4. Chapter 4
They were getting nowhere.
Raz’s nostrils flared as his fist, resting against the interrogation room’s two-way mirror, clenched. Damn this woman—this thing—whatever the hell she was.
She supplied them with useless, fake information. She beat around the bush with the three interrogators for hours while Raz sat on the sidelines, his body on fire the entire time.
After their little flirtation—shit—was that really what he was calling it?
He should have immediately backed away from the bold caress of her foot, but it had felt daring and intoxicating to allow her seduction to continue under the safety of the table.
He hadn’t been able to resist the need to fluster her back, especially when he didn’t expect her to carry on for as long as she did.
It had felt like a ploy for her to get under his skin, just like all her heated comments, but then she’d literally raced inside him to where his dragon lay.
Her spirit had felt warm and playful against his—someone determined to seek justice.
After he forced her out, he couldn’t be near her for fear his attraction might lead him to do something truly stupid like grab her black hair and kiss her confident smile into submission. Those lips had been haunting him for months, ever since he first held her calling card.
He was so screwed.
His dragon’s desire for her raged, burning him from the inside out. Each solicited remark or advance she made toward one of the three men who interrogated her clawed at him with unwarranted jealousy. He wanted to yank his hair out.
How the hell did she go inside him?
She couldn’t possibly be—what did Daxton, his only non-rogue dragon-shifter friend, call them—a Fallen?
She smelled and acted human, even though she was a bit too playful for the crime she faced. But something inside him stilled at the prospect that she was one. After Daxton had confided in him about Izzy, the woman Raz had helped him track down, Raz still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Fallen angels walking among them? Beings who were punished to reincarnate as humans that could eventually become the dragon’s primary enemy—Archfiends.
The dragons had searched for centuries for the origin of the vile Archfiends who used Illusion to deceive and manipulate humans, if not outright kill them, but he never would have expected that.
Nor that a dragon and Fallen were soulmates, punished to find each other before they could return to Heaven.
Fallen didn’t seem plausible, but Kate’s energy entered him in the same way Daxton had described. If she were a Fallen, he had a feeling the prison might not hold her.
Sitting beside another officer, Isak, she glanced sideways at the mirror, as if checking her reflection, but it seemed like she stared straight through the glass to see him.
Her doe-like brown eyes sent a fiery spike lancing through him.
Did she know what she’d done to his self-control?
He lifted away from the glass panel with a heated sigh.
She was hot. He could admit that. Her lithe frame wielded shapely curves that her tight bodysuit emphasized. High, model-worthy cheekbones enhanced her button nose. She had the complexion of porcelain, but hiding behind that delicate appearance was a tempered confidence and strength.
But she was a criminal and could be working with Matsuda. She could be the reason his friend was dead. Not someone he needed to tussle with in between the sheets. Still, his instincts whispered of someone trustworthy—in desperate need of…something. And he wanted to find out what that was.
“She’s a tough one,” his lieutenant said.
Raz jumped as if he’d written his thoughts in red on the wall. Regan shut the door behind her as silently as she’d come in. He must be losing his mind if a human could sneak up on him so easily.
“Tell me about it,” Raz muttered.
She offered him a cup of coffee. He grabbed the drink with a tight grin. “Thanks.”
Standing beside him, Regan looked inside the interrogation room with a regal expression. Her dark skin gleamed from freshly applied makeup, her lipstick a different color.
Was it already the next day?
He glanced at his watch. It was nine in the morning.
How he stayed awake after ingesting the sleeping agent was beyond him.
He had been both lucky and unlucky, his body had rebelled against the toxin and puked it up.
Though in the end he’d captured his prey, so he couldn’t complain.
Smelling the brewed coffee, he took a sip—black—and sighed with contentment.
“You should head home,” Regan said, not taking her eyes off the glass. “We can take it from here. She’s not going anywhere.”
His heart thundered in his rib cage. He wasn’t sure they could contain her.
But if she did have special abilities, she could have used them to escape him.
Something about her made him feel as if she wanted him to catch her.
After all, she’d flown inside him for a reason.
She hadn’t repeated the act on anyone else.
What could a Fallen do from within a person and why do it only on him?
And why go through all this trouble if that’s what she wanted?
His questions rammed against his head, but he’d never have the opportunity to ask her them in the field office.
He watched Kate’s lip jut out. Her words came through the adjoining speaker. “If you don’t let me have some sleep, I’ll have to ask for a lawyer.”
It was the first time she’d mentioned getting council. Isak sat back in his chair with a sigh. That was the last thing they wanted. If she was going to call it quits, so was Raz.
“Just keep me up to date,” he said. His dragon grumbled in his chest; his feet felt heavy, as if they didn’t want to carry him away from Kate.
“Will do.”
He turned, forcing his legs to move, and headed for the door.
“Oh, and Raz?” Regan called.
He paused with his hand on the door handle. “Yeah?” He didn’t look back, fearing his feet would stick again.
“Good work.”
Wow. Hearing such genuine praise from his boss, even after working with her for a decade, was rare. To hell with the woman stimulating his insides, he shifted and met Regan’s gaze with a teasing grin.
“Don’t tell me you doubted me? Come on, you know me better than that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Go to bed, Malone.”
He left the room, intending to do just that. Walking away felt like running the last leg of a marathon, his heart pounding, mouth drying, and lungs screaming for air.
His dragon couldn’t be smitten with her. He had enough complications in his life; he didn’t need another one. Besides, she was a criminal—someone he’d never be able to trust except maybe for a good fuck. He closed his eyes. That was not what he needed to be thinking about.
As he reached the end of the hall, the base of his neck tingled.
Someone was watching him. From the tone of Isak’s voice floating down the hall like he was taking their interrogatee to her jail cell, Raz had a feeling it was Kate.
