“You bet your pretty ass I will, Xariana,” he chuckled, yanking me against his powerful frame that caused my pussy to flutter with his intoxicating scent of raw, masculine energy.
He kissed me quickly, and then pulled away. I scanned the room, thankful that the heads of houses and other immortals were helping the humans by administering antidotes while steering clear of us. They sensed the desire between Kieran and me just as surely as we felt their heavy stares on us while we exited the venue to the awaiting SUVs.
It was a quiet drive back to the compound, and Kieran made a quick escape after dropping me off at the guild. My head spun from the events of the night as I floated into the main building with a wealth of information I’d learned. Since Kieran was fae, that meant he wasn’t really here to own me. He was here to get what my father took from them, and I was in his way.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I hadn’t heard from Kieran since he’d dropped me off outside the compound and sped away to murder those responsible for the events that had happened. Apparently no one had died from the iron being put into the food or drinks served at the event. Unfortunately, a large majority of them were in the hospital this morning.
Brodie, our medical examiner had summoned me to the morgue. Apparently, sheriff Jeffery had told him to get in touch with us about some of the findings he’d discovered. The entire morgue was filled with corpses, most of them being female.
“Hey,” Brodie said, coming into the cold, creepy as hell room filled of dead bodies. “That was fast.”
“I was in the area,” I muttered, having been stalking Kieran’s house for anything to use against him. “You said you found something?”
My attention moved from the motionless bodies to his heavily tattooed one. Brodie was an incubus demon, one that specialized in the dead. He had been hired by my father to keep otherworld beings out of the eye of the human’s, and in doing so, had been hired by the city as the medical examiner for the sheriff’s office.
He had the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen, with short spiky black hair that barely covered the tattoos that flowed up his back into his hairline. At six foot five, he was on the shorter side for a demon, and a lot scrawnier than most I’d met. The blue scrubs he wore hugged a well-defined chest, which tapered off to the traditional drool worthy V-line, with one hell of a package that delivered a first class orgasm.
“You want to go into the freezer?” he offered, smiling until he peered over my shoulder to find Onyx leaning against the wall. “I’m down for a threesome.”
Snorting, I shook my head slowly. This was exactly why I’d only been with him once, and that had been quick, but effective for what I’d needed from him.
“Sheriff said you’d found something?” I repeated, watching the smile playing on his lips before he exhaled, nodding.
“Yeah, I did. So just to clarify, threesome isn’t in the cards today?” he asked, sliding his sinful gaze slowly over Onyx’s body. “Damn, momma. You look good enough to eat today.”
“Brodie, do focus,” Onyx stated in a clipped tone, having also experienced him more than once. She was a frequent flyer in his bedroom, but a lot of girls were.
Brodie made a strangled sound, slowly shooting a regretful look at the tight dress she wore today. He nodded toward the body that was covered by a white sheet, and we followed him toward where it was placed on a slab.
“As you are already aware of, we’ve had some weird shit coming in lately. Last night we had more bodies discovered, but unlike the others, these ones didn’t have the babe left beside them,” he explained, pulling back to the sheet to reveal a heavily pregnant corpse. “These ones hadn’t delivered. We assumed the others hadn’t given birth because the knots in the pelvis that occur from pregnancy weren’t present.”
“Yeah, which made no sense,” I agreed, fighting the anger that tore to the surface at the needless loss of life. “Get to why these ones didn’t deliver.”
“You planning to skip right to the twisted shit?” he snorted, shaking his head before he pulled open a locker, and pulled out another body. “This is one that had an infant left beside her. There’s no sign that she was ever pregnant on the surface. However, when I ran the metabolic labs, she did have elevated hormones. She had human chorionic gonadotropin hormones, which are only present during pregnancy. It’s the hormone that gives you a positive pregnancy test. They all have it, but the ones with physical signs of pregnancy, don’t. There are also no fetuses in their wombs. Merely expanded uteruses, without a fetus present inside of it.”
Blinking slowly, I slid my gaze over the woman’s protruding stomach, frowning. “You’re saying that the women that we found, with no physical signs of pregnancy were pregnant, but the ones that look pregnant, weren’t in fact, pregnant?”
“Fucking crazy, right?” he continued, nodding toward one of the bodies. “Then there’s this,” he pointed out, moving the hair away from the woman’s ear.
Swallowing, I stared at the line of studded surgical steel earrings that covered her upper earlobe. I had the same thing done with mine, which prevented the pointed ears I was born with from being noticed. Next, he moved to the teeth, holding her upper lip open to reveal that sharp canine teeth.
“She’s fae by origins. I’m guessing at least ninety percent by birth. The other women, the ones with the elevated hormones are half-breeds. The babes aren’t present, so I can’t test them to see what genetic level, or species they are,” he informed, slowly lowering the sheet to expose the belly of the woman on the slab. “There’s also this,” he continued, showing me the intricate swirling pattern of ink on her stomach. “That’s a fae marking, one that says she’s been claimed by a male.” Where the mark on my side was black, and wispy, hers was silver and gold.
“Are the half-breeds marked as well?” I questioned, fighting the urge to vomit.
“A few of them had markings, but they’re not in the same location. They’re on their genitalia, and beneath their ribcages. The males that came in are human. They’re not otherworld species. I can’t make sense of it, Xariana. In all my time working in this hovel, I have never come across something I couldn’t figure out. This one though, it’s freaky.”
“The woman with the hormones present, do they show any signs of postpartum?”
“No, that’s another thing. They don’t have the oxytocin levels that should be present once birth has occurred, either. They also don’t have the relaxation in their joints needed for giving birth. Their hips never spread, and there’s no physical or visual sign that they ever gave birth to those babies that were left with the corpses.”
“Do you think it is possible that they were merely used for the hormones? Fae women cannot have children, right? They lost the ability to become pregnant. But half-breeds didn’t because our world isn’t missing what theirs is. Is it possible that it was an experiment gone sideways?”
“That’s a theory. It doesn’t explain why there are fae women being left murdered inside out world, however. If you look closer, you can see that each one had their bodies pumped full of iron. See the silver coloring here,” he stated, opening one of the women’s eyes.