Storm of Sin - Patricia D. Eddy Page 0,47
and crumbles into dust. For centuries, I forced myself to be cold, detached, and unfeeling. It was the only way I could survive.
The very first time I saw Zoe, my resolve started to falter. And in the garage, when it was either show my true self or lose her forever, I knew.
Zoe Dawes ignited a fire deep inside me, and I do not think the flame will ever die out.
Twenty
Zoe
I can’t believe I fucked my partner. Marching down the hall to his guest bathroom, I strip off the robe and yank the shower handle all the way to scalding. I need to wash his scent off of me, but more than that, I need to punish myself for even thinking there might be something between us.
He’s an incubus. A sex demon. I don’t care if he’s half angel, the other half of him is designed to seduce. To control.
Stupid, Zoe.
But I still need to work with him. The missing shifters—and the men we haven’t been able to identify—are depending on me. On us. I can’t let them down.
Hissing as the water hits my skin, I realize the bruises on my legs aren’t my only injuries. My elbow is scraped raw, my right hip is four shades of purple, and now that the high from sex has worn off, I feel like I was hit by a truck.
The irony of using Sin’s shampoo and soap don’t escape me. I’m going to smell like him—at least a little—all day. I should go home, but it’s already almost 9:00, and if Thorn follows the timeline he’s used for the past eighteen months, another woman will go missing by tomorrow at the latest.
Questions race through my mind like Formula One cars, zooming around so quickly, I can’t focus on any of them for more than a second. Where is he hiding the women? Who is he selling them to? And where?
I can’t take the blistering spray a second longer, and once I’ve wrapped myself in a fluffy black towel, I peek into the hall. Sin’s bedroom door is closed, and I can hear rattling and thudding, like he’s moving furniture or something. Then again, his wings did some serious damage to the room when he was—stop it, Zoe.
My cheeks catch fire as a vision of his naked body flashes through my mind, but I shove it down deep and examine the clothes he had delivered.
Shit. Everything’s in my size. And expensive. Even the black silk bra and panties. The jeans mold to my ass, and the leather boots? They look completely unassuming, but when I take a step, it’s like I’m walking on air. There’s no way I can afford to pay him back. Not right away. He must have spent twice my monthly salary on one outfit.
Unless I want to get myself home in his bathrobe—or my bloodstained clothes from yesterday—I don’t have much choice but to accept the gift. And the bastard knew it.
My bag, which also bears a number of dark red stains, is at least mostly intact, and while my phone only has ten percent of its battery left, I slip out without saying a word to him and call a Lyft.
I’ll be steadier once I get to the Bureau. I have to be. These women’s lives depend on it.
No one looks at me twice when I walk in, even though I feel like there’s this huge sign over my head flashing I had sex with an angel last night.
At the coffee pot, I barely nod at Kunchin when I fill my mug, then grab my spare phone charger and battery from my desk and make a beeline for the upstairs conference rooms. I need to talk to someone, and I absolutely do not want to be overheard.
“Hey, Zoe,” Dion says when the call connects. “I mean, Agent Dawes.”
“No, Zoe’s fine. This isn’t exactly…um…Bureau business.”
She laughs, a deep, husky sound through my earbuds, and I can just imagine her throwing her head back and smiling as she says, “Well, okay, hon. What’s up?”
“Do you know much about incubi? I have questions, and the handbook was a little light on the answers.”
“You have a handbook?” After a beat, she huffs. “I’m not surprised. So many of us know little to nothing about those outside our kind. Pity, really. We all fight the same battles. Anyway, I know a little. What’s that partner of yours done now?”
The temperature in the room feels like it rises twenty degrees, and I shed the brand