straight in the eye, daring him to continue. But Damon never knew how to stop when he was ahead.
“The only thing that needs to be done around here,” Damon said, stepping toward him, “is you need to get your act together—” he leaned in until he and Jace were nearly nose to nose “—or get the fuck out. You’re on probation. You’re not on
this case anymore, and this is your last warning before I feed you to headquarters. Fuck up and you’re done for,” he snapped. “Now take your homework and get out of my sight.”
Jace didn’t need to be told twice. Without a word, he picked up the stack of papers, stormed out of the underground control room, through the warehouse and out to his car. When he reached the Hummer, he stopped and forced himself to breathe.
Shit.
He had royally fucked up. Dropping his cigarette butt at the crime scene because he’d spotted Princess in her wolf form?
Damn rookie mistake.
The image of her beneath him crept into his mind, and he let out another curse. Why wouldn’t the thought of her leave him? How many women had he been with who he never even thought twice about the next morning? But something about her lingered with him.
He glanced at the workload in his arms. He wanted to throw the papers into the air, watch them scatter across the street. That would be the final fuckup, but damn, it would feel good. He cursed. As much as he hated having his balls busted, this was the only job he knew, and no matter what Damon said, Jace knew he was a damn good hunter, and he wasn’t about to lose his job. He got inside the Hummer, revved the engine and burned rubber.
After driving for several blocks, he parked the car outside a liquor store and stared out the windshield. He wasn’t even fifty feet away from where he’d found Francesca last night. “Damn it all to hell.”
He got out of the car and immediately detected the trace of her scent. He strode down the nearest alley. His bitch fest with Damon had scraped at his already raw nerves. He’d been punished over a stupid mistake—and damn if he hadn’t done the same thing to Princess. He couldn’t blame her for running away at the first chance she got. He really was a worthless bastard.
He followed her scent for several blocks and paused. He told himself he just needed to be sure she was safe. That was all. But his heart jumped in his chest at the thought of seeing her again.
Hung up on a werewolf? God, help him.
* * *
HE STARED UP at the building and repeated his mantra of curses.
He was a complete idiot. He’d stooped to a new level of stupidity with this one, and he was past the point of no return.
Digging around in his coat, he found the lock pick he always carried and let himself into the building. He waltzed in like he owned the place, right past a bewildered-looking family. They eyed him up and down, and the mother squeezed her baby just a little closer as they hurried past.
The door slammed behind them as he walked toward the stairs. “Nothin’ to worry about, folks,” he said under his breath. “Just your friendly, neighborhood werewolf executioner.”
He sniffed the air. The smell of her perfume lingered, mixed with something he couldn’t quite identify, but the familiar trace tormented him. He followed the scent of gardenias up two flights and to the second apartment on the left.
Was he really going to do this?
He knocked hard. “Francesca?”
He listened for a long moment, but no one answered. He let out a loud sigh and pounded on the wood again. “Hey, Princess, you in there?”
He rocked back and forth on his heels, praying she would answer the door and make it easy on him. With all his senses on edge and his adrenaline pumping, he knew she was in there. But there was that other scent mixed with hers. The rank smell of...
Damn it.
Jace smashed open the door and burst into the room with his Mateba pulled and ready to fire. The door hit the wall in an echoing bang. He charged through the entryway and tightened his finger on the trigger. He would blow the fucker’s head off.
A small sniffle came from the middle of the room and Jace’s eyes locked onto the woman he already thought of as his. She was sitting on the floor with her legs tucked underneath her, and she was clutching a broken picture frame. The shattered glass cut into her hands, and drops of her blood speckled the hardwood.
Holy hell.
He holstered his gun and stood at her side. “Are you okay?”
She gave a small nod. Clutching the broken frame tighter, she glanced to the wall and back to the mess around her.
The apartment was trashed. Pieces of broken glass, torn fluff and splintered wood from the furniture were scattered everywhere. Jace walked to the wall and saw what she’d been looking at. Dried blood. He’d written the words in blood. Take it like a bitch.
Taped underneath was a professional, full-length photograph of Francesca with two people whose faces had been scribbled over with a permanent marker, blacking them out. Pasted over her photographed body were pictures of torn flesh, the killer’s way of making sure she knew how she would look after he got hold of her. After her death. Jace ripped down the picture and examined it more closely. He knew whose bodies had been pasted over hers—the women that sick fuck murdered.
