“We found your purse. Your wallet. ID.” The words came from the shifter cop.
Shifters. She’d always been wary of them. Most supernaturals were. They were born to lie. To deceive. And some of them were just plain crazy.
She’d never met a cop shifter before. The shifters she’d encountered had been more of the run-from-cops kind.
So he’d found her missing purse. Big deal. “Well, good.” Not that she really cared. She’d already replaced the ID and gotten a new bag. She didn’t have credit cards, so she’d lost a bit of cash. “Where is it and I’ll—”
“We found it at a crime scene.”
Her mouth snapped closed. Michael. “Just…ah…what kind of crime scene?” Her hands were trembling, a weakness she didn’t want the men to discover. She balled her fingers into fists.
Brooks took two gliding steps toward her, closing the distance between them. Cara tilted her head back, gazing up at him.
“We found your bag at a murder scene, lady.” The warm smile was completely gone now. Only the hardened cop remained. “Wanna explain that to me?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t explain it. “I—I—my purse was stolen two weeks ago—”
“And you reported the theft, right?” The shifter asked, voice doubtful.
Another negative shake of her head. The purse hadn’t mattered enough to report, and she certainly hadn’t wanted to go out and start attracting attention from cops.
Though it looked like she’d managed to capture their attention anyway.
“Why do you do it?” Brooks asked, leaning toward her. He drew a ragged breath, as if inhaling her scent, then muttered, “You’re so damn beautiful, I bet it’s like fucking child’s play for you to lure those men to you.”
It always had been easy. She’d been born as a lure. Since his words were a bitter truth, Cara stayed silent. Reeling the men to her, no that had never been a problem.
None of the men had ever cared enough to stay with her.
An eternity of pleasure, but a life lived alone. That was her lot in this world. The lot for all the succubi. She was just the only one not loving the deal.
“Do you get off on it?” Brooks asked, voice silky smooth. “Do you like the power? Like the control in bed?”
She swallowed. Sometimes, she wanted to lose control. To be taken.
His hand lifted, brushed across her cheek in a caress that lanced her flesh with its heat. “And at the end,” he said, pressing in even closer, so close that for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, “when the pleasure is pounding through you, how does it feel to kill your lovers?”
What? “No, listen, I’ve never—”
He grabbed her hands, yanked them up, and held her tight. Not hurting her. Trapping her. “How do you do it? Drugs? An injection?”
She twisted her hands, trying to break free. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” A lie. Killing a lover was so easy.
But not her way.
“Right, princess.”
Her eyes narrowed at the mocking tone.
“You don’t have any idea why we’re here. You don’t know Michael House, and you have no idea how your ID came to be at our crime scene.”
“Wh-what—” She broke off, struggling to clear her throat. “What happened to Michael?” A murder scene, he’d said he found her bag at—
His lips tightened. “I thought you didn’t know him.”
“What happened?” She wrenched her hands away from him.
“Come down to the station, and I’ll be glad to tell you.”
She hurried back a few steps, and stumbled into the shifter. Damn it, how had he moved so fast? When had the jerk circled behind her? “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
One dark brow lifted. “Wanna bet on that?”
Not particularly.
The shifter’s hands landed heavily on her shoulders. She jumped at the contact. His touch was cold to her skin, where Brooks had felt burning hot.
Brooks held her gaze. “You can do this the easy way and come with us willingly—”
“Or you can fight,” the shifter growled in her ear, “and still wind up finding your ass downtown.”
Oh, she didn’t like him. Didn’t like either of them. Her skin began to prickle as rage and power swept through her.
“Easy.” The whisper was so soft she might have imagined it. The shifter’s voice. Barely breathing in her ear.
She drew in a ragged gasp of air at the sound, drawing the cold oxygen deep into her lungs. Control. She couldn’t shatter in front of them. They were cops.
Cops who were suspecting her of—what? Assault? Murder?
If she put up a fight, and used her power, she’d never be safe in Atlanta again. She’d have to run, and she wouldn’t be able to stop running for a long, long time.
She wasn’t the type to run. Never had been.
Her chin lifted as she made her decision. “I’ll do it the easy way.”
Brooks’s lips began to curl.
“For now.”
That wiped the smug smile right off his handsome face.
After she shoved on her shoes, they led her outside, into a starless night.
What would happen at the station? The thought flew through her mind, followed instantly by another, darker worry, one that had her mouth drying. What’s happened to Michael? She hadn’t seen her ex-lover in months, and now, Cara feared she might not ever see him—alive—again.
Chapter 2
She didn’t look like a killer. Her blue eyes were too clear. Her skin too soft.
She smelled of sex and embodied the best wet dream of his life.
But she didn’t look like a killer.
Which meant she probably was.
Brooks watched Cara through the two-way mirror. She sat in the interrogation room, legs crossed, fingers idly tapping on the wooden table. She’d been in there for over thirty minutes now. Alone. Every few moments, a ripple of anger or impatience would appear on her face, then disappear seconds later as her cool mask slipped seamlessly back into place.
Cara Maloan was even better looking than her picture had suggested. In fact, the woman was truly damn near perfect. Hell, yes, he could all too easily imagine her being able to lure those poor assholes to their deaths.
He’d never seen a woman more sexual. Even in the loose jogging pants and tank top she wore, there was no disguising her appeal.
The minute the door of her house had swung open, he’d realized an important fact. He wanted her.
Then he’d caught a whiff of her scent. Jesus Christ. He’d never smelled anything so good. Rich, like a woman’s sensual cream, but sweet, like flowers or champagne. A combination that had blasted straight to his cock.
He hadn’t just wanted her then. He’d hungered for her.
And the lady was probably a killer.
Damn if he didn’t just have the shit-poorest luck in the world. Or at least, that was what his father would have told him, rest the old bastard’s soul.
Todd exhaled and wondered for a minute what his dad would have thought of this case. Of Cara.
His dad. Tough and twisted sonofabitch that he’d been.
Todd had never meant to follow in his footsteps, but fate sometimes had a way of screwing up the best plans that a guy could make.
The door behind him opened with a squeak. He glanced over his shoulder, found his partner watching him with an inscrutable stare.
“You got the photos?” Todd asked.
Colin lifted the manila file.
Todd turned back to the glass, gazed once more at Cara. “It’s a real crying shame that a woman like her is a murderer.” Because he was still hard for her. Could still smell her.
“We…should be very careful with her.”
There was a hesitancy in Colin’s voice that made the hair on Todd’s neck rise. Stepping away from the observation window, he turned to fully face his partner. “What do you know?” Colin had held out on him during their last major case. The knowledge still stuck in Todd’s throat, and he wasn’t going to sit around and let the same shit happen again.