Marcus stared at the screen, looking over Casey’s shoulder, which seemed to make my tech guru super nervous.

But then Casey had always found my trainer incredibly intimidating. Casey turned slightly. “I really need a little more space to work, sir.”

Marcus didn’t move an inch. “You seem to be working quite well. Continue.”

I had to sigh. When I’d walked into Henri’s apartment it had been me and Casey, but that had quickly changed. It was a full-on academic party up in here now. Henri was in his lab/morgue playing around with what was left of the demon’s body with Nicole. If there was a supernatural procedural on TV, those two would have been stars. After they’d shown up with the body, Marcus and Hugo had strode in with Donovan. They’d been studying the ward I found and trying to figure out exactly what language the back of the ward was written in. And that said something to me. Because Marcus knows all the languages, and I do mean all. Though he mostly speaks in Italian and English, he’s studied them all over his two thousand years on the plane.

He was struggling with the ward, and that scared me more than anything.

“Could you not make him nervous, babe?”

Marcus turned to me, his dark eyes narrowing in obvious confusion. “I was not attempting to frighten the boy. Also, he is not a boy. He is a vampire. He can’t keep flinching at everything that comes his way.”

Unfortunately, Casey was good at flinching. It was one of his hobbies, along with skateboarding and making up bad songs about how hard the afterlife is. Given that he spends most of his time playing Xbox on a 110-foot screen in my apartment’s media room, I thought it couldn’t be all that bad. However, I desperately needed him to pull that female face off the security cam, clean it up and get me a name, so that meant prying Marcus off his back.

“So you didn’t recognize the second language on the ward?” I moved back to the dining room where the ward was sitting in the middle of the table waiting for Liv to show up with her coven leader. I had high hopes that Emily would know something about the damn thing.

He sighed, a sure sign that I wasn’t fooling him, but he followed along anyway. “I told you, it did not look familiar to me. One of the symbols on the front of the disc reminds me of an older version of Demonish, but other than that I’m at a loss. The Latin is nothing more than a simple warding spell. The material it’s made from is unfamiliar to me as well, though the actual drawings remind me of something medieval. It’s something about the lines and the type of calligraphy.”

I stared at it for a moment. “Do you think that’s gold in the ink? Like the monks used to copy books?”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “Perhaps it’s something else. The elements are a bit different from plane to plane.”

The door to the hospital wing of Henri’s apartment opened and he stepped out, a light in his eyes. Henri Jacobs was a vampire who turned back in some century when there were palaces and everyone rode around in carriages. I forget. But he’s Dutch. I also forget what country that’s from. When I try to look up Dutchland, Marcus shakes his head and starts spewing venom about the American public education system.

Henri is one of three academics who form the team that aids in my missions. Marcus is my trainer. Henri is the specialist in medicine. And Hugo has forgotten more about law than most people ever know. If you ever get stuck in a demon contract, you want Hugo Wells on your side. And if you ever get bitten by some exotic wereanimal or get murdered by one and need a good medical examiner to autopsy you, well, you probably don’t care. But Henri’s the best.

“You found something?” Marcus asked.

“Something interesting,” Henri replied. “Nicole is taking samples now, but I’m fairly certain that the saliva we found in the wounds is reptilian. There are only a few lounges across the world. They should be fairly easy to track.”

“Lounges?” I had to ask.

Marcus adjusted his jacket, settling it back to perfection. “It’s what a pack of lizards is called, though few actual lizards live together. They tend to be solitary creatures. Only about twenty of the six thousand known species alive coexist in such a fashion. Wereanimals group together for protection.”

“A lounge of lizards.” Science really did have a sense of humor. “Why am I seeing their base all lined in purple velvet with Frank Sinatra playing in the background?”

“Because you are a silly girl,” Marcus shot back, but his lips curled up briefly before he turned back to Henri. “Do you know what kind of reptile? Are you certain it’s a lizard and not a snake?”

Henri pulled off his rubber gloves, disposing of them in the trash bin near the door to the hospital wing. “Positively. They have different markers. Nicole is going to work on the DNA to narrow it down to one species.”

“Are the bites what killed him?” I asked.

