“OH GOD!” I cried out.

The sight of Evie’s body was too much.

I lost the limited contents of my stomach as my heart twisted into a knot.

My blood pounded, pumping a rhythm that my thoughts echoed. My fault. My fault. My fault.

There was no denying it, no turning away from the god-awful truth. I was responsible for Evie’s death as well as her father’s. I wanted to wipe the image of her mutilated corpse from my mind and didn’t want to look back at her. I wanted to remember her as she had been. I couldn’t handle looking at that once beautiful face, now ashen as death overtook her features.

How did this happen?

The wounds on her body were severe, she’d been torn apart.

Surely even Eth couldn’t have inflicted so much damage. Not knowing how I felt about her. How I felt about my sweet phoenix.

It was with that thought I realized there was no fire.

It was as if a light had been ignited in my mind. I was able to gasp down a lungful of air and see things clearly. The tricks my mind had played on me in the instant I’d seen the color of the girl’s hair faded.

As it did, I saw all the things that made the corpse not Evie. Her hair wasn’t quite the kaleidoscope of colors that Evie’s was. Instead, it was just a head full of plain red hair. Even through the mist of death, I could see that the eyes that stared at me weren’t the same color as Evie’s, blue instead of lilac. The shape of her face was wrong, and her lips weren’t quite as full.

Once my mind had firmly grasped the fact that it wasn’t Evie but the corpse of some other girl, I could breathe easier. My heart eased away from the rapid rate it had set. My limbs convulsed as adrenaline burned through my restrained body. I hung my head as I tried to recover from the shock.

When I lifted my head and met the dead girl’s gaze, I started to consider why she’d been left in front of me. My training set in, and I catalogued and assessed her injuries.

On one thigh was a series of huge, symmetrical gashes, almost as if three knives had sliced into her body all at once. Her shirt was ripped open and half of one breast, as well as most of the contents of her chest cavity, was missing. She’d been attacked, savagely and without remorse.

Whatever had injured her torso had almost certainly been the cause of her death, but the lack of blood flow from the wound meant she’d probably bled out through the gaping wounds in her thigh long before the blows—bites—to her chest. It was a small mercy for the poor young woman.

An untrained eye probably would have assumed it was a bear attack, but I could see the cuts were too deep to be made by a bear, and the jagged edge of the wounds were most likely caused by serrated claws. Even after just the small initial assessment, I would have guessed that she was a victim of either a wendigo or werewolf attack.

I lost count of the seconds and minutes again while staring at the bloodied woman in front of me. Absolute stillness and silence trapped me in the room with the dead girl, so when the door clicked open behind me, I jolted upright. The restraints around my body bit into my skin, but the pain of that was the last thing on my mind when I heard a series of snuffling and grunting sounds issue from behind me.

There were only a few creatures that made those types of noises, and none of them were good. Certainly none of them were company I wanted to be confined with while I was restrained and unarmed.

A new sound, one that could only be called a howl of delight, sounded behind me. My blood turned to ice in my veins and the list of potential creatures narrowed to just one. Werewolf.

My instincts shouted at me to get free, but it was fruitless tugging on my arms—I would only draw attention to myself. Instead, I slowed my breathing and waited for the werewolf to do something. Anything.

As I even released my second controlled breath, the werewolf bounded over me in a single leap and crashed heavily onto the table. Keeping my breaths as shallow and quiet as I could, I glanced up at the sight. Long, sinewy, recurved legs gave the beast a powerful stride, one that no human could hope to match for speed. Coarse black fur, matted in some places, missing completely in others, coated its leathery skin.

I’d encountered werewolves before, as well as wendigos, harpies, banshees, fae, and just about any other monster imaginable. This time was so much worse than any of my previous meetings because I was utterly unable to help kill the beast. If it decided to attack me, I would be dead in seconds.

The thick, banded muscles around the creature’s shoulders twitched as it fell to all fours over the dead girl—its victim. Even the smallest movement the werewolf made rippled along its muscular frame. It was a perfect monster, designed for death. I could still remember seeing my first one. I was seven at the time, and it had ripped into a car like it was a sardine can.

