"Greg, the Arcadian panther who'd come in two days ago, was found dead in an alley over on Royal Street. There were two more bodies found in Exchange Place. Those human."
Kyle gave her an evil smirk. "They were all drained completely of blood so the cops are thinking vampires."
She scowled. "Daimon kills?"
"No," her father said in a grave tone. "They still had their souls. This was a demon only wanting blood."
And Aimee could only think of one demon new to the city who had been dying for blood.
The one inside Fang. . . . Fang woke up in a back alley of the French Quarter, his head throbbing as the midmorning sun peeked in through the surrounding buildings to the shadows where he must have collapsed. Every part of his wolf's body ached.
How had he gotten here?
Shifting his weight, he saw the blood coating his fur, but it wasn't his blood. Though he was sore, he wasn't wounded. Yet his body was completely saturated with it as if he'd rolled in it. He could even taste it in his mouth.
He turned human so that he could manifest a bottle of water and at least rinse the warm metallic taste out. It was thick on his taste buds and made him completely nauseated.
After sluicing the taste out, he leaned back against the warm brick wall to look up at the latticework of the metal balcony above his head.
What had happened? Fragmented images of the night before went through his mind like he'd been on some kind of drunken bender. He saw Aimee in his room again. But he hadn't hurt her. The other images weren't so clear. They were him with other people . . . one with a Were-Hunter.
A panther . . .
He was fighting the people, two of them . . . or was it three? But he didn't know why. Closing his eyes, he tried to sort through those images. Still, they were cloudy and confusing. There were growls and insults. Fists and swords. Metal flashing as blood poured.
"Did I kill someone?" He remembered a . . . was it a man fighting with him? Maybe it was a demon. The images weren't clear enough to really remember. All they did was confuse him. His head pounded.
Needing something to center him, he manifested a cell phone and called Aimee.
"Fang?"
He let out a relieved breath the moment he heard her soft voice. He didn't know what it was about her, but she soothed him all the way to the core of his being. "Hey, baby, I-"
"Where are you?"
He arched a brow at the sharpness of her tone. She sounded panicked and strange. "I don't know. An alley somewhere."
"What happened to you last night?" Now her words were accusatory. "I tried to find you and couldn't."
"What's wrong?"
"The police are looking for you."
That slammed into him like a fist. Raking his hand over his head, he tried to make sense of everything. "What?"
"They want to bring you in for questioning. Two humans and a Were-Hunter were killed last night. Greg, who only came here a few days ago, went out to hook up with a woman and never came back. They found him late last night with bite wounds . . . someone had ripped out his jugular." She paused before she whispered, "Everyone thinks it was you, Fang."
Of course they did. 'Cause let's face it, in a town riddled with demons, Daimons, and Weres, who else would have done it? Anger sliced through him that he of all people or animals would be the suspect. "What makes them think that?"
"A torn T-shirt was found in the alley with his body. It had your scent all over it."
Oh. Well, that was a little more damning than he wanted. Her words also brought back a flash of someone going for him out of the shadows. Of his shirt being ripped off while he fought them, but he couldn't remember anything more than that.
Why had they been fighting?
Swallowing hard, Fang clutched the phone in his hand. "What do you think?"
"I . . . I don't know. You were really out of control when I was with you last night."