“Well, they didn’t do him any favors,” Henri said with a wink my way.

“Henri,” Marcus admonished. “You’ve spent too much time with the young ones.”

Henri shrugged. “They’re quite fun, this generation. And no, the bites aren’t the cause of death. The victim was a royal of high birth. Despite his halfling status, he could have survived much worse. No, I believe I’ve found the ultimate cause of his death. It was silver to the heart. Someone used a silver sword to pierce his heart.”

“How many lizard men carry around silver swords?” It got me thinking. “How the hell would he carry it? No opposable thumbs. He would have to have gained entry, put the sword somewhere, changed to his lizard form, bitten the hell out of the victim, changed back, and then killed him with the sword.”

Marcus shook his head. “The most probable theory is he killed the victim with the sword and then changed and bit him.”

Henri waved that idea off. “Not at all. The bites and blood patterns indicate that the demon was alive when he fought with the lizard. We have claws marks as well. I believe you are actually looking for two perpetrators. The lizard creature would have been used to soften up the demon. As I said before, he’s from a royal line and was bred for strength. He would have been quite hard to take down with a simple sword or knife. Even pushing through his demon flesh would have taken an enormous amount of strength. And pure silver swords are extremely difficult to find.”

Marcus turned to me.

I held my hands up because I knew that look. “Gladys is safely in the armory. I used her today when I…polished her. She was locked up nice and tight, so if someone stole her, they put her back and cleaned her up.”

“I’ll have Devinshea check the security logs,” Marcus assured me. “But there are more swords out there than merely the Nex Apparatus’s, though yours would be the most powerful. You need to keep a close eye on it.”

“I’ll get back to you when I know more about the lizard species,” Henri said. “Once we have that we can pinpoint the lounge he came from.”

“And then we lure him out with martinis and swing music.” I couldn’t help myself. A murder of crows is cool. A pack of wolves. Even a gaggle of geese is kind of cute. A lounge of lizards sounds like something I made up.

“Are you paying any attention at this point?” Marcus’s harsh tone pulled me from my thoughts.

“Of course. Gotta pinpoint that lounge of lizards. Find the one with the sword and take him down.” Although… “Or we find the chick Les was partying with and see if she’s got a sword on her.”

“Yes.” Marcus agreed with me, though he was still frowning my way. “That is much more probable. We must also figure out how the lizard was able to enter the home. The light the neighbors saw was a vehicle of sorts.”

“A vehicle?” I asked.

Marcus nodded. “Yes, I believe the light and sound was a form of spell the perpetrators used to travel and to get around the warding. The woman running from the house must have seen something. Perhaps she was a part of it. If you can take the woman in alive, that would be for the best. I definitely would like to understand why someone is killing halflings. Henri, are you going to be able to inspect the other bodies?”

Henri shook his head. “They’re already soup. Demons, even halflings, decompose over the course of a few days. Nicole took some samples where she could. One was found far too late. The only reason we knew it was a murder was the registration at the hotel. It pinged one of the king’s systems. The hotel manager called the police so he could sue the guest for leaving such a massive mess. The EPA was about to be called in.”

And the truth was the “guest” hadn’t left at all. “Eww, demon soup. Yuck. What about the second guy?”

“The police called the Rangers in but by the time they got to the morgue, well, demon tissue reacts differently than human tissue. They’d put him in the refrigerator and without blood flow, that will actually accelerate demon decomp,” Henri explained.

Dallas PD. They were almost certainly happy to hand off this whole mess to us. I would hate to have been the dude who had to do the paperwork on why a fresh corpse had turned into soup on the nice and chilly slab.

“All righty then. This is up to me.” I was the sheriff, after all. I often wished someone would buy me a shiny gold star. No luck so far. “Henri, send the file to my office where it will sit on my desk until you come down and give it all to me in real live human language.” I remembered then that something terrible was happening in my office. “Nix that. Make it the apartment. My assistant went all heart healthy on me. I’ve sworn not to walk in that place again until he’s tossed out all the kale.”

Why my vamp assistant decided to give a flip about the fact that my cholesterol was up was way beyond me.

