“You spoil me,” I tell him, turning around and hooking my arms over his shoulders. Water cascades down his wings, and if it weren’t for the glass door instead of a curtain, we’d have a water mess on the floor every time we showered together.
“I like spoiling you.” He moves my hair back, rinsing out the conditioner. “Even when I was a knight, I never felt like I had a purpose. But with you, I do. I care about you, Ace, more than I’ve ever cared about anyone.”
His arms fasten around me, and I feel him tense ever so slightly. I don’t see the vulnerable side of Thomas very often, as he masks his emotions with jokes and a cocky attitude.
“I care about you too, Thomas,” I say, blinking water out of my eyes, and smile at him. “I remember the first night I saw you guys. I was so scared.”
“And here you are, naked in the shower with me.”
I laugh. “We’ve come a long way.”
“We have. And as shitty as this curse is…I’m glad I woke up to you.” There are a million jokes he can make right now, but he brings his head down, resting his forehead against mine. I close my eyes to keep water from splashing in them, and let out a breath, surrendering to him. I’m completely vulnerable, but I trust him completely, just like I trust the others.
“I think I love you, Ace,” he whispers, and my heart skips a beat. No one has ever told me they loved me before. I hold onto him tighter, needing to feel every inch of him I can against me.
I’ve craved love, longed to be in a relationship with someone I can trust, someone I can be myself around. And now I finally am, but it’s not just with one person. And I love them all.
“I love you, too.”
He turns his head down and kisses me, and I start to get turned on all over again. The water doesn’t stay warm for long in this old house, so we get out before it turns cold.
After getting dressed in my PJs, I brush my teeth and climb into bed. Thomas gets in with me, holding me in his arms until I fall asleep, which happens in minutes.
I’m sound asleep when my phone rings. I left it downstairs, and the echo of my ringtone isn’t enough to wake me.
“Ace.” Jacques’s voice comes from the doorway. I sit up, blinking to adjust my eyes. It’s four-thirty a.m., the start of nautical twilight but not quite sunrise yet.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Your phone was ringing. I assume it’s work.”
“Oh, right.”
Jacques crosses the room and hands me the phone.
“Yep. That was work.” I call back, and the phone is answered right away.
“Detective Bisset,” the officer says. “Time to rise and shine. There’s been another murder.”
10
Iduck under yellow police tape, holding up my badge for the young officer to see. He nods and moves aside, letting me into the crime scene. I step into a small coffee shop, and despite the metallic smell of blood and death around me, the scent of coffee lingers in the air and, dammit, it’s making me want a coffee. I could really use some caffeine right now.
Like the scene surrounding Lily at the church, a pentagram is smeared on the wall behind the counter in blood. The Eye of Horus and Hecate’s Wheel are next to it, but the killer ran out of room and the wheel is crammed in. The scene doesn’t have the same theatrics as the first murder, making me think the killer got interrupted or panicked and left before he was finished.
A hasty murder often leaves behind good, hard evidence. The body is on the counter, blood dripping down from the victim’s smashed-in skull. Like Lily, he has defensive wounds, and the place is trashed. This guy put up a fight before he was killed.
We comb through the place, finding the initial fight to have broken out in the back. The body was dragged to the rear door, which requires a code to open. So the killer wanted to take the body out…was he going back to the church? Or planning to find another?
Once he realized he couldn’t get the body out back, the killer dragged the victim to the front and struggled to get him onto the counter. There are blood smears and probably a gold mine of fingerprints around here. Like Lily, this guy was posed, with his hands crossed over his chest. Unlike Lily, his head falls to the side, and one leg is hanging off the counter, furthering my belief that the killer didn’t intend to have the body discovered here.
He might not have meant to kill him here either. I look at the body, taking in how young this guy is. Lily was young too. I want to find the killer. Now.All right, asshole…where were you going to take him?
Tiffany shows up and looks around at the symbols drawn on the wall as she gets her camera out of the bag.
“Holy shit,” she mutters under her breath. She attaches a lens to her camera and walks over by the body, looking at me and then the symbols behind us. “Please tell me this isn’t some sort of sacrifice.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “But that’s exactly what the killer wants it to look like.”
