AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I made a mistake. Won’t happen again.”
Except it would. If someone threatened her life again, I would kill again. Caspian would too. When that happened, we would have to hide it from our superiors or they would pull us from this case. I had very little doubt it would happen again. Vampires in Kylan Jitara’s lower guard didn’t go after women across town for no reason, and the mob boss rarely gave up on things he wanted. “Let me know if you need further assistance. My understanding is that Emmett is almost ready to be put back in the field? I can rush his assessment for you.”
“We would appreciate that, sir. Working with a man down is never easy.”
Not when Emmett was the brawn and the only one who would keep a rational thought in his brain when it came to Freya. I’d never known him to become infatuated with a woman. Then again, this was a first for me, too.
“I’ll pull some strings, have him back out to you within the next two weeks. We need to stop this murderer before they kill again, for their sake and ours.”
“I know. We’ll get them.”
We were no closer to knowing who was committing murder in the city than we had been on the day we started our assignment. All I’d figured out was that Freya was involved in something. Somehow. A Beta witch targeted by a team of Kylan Jitara’s goons had to have something more going on in her life. With the twisted webs of the city’s supernatural community, her issues might have nothing to do with our mission. Or everything to do with it.
“Call me if you have any new information to report.”
“Got it.”
I hung up the call without a goodbye. Knoxwell and I weren’t friends, so he didn’t warrant one. Our alliance was tentative, predicated on him being my direct superior and me doing my damn job and doing it well. Like I had been before her.
“I’ll never understand why angelic light does wonders on bloodstains.”
Head snapping up, my eyes met Caspian’s with a glare. “Why aren’t you with her?” I snapped.
“She stole a knife off me and portalled home. Believe me, I fucking tried to be with her.”
“Do we have an address?”
“Tech still can’t find one. She’s using her parent’s address across the country for all her credit cards and licensing. Far as they can tell, she pays cash under the table for her rent. We won’t know where she lives until we can follow her home.”
The plot thickened. No one avoided our tech department’s reach unless they didn’t want to be found. Freya was running from something. But what? At least if we couldn’t find her, Kylan couldn’t.
“From now on, one of us tries to follow her home every damn night,” I grumbled.
“Never took you for a stalker,” Caspian teased. “So much for advising me to stay away from her.”
One last time, I took stock of the washroom. I’d removed the bodies, sending them back to Zemterra where someone would find them in the middle of the Blightwood or never find them at all. That had left nothing but blood splatter. It was an easy cleanup with a concentrated flash of angelic light. Not a speck was left behind, unless you considered the sticky mess on me. Certain of my cleanup leaving nothing behind, I closed the door. Grabbing Caspian’s arm as I strode past him, he followed behind me as I exited the club. Matthias would expect a report on the incident, but he wouldn’t have one tonight.
Outside on the sidewalk in front of the building, I released Cas. Bruises on his arm faded quickly, and he cocked an eyebrow at me. “Avoiding the conversation, huh? She’s got you wound up.”
“Which direction did she go?”
“Portal was in an alley across the street. She’s either weak enough that there isn’t much magical residue or strong enough to mask her signature.”
A witch-nymph hybrid like her wasn’t weak. People underestimated witches, but while their bodies were weak, their magic had more potential than any of us. She could do anything she wanted with her magic, while fae and demons were usually limited by a specialty in one type. I was limited too. Angel magic only controlled the light. Being part nymph as well gave her more of a magical base to draw from, though she didn’t seem to embrace the water magic that came with the other side of her heritage.
Regardless, I was confident she was powerful enough to mask her signature. She’d had a centuries old vamp on the floor immobile, while being choked by another. If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume the Angelic Enforcement Agency had snapped her up and trained her to focus intensely under pressure.
In my single-minded focus, I darted out in front of traffic, garnering a few honks from irritated humans. Caspian followed with more caution. The alley was dirty and damp, garbage cans for the surrounding buildings spilling over with refuse. Near where it dead-ended, I felt the faint shimmer of portal residue in the air. Her scent surrounded me, all the sweet vanilla and roasted coffee beans making me lightheaded. I’d never been as attached to a Beta’s scent as I was to hers.
Despite her scent being all over the place, the magic itself was faint. She was covering her tracks. I brushed my fingers in the air where the portal would have been and got only the faintest hints of where it had led. Somewhere within the city; not a wide open space. That didn’t narrow it down. I got the sense of water being nearby, but water was everywhere. We had the ocean on three sides of the city.
“Who is this gods damned woman?” I asked.
“I’ll do some extra digging for you lovebirds.”
Emmett’s voice had me spinning around, glaring at Cas. He was holding his phone up toward me, the call on speaker phone. I hadn’t even heard them talking. “Knoxwell would never approve of using manpower like that,” I said.
“What else am I doing here?” Emmett asked. “Twiddling my thumbs and waiting to get the go ahead. I might as well do a deep dive into your new obsession. There is a slight chance she’s connected to all this after what happened tonight. What’s her full name?”
