His laugh sounds almost like a bark, but it’s such a happy, joyful noise that I forget he’s a yeti and join in. So gently I almost don’t feel it, he bumps my shoulder with his fist. “I may be big, but I’m a gentleman.”
“Can I ask you something?” We stand side-by-side, staring out at the bullpen, and I can’t look at Kunchin or Sin at this point, so I pin my gaze to the assignment board on the far wall. I’m not sure how I missed it before, but the San Francisco office of the Bureau only has a dozen agents. The rest of the people working here are all support staff. Crime scene investigators, Mem-Wipe technicians, researchers.
“Anything. I’m an open book.” Kunchin turns and fills our mugs, then adds a truly unhealthy amount of creamer to both of them.
“You’re like seven feet tall and covered with white fur. You don’t…live here, do you?”
“Here? At the Bureau?” His ice blue eyes widen, but then he chuckles and pulls a small black box from his pocket. With the press of a button, the yeti’s entire body seems to blink and vibrate for a split second, but nothing else happens. “Perception filter,” he says. “Works on all humans.”
“Um, I think it’s broken.”
Kunchin cocks his head, then shakes the box. “Dammit. If this thing’s on the fritz again…”
My stomach clenches, and I brace my hands on the counter. “You said it works on all humans. But what about others? Does it work on them too?”
“Nope. It’s coded for human eyesight only. Well, and human recording devices. This is the age of the cell phone video after all.” He peers down at the box and fiddles with the buttons as I pull out my phone and snap a photo of him.
“Oh, shit.” I show him the picture. In it, a tall, very well-built man with pale skin and snow white hair stares at the box in his hand. His very human hand. “It’s working just fine.”
I can’t breathe, and my heartbeat roars in my ears. I need to sit down. No. I need— “Sin!”
He’s at my side faster than I think should be possible, and he and Kunchin each take one of my arms to help me to my desk. “Zoe, what is it?” Sin asks.
“I’m not human…”
Twenty-Three
Zoe
“Talk to me, Zoe,” Sin says as he takes my hands in his and searches my face. “What is wrong?”
“His…his per-perception f-filter. It d-doesn’t work on m-me.” The words don’t want to come. Or maybe I don’t want to believe them. ”I’m n-not…not…”
Kunchin rests his hand—paw?—on my shoulder, then shows Sin the black box. “Bureau-issued perception generator. Hides this,” he gestures to himself, “from human eyes.”
“I know what it is,” Sin snaps. “The shifters and the Fae carry them as well. What does this have to do with why Zoe is so upset?”
“It didn’t work on her.”
“And you are certain it is not broken?”
I hand Sin my phone with Kunchin’s picture on it, and he glances up at the yeti. Swiping to the camera app, he takes a second photo, then frowns. “Leave us, please.”
“Zoe?” Kunchin crouches down so we’re eye-level. “That okay with you?”
Sin growls, but I shoot him a look that could kill—if he weren’t immortal—and then return my attention to Kunchin. ”It’s fine. Just…don’t tell anyone else, okay?”
Making the universal gesture for locking his lips and throwing away the key, the yeti lumbers back to the break room for his coffee.
“What am I?” I whisper. “Nothing makes sense anymore, Sin. My life… Who—or what—I am.” Yet again, the sensation of being trapped inside my own body consumes me. I can’t breathe. I’m frozen. But I can see Sin, his face drawn in worry, and then I’m back with him, in the Bureau’s bullpen, and I stifle a sob.
“I would much rather discuss this somewhere I know we will be safe. Will you come home with me?” Sin asks.
“In a little over twenty-four hours, another woman is going to be taken. We have to figure out which clubs to stake out, keep working on the victim profile, try to find the other two men Thorn has…” If we keep busy maybe I can ignore what just happened for another few days. Maybe I can keep pretending I’m human until this case is solved and then I can fall apart. Because that’s all I want to do. Fall apart and reexamine my entire life to see if I should have known.
Sin stands, pulling me up with him. “We can continue to work. I have plenty of equipment for both of us and an encrypted connection to the Bureau’s databases. Trust me, Zoe. I want to solve this case more than you could ever understand. But there is one thing I want even more.”
I tip my head back, meeting his deep blue eyes. The emotion in them makes me want to step away—or throw myself at him. Both options seem equally appealing. “What?”
“You. I want to help you understand what you are—who you are—so that perhaps one day, you will accept what I feel for you.”
Sin
Zoe has not said a word since we left the Bureau. At least she had already agreed to stay with me, and we’d stopped at her apartment after lunch for her to pack a few of her things.
As soon as we arrive at my home, however, she excuses herself to the guest room, and moments later, I hear a single sob before there is only silence.
Fuck. Human emotions are not one of my strengths. To give myself time to think, I call the building’s concierge and instruct him to have a pizza delivered within the hour, then open a bottle of red wine, pour two glasses, and set them in the living room where we can look out over the whole city. I need to be able to see the sky.
“Zoe?” I call. “I am having food delivered. Will you join me so we can talk about what happened earlier?”
She stands in the door, stock still, a tear glistening on her cheek. Even upset, exhausted, with bruises darkening on her neck from Velma’s attack, and bags under her eyes, she is beautiful. “Do you have any answers?”
“I have…theories. Some of which you may not want to hear.” I offer my hand, prepared to scoop her up in my arms and hold her until she hears me out, but, resigned, she places her delicate fingers in mine and lets me lead her into the living room.
“You really do have more money than you could ever spend, don’t you?” Zoe muses as she curls up in one corner of the couch and stares out over the city.
“An advantage of being as old as I am. Investing in a few key technology companies at their inception has proven very lucrative. I also own a successful human nightclub in the Mission District. Prior to meeting you, I would often find a willing donor there when I needed a meal.”
“Prior?” Her voice holds a hint of uncertainty that I very much dislike. As if I could ever feed from another again.
Picking up the wine that probably cost more than two months’ Bureau salary, I take a healthy sip. She is not ready to hear my declaration of…what? Love? Lust? Devotion? Even I am not certain. I do not think she is ready to hear any of what I have to say, but now that my memories are starting to return, I cannot keep this secret any longer. “You are a mystery to me, Zoe. I have been around others all my life, and you…make no sense. There is something so very familiar about you, yet until this morning, I could not put my finger on it. You are an unknown.”