Henri promised to meet up later and then disappeared back into the hospital.

Marcus put a hand on my elbow and led me down the hallway. “I need you to understand how serious this is. We’ve had a royal demon killed in a particularly brutal fashion right here in the Council’s city.”

“I understand, but it’s not like they can blame Donovan,” I replied, trying to keep up. “He doesn’t tend to eat people.”

“Ah, but the powers that be can find any excuse at this point to force the king into a difficult position.” Marcus ushered me into Henri’s masculine, super old-world office, with its ornate desk and wall full of books I would never read.

“Because of the fact that he won’t meet with them?” I watched as Marcus paced the floor behind the desk.

“Yes, this is exactly the problem. The king refuses to do his duty by not meeting with the demons.”

I tried not to think about it too much, but there was a day of reckoning coming and I wasn’t sure what the king planned to do. Gray had made that plain to me earlier in the day. The only thing that was absolutely certain was if there were no contracts in place to tell the demons what they could and couldn’t do, they would likely go a little crazy. It had been millennia since humans had to deal with demons gone wild. I got it. The king blamed a demon for my father’s death, and more importantly for the queen’s forced marriage to the shitty vampire who used to head the Council. But Marini was dead, killed by the kick-ass queen who hadn’t been at all happy about the nonconsensual marriage, and a rapey one at that, and now the only one he could really blame was the same asswipe I was intent on murdering. “Would he sign a deal if he knew Nemcox was dead?”

A long sigh came from Marcus. “I don’t know. I believe at this point he blames all demons, though at least lately I’ve gotten him to talk to some halflings. I’ve met with a few royal halflings in an attempt to find someone who can speak sense to the king.”

“So you called on some friends?”

“No, bella. I called on Grayson and had him put me in touch with some people he thought could be helpful. One of them is our deceased. Your Mr. Sloane has been helpful when it comes to attempting to bridge the gap between the Council and demonkind.”

He’d called Gray? Marcus hated Gray. “Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to him?”

“You show no interest in politics and that is all we were discussing. I have to make certain I do everything I can in order to maintain the balance here on this plane. You have no idea how important it is. I’ll work with anyone to avoid what could happen. Besides, Sloane and I do have a few things in common.”

Me, mostly, though before I came around Marcus and Gray had actually worked together. Marcus had been Gray’s contact with the Council when it came to his Ranger work. Something about Marcus’s gravity, however, made me focus on the nonpersonal things he was saying. “What do you mean, what could happen? Are you talking about all-out warfare?”

It was what kept me up at night. I could handle the skirmishes we dealt with now, but I feared a world where demons routinely went after humans. It threatened us all.

“I’m talking about something far worse. I’m talking about another faction getting involved, one that has stayed out of the situation for millennia because we’ve had deals in place, because we’ve handled things here.”

“Another faction?” Somehow I didn’t see the Fae jumping into this particular fray. I’ve been told there are lots of other planes of existence, but they would likely lock down in case of Armageddon.

“Heaven, bella.” He spoke the words quietly, as though he didn’t want to be overheard.

“Are you talking about angels? I’m supposed to be afraid of white winged angels over a bunch of vamps and demons?”

He chuckled, but it wasn’t an amused sound. “Oh, my darling girl. You should fear angels over everything you’ve ever seen. You haven’t seen power until you’ve faced one. You haven’t seen pure power until one turns on you. I fear Heaven far more than Hell. Hell has never destroyed the world before. Heaven is quite proficient at it.”

“Are you telling me the biblical, washed-away-Noah thing was real?” I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit, but somehow the idea of one being having that much power scared me more than anything.

“If you had met an angel, you wouldn’t question that Heaven can destroy that which it finds unacceptable. I worry if the king does not handle the demons, Heaven will step in and then we’re all in trouble.”

“Have you talked to the king about this? Does he understand what kind of threat the angels pose?”

“Since one nearly incinerated him with a mere sweep of his wings a few years ago, I can assure you that the king understands the threat.”

I had to take a long breath. Somewhere in the back of my head I did understand angels were real. I’d been forced to take a class taught by Devinshea Quinn on how to identify supernatural creatures. He’d told me I would know the angel by the glowy attraction I felt and that I should understand that if he or she wanted me dead, I would be smiling when I went.

