2. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Zelyah
D on’t get caught . My abuelita’s voice repeats over and over in my head. If she were alive at this moment, she’d very lovingly slap me on the back of my head for getting captured. She always taught me to be careful everywhere I go. She got me into self-defense classes on the off chance that I’d do something dumb and get caught.
I’m sitting in a small, dark room with a single dim light hanging overhead. I’m on one side of the desk with two chairs across from me. I play with the metal handcuffs encircling my wrists. The bands press into the tattoos winding up my arms and are tight enough to leave a bruise. I want to take them off, but I don’t want them to notice that I know how to undo them until I can plan my escape without getting caught.
For now, I’ll listen to what they have to say and find a way to make them believe I’m not a threat. Although, I’m not sure how I’m going to pull it off when there were two murders in connecting rooms, and I was the only one at the scene alive.
I wait for an eternity, or at least it seems like it, because I hate enclosed spaces. I suppress the urge to bounce my knee up and down. I’m only able to exhibit a collected demeanor because I just fed like never before. The excess power flowing through my veins helps me calm the anxiety trying to leak through.
There are no clocks in this small space, but I know the feds are just outside this room, watching me through the glass. I can feel their gazes on me. They’re trying to figure me out, trying to dissect me. My abuelita warned me about this. All I can do is sit here and wait until they decide to show their faces. I hope the fae who caught me isn’t the one they send in for questioning. His power to compel me was unlike anything I have ever experienced, and resisting that force under questioning would be difficult.
Fae are already the most dangerous species in the supernatural world. They have no regard for other species, or each other, when it comes to manipulation. If Agent Cooper happens to be a Night Fae as well, that’s even worse. Faeries steal humans, but of course, that is not the supernatural unit’s concern. Some of the rarest fae can envelop an area or individual with a mist that erases specific memories. If you’re mundane, they treat you like you’re the bottom of the barrel. My kind would be classified as maybe a step up from them, if that.
Since I’m part mundane human and part Succubus, I’m on everyone’s shit list. If humans found out what I am, they’d murder me. If the supernaturals found out what I am, they’d do the same. My only friend was my abuelita. Even Nick didn’t know what I am. I had planned to tell him last night before—
The door opens and in strides that fae fucker I’d hoped would disappear. He’s dressed in a pristine black suit and exuding arrogance like he owns the place. Who knows. Maybe he does. I haven’t kept up with the hierarchy of the FBI because I never planned to be captured. Trailing right at his heels is a woman. She’s wearing dark blue pants with a white button-down shirt. She’s left the first three buttons undone, and her cleavage peeks out of the plunging neckline. I raise my head, but not so much that they’ll notice, and catch a whiff of a shifter. Maybe a fox since she has a combination of red and orange hair.
The shifter sits entirely too close to the agent, thrusting her chest in his direction. She’s trying so hard to get his attention. Under any other circumstances, this would almost be laughable. Agent Cooper’s focus is all on me, and his turquoise eyes are unblinking as he scrutinizes my expression and watches my every move. He’s looking for tells, micro expressions, anything he can use against me.
“Good morning, Ms. Gomez. I’m Agent Rodriguez, and I believe you’ve met Agent Cooper already. I’m sure you know why you’re here, but for the record, you’re under investigation for the murder of Ms. Clarice.”
Agent Cooper’s mouth parts slightly in surprise, and his gaze drifts toward Agent Rodriguez as if he just noticed he wasn’t alone. I stare across the desk at the agents, giving them nothing. My lips are tightly shut because I don’t want to say something I’ll regret. It’s better to stay quiet.
“Did you know the victim?” She gets right to it, no bullshitting like I’d expected. I’m kind of warming up to this lady.
The small room falls silent, and their hardened gazes linger on mine, waiting for me to talk, but my whole focus is on the tall, dark-haired man sitting right in front of me. I know he’s more of a threat than she is. I could take her down easily, but him? It would require a lot more maneuvering, but once I have a chance to study his movements, I think I could squash him like a fly. Every combat lesson I’ve taken has taught me to pay attention to my opponent’s weaknesses. My abuelita made sure I was always training to bring any opponent down.
