Page 70 of Bound
His dark eyes widen. “Through this strange device?”
Caine cackles next to me, and I nudge his knee with my elbow. “Yeah, Vish. It’s a cell phone and you’re on a video call. Everything I see, you can see too.”
He tracks his focus over the phone before him. “Marvelous contraptions the humans have.”
“Vish.”
His gaze locks back on mine, and his tan skin darkens. “My apologies. Please. Continue.”
I flip the screen and watch as he flinches in the little window in the corner.
“Poor bastard,” he mutters, leaning closer to get a better look. Caine flexes his hand beside me and the crimson light grows. Vish exhales. “He is not one of ours.”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Even with the …” He fumbles for a second, “the discoloration and the bloating, he is not one of ours.”
I rock back on my heels. “Okay. Thanks, Vish.”
He nods and the screen flicks. Lilah appears in the frame.
Her blue eyes flash gold before Caine snatches the phone away and shifts it back to him. “Caine? What the hell was that?”
The demon’s expression grows pinched in the screen's light, and Ruin groans. “I’m sorry, little bird. Duty awaits.”
“Caine, you don’t give a fuck about—”
He ends the call and her voice cuts off.
The silence stretches.
“Sorry,” I grumble.
Ruin glances down at me. “Not your fault,” he says. “She is part of this life whether any of us want her to be.”
“But you heard Vish,” I say. “This one isn’t part of the envoy.”
“Human?” Ruin asks.
I shrug. “The water has distorted the body too much for me to tell. Even the electrometer won’t fucking read right with so much moisture.”
He sighs. “Then we call the coroner’s office.” He pulls his own cell phone from his pocket and starts up the dunes.
I lay my forearms over my thighs, studying the body in the flickering red light.
The nearby waves roll onto the shoreline, their soft whoosh familiar after being in Louisiana for so many years.
It’s not the purest point of the ocean. Not so far inland. But it is a welcome respite from the cities and the marshes. The water is cleaner and great for swimming—
I sit up. “Caine. Lift the body again.”
He shoves his phone back into his pocket and weaves. The corpse rises to hover over the sand.
My eyes trail down the line of his spine. It’s not so deep that it exposes spinal cord, but the space is wide, not like the skin was cut.
But like they cut something off.
“Son of a bitch,” I breathe. I rise to my feet and collide with Caine. “Ruin!”
He pulls the phone from his ear as he turns at the top of the hill. “What?”
“He’s a selkie.”
Ruin faces me. “A what?”
“A shapeshifter of the water. A were-seal,” I say fast at his confused look. My exasperation grows. “He’s a fucking Fae, man. Another local one. Just like our John Doe.”
The others stop moving.
I meet Ruin’s gaze levelly. “And I’d bet my fucking life that whoever targeted the lords, targeted the locals first.”