But having to really think about the fact that there was a whole plane full of them and a dude who created and destroyed at will was something else.

“All right, then, why are you so against me killing Nemcox?” It didn’t make sense. “I kill him, maybe Donovan is satisfied. He won’t have had a hand in it so he’s clean on the demon side. I’ll admit what I’ve done and they can come after me if they like.”

“And they will kill you,” Marcus hissed between clenched teeth. Fangs was a better word. I could see them poking out. He was emotional and I’d done this to him.

“They’ll try.” I wished he would understand or at least attempt to. Sometimes I think Marcus has seen far too much of the world to be able to truly live in it. “Look, I’m sorry you’re mad at me, but I can’t let it go. Well, I can for now because I need to figure out why we’re losing demon allies. You’re right. This should come first, but you need to think about the fact that Nemcox might be the key to turning this thing around.”

“You mean you could be the sacrificial goat.” Marcus frowned down at me. “Do you hate your life so much you’re willing to die to get out of it? Do you honestly believe this is what your father would want? I knew Lee Owens. He was a good man. He would not wish his only child to die in a vain effort to avenge his death.”

He couldn’t possibly understand. “He was my father. I never got the chance to know him because of Nemcox. You honestly expect me to let it go? You think I can live knowing that asshole is walking around in the world?”

Marcus went a shade of red I’d never seen him go before. His hands came up as though he couldn’t stand the thought of unintentionally touching me. “Nemcox didn’t kill your father. He didn’t negotiate to kill your father. Nemcox chose to give up the queen in order to secure his mate. Mr. Owens chose to stand his ground.”

He was pushing my every button. Like it was my father’s fault he died. “He was the queen’s guard. Of course he stood his ground.”

“Louis was never going to kill the queen,” Marcus insisted. “Louis wanted her too much and everyone knew it. Your father believed in death before dishonor. Not even the king stayed behind. Do you understand that? The king left his precious blood behind because he knew Louis wouldn’t kill her. I understand that what Zoey had to do to survive was horrible, but she would have lived. She was smart and capable, and her own husband knew to run.”

That was news to me. But then…how had I thought Donovan survived? I’d focused so much on my father’s fate I hadn’t asked for more information. “What do you mean the king ran?”

“Your uncle knew what the protocol was. He got the king out of there and he was smart enough to leave the queen and Devinshea behind. Every single one of them should have run and regrouped later on to save the queen. Do you think we did not have plans? Trent was embedded in the Council. He was there waiting for her. We had our Magician in the Council stronghold waiting for his chance. He would never have allowed Zoey to die.”

Tears blurred my eyes and I felt my head shaking. “My father wouldn’t let her go because he was her guard. He wasn’t going to let her be raped.”

Marcus’s jaw tightened. “Do you honestly believe the queen wouldn’t have spread her legs to save him? Do you think she doesn’t feel his death every single day? Your father died because he was too stubborn to run, because deep down he wanted to die and this gave him an excuse. You have the same damn death wish. It kills me. I can see so plainly what will happen to you if you are allowed to go down this path. It’s written there in your DNA.”

I took a step back, that information washing over me like an ice cold bath. Since I knew I had a dad who wasn’t a piece of shit, I’d been told the story that Lee Owens was a hero.

Had my uncle left my dad behind? Why would he have done that? Why would Donovan have run? Somehow I’d always thought they’d gotten cut off. In my mind, Donovan and my uncle had been away from the fight, unable to help at all.

I’d blamed Nemcox for months. Had I been wrong?

No. I knew one thing in life and that was when some asswipe gets your dad horrifically murdered, you deal with it. The same way I expected Jamie to avenge my death if I got gutted and left to bleed.

Except I didn’t, I realized. Jamie would die. Jamie was human and even if he wasn’t, would I want him to? I loved Jamie. I loved my other brother, Nate. Would I want either one of them to give up their lives to avenge me?

And yet I felt a deep need to understand why he’d died.

