Demon's Trust (The Chronicles of Arcayos #1) - Raven Dark Page 0,25

to follow him.

We cross the field toward the thick trees on the left side.

Fuck. We’re headed right toward the same spot where I saw those four guys come out of the woods to meet Ricky.

Demons. Fuck, what the hell have I gotten myself into?

A few paces from the tree line, that awareness of another presence pricks at my thoughts. It zings along my skin like electricity and once more glows in my mind like a nimbus. Heat pulses in my core, my skin growing feverishly hot. I stumble, nearly bumping into Tyrone.

I snatch a glance around the still bustling scene. There doesn’t seem to be anyone there who shouldn’t be. I scan the trees for any sign of a cloaked figure, a raven watching me from a branch. Nothing, but…

My nipples harden, jabbing at the cotton of my shirt. What the fucking hell?

I cross my arms quickly, covering my tits. Praying no one notices.

He wouldn’t. He’d said he’d be watching me, but he wouldn’t be crazy enough to show up at the scene of his ‘crime’ when he knows the police force will be looking for him.

“Here,” Tyrone says, picking his way through the brush with us on his heels.

“What’d you find now, bro?” Steve appears at my side, giving me a smile before following his brother.

I suppress a sigh. The sympathy in his eyes had been unmistakable. It’s not hard to imagine what he’s thinking. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and he might have his sights on me. At least Steve didn’t make a big thing out of it.

A few inches into the trees, Tyrone squats down in the grass and takes out a pen from his shirt pocket.

Steve crouches beside him, snapping on gloves and handing me a pair.

Tyrone and Steve are astoundingly alike, with the same towering, muscled frames, the same strong jawlines, and identical thick, dark, Tom Selleck mustaches. They’re almost as yummy as Arcayos.

“Check this out.” Tyrone lifts something out of the grass with his pen, glancing pointedly up at the captain and me.

I lean down.

A silver ring dangles from the pen, a thumbnail-sized ruby set into it. “It looks like a Super Bowl ring,” I say.

Steve takes the pen carefully between his fingers and examines the ring, turning it over in the sunlight that pierces the trees. “It’s not. Look.” He turns it to the side and points to a strange looking skull engraved into the silvery metal.

I remove my black leather gloves and pocket them, slip on the latex ones, then take the ring carefully from him. The skull has goat horns jutting out of its head, fangs bared. There’s an identical skull on the other side of the ruby.

My throat goes dry.

“Last I checked, none of the football teams are in league with Satan,” Steve says.

“Let me see.” The captain holds out his palm. I straighten and hand the ring to him. He gives it his own perusal. “The skulls don’t look familiar. You guys recognize it?”

The twins shake their heads. So do I.

“Where do you guys think this thing came from?”

I press my lips together to keep from answering. Bet my ass that’s a demon’s ring.

Again, that awareness of a presence buzzes along my skin, skittering across my thoughts. My nips turn rock-hard, aching almost to the point of pain. I resist the urge to look around.

“The ring could have come from anywhere, Captain.” Tyrone shakes out an evidence bag and holds it up for him. “It’s over twenty feet from the primary scene. It could have been lying here long before the murders.”

Colburn drops the ring into the bag. “Don’t seal that just yet,” he says when Tyrone starts to close the red evidence tape over the top.

Tyrone looks puzzled, but hands the bag over.

“Or one of the guys could have dropped it,” Steve adds. “There’s no way of knowing until we look into this further.”

A faint snap above me makes me jerk my head up.

I almost stagger backward. Ten feet up, in a tree a few feet in front of me, Arcayos is crouched like a giant panther. The thick leaves nearly obscure him from view, his black cloak vanishing into the shadows. Only his glowing red eyes stand out inside his hood, which is pulled forward so that it all but hides his cracked and darkened face.

My jaw drops.

Apparently the others hadn’t noticed the sound, because they go right on talking about the murders, but all it would take is for the Jacksons or the captain