Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2) by LeAnn Mason (book club reads .TXT) 📕

he was a fight they didn’t want to take on, let alone one they couldn’t win, even if they didn’t know that he wasn’t human.

“Do not say another word, Miss Grey,” he barked, finally breaching the last barricade between him and his quarry: Aria.

His gaze landed on the silver-haired banshee who had haunted his thoughts for weeks despite his best efforts to purge them… and her. To move on as his team was trying to do with Jessica. The vise gripping his heart finally released; it had been clamped tight since the local unit had given him Aria’s shouted request as she’d been hauled away by the police — again. Well, really, it had