I shivered. Babies were prized on the black market—that much I knew. “Why don’t they just get a kid from the orphanage? Why go through all this?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Most orphans are discarded because something’s wrong with them. They’re defective in some way. I’ve heard stories about men killing their wives who produced an inferior child. Anyhow, orphans are tracked, and there’s a screening process to adopt. The filthy ghouls who buy children aren’t the type of men who would put their name on paper for adoption rights.”
“Your hands are bleeding.”
He turned them over and proceeded to lick his wounds. I watched, mildly fascinated as every stroke of his tongue healed the superficial cuts. When he finished, he wiped his hands on his pants to get rid of the bloodstains. “Come on. I can’t sit in this car any longer.”
I stepped outside, cupping my elbows and joining him at the front of the vehicle.
“They’ll be here in ten minutes,” Gem announced. Her lip quivered, and I remembered her story about being a child of the black market herself. Seeing this must have struck a nerve.
“Why don’t you go back inside and call Viktor,” I suggested. “We’ll take care of everything out here.”
Claude touched her shoulder and steered her away. “Go inside and get warm, female. Keep the door locked.”
Once Gem disappeared around the corner, I leaned against the hood beside Claude.
“Sometimes they cut them out,” Claude said on a breath.
I looked up at him in horror. “What?”
“If the woman is a vagabond and doesn’t have anyone to protect her, she becomes an easy target. Black marketeers will stalk a woman they think is single and living alone. When she nears full term, they cut the baby out.”
“That’s sick. Wouldn’t the baby die?”
“We’re Breed. Our children are stronger than humans. They steal the baby from the womb so that no one can identify the child, not having seen nor touched it. No Chitah will have imprinted their smell, no Sensor will know their touch, and no doctor or father will recognize a birthmark or face.”
I slid my jaw to the side. “Maybe I was hunting down the wrong people all these years. Had I knownthatkind of thing was going on, I would have targeted those assholes instead. What could they want with a Chitah baby? Or a Shifter? Do they only sell them to couples? Do these parents realize that they’re indirectly responsible for a mother’s death?”
Claude put his arm around me—not to offer me comfort, but because it was too cold to do anything else but huddle. “The children are collected and sold regardless of who wants them, and most people bidding are not loving couples. Lucky is the child who is sold to real parents. Chitahs are excellent trackers; train them right and they’ll grow up to become obedient killers. There’s a dark side to our world, Raven. Even darker than you can imagine. Immortality breeds the most evil men imaginable.”
The sky took on a deep sapphire hue as the day came to an end. The orange glow from a streetlamp illuminated the snowflakes, which were falling at an angle.
“A Mage did it,” I said.
“How do you know?”
“Well,she’sobviously not a Mage since they can’t have babies. And back in the salon, I felt a strong flare of energy—the kind that happens during a fight when there’s a lot of adrenaline going. Some guys don’t know how to level down when they get excited. Gem felt it too.”
He rubbed his nose. “The smell of fear burns,” he said absently. “It seems to permeate through walls. The female doesn’t have the characteristics of a Chitah,” Claude offered. “I’ll ask the cleaners to give us her identity after they search the vehicle. Wyatt can run a check on her name to see what turns up.”
“Did you pick up another scent?”
He nodded. “Didn’t matter. She was my priority.”
I turned around and looked at the car. “You know what’s bugging me? The doors were locked and the windows unbroken.”
Claude frowned.
“No sign of a struggle,” I pointed out. “Why does a woman, who’s living in her vehicle with her baby, open the door for someone? She wouldn’t have been sitting in her car with the doors unlocked.”
Claude pushed off the car and strode around to the driver’s side, his eyes downcast and scanning the ground. “She knew him.”
“He got away fast. Maybe his energy spiked when he was driving off.”
“This is the Breed district,” Claude reminded me. “People who commit murders don’t tarry.”
I kicked the tire. Had I not snoozed in the chair with a towel on my face, would I have gotten bored and walked around outside? Would I have been close enough to help her in time? It must have happened fast.
