“You have a good reason for the delay?” I snap.
“A man has to feed.” He bares his teeth, and I hold my breath, expecting fangs, but he merely smiles at me.
Working my jaw, I measure my words carefully. “Eat faster in the future. This one’s hot.”
“Care to explain?”
Unease slithers through me, and it takes all of my control not to rub the back of my neck. The gloves on my hands aren’t exactly clean. Not after touching the corpse that had once been a beautiful young woman.
The handbook the commander gave me the previous morning kept me awake all night. A primer of sorts on Others. I read it cover to cover, fascinated, horrified, and excited all at the same time. And for the first night since I was released from the hospital, I didn’t even think about touching the whiskey.
“A shifter’s age is evident in her eyes. Faint circles radiate out from the pupils. The more lines, the older the shifter is.”
“Gold star, Agent. Though most in my world learn such a thing by the time they are five.” His smooth voice makes me want to melt at his feet and strangle him at the same time.
“Well, excuse me. Some of us were raised to believe your world was all in our imagination. My point is that you won’t be able to tell me how old she is.”
Sinclair arches a brow and crouches down. He pulls a glove from his pocket and snaps it over his long fingers before peeling back one of her eyelids. In that moment, his entire demeanor changes.
The flippant, irreverent playboy fades away, and he whispers something I can’t hear before gently stroking his finger from her sculpted brow to her cheek.
Even after everything I’ve seen working for the SFPD, the shifter’s empty sockets leave me off balance and queasy, and it appears Sinclair is affected too. “Hot enough for you?”
“Perhaps,” he says as he rises and pulls off the glove. “But what I would truly like to know? What has your panties in such a twist, Agent? I do not think this is all because of the condition of the body.”
“My name is Zoe. As for what’s upsetting me? Your attitude, for one thing, Sinclair.”
He stares at me, surprise in his midnight blue eyes. “Only the commander calls me Sinclair. You may call me Sin.” His nostrils flare, which in a human, would indicate offense. But with whatever the hell he is? Who knows? “Eve rarely backs down, and she seemed quite insistent we work together. So, I am afraid we are stuck with one another.”
At least he’s honest.
“Looks like it.” Turning back to the body, I stare at her. Beautiful—if not for the pallor of her skin and those damn missing eyes. Looking at her makes me feel like my entire existence is being drained away. Everything inside me gone. So I focus my attention on the surrounding area.
“Why would they dump her? Here? Did they want her to be found?” I walk the perimeter, feeling Sinclair—Sin—staring after me.
“They?” His nostrils flare again, and he shakes his head slowly. Okay. Now I know he’s scenting something. “Is there some reason you believe this is the work of more than one? Or that the perpetrator—or perpetrators—wanted her to be found?”
“Look at this place.” I wave my hand in a circle around me. “It’s a well-used trail, the weather’s almost perfect and has been for a week. There’s zero chance the body stays hidden past 9:00 a.m. And there’s not a damn bit of trace anywhere. That amount of care? Almost assuredly two people. Or more.”
“She was not thrown from a vehicle,” Sin muses and inclines his head. “The dirt is not disturbed. She is posed. Her feet are pointing due south. Palms up. Almost in supplication. There are faint bruises on her arms, but her body is clean—as if someone washed her.” He pauses, then arches a brow. “Look at her, Agent—Zoe.”
I do, and immediately, my stomach lurches. Sin takes a step closer. “Are you about to be ill?”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” I snap. But his question isn’t out of left field. It’ll be a miracle if I hold it together for the next few minutes until we can get the fuck out of here.
“Then why do you appear as if you are about to lose your breakfast?”
The commander’s last instructions echo in my head. “Trust your partner, Agent Dawes. Sinclair is difficult, arrogant, and something you have never seen the likes of before. However, he is, above all…loyal.”
Pressing my hand to my stomach, to the scar from Temple’s bullet, I swallow hard. “It’s not the body. Not…exactly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Sin tilts his head and narrows his eyes at me.
Fuck. His gaze packs a punch I’m not prepared for. The shifter…she was empty. Gone. A hollow shell. But Sin?
His eyes are full of heat. And pain. Regret. Longing. Curiosity. Resignation. So much more. Irises the color of a perfect sapphire, the outsides glowing a sky blue. And staring at him settles my stomach almost immediately.
Why?
“Zoe? Agent Dawes?” He holds out his hand, and my gaze pings between his strong fingers and his eyes. That’s when I understand. Why the shifter affects me so deeply.
With Sin, everything I associate with a person, their soul, the very essence of their being is present. He’s so much more complicated than the humans I’m used to dealing with, but he’s definitely…here.
The shifter’s body? It’s missing all of that. Even after death, a person’s soul remains for a time. I used to swear I could see it. Until Temple warned me repeatedly not to admit that to anyone.
But with the shifter? She’s not even a ghost. There’s just…nothing there.
Frowning, I shake my head. “I’m fine.”
After a beat, he nods. “Very well.”
I can’t help but ask. “What are you?”
“Something that should have never been born.” Sadness laces his deep, lightly accented voice, but as I pin him with a hard stare, he sighs. “Incubus. Mostly.”
“Do you have…talents?” He isn’t telling me the whole truth, but though I’ve always been able to read people, to know whether they’re lying, I have no idea what he’s keeping from me.
“Talents?” His lips curve into a frown, and that strong, perfectly sculpted brow furrows, making me want to smooth the lines away.
“Incubus. You feed off of arousal, yes?”
He nods. “I can also feed off of fear, though I choose not to.”
“What else? Can you read minds? Shit like that?”
Sin shoves his hands into his pockets. “I require arousal—and a name—to feed. I can, when connected to a person, see their memories in limited fashion. But only if they are willing or unawares—two states I can induce if necessary.”
“How?” I need to know what I’m dealing with. What my partner can do. For me. With me. To me.
“Through vision and touch. I require both to compel someone—along with a pliant mind. I can give a person a ‘nudge’ if you will, to want to touch me. Something to tip them over the edge if they are wavering. And when I am hungry, I will automatically appear more…appealing to any humans around me. You have my word, however, that I never take from a human against their will.”