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What happened to the sweet, timid girl who would hide from her shadow? “Your Syndicate says otherwise.” I flash my badge and the written pass that mean I have as much right to be here as she does.
She keeps her gaze on my face. “I don’t know what lies you told or who you had to screw to get that, but I’m not impressed.”
I switch tactics. “Look at little Sadie Tucker all grown up.” And damn did she grow up gorgeous. “Haven’t you missed me?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She folds her arms over her chest which pushes her breasts up, and I wish the neckline went lower than the barest hint of cleavage. “Why don’t you disappear for a few decades and see if I miss you then? Spoiler alert, I won’t.”
From my left, Bunny coughs to hide a chuckle.
It’s time to remind them both how serious this situation is. “I’m investigating the murder of two local shifters.”
“Not from Syn City, you’re not. We aren’t missing any.” Sadie climbs the stairs toward me, her movements graceful. If I didn’t know she’d been born human, I would think she’s a big cat on the hunt. “And why would I care about a couple of dead shifters?”
I glance at Bunny, waiting to see her shock. When she simply stares ahead, I ask, “Did you not hear what she said about our kind?”
The rabbit shrugs. “She hates all shifters.”
So Sadie’s the Fury I was warned about who hates us. What happened to Hazel’s sweet sister who spent more time with plants than people?
“Bunny’s at least useful,” Sadie says as she steps toe to toe with me. “Which is more than I can say for you.”
I curl my mouth into a smile with no hint of niceness. “Don’t tempt me to show you how useful I can be.”
“As if you could tempt me.” Venom drips from her voice with a huskiness, a throaty sin incarnate vibe.
The Sadie I remember puzzled me. This Sadie thrills me. My beast wants to make her ours, but that’s not how mating works. The claim has to go both ways. Yet the tension building between us makes me want to wrap my fist around her ponytail and drag her face up for a kiss to prove how scorching this thing between us could be. “Oh little Fury, I promise you’d like it.”
She unfurls two giant black wings that rustle the same as the flipping pages of a book. Symbols flicker over them as though writing and erasing blood-red ink to an inaudible beat. If I let my vision go hazy, it’s a dark version of her family’s grimoire, but the symbols look…wrong. I can’t figure out exactly how even though I’ve stared at the book for hours since I stole it from the crime scene.
Bunny backs away. “All right then, I’ll leave you two to it.” With that, the rabbit takes off.
Sadie doesn’t drop her gaze from mine. “Time to go, marshal.”
“I just got here, and I like the view.” I ease back on my heels. When her gaze goes dark, I know I’ve scored a point. “I thought you might be happy to see someone from your past.”
“The man who abused his marshal power to try and keep my family’s murder quiet?”
“I did it to protect you from headlines.” Not that it worked when the media latched onto the horror of a shifter slaughtering an entire human family. Then, there’d been the magic-haters who’d suggested that Sadie had committed the murders in some evil pact with the immortals to become a Fury.
“I don’t need your protection. If you made the trip to reminisce, then you wasted both our time.” She walks by me, standing a step above so that we’re eye level.
I catch her hand, trailing my fingers along her soft skin. It’s the first time I’ve touched her in years, and with the way that slight contact sends electric sparks igniting both my beast and my human forms, I wish I’d found her immediately after her turn from human to mortal deity daughter. Her eyes go wide for a moment, and I wonder if she felt that buzz too.
“I have something of yours.” I let my tone go flat, but I don’t release her hand. “Help me with the investigation, and I’ll hand it over to you.”
“If it’s mine, then I shouldn’t have to earn its return. Give it back.” Her sultry command almost has me reconsidering my selfish demand—almost.
“Not until you help me clear Lowell’s name.”
She yanks her hand away. “Your brother murdered us and then took the coward’s way out by killing himself before I could take my revenge as a Fury.”
“Don’t tell me you believe Lowell could literally tear himself apart. Here I was thinking you’d gotten smart in this second life.”
Hurt flashes in her gaze, and it leaves a hollowness in my chest that has my wolf howling inside. She looks away and I want to soothe the pain, but I don’t because while I’m an asshole, I’m not enough of one to make promises I can’t keep. And what the hell has she used on her eyes to make the skin around them sparkle like that? She has painted a spiral that winds from her eyelashes like the perfect replica of a coiled whip. Seriously, I can almost hear a crack in the air when she blinks.
“Whatever you have of mine,” she says, “I can assure you it’s not enough to make me help you.” Damn, she says you like I’m the problem. It’s hot.
Which will make it even hotter when I prove her wrong. “I have your family’s grimoire.”