He stared at Francesca sitting on the floor, a look that was half defeat, half rage contorting her face. Though she didn’t fit the usual profile, he was sure she knew she was the next victim. He’d made a huge mistake in so many different ways by taking her back to his apartment. He had a feeling that was exactly why she’d been targeted. He needed to fix this. He would not let that psycho destroy any more lives. Especially hers.
“Was the room like this when you showed up?” he said.
Her hands trembled as she nodded.
Jace’s anger peaked, like a bomb ready to explode.
No one hurts my girl.
Where the hell had that come from? He shook his head. No, she wasn’t his.
“He’s not going to hurt you, Princess. Not even over my dead body. I’ll rise from the grave just to drag his ass down to hell. You got me?”
Her eyes widened, shining with unshed tears, and all the color washed from her face. But then her mouth drew taut with underlying anger. His arms itched to wrap around her. He wanted to torture the SOB who’d done this.
“My parents...” She opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out.
His attention captured, he asked, “What about your parents?”
“The photograph.” Raising her bloodied right hand, she pointed to the picture he was holding.
His palms clenched into fists, and he swallowed down a feral growl. “Where are they? Did that damn psychopath go after them, too?”
“No, my...my parents were murdered three years ago.” She stopped trembling, and some of her color returned to her cheeks. Her eyes glazed over, masking her emotions as she collected herself.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They wouldn’t want to be the object of anyone’s pity, and don’t be sorry for me, either. I don’t remember much of that night. The pack shrink says I’m lucky that my mind blocked out the memory.” She stood and walked toward him, still clutching the frame. Her gaze returned to the picture. “He ruined my only portrait of us, all three of us, together as a family.”
She stared at the photo with such calm resolve, her sadness dissipating and shifting into another emotion he couldn’t quite identify. The silence hung thick in the air, suffocating him.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m not used to dealing with...” Living victims. “Do you... Is there somebody I can call for you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Jace raised a single brow. “You’re sure? You don’t have anyone?” He regretted the words as soon as they escaped his mouth, and he wracked his brain, trying to think of something to say. Preferably something that didn’t make him sound like an insensitive moron.
“I don’t want to put anyone in danger,” she said. “All I want right now is to find this low-life piece of shit and tear him limb from limb.” Her volume escalated until she sounded powerful and firm.
He cringed as her hands tightened on the broken glass, not a single trace of pain on her face. He reached out and cupped her hands in his. An electric jolt shot up his arm and down his spine. She jumped and pulled back.
“Wh
oa. If you want to rip him apart, then you better stop cutting up your hands. You’re going to need them.” He rubbed his thumbs in gentle circles on her skin until her hold loosened.
Taking the frame from her, he placed it on the ground. Shards of glass protruded from her smooth skin.
“Sit on the bed.”
Without another word, she walked to her swanky four-poster, slow and lifeless like a zombie, before resting her hands on her lap.
He scratched his head, not really sure of his next move.
What would I do if she were another hunter? What would I do for an ally? First aid?
“Do you have any peroxide?”
“There’s some under the bathroom sink.” She gestured to a door on the other side of the one-room apartment.
He rushed into the bathroom and stepped around the mess. The brown peroxide bottle had rolled behind the toilet in the midst of all the vandalism.
Snatching the bottle and some spare toilet paper, he hurried back out. If Princess was anything like him, her werewolf genes would kick in and she would start healing in no time. The glass needed to be pulled out pronto, before the wounds started healing around it.
He knelt in front of her, and she stuck out her hands.
“Ready?” He looked her in the eye.
She gave him a single nod, and he plucked the first piece of glass from her palm. She winced.
“You okay?”
She inhaled sharply. “Just get it over with.”
Trying not to be too rough, he picked the shards from her skin one by one and tossed the bloodied pieces onto her bedside table. When her hands were glass free, he screwed the cap off the peroxide. “This may sting a bit.”
She gave him a rueful grin. “I know.”
Jace poured the liquid over her flesh. The chemical sizzled and popped as soon as it hit the wounds. She hissed in pain, but her gaze didn’t falter. She took it like a pro.
“You do this often?” he asked.
Twilight Hunter (The Execution Underground) Page 8