Marcus stood there and he seemed so far from me. “You won’t stop, will you? You’re going to play this out until the end. Is this why you’ve pulled away from me? Is this why you neglect your training? So it will be easier to sacrifice yourself in the end?”

I was so confused and I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “I don’t know. I’m not trying to die here. I just know that Nemcox took something precious from me and I can’t let it go.”

Marcus stepped back, smoothing out the lapels of his suit. He took a deep breath, as though resolving himself. “We won’t solve anything by talking at this point. I’ll go and help Hugo. He’s going through everything the police had on the other three crimes. It’s not much, but we might find something. You should stay with Casey. In the morning, the witches will be here to inspect the ward and we’ll know more then.”

I reached out to him, my hand catching on his arm. “Marcus, please don’t leave like this.”

He put a hand on mine. “I’m afraid I’m leaving like this a lot lately.” He was quiet for a moment. “I do miss you, bella. Work has kept you far from me. Among other things.”

Those other things mostly being Nemcox and my stubborn obsession with ending his ass. But I so missed Marcus. The desperate need to be close to him had faded. I’d been told that would happen with time, but the truth is I’d liked how we couldn’t seem to be apart in the beginning.

In the beginning, we’d formed a connection like I’d never felt before. His voice could soothe me, but I didn’t feel the roll of worry I had from Gray. It was simple with Marcus. When he would touch me I would feel a hum, as though some piece of me settled.

I was beginning to think he spoke to that other part of me. The wolf. He’d had some magical power over her in the beginning and the human part of me had felt that as well. I’d needed Marcus to bring the two of us together, but we were starting to have different desires.

My human soul longed for Gray.

And my wolf…she wanted to howl in the way wolves howl. She wanted a true mate.

Still, I went up on my toes and brushed my lips against Marcus’s, warmth heating me through.

His hands came up, catching my arms and holding me still. He deepened the kiss, his tongue demanding entrance. I softened and gave it to him.

It’s wrong for me to call us separate. It’s the only way I can make someone understand, but you should know that when I talk about my wolf, we’re together. She twitches inside me, but she’s half of me. When I would be in bed with Gray, the hours ticking by like decadent years, she was there. When she runs and hunts, I am with her. We fought at first, our dual nature forcing us to rip our singular soul to shreds, and only this man has been able to piece us together.

We loved Marcus. We’d needed Marcus.

Soon, we would mourn Marcus, we feared.

But for now, we softened against him, wolf and human still needing his touch but feeling the call of something stronger.

I let my soul mesh together, the way he’d taught me, and I kissed him with my whole being.

“I have…oh, sorry.” Casey stood in the doorway, proving a vampire can flush when he wants to.

Marcus sighed and still kissed me again, though this time there was nothing but affection in his touch. “Not at all, Mr. Lane. Kelsey must do her job and I must do mine. Go. Be safe, bella.”

I nodded, too emotional to give him words. We both felt it. We were coming to an end and it lent a certain sweetness to every kiss. Every caress. I vowed to stop fighting him. I would take what we were given and then move on with love in my heart for him.

Marcus had given me that.

He reached up, brushing his thumb over my cheek. “Do you know how proud I am of you? I miss you already, bella. Don’t waste all this beauty and all this strength on vengeance. It isn’t what your father would want.”

He kissed my forehead and walked away, but not before I saw a sheen of tears in his eyes.

I took a deep breath and forced back my emotions. Yeah, Marcus had taught me how to do that, too. I forced a smile and turned to Casey. “Did you get that face off the tape?”

He nodded. “I did. I thought I’d walk it around and see if anyone knows who she is. I didn’t recognize her, though she’s pretty hot.” Casey sobered a bit, leaning against the desk next to me. “You know, I’ve had some rough times with lovers, too. You could talk to me about it.”

The last thing I was going to do was discuss my love life with Casey, whose deepest relationship seemed to be with his skateboard. “Just get me that name.”

“As soon as I can,” he promised. “But while you’re waiting, you have someone in your office. Justin called and asked you to come down.”

I frowned. “Did he say anything else?”

Casey sighed. “Yeah, he threw out the vegan shakes. He restocked your fridge with beer.”

Now we were cooking with gas. I got up. It was going to be a long night.