Page 33 of Succubus Sins
Frowning, I rested my fingers on the plastic tie binding her wrist to the arm of the chair. It melted, and she yelped as her skin turned bright red. “Sorry,” I whispered. She bit her lip and held still as I melted the other one.
Rubbing her wrists, she slumped and whimpered. I was accustomed to pain. I suffered through the ache of starvation on a regular basis, but Sarah was a muse. She wasn’t used to it. What was she going through right now?
She whimpered, holding onto her chest and wheezing. “Can you… Is it possible to heal me?”
I’d never tried using my powers that way, but damn it, the Blood Stone had to be good for something. I pressed my palm against her chest and willed energy to go into her. It funneled without protest, seeming relieved to find an outlet in its ache to be used.
Sarah sucked in a breath and trembled. Her black eye turned pink and her breath lost its wheeze.
After a moment she seemed to compose herself. She rolled her shoulders back and straightened. “Sonya,” she whispered.
“Yes, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Sarah ran her fingertips across the hollow of her chest. “That man. Did you see him?”
“What, the hot, naked one?”
She smirked. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
I shifted, resting on my knees. “What about him?”
She leaned in. “He can’t die.”
My heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean, he can’t die?”
“I mean exactly what I say. I saw Anderson do things to him that should have killed a man. But whatever he cut out… it eventually grew back.” She rubbed her wrists and stared into the dark depths of the cell. “I don’t know how long he’s been here, but I think it’s been a long time. Anderson was trying to figure out how to take his powers, too. His gift of regeneration…immortality.”
I wavered, unable to think of any supernatural who could regenerate, much less live forever. Even my kind had a limit to their lifespan. Sure, we could live for hundreds of years, but if you ripped out our heart it wouldn’t grow back…
“Did Anderson keep him in there?” I asked, following Sarah’s gaze to the iron bars.
Sarah nodded and drew in a deep breath before she continued, keeping her gaze on the cell floor. “His name’s Luke. He had a key to his cell this whole time. He could have left whenever he wanted. I wasn’t sure what he was waiting for until I touched him.” She tilted her head and finally looked at me. “When you arrived in the lobby, he sniffed the air like a dog. He turned all frenzied, burst out of the cell and attacked Anderson. Bit him on the neck like some kind of maniac, and then ran upstairs.” She looked me over head to toe. “You’re who he’s been waiting for.”
“What do you mean, I’m who he’s been waiting for?”
Sarah offered a weak smile. “You’ll find out, I’m sure.”
I rolled my necklace across my fingers, remembering Luke’s bewilderment turning to fear. “I think this frightened him.”
Shaking my head of thought, I stood, bringing myself back to my priorities. The mystery of the hot, naked man would have to wait. I’d saved Sarah, and now I needed to protect myself. “There’s got to be a security station around here. Sounds like Anderson didn’t have time to make off with the footage.”
Sarah staggered to her feet and fell on my arm. She was so light and tiny, like a finch I could crush by accident if I wasn’t careful.
She pointed to the end of the hall. “There. That’s where he was before Luke scared him away.”
Dragging Sarah along, we teetered our way to the door. Inside were two monitors showing the entrance hall and what must be the secondary exit Anderson had used to escape, but he didn’t escape on his own. A stream of blood led to the curb before vanishing into a line of blackened tire streaks. He was long gone.
With a sigh I eased Sarah into a rickety green office chair and investigated the dusty equipment. There was only one box blinking a green light, and after a few button-jabs a tape popped out. Damn thing was ancient, but this meant there was only one recording in existence. I weighed the plastic in my hand before tossing it to the ground and grinding it under my naked heel. Detective Anderson just lost his evidence.
It was too hard to believe that this was all over. Was I safe? I looked back at Sarah and she shivered as if she couldn’t get warm. No, it wasn’t about me anymore. Maybe it never was. Detective Anderson was trying to figure out how to extract powers… He wasn’t trying to stop me from murdering men. I scoffed. There was nothing honorable about his work.
Even though Sarah was the one who needed comforting, she knew me better than I knew myself and wobbled to my side. Without any concern for herself, she wrapped her arms around me. “You have to go after him,” she whispered into my neck. My skin was hot and I knew it burned her to touch me, but she didn’t pull away.
I stiffened. “What about you?”
She shrugged. “I’m human now. I can’t be your girlfriend anymore.”
I wrapped my arms around her body and hugged her tighter. “Sure you can.”