The creature gave a renewed howl, its elation clear in the echoing sound, and then the cry was silenced as it buried its snout deep in the chest cavity of the corpse. Inch-long teeth tore at her flesh, ripping chunks as the creature whined with delight. The vigor of its movements as it tore into the girl was enough to force her body to shake and convulse, twisting her head from side to side until it tipped away from me.

I’d never experienced such a feeling of helplessness. I wanted to fight the creature back, to give the girl some dignity in death, but instead I had to watch it feed mercilessly on her flesh.

I gagged at the sight before vomiting again. The sound and smell of the action drew the werewolf’s attention away from its victim and it turned its muzzle, fur reddened by smears of saliva, blood, and flesh, onto me.

I was going to die. Werewolves preferred female flesh, that was common knowledge, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t kill me if it thought I was a threat or a challenger to his prize.

Moving in a slow circle, the werewolf twisted its body to face me. It sniffed at the air before leaning forward. Its front legs pressed against the armrests where my arms were secured. Giant paws, each finger ending in sharp knife-like claws, pinned me in place. The tips of each claw dug into my skin, drawing fresh blood to the surface.

I leaned as far back into the chair as I could, wishing the seatback away so I could move away farther still. The werewolf was close enough that I could feel, and smell, its warm, putrid breath wash over me. A long string of saliva hung from the side of its mouth, tinged pink by the blood of the girl. I swallowed noisily as I tried to stop myself from retching again as the saliva dripped down onto my cheek.

The creature sniffed at the air in front of me, and I held my breath wishing to be free of the room, wishing to be back with Evie, wishing to be goddamn anywhere else but in that chair with that vile creature standing over me while I was helplessly strapped to the seat.

A low growling started in the back of the beast’s throat, building in intensity until it released a new howl—a clear battle cry. It pushed off the chair, slicing shallow trails across my arms in the process, before standing back up at full height on the table.

The werewolf raised one of its massive paws. Restrained the way I was, the blow it seemed set to deliver would kill me.

Is that what they want? I wondered as I stared into the eyes of death.

It was possible that I would be used an example of what happens to operatives who betrayed the cause. Like the heads of betrayers and usurpers displayed on London Bridge centuries ago.

Before the beast could swing its arm at me, someone fired a gun from somewhere near the door. The werewolf stumbled backward with a smoking, silver wound in its chest. It teetered for a second before falling off the table and crashing onto the chair opposite mine, upending it with a loud bang.

“Is that attractive to you, Mr. Jacobs?” a cold, lifeless voice asked behind me.

A blond Assessor, one I recognized but struggled to put a name to, stepped around in front of me before moving to right the chair that the werewolf had toppled during its fall.

The Assessor ignored the bodies of both the girl and the beast and, after tucking his gun back into its holster, sat opposite me with his arms crossed over his chest. My stomach churned and heaved and I was unable to answer him around the vomit that filled my mouth before rushing from me.

I’d never had a weak stomach before, but freed from the fear of instant death, broken by grief and guilt, and pumped up with enough adrenaline to lift a bus, I couldn’t control myself or put my disgust into the tidy little box it usually occupied in my head.

It was ridiculous how weak I’d become in less than a day. I hated myself for it.

“Weakness will get you killed.” My dad’s voice echoed through my head.

This wasn’t who I was. Normally, I would be able to look into the eyes of any creature as I pulled the trigger and not feel an ounce of remorse, but the grotesque closeness of the werewolf and its victim, the fact that I’d seen David’s corpse consumed by fire less than twenty-four hours earlier, and with my mind still reeling from the loss of Evie, it was all too much for me to handle. I’d become a pussy.

The Assessor’s hazel eyes watched me carefully while he waited for me to settle myself again. I swallowed down the bile in my throat and set my jaw.

Dad was wrong. Weakness would do worse than get me killed—it would get Evie killed.

