Chapter Ten
“Marcus, come back,” Raven screamed as loud as she could, but she knew he wouldn’t. “You damn Nephilim. You’re not going to get away with this.”
Closing her eyes, she chanted her mantra to summon her energy. The humming deep inside grew with her chanting to a pushing pressure. The tension in her body escalated in pleasure and pain until she felt her flesh would burst.
She filled with fear and excitement, the pressure building and building until she was on the brink of the change. A howl escaped her lips to release the energy. Concentrating on the shape of her wrists, she shifted until they were longer and thinner and could slip out of the cuffs.
Once free, she shifted back, opened her eyes, and bounced off the bed with the excess energy of not fully changing her shape. In a few minutes, she was dressed in black leather pants, corset, and jacket. Pulling on her biker boots, she promised, “Marcus, you’ll pay for this deceitful act.”
****
When she walked into the police station a half hour later, everyone turned and watched her entrance. She’d never before crossed the line between who she was and what she did, but right now she didn’t care. All she cared about was getting to the captain before that weasel Marcus did.
For the first time in her life, she was horrified. Being caught between heaven and hell was no place to be. If she couldn’t prove that the captain was the one ripping off heaven— Well, she shuddered at the idea that the only man in the world who could bring her to sexual bliss would then have to kill her.
Raven wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, but she’d never let a bounty hunter from heaven fight her battles. This was between hell and her. And Marcus could go to hell or heaven or where ever he wanted, but she’d keep him out of it.
She paused to look into the captain’s office. Empty. She hurried to her desk. Detective Sal Munroe sat at the desk beside hers. “Hey, Sal, where’s his majesty?”
Sal looked her up and down several times. He’d never seen her in leather before and reacted like the typical mortal male. “I must have missed the party.” He smiled suggestively.
“No car.” She softened her voice. She needed his help. “Can’t ride my bike in a suit, now can I?”
“Guess not.”
She knew he was thinking, “But you could ride me.” That’s what all men thought when she was dressed to kill, and that’s just what she was going to do—first the captain then the Nephilim. “So, where’s the captain?”
“He left yesterday and never came back.” Sal seemed close to drooling, and Raven realized the black leather corset had been a mistake. It was just too revealing for coherent conversation, but it was her standard fighting outfit. She pointed to her eyes. “Up here, Sal.”
Chuckling, Sal realized she’d caught him ogling her goods and looked away. “Heard he’s took some sick leave.” Looking her in the eye, he added, “You don’t look any worse for wear after last night’s shooting. In fact, you seem to be glowing.”
The greatest sex in the world would make any woman glow, and she was no different. But a succubus had a right to some privacy. “Meaning?”
“Bullets, you,” he paused, then nodded toward where Marcus was sitting at a desk outside the captain’s office. “Him.”
She saw Marcus looking over at her. Heat pulsed through her body, and she struggled to ignore him. “Yeah, they missed both of us.”
Sal looked over at the Nephilim before adding, “Really bad shot if they missed someone that large.”
Looking at Marcus, Raven knew just how large he was and smiled. Only a big man could satisfy her. “Thanks for worrying about me.” Making eye contact with Marcus, she glared at him. “Us.”
“Worry about you all the time, gorgeous. The giant, yeah, not so much,” quipped Sal.
“Any leads as to how Stephen died?”
The surprised expression on Sal’s face told her the captain had forgotten to give her some news. “Doc says his wounds are consistent with suffocation. All those men and now Stephen, makes you wonder, don’t it? It’s as if someone used a vacuum on them. How sick is that?”
Raven rested her hand on Sal’s shoulder and gave him a comforting squeeze. “I know. Something is wrong with the universe.”
Walking over to where Marcus sat, she pivoted the spare chair around, straddled it decisively, and sat down. He glanced at her leather-clad crotch and smiled. Heat pooled between her legs, and her clit clenched as if anticipating his touch.
Looking him in the eye, she said, “The captain hasn’t been in since the shooting.”
“You got out of those cuffs pretty fast,” he said coolly.
“Shapeshifter.” She held up her hand and twisted it. “It’s all in the wrist.”
Marcus smiled that one-hundred-megawatt smile, but this time she didn’t return it. He’d tried to screw her out of getting the captain, and he’d pay.
Shuffling some papers, Marcus pretended to be busy, but Raven saw through the obvious smokescreen for what it was. He was worried. He looked her in the eye before responding to her prompt. “So the captain is hiding. Can’t blame him since hell’s on his ass. You’re after him. My guess is your fury is the greater of the two.”
Raven couldn’t help herself and smiled at him. Without the captain, they couldn’t prove her innocence, and Marcus would be forced to kill her.
“You know his address?”
Raven breathed in Marcus’ scent, wanting to rip his clothes off for more wild sex on his desk. He’d handcuffed her to the bed and then left. She was still furious with him for leaving. She felt his eyes on her. “No.”
He looked stressed but still so damned sexy that she had to turn away. After all, they were in the middle of the police station, and she couldn’t act out fantasy revenge sex here.
He managed a weak smile. “I’ll make a few calls and see what I can find out.”
She walked back to her desk and marveled at how detached he appeared. In the precinct, he was all business, so maybe he had just been toying with her last night and this morning.
With him and no other, sex had been mind-blowing, and for a succubus, that was a glowing recommendation. There was something between them. They were a match sexually, and she’d never experienced that before.
Glancing over her shoulder at him, she saw that he was immersed in a phone conversation, so she quickly grabbed her helmet and walked to the elevator. Doctor Hill, the coroner, was who she needed to see. She’d get the answers she needed, and then she’d find the captain.
After racing through traffic to the coroner’s office, Raven hurried down the hall to the morgue. She didn’t experience the same chill most humans felt here. The lifeless bodies meant nothing to her. They were just the empty vessels of prey, nothing more.
She wasn’t even sure she liked her body. Men seemed to crave it, but it didn’t mean anything to her, just a means to an end.
Pushing open the door to the examination room, she saw Doctor Hill examining a body. “Hey, Doc.”
He looked up at her greeting, lifted the visor, and smiled, his eyes brimming with pleasure. “My dear, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“I hoped you had more information on Stephen’s cause of death.”
He lifted the cap, and the visor came off with it. Placing it on the table beside the corpse, he walked over to a small desk in the corner. “Why, yes, I do.” He opened the file and then smiled at her. “It’s funny you should ask about that. He was suffocated. The air in his lugs was—well—vacuumed out.”
“Suffocated? Like the others?”
“Yes. I still can’t think of how something like that is even possible. It defies all human logic.”
The doctor walked over to his desk and grabbed another file. “After closer inspection, it appears that not only was he suffocated, but it was with greater force than the other men. I can’t explain that difference. Can you?”
Raven stepped back as if the doctor had punched her. She couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Stephen had been attacked by the captain. Only an incubus could have sucked the life out of him the way the coroner described.
“My dear, are you all right? You look very upset.”
“Well, it is shocking, don’t you think?” She squeezed his arm and started for the door. Stopping, she said over her shoulder, “Doc, did you tell anyone else this?”
He smiled gently at the question. “No one else asked.”
“Thanks.” She hurried out the door.
Back on her bike, Raven felt the power of the engine between her legs and thought she’d come with sheer pleasure. It wasn’t the same pleasure she’d felt with Marcus. However, right now an orgasm would bring her sustenance and her energy up to fighting level.
The captain should be at the usual place. She might be playing into his hand, but she had nothing to lose. They’d fight. If he killed her, then heaven and hell could battle on without her. If he didn’t, she’d get his confession. Either way, all this crap would end.