Agent Cooper leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “What supe are you?”
He really wants to know what I am, and by the way he leans into the table, he wants to know badly. The woman sitting beside him doesn’t look as interested. She’s more concerned about the murders. I like her a little bit more.
She clears her throat. “Task at hand. About the murders . . . Did you know the victims, or were they random kills?”
She tries to bring the conversation back, but Agent Cooper is insistent. He leans even closer to the table. The hair on the back of my neck stands up as he fixes me with a predatory stare. There’s a lot of tension in this tiny room, and it does nothing to ease the anxiety slowly growing in the pit of my stomach.
“What supernatural are you?” he asks more forcefully. “If you were human, you wouldn’t have been able to resist my orders back at the motel.”
“A shifter.” It was the first thing that came to mind, but I regret it as soon as the words fall from my lips.
“So, she does speak English.” Agent Cooper rolls his eyes.
Agent Rodriguez ignores Agent Cooper, drawing her brows together in confusion. I know I’m going to have to give her more if I’m going to sell this story.
Before she asks any questions, I add, “I was cast out for not being able to shift.” I hold my breath as my lie lingers in the air between us.
“Which pack?” Agent Cooper narrows his eyes, looking for holes in my story.
I look down at my hands before looking up again, but this time with teary eyes. After my abuelita died, I had to learn other skills to be able to get what I want, and this is one of them.
“I’d rather not talk about it if it’s not important to this case.” My voice breaks as though what I’m saying is really true.
“Yes, of course.” Agent Rodriguez nods because she understands how pack life works. If you can’t perform a shift, you’re out. “If you’ve been cast out, then you have no pack. I’m sorry to hear that.”
There is genuine empathy in Agent Rodriguez’s voice, and I feel like an asshole for lying, but if I have to lie to protect my identity, then I will do it so many times over. I realize they’ve only asked me about the woman, and I’m livid and disgusted on my boyfriend’s behalf. Why aren’t they concerned about him? Speaking of, where’s his body?
“Aren’t you going to ask me about my boyfriend?” I snap, knowing that I should’ve kept my mouth shut.
The agents are hanging on my every word, and any new detail I give them could be one step closer to being locked up, which would be a death sentence for an anomaly like me. I will need to feed again eventually, and it would prove difficult to go on a killing spree when I’m locked up. A Succubus should be able to feed off of lust alone, but every time I’ve tried to feed or be intimate, I leave another corpse in my wake. I would be able to break out of a human prison if they locked me up without knowing my power, but if they find out what I’m capable of—
“Your boyfriend? Do you mean the human man you killed? He’s of no concern to us. He wasn’t going anywhere in life and had no blood relatives to look for him.”
She’s wrong. He had me; we were each other’s family. We were supposed to make something great out of ourselves. Both his parents were addicts and died long ago. We found each other shortly after my abuelita passed away. He worked long hours in construction and spent good money to spoil and take care of me the way no one ever has.
“Boyfriend, is it?” Agent Cooper wrinkles his nose like he smells something disgusting. “Is that what you do with all your relationships?”
My mouth falls open, and I lean back as far as I can in the uncomfortable, straight-backed metal chair. Is he really asking me if I have a habit of murdering all my boyfriends? I suck in a deep breath, ready to give him an answer and tell him off in the same breath, but Agent Rodriguez holds up a hand and cuts me off.
“That’s not our problem, Agent Cooper. She can kill all the human boys she wants, and that won’t be our issue unless she’s using them for a sacrifice. Ritualistic killings would definitely be our problem.”
Her gentle reminder must irritate him because I notice a slight twitch in his eye. Seems like he was more interested in the answer than he wanted either of us to believe. Of course they don’t give a shit about Nick. These fuckers are soulless. In this case, I’m glad they aren’t looking too deep into Nick’s death, or they’d find out what I truly am. If they had really inspected the body, it would have given me away.
But I have to reassure myself. “What did you do with his body?”
“Why do you care?” His question is cold and hard. My gaze snaps back to meet his. Anger and disgust swirl in his eyes.
