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She touches a torn sticker of a cat. “They would’ve burned everything. While they wanted Momma’s healing, Daddy’s food, and my plants, they didn’t want to talk about the spells and love that went into them. The police wouldn’t have seen a little girl’s drawings. They would’ve seen magic sympathizers.” She turns that searching gaze on me. “That still doesn’t explain why you saved it all.”
“I couldn’t watch someone toss what belonged to you.”
“Why not?” She won’t let this go. Fuck. I need her to quit asking questions. “There was no one left to miss those things.”
“I knew you were out there somewhere.”
“And you hadn’t cared much for my feelings since my fifteenth birthday. You didn’t track me here to Syn City. So why bother taking the grimoire?”
I can’t tell her that I walked into her birthday party only to have the mating bond slam into me like a fucking bulldozer, that I couldn’t face coming here only to know that the link between us had been severed with her death. Or I’d assumed it had been. “It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
“I can’t.” If I give Sadie an inch, she won’t settle for a mile. No, she’ll take my whole world because she doesn’t do things half way.
“Hmm.” She looks away, picking up the grimoire.
What the hell does that little sound mean? Hmm—she knows that she tangles me up in knots and enjoys torturing me? Hmm—she doesn’t care what I think and only asked to fuck with me? Or hmm—she’s already forgotten I’m standing here? The way she opens the grimoire and slowly flips pages, it’s likely the latter.
“You’re sure these blood stains are mine?” she asks.
“Yeah. The book holds your family’s scents, or it did until they faded. But the blood smelled like yours.”
“If I fought, if it wasn’t Lowell who murdered me, how sure are you that you can find my family’s killer before the deadline?”
“I’ve solved every case except this one.”
“And the shifter murders,” she says.
“Same killer. Solve one and I’ve closed both. I’m sure of it. Why? You willing to help?” Please let her say yes.
“Depends.” She hugs the grimoire tighter. “You willing to make me a promise if I say yes?”
“Depends,” I echo her answer. “You wanting to go back to Nashville with me and be recognized and applauded for catching the killer? I’d agree to that.” The idea of having her close to home makes me more comfortable than it should. Part of me seizes on the fact that she’d be where I would have more time to spend with her, to see her work in her garden, to wish she’d be mine. Another part just needs her safe and protected. I would hire private security to watch over her every single day.
“I don’t want any credit, and I can’t leave Syn City.”
Her stubbornness kills me. “You didn’t choose this place. I know you, Sadie. Or at least you wouldn’t have if that horrible day hadn’t happened. If you want your old life back, no one would stop you.”
“The immortals would. I’m a Fury which means I can’t leave Syn City.”
“Even if the Syndicate and the Huntresses turn it into a hunting preserve?”
She looks thoughtful. “They’d reassign me to a Fury House in another deity city.”
“You can’t leave the Furies? Ever?”
“That was the deal when I bargained for another chance at life.”
That puts a serious damper on any plans to slowly win her over to the idea of a mating bond. If she can’t leave the Furies and I can’t leave the marshals…fuck, that means worse than I don’t deserve my mate. It means I can never have her. “Then what are you asking me for?” Because here I hoped I had made a little headway between the kiss, giving back the grimoire, and then the cozy chat we just had. I couldn’t think of anything but her all day which made it damn hard to concentrate on my job at a shifter murder scene.
“Revenge.” Her gaze holds fire and sorrow. How the hell can I say no to her after what she and her family suffered? The violence she promises should make her a villain in this terrible mess, but it doesn’t. She’s not throwing around empty threats or taking out her anger on whoever crosses her path. This is justified execution for crimes committed that I can understand.
“All right. You can have it so long as you don’t end up dead again.”
“Deal.”
This woman with that whip she can call magically into her hand and those wings and her badass beauty—she’s fierce, formidable…and hot. I angle closer, hinting that she reward me for agreeing like she did for bringing back her grimoire. She’s a heartbeat away.
