Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
His breath speeded up nonetheless, his wings wanting to shift and rustle, as if he were a young buck with his first lover rather than an angel of half a millennium with the man who’d been his best friend all his life.
“I’ll put you on this with Aodhan,” Dmitri said after the two had greeted each other and Illium had made his case for being allowed to help. “It probably needs two sets of eyes on it anyway. But take a break if you need it.” His command held a weight Aodhan’s never would when it came to Illium—not only was Dmitri older and deadlier, he’d also known both of them as ungainly babes.
“Will do.” Having come to stand beside Aodhan, Illium kept his wings tucked scrupulously close to his body—his mind, however, was a whole different matter. You look gloomier than that picture Greta keeps on her desk of the being the mortals call the Grim Reaper.
I’m attempting to appear professional.
I will, too, then. Squaring his shoulders, Illium arranged his face into an exaggerated grimace while Dmitri was distracted pulling up images on his computer screen.
I’m going to strangle you soon, Aodhan threatened.
Relax, Adi. A glint in those golden eyes as he tapped absently at his belt buckle. No one knows we were cuddling half-naked in bed at sunrise.
Aodhan felt his cheekbones flush, could only hope the way light refracted off his skin diffused any visible appearance of color. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed by what they’d done. It was that he wanted to haul Illium close and kiss that teasing mouth. He’d never realized how soft those lips could be, or how much he’d enjoy learning the shape of them.
“Got it.” Dmitri’s voice snapped the simmering tension in the air, turning them from playful lovers to dedicated members of the Seven in a heartbeat.
On Dmitri’s screen were stills from a number of security cameras. All showed a burned-down building with street frontage. Most probably a business, given the signage on the buildings around it.
The fire had left a long black streak on the shop to the right, but that was the worst of the damage on that side; the closest building to the left was separated from the burned structure by an alleyway, which seemed to have saved it from any harm. The building in which they were interested, however, had been reduced to rubble—rubble that had still been smoking at the time the cameras recorded these images.
“Fire occurred right before the final battle with Lijuan,” Dmitri told them. “A fire suppression team managed to get to it, but they assumed it had been torched as a result of the war.
“Since that entire block had been confirmed as evacuated, with the verification door seals visible on the other buildings, and they had multiple other fires to attend, they didn’t spend any time looking over the debris—truth was even if they had found the bodies, no one could’ve attended to it at the time.”
“Bodies?” Illium folded his arms. “Multiple victims?”
“Two, one vamp, one mortal,” Dmitri confirmed. “Discovered by Giulia Corvino, the mother of the vampire—Marco—who died in the blaze. She’s the reason we have the security camera images—she asked the neighboring businesses for them while they were still in post-war cleanup mode. Another week and they’d have been wiped.”
He leaned forward with his hands on his desk, a tic in his jaw and respect in his tone. “Giulia is also why we have photos of the actual remains in situ. Otherwise, they’d have been packed up by one of the morgue crews for later identification.”
Because war, Aodhan thought, did not allow for the niceties of peace. “She sent the photos to the Tower?”
“Via Navarro—he was Marco Corvino’s angel.” Dmitri named a senior angel of about three thousand years of age with whom Aodhan was familiar. “Problem is, Navarro sustained serious wounds in the final battle, so it took eight months for the file to even reach the Tower. His staff weren’t sure what to do about Giulia’s insistence that it was murder, just shelved it until he was up and running.”
His eyes narrowed. “Must’ve killed her inside to see her son as bones, but she wanted justice for him and his girlfriend. Tough woman.”
Aodhan looked at the photos with a new eye, seeing in their stark silence a mother’s grief—and her determination not to allow this cruelty to stand unavenged. “Marco must’ve been very young if his mother’s not only alive but capable of mounting an investigation.”
“Kid was barely past his first decade under Contract.” Dmitri’s lips pressed tight. “We lost a lot of young angels and vampires in the war, but at least they all chose to be in the fight. If what Giulia suspects is true, Marco was murdered in cold blood, the war used as a cover-up.”