“Because I loved him. He wasn’t just some worthless human to me like he is to you. Funny how you want to treat me like I’m the monster in the room, but you’re the ones who want to treat a man like he had no value just because he wasn’t a supe. So, tell me, who’s the real monster here?”
Agent Cooper scoffs, shaking his head. “His body disappeared.”
Which means they burned it to hide any evidence of a supernatural being killing a human. That’s what these supes tend to do to protect our world. It’s atrocious. Nick has no family to miss him, nobody but me. I nearly cry out in a sob, but I hold my lips tightly shut. I know this is for the best. I have to protect myself. The room is quiet, the only sound coming from the cuffs rubbing on the desk.
“Why have you killed two supernatural women, two consecutive weekends in a row?” Agent Rodriguez asks.
My heart jumps a beat at the sudden change in conversation. The shifter tilts her head when I startle, but she doesn’t realize why the agent’s words are so alarming. Hearing about someone going on a killing spree and murdering women brings back a lot of memories I’ve tried to forget.
“Are you using their body parts for a ritual?”
She opens the brown folder on the table and pulls out two photos, laying them side-by-side. Each photo is of a young woman between the ages of eighteen to twenty-five in human years. As supernaturals, they could be a lot older. They’re lying face up with blistered and empty eye sockets. The areas around the eyes and mouth have a purple tint, and there is writing beneath their bodies, but it’s obscured by the amount of blood pooling around them.
I inhale a sharp breath as I take in the freakishly similar wounds on these women—wounds I’ve seen before as a child looking at my mother’s lifeless body. The first picture is a lot bloodier than the second one, but both murder scenes seem sloppy and more impulsive than hers. Even after all these years, I can remember in great detail the precision of the knife work decorating my mother’s beautiful skin.
These new murders look like someone was practicing. Whoever did this wasn’t sure how to use a knife. I would’ve been able to make a cleaner cut. Maybe he isn’t my mother’s murderer, but to have such a similar style of killing women, the man responsible for this mess may have the information I’ve been hunting my entire life.
Agent Cooper slams his hand over the photographs and pulls them away from me. “She’s not going to talk.”
Agent Cooper faces his colleague. He thinks I’m not speaking to avoid incriminating myself; he has no idea why this photo makes me want to puke. During my escape, I was too focused on my survival to let myself feel the grief that crime scene brought up, but now that I’m staring down at the photos, all I can think about is my mother. She was murdered in the same way, but telling him that would bring up a lot of questions I can’t answer safely. I’m afraid they’ll start connecting the dots.
So, I face them once again, sucking in a deep breath to steady myself. “I don’t know who killed these women.” Agent Cooper scoffs, but I ignore him and continue. “But I can help you find out.”
Shit, where did that come from?
“And what makes you think we need your help?” Agent Cooper asks.
Because I feed on the lives of the bad men I track down.
“Because I kill human men for a living. I can get into the person’s head, think like this killer does.” It’s all lies. I want to puke at my words. I know this doesn’t put me in a good light, but faking a disregard for humans gives us something in common, even if I am part human myself.
“Let’s bring in Radnor,” he relaxes back in his chair with a smug smile. “Lucky for you, Radnor is in one of his more . . . friendly moods today.” I give him a neutral face and lace my fingers together, using that movement to mask the trembling.
Agent Rodriguez leaves the room, and a moment later, she comes in with a blue-haired guy with a septum piercing mirroring my own. He has a ponytail on top, and the bottom of his head is shaved. He shows off his delicate pointed ears, letting me know he’s fae, but he’s something else too.
He walks in smiling without a care in the world, and I wonder how the hell he got mixed up with these people. He looks like a laid-back guy with intricate tattoos over his entire body. He leans against the wall and watches me.
“Hello, gorgeous.” He winks, and I try not to blush. The fae know they’re beautiful, and they know how to use their power. It’s how so many humans and supernaturals fall at their feet to be with them.
“This is Radnor. He’s half fae and half demon. Consider him a living lie detector.” Agent Cooper motions his hand in Radnor’s direction.
Oh no, not what I wanted or needed right now. I try to control my breathing for fear that they’ll hear how nervous I am.