It was simple. I couldn’t be weak. I couldn’t show any weakness. They may have rattled me, but if they wanted to break me, they would have to try harder than that.

The Assessor sighed. “These creatures are deadly.” He glanced down at the werewolf’s twitching corpse in disgust before turning his unwavering gaze back onto me. “All of them.”

He didn’t need to spell it out any clearer—he was talking about Evie.

He was wrong.

“Regardless of how fair they might appear to be, you mustn’t let that outward sweetness fool you. Underneath, they are all driven by the same instincts and need as our friend here.” He kicked the furry pile on the floor with his foot. “And they all want to hurt the innocents in the world like this precious girl here.”

He brushed the hair of the corpse across her forehead before turning her face to look back in my direction. Even in death, the girl was less pale than his never-see-the-sun pallor.

“Ashley.” He nodded toward the corpse. “That was her name.”

My gaze was glued to the not-purple eyes of not-Evie, but I tore it away, unable to take the deathly stare a moment more. Even though the colors were wrong, it reminded me too much of Evie’s dad and his accusing gaze—of uncomfortable truths buried within dead irises.

“Look into Ashley’s eyes, and you’ll see the fear she felt as she was torn apart alive. In the instants before her death, she saw that creature coming for her and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Luckily for others like poor Ashley here, we have operatives like yourself and your family. It’s your job to protect them. On this occasion, you failed. Her death is your fault. To stop this from happening again, you need to be on your A game. You can’t do that if you sympathize with evil. ”

His voice was almost monotonous, all soothing and calm. I felt my eyes drifting toward Ashley’s again just like he’d instructed. In them, I saw the fear that Evie must have felt as Eth’s vehicle rammed into hers repeatedly.

“What if you’re wrong?” I murmured around the foul taste of bile that filled my mouth. “What if it’s not so black and white?”

“I can assure you that we’re not and it is.”

“But how can you know that?”

“I’m surprised you even have to ask. I would have thought of everyone in the Rain, your family would understand the most about the harm these creatures can cause.”

“Evie’s not like that thing there though.” I indicated toward the werewolf with my chin. “A werewolf’s primary function is to feast, preferably on female flesh.”

“You do understand how deadly these things can be, then?”

“Of course I do. I’m not stupid.”

“It was only a few short weeks ago that you had to help rescue Ben from the fae and now you’re falling for a phoenix? I can’t even pretend to understand the lunacy involved.”

“But Evie, well, she’s never killed anyone. She wouldn’t.”

“You’re certain about that?”

“Ye—” I faltered. I couldn’t guarantee she’d never hurt anyone, all I had to go by was her word and the fact that I hadn’t found any evidence that she had. Isn’t that enough? “Yes, I’m certain.”

He frowned. “Clay, can we be honest with each other?” He stood and leaned forward over the table so that I was forced to look over Ashley’s corpse to see him. “I can understand the physical draw you had to that creature. Phoenixes are certainly among the fairer looking species we’ve encountered. I can almost understand the desire to bed one.”

It was a damn good thing that I was restrained because I wasn’t sure what the penalty was for punching an Assessor in the face.

“You can’t let that fool you though. You of all people should know that a creature being fair in appearance does not make them friendly. Or safe. However much you might have wanted that, it doesn’t make it true.”

“How can you know that though?” I growled. I was getting sick of seeing his face, of hearing his monotonous voice spewing lies with a steady meter.

He nodded to someone over my shoulder and an instant later, both Ashley and the werewolf were removed from the room and the table was wiped clean. In place of the corpse, a folder full of photos rested on the surface.

I glanced down at the folder just as the Assessor spoke. “These are case photos from the last phoenix we encountered. I think you’ll find it enlightening.” He walked around to loosen the bindings that held me in place.

“Go on,” he encouraged when I was free. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Before I’d even moved, he’d left the room and locked the door behind him.

I could barely believe what I had in front of me. My hands shook as I wondered whether the file could be about Evie’s mother.