Page 28 of Soul Sucker

“Hey, Dr. Clegg wants to know if you want to go and see the body or wait until he types up his report.”

“I’ll go down,” Feehan replied. “Does anyone want to come with me?”

“I’ll come.” For some weird reason, she felt like she needed to be there for the dead empath to protect her from everyone else. She simply couldn’t believe that there was nothing left. It didn’t make any sense.

She followed Feehan out of the room and down to the lower level that housed the small morgue and the underground parking lot. Footsteps behind her meant that someone else had joined them. She assumed it was Vadim, as the Fae had a horror for human death, but she didn’t bother to look around and confirm it. Feehan punched in the code to the morgue and held the door open for her. She shivered as the temperature dropped and a blast of disinfected air that failed to cover the undercurrent of death engulfed her.

She closed her mouth and tried to breathe sparingly through her nose. They didn’t get many human corpses in the SBLE morgue. They tended to be Otherworld creatures that came to the city to wreak havoc before they died. She had no idea why it was such a popular pastime, like lemmings jumping off cliffs. But it made her job difficult. Creatures at the end of their lives were much harder to scare back to their own side of the divide and much more likely to cause chaos.

* * *

Behind Ella,Vadim allowed the heavy door to close and then stood quietly checking out the space. Feehan went down the hallway to talk to someone, leaving them in the main room. The morgue was small and kept scrupulously clean. He almost wished he’d worn sunglasses as the lighting was so bright and the walls were painted something equally shiny. Gutters ran in parallel across the tiled floor ready to sluice away anything unmentionable. He slowly inhaled and tasted the taint of magic, both good and bad, on his tongue.

Ella nudged his arm. “What’s up?”

Today she wore jeans, a green flowered shirt that was missing too many buttons and a pink bra that pushed her breasts up in a way that made him want to bend down and bury his face in her cleavage. She smelled like coffee and pizza and bubblegum, which was far more appealing than dead magic.

“Morosov, are you staring at my bra?”

“It’s rather hard to miss.”

“Laney made me buy it. She said it’s like a sheepdog.”

More than willing to be distracted, Vadim frowned. “Why?”

“You know—” she cupped her breasts and shoved them upward, “—round them up and pen them in.”

“Ah. That’s a new one on me.”

“I’m sorry about earlier.”

Vadim raised his eyebrows. “Which particular part?”

She had the grace to blush. “All of it, I suppose.” She fidgeted with her top button. “I just get so pissed off when everyone starts blaming the empath.”

Vadim kept his gaze on her rather superlative bosom. He tended to date tall, thin women who weren’t so well endowed but looked spectacular on his arm.

“I suppose I should be grateful. You could have said a lot more than you did.”

“About you and Natasha?”

“Yes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like empaths?”

“I did until I met her.”

“She destroyed your faith in us?”

There was a hint of skepticism in her voice that made Vadim wary. “No, she destroyed my faith in true love.”

“Yeah, like you believed in that.”

He met her derisive gaze. “Actually I did, but unlike most humans, I don’t assume it makes the participants happy.” God forbid she ever met his parents. She’d see what he meant.

“So you’re a reformed romantic.”

“Exactly.” He lowered his gaze to her chest again. “I like sex, though. Good, uncomplicated, sweaty, uncommitted sex.”

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