“What’s this about?” She stood to accept the folder he offered.
“Human murder. Shallow graves. Seemed like an open-and-shut abduction, murder, hide-the-bodies type thing. Only there’s been some unapproved excavation at the burial site. Officer Brighton’s undies are in a bunch over it. It could be ghouls. Better check it out.”
“Ghouls. Right.” Silas snatched the folder from Meredith’s hands without a word. He violently flipped through the contents.
“Hey!” She tapped her foot, becoming increasingly annoyed. Meredith regularly handled cases like this on her own. Ghouls loved to scavenge graves the way raccoons scavenged garbage cans. Luckily, they were relatively harmless and rare due to their incompatibility with consecrated ground. If ghouls were the culprits, a simple vial of holy water would fix the problem for good.
“I’ll take care of it,” Silas said, closing the folder.
“With Meredith,” Manahan said firmly.
Meredith popped out a hip and snatched the folder back from him.
Silas sighed heavily. “With Meredith.”
She forced a friendly smile. With a grunt, as if he found her repulsive, he rose from the chair and left the room.
Meredith scratched her temple as she met the captain’s apologetic stare. “Okay! I think that went well.”
Silas droveout of Carlton City toward the rural property where the murders had occurred, Meredith by his side. The crime scene was in the middle of nowhere, and he double-checked the coordinates to make sure they were headed in the right direction. It didn’t help that he was having trouble concentrating with her delicious scent in his nose. He kept his eyes on the road and tried to ignore the strange feeling in his gut her presence elicited.
“Did you read this case? This is horrific.” Meredith flipped through the folder in the seat beside him. “Five girls, young girls, lured away from home by one of their friends. Same age. They all lived on the same block. Looks like she murdered her friends and then killed herself.”
“Humans.” Silas snorted.
“It’s not like supernatural creatures don’t kill each other.”
Silas flashed her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, but we do it with style.”
She snapped the folder closed. “How’s this going to work? I propose we check the graves for ghoul droppings, take a spectral imprint of the area, and sprinkle holy water around the periphery if there’s any evidence the graves have been compromised.”
“I propose you stay in the car while I handle this.” Silas pulled onto the side of the road beside an overgrown field. In the distance, police tape cordoned off a wooded area, the yellow ribbon twisting in the breeze. His words had come out harsher than he’d intended, but he wanted to put some space between himself and the redhead. His wolf was too close to the surface with her around.
Meredith pivoted her shoulders to face him. “I propose you go fuck yourself.” She swept the holy water from the cup holder and exited the car.
“Hey, give me that!” He jumped from the unmarked and strode after her. But she was already more than halfway across the field, her supernatural speed requiring him to break into a jog to keep up. She paused abruptly a few yards out from the crime scene, pressing one long finger to her lips.
“Shhhh,” she said. Who did she think he was? He knew better than to scare away the ghouls before he had a chance to confirm their presence.
When he caught up to her, she pointed between the trees. Movement. A pale figure darted in the dim light. Silas sniffed, but the wind was blowing the wrong way. He wasn’t getting anything but dirt and leaves.
Meredith ducked under the yellow tape and crept, holy water in hand, toward the movement. As Silas followed from behind, he chastised himself for not being in front. He should be leading the way, not her. But addressing it at this point would call too much attention to their presence. He narrowed his eyes on the form hovered over the crime scene. There was something familiar about the silhouette.
And it was too big to be a ghoul.
“Look out!” Silas bound forward, knocking Meredith to the ground to place his body between her and the threat that loomed above the grave. He drew his gun. “Don’t move!”
Alex, Fireborn pack nemesis number one, scowled at Silas with unrepentant rage, his dark blond waves catching the moonlight with the quick turn of his head. He gripped a mesh bag full of bones still bearing the remains of the flesh they’d once inhabited. Silas pulled the trigger, unloading three silver bullets toward Alex’s heart. They wouldn’t kill him, but they’d slow him down.
Pulse.The dragon fae amulet around his neck blinked, and Alex disappeared. There was a high-pitched squeal as the bullets passed through where Alex had been and landed in the body of a ghoul creeping up behind him. He was gone.
“Oww,” Meredith said, sitting up in the tall grass. Her head was bleeding.
“Meredith. Shit!” Silas holstered his gun and jogged to her side. Removing his shirt, he pressed it to the scrape on her head. He cradled the base of her skull with his opposite hand for leverage. “I don’t think it’s deep.”
She fixed him with a harsh glare as if she intended to give him a piece of her mind. But as her dark brown eyes met his, she stopped, lips parted as if she’d forgotten what she was going to say. Silas’s nostrils flared with the scent she was putting off. He closed his eyes.Damn.So he wasn’t the only one experiencing the strange electric tingle being this close. When he opened his eyes again, she was staring at his T-shirt-covered chest, and her cheeks had flushed a gorgeous shade of pink.
He cleared his throat and removed his hands from her head, handing her the bloody button-down.