Clenching his fists, he pushed forward and refused to turn back.
The tingling sensation didn’t ebb until he was out of the field office and in his car.
Once he was driving through Chicago’s atrocious morning traffic, he made a call via Bluetooth to Daxton, the one dragon who knew the most about the Fallen.
“You’ve reached the mailbox of Daxton Dyamur,” a robotic voice chimed.
Seriously? When Daxton didn’t pick up his personal cell, Raz rang another member of the Dragon SEALs, the small team of Rogue dragons Raz was a part of.
“I believe congratulations are in order, my man,” Lewis answered after the first ring. His deep, husky voice filled the car with bristling excitement. “It’s all over the news. Tell me the juicy details.”
“She’s one of them,” Raz blurted.
“Excuse me? Please clarify?”
“She’s a damn Fallen.” The admission left a ringing in his ears.
Lewis fell unnaturally quiet before asking, “The Bubblegum Bandit is a Fallen? How do you know?”
“I was interrogating her, and her spirit flew inside of me.”
“What the fuck? Are you sure you weren’t hallucinating?”
Raz had called Lewis for a reason. When Daxton had informed the four Dragon SEALs about the Fallen, the idea disturbed the team—even their most open-minded Healer. So if there was anyone who’d question Raz, it’d be Lewis, especially when the man was a fan of the Bubblegum Bandit.
“It’s hard to hallucinate that,” Raz gritted out between clenched teeth.
“Well, damn. What happened? What did it feel like?”
Raz ran his hand through his longer waves, sending them into more disarray in the rearview mirror. “Tight and uncomfortable at first.”
“Did the dragon scare her away?”
“Not exactly.”
“Elaborate, honey.”
“She seemed surprised, so I don’t think she’s aware of our kind. But my other side didn’t frighten her,” he grumbled. “She touched my spirit energy, and it felt like she had her hand wrapped around my cock.” He shifted in his seat, his pants feeling tight.
Lewis whistled. “She sounds like a real treat.”
“I don’t understand why she did it. Nor how I shoved her out.”
“Hmm…you should talk to Daxton. See if he knows anything about her. This feels too coincidental.”
“You’re telling me. He didn’t pick up. He’s been pretty radio silent since he mated Izzy.
I just…I need some sleep. It’s been a long night.
” He still didn’t want to believe she was a Fallen.
Given how much his dragon was attracted to her, he didn’t need whatever happened to Daxton and his Fallen to happen to him and this thief.
Raz shook his head. What would any answers get him anyway?
She was going to jail for a lengthy time, so it didn’t matter.
His temples pounded, his dragon battling against his ironclad cage of control.
“Do you think a jail cell will keep her?” Lewis asked.
Raz’s mouth dried. “I have no idea. When she separated into her spirit form, she avoided the cameras. That would be impossible to do from within her cell. But I can’t just sit there and watch her.”
“Hey, I will more than happily stay at the field office. Did she tell you her motive for stealing yet?”
Raz worked his hands around the wheel in a tense, restless motion.
Though they all wanted to know if the Bubblegum Bandit was Matsuda’s thief Midnight, Lewis had been a pain in his ass ever since he learned Raz had joined the case.
No doubt, he was sitting in bed wearing his pink hoodie with the words ‘The Bubblegum Bandit is my spirit animal’ printed on the front.
Raz didn’t understand his infatuation. She might do what no one else in the world could do or dared to, but she was a felon.
“You know I won’t tell you even if I knew,” Raz said.
“A dragon can hope, okay? And now that she’s a supposed Fallen, I’m more invested. Though I guess it makes her heist record less exciting if she has any special abilities.”
Raz laughed as he pulled into the parking garage of the hotel he stayed at while working.
“Other than that spirit trick, she could have fooled me. Nothing special there at all.” Raz cleared his parched throat.
“Did I detect a crack in your voice? Are you lying to me?”
“I just got to the hotel. I’m going to get off here, Lewis.”
“I bet she’s as smoking hot as I think she is,” he murmured with a teasing tone.
“Lewis…” Raz’s voice came out hoarse when he tried to deny the allegation.
Lewis laughed. “Now I know she is.”
“I’m sure someone will leak her mug shot soon enough, and you’ll think otherwise.”
“Whatever you say, Raz,” Lewis muttered while the sound of typing echoed in his car as if his friend was already on the hunt for the photo.
Raz parked and shook his head. Though she’d been a mess, hair askew and mascara smudged, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. Something in her gaze, dark yet playful, attracted him, making him want to learn why she had such an entertaining personality.
“I’ll talk to you later. Night,” Raz said.
“Don’t forget to call me with any updates. Night.”
Raz sighed as he turned his car off. Grabbing the few folders he had brought with him, he headed up to his room.
The Lavish Hotel was anything but lavish, but it did the job while he was away from home.
Lewis may have enjoyed city life, but Raz preferred solitude.
His cabin was just too far to make the commute to Chicago every day.
When he walked into his room, he threw the folders onto the made king bed and stripped down to his briefs.
After he locked everything for the night, he shut off the lights and closed the blinds to try to keep out the morning light.
He crawled under the covers and stared at the abstract gold and red paintings on the wall.
His gut wrenched. Kate had put up a fight today, but he still had the feeling she wanted him to capture her. They didn’t have any identification on her, which made her case tricky. The identity she gave them didn’t exist. She was a ghost. Even her pulled fingerprints had come up empty.
Who was this Fallen?
Maybe it was because she was on his home turf that bugged him. He’d joined the case, and her next target had conveniently been in Chicago, his main location. He pictured her winking at him like she’d done on the fire escape. That little motion had beckoned, “Come and get me.”