“This was on his forearm,” Eve says, then flips to a photo of Temple’s body in the morgue, naked from the waist up.
My stomach lurches, and I clench my fingers around the arms of the chair.Don’t lose it. Not now. You’re a cop. Act like one.
But seeing those same distinct whip marks across his chest—marks that couldn’t have been made more than a day or two before he died—threatens to destroy my control. The photo flips to one of his back, and I swallow hard, tasting bile. “He...was tortured.”
“Yes, Agent Dawes. As were all the other men across the country. Branded and whipped repeatedly,” she says.
“To keep them in line.” Sin’s voice carries an edge of fury, and when I steal a quick glance at him, his irises are once more rimmed with red. “Thorn has a woman he works with. A Fae named Regina. His queen, of sorts. She wipes the victims’ minds clean, then Thorn takes control of their thoughts, their bodies…until they go insane.”
“Regina?” The unfamiliar name shocks me enough to stave off my impending vomit-fest, and I sit up a little straighter. “And how do you know about these people?”
“They arenotpeople,” he snarls, then softens his tone. “Grayson, as much as I would prefer to never speak of this again, it is my story to tell. May we have the room?”
The commander looks as surprised as I am at Sin’s conciliatory tone and the use of her first name. “Fine. I could use some flight time. You have an hour.” She slides the tablet across her desk towards Sin. “Everything you need to know is in the case file. The Bureau’s full resources are at your disposal, Sinclair. This reign of terror has to end. Here.”
“It will,” he says with a nod. “Or it will end me.”
* * *
Sin
Telling Zoe about my past on the first day of our partnership? This is a mistake. But the dead man—James Temple—he was a San Francisco police detective, and apparently, Zoe’s former partner.
Fuck. No wonder the photos affected her so.
She sits with her elbows on her knees again, staring at the autopsy pictures along the back wall.
“Thorn and Regina are two of the ancients.”
“The ancients?” Zoe asks. Her face is still too pale, and the idea of glamouring her and making her forget all about the Bureau, about her partner’s death, about me...? It is strong. But despite her lack of experience, she is curious and determined. And something about her calls to me. Demands to be respected. Honored, even. She lost someone she cared for. I must explain why.
“Demons.”
She narrows her gaze at me. “Like you.”
“Notlike me.” The words escape on a growl, and I punch the wall hard enough to snap several bones in my hand. Zoe yelps as the pain zings up my arm.
“Shit. Sin. What did you—?” Her jaw drops open as I straighten my fingers and the bones start to knit back together in front of her. “That’s...”
“When I have recently fed, I can heal many injuries in a few minutes,” I say. “One of the benefits of being...what I am.”
“You mean an incubus.”
“No. I mean the other part of me we will not speak of.” No one knows my true origins, and I certainly will not be sharing them with Zoe.
“You’re seriously not going to tell me.”
“No. It is not relevant to this case. Suffice it to say, Thorn and Regina are the two most vile demons ever to walk the earth. He was ‘born,’ if you will, at the beginning and is older than any of us. She…well, he caught her in his thrall soon after.”
“The beginning of what?” Zoe pulls her notebook out of her pocket, but I shake my head, and she drops it on the commander’s desk with a huff.
“Of everything. The universe, the whole of creation, is based on balance. Good and evil. Black and white. Yin and yang. For every good thing the Almighty created, something evil sprang into existence as well.”
The weight of the past, of my sins, exhausts me, and I sink down next to Zoe, staring at the commander’s glass paperweight. It is shaped like the moon, and stirs memories of begging for my death while the demon who insisted I call himmio maestro—my master in Italian—branded me.
“So, they’re really old. And what? Really strong? Like vampires?” Zoe asks, the curiosity in her voice helping me to focus.
“Thorn is part incubus. Fuck. For all I know he may be a full-blood incubus, but unlike most incubi and succubi who feed off of arousal, he feeds only on fear.” I run a hand through my hair, suddenly greatly appreciative of the ability to control my own body and mind. “Alone, he is more powerful than any demon I have ever known. But with Regina at his side, they are unstoppable.”
