Page 27 of Filthy Fae

Scarlet and I both watched, our sides pressed into each other as Mack jogged to where Lance and Jane stood arguing with the fae at the door. He was a big guy, over six feet tall and muscular. Even from here, I could see he had one of those runway-ready faces that were so common in fae—sculpted features, high cheekbones, swollen lips. His skin was pale, his hair midnight black with blue undertones. He wore full armor like he was heading off to a Renaissance Faire or some shit.

“I am Prince Macklin of the Spring Court,” Mack declared, his tone commanding as he approached the house. “Where do you get off impeding my investigation into these murders? Bring out the fae in charge of this.”

“Your mother put me in charge.” Barney audibly gulped. “No one can pass. Not even you, Your Majesty.” Three other fae at the door fell to their knees and kissed the doormat.

Beside me, Scarlet gave a snort that sounded like chuckling, even in wolf form. She nudged my side, but I was already moving, slipping out of the van and behind the nearest hedge. We hunched down and slipped along. The area around the house had the cloying, almost overwhelming odor of freshly mown grass and wet paint. But another scent layered on that one, the scent of rotten meat and spoiled eggs. It was faint, drowned out by the grass and... I inhaled deeply and smelled bleach and baking soda.

We padded slowly over the moist grass, dashing toward the side yard when we were out of sight of the front door. A tall oak stood at the edge of the yard. Its branches had been cut precisely as if the tree had been sliced off with magic exactly where it would have ventured into the neighbor’s yard. But the half-cut tree managed to block the side yard from the street, and Scarlet and I took the time to change and hop over the padlocked, wooden gate. For just a moment, we were visible to the neighboring house, and then we were over the barrier, shifting back into our wolf forms and hugging the fence. We slipped along it and hopped up onto the planks of a wide back porch.

The reek of death, blood, and old meat burnt my nose. The strength of the smell was so pungent it clogged my nasal passages until I couldn’t smell anything at all. Beside me, Scarlet made a low hacking sound at the back of her throat. My eyes watered, blocking my vision, and I knew that I would be no good to her like this. Huddling into the shade at the side of the house, I changed back to human. A moment later, Scarlet changed as well.

“I’ve never smelled anything like that,” she whispered, her eyes tearing over at the stench. “I thought they were only supposed to have been dead for—what—twelve hours?” Her watering green eyes met mine, and she wiped her mouth. “It reeks like a mass grave left in the sun for days. I’m surprised I didn’t scent it from the car.”

“I smelled it a little,” I admitted as I wiped the moisture from her cheeks with my thumbs before wiping off my own face. “Someone went to the effort of painting the house, mowing the lawn, and scrubbing with a mixed bleach cleaner, most likely on the path and road.” I lifted my nose to the deck. “And here. In the amount of time since the murders, it would take a full crew.”

We both turned to the house and listened. Over muffled voices, one of them clearly Mack’s indignant call, was the soft tread of footsteps and a shushing and rubbing that could be cleaning. There was a quiet, high-pitched squeak, followed by a fresh plume of bleach odor that, for one moment, mingled with the scent of rotting meat before the fragrance again dissipated.

“She’s scrubbing the crime scene—cleaning and painting it.” Scarlet’s brow furrowed. “Is she just trying to dismantle the investigation, or is she actually trying to hide something?”

“My guess is both,” I said as I raised up and peered over the deck. The wooden boards appeared to be freshly scrubbed. A hot tub sat in one corner, its lid missing. The glass door that Zane Reed allegedly smashed through last night had been removed. If we went in there, it was doubtful we’d find anything, and we’d more than likely be caught.

“We should head back to the car. These fae might have orders to kill anyone who comes in there, and technically, they’d be in their rights to kill us, at least as far as our treaties saw it.”

“Fuck, Aaron,” Scarlet breathed as she ran her fingers through her hair and grabbed her head. “I have to go in. If she’s cleaning this up, it means that Titania thinks Zane might be innocent. The reason she thinks that is going to be in that house.”

“If those fae haven’t disposed of it already.” Judging by how much they’d managed to clean, they probably already had.

“As his alpha, I have to check,” Scarlet said. “You should head up to the front.”

I studied her determined expression. Going in there was the wrong call. But damn it… For her, I would do it, anyway. Looking at Scarlet now, I realized just how crazy I was about this woman.

Chapter Eleven

Scarlet

As we stepped onto the freshly scrubbed flooring, the smell hit me so hard I had to bury my nose in my elbow so I wouldn’t get sick. Adding my own vomit to the mixture of scents wasn’t going to improve matters, and it would only leave glaring evidence of our break in if we managed to make it through the mansion unseen. The floor inside had a rough, scratchy feel under my palms as we crawled into what looked like a living room area. There was no furniture, no wall hangings, nothing that made the area look like a house. There was also nothing to justify the overwhelming stench.

“Police report said that the EMTs took the bodies last night. Where is that smell coming from?”

Human and fae blood was the strongest scent, but there were dozens more unsavory scents underneath. Scents of semen, perfume and cologne, urine, excrement, and bile all blended together. Mingled with all of that was the stinging scent of bleach, wet paint, and a rotten meat smell so vile, I continuously had to choke down vomit.

We crept along the side of the living room, careful to step gently.

Aaron leaned into my ear, whispering, “This floor has been newly sanded.”

As we inched forward, the sound of scrubbing grew louder all around. Feet skittered over floorboards. The room beside ours was similarly barren, with its floor sanded. In a few places, the surface dipped.

“Psst,” Aaron whispered from behind me. When I turned, he pointed to the floor where a small mound of powder from the sanding had piled between the baseboard and an open door.

I bent to see what he was gesturing to and saw a tiny horseshoe charm. It was dull grey metal, the kind that would hang from a cheap child’s earring.

He leaned in and sniffed. “Iron,” he whispered quickly. “That’s pure iron. And it has a familiar scent...” He lowered his nose to the stud of the earring, the part that would have pierced through an ear. My heart sank as his gaze met mine. There was clear shock in his expression, but I already knew who he was scenting even before he said it. “Your sister.”

Iron was to fae what silver was to werewolves—deadly if ingested or pierced with it, agony if touched with it. Zeezee had headed to a fae orgy wearing deadly weapons in her ears. My stomach plummeted as I realized that I’d come in here in an attempt to find something that would prove Zeezee and Zane’s innocence, and I might just have found the opposite.

Aaron leaned in. “We should go.”

He was right. There was nothing here but a fresh coat of paint and a pungent and lingering smell of death. But there had to be some evidence here, something more than this. Why else would they strip this place the way they did?