“He’ll ask you a couple of questions, and you’ll respond truthfully. He can tell whether you’re lying or not,” Agent Rodriguez says as she takes her usual spot.
“We’ll finally be able to find out if you’re the killer, and if you are, we’ll lock you up until you rot in your cell.” Agent Cooper sneers at me, and I wonder how he can make such an ugly expression with such a pretty face.
“And when you find out I’m not?” I push the seat back with my bare feet and try to lean back in my chair to mimic his position, but I’m quickly pulled back, reminding me that my wrists are still cuffed.
“We’ll figure it out once we get there,” he says. He already believes I’m guilty. I’m ready to prove my innocence.
“She’s all yours, Radnor,” Agent Rodriguez says.
He props one leg on the wall. Reaching into his pocket, he grabs a sucker and takes his time opening it.
I look back at Agent Cooper as his eye twitches again, just the slightest bit. He hates to be kept waiting. My stomach turns from the wait. I’m not sure if he’s doing it on purpose or if he really is craving something sweet.
Radnor clearly senses my distress. “Relax, it’ll only be a couple of questions and afterward you’ll be off the hook.”
I snap my gaze back to Agent Cooper when he scoffs.
“Is your name Zelyah Gomez?” Radnor asks, and I can feel his magic tingling down my throat.
I want to see what would happen if I lie, but the truth comes out instead. “Yes.”
“Was your birthday yesterday?”
Again, I can’t lie. “Yes.”
It’s his magic that prevents me from telling him anything but the truth. All I can do is hope he doesn’t ask me if I’m a shifter, or I’m toast.
“Did you kill your boyfriend?”
“Yes.” I squeeze my eyes shut, and a bitter ache pierces my heart, but I take a deep breath and force my eyes open, meeting Radnor’s gaze.
“Did you kill Ms. Clarice?” He shifts his position, lowering his leg and crossing them at the ankles.
“No.” A tightness in my chest eases just a little. I can’t lie under his scrutiny. I know it, and Radnor knows it.
“Did you murder Ms. Johnson, the first victim?” With a mischievous glint in his eyes, he waves the sucker in my direction before returning it to his mouth with a smirk.
“No.” The heavy weight of anxiety that’s been hanging around my neck ever since I walked in here falls away, and I sit up a little straighter. They have to know I’m not lying now.
“Lies,” Agent Cooper says as he smashes the table with his fist.
“She’s not lying. She can’t,” Radnor responds, still staring at me with a grin and twirling his sucker in his mouth.
Radnor opens his lips to ask the next question. “Do you think I’m hot?”
“Uh . . . what?” My cheeks start to heat up. My jaw moves to give him the answer. My palms are sweaty.
“That’s enough,” Agent Cooper says before I embarrass myself.
“Fine,” Radnor says playfully. “She’s free to go. She isn’t your kill—”
“Go!” Agent Cooper shouts, not letting him finish his sentence. He’s clearly angry that I’m not the killer.
“Yeah, whatever you say, your highness.” He gives a mocking bow, and before he leaves, he tells me, “Come find me, Zelyah. I think we’d have lots of fun together.”
The door closes before I can say anything. Between the two feds sitting in the room, only one holds all the power in my situation.
Agent Cooper.
I briefly look over at Agent Rodriguez. She doesn’t take her eyes off him, she’s staring longingly at his full lips, watching him run his tongue across the edge of his perfect white teeth as if either of us might be nothing more than a meal to him.
He taps on the desk, his stare never wavering from mine, his eyes sending jolts of breathlessness through my body. Why do I find him so attractive? Is it his position of absolute authority or the predatory look on his face? He watches me like he would rather take me apart than take me to bed, and it’s clear he’s as ruthless as they come. Typical fae.
Just when I think he’s going to push away from the table and leave me in silence, he clears his throat to get my attention.
“I don’t know how you’re getting around our powers, but it’s obvious you’re still lying. Until I figure out what you really are, you’ll stay with me. You will not leave my sight. Is that clear?” It’s a command. “I’m not sure what I’ll do with you yet, but for now, I need to make sure you aren’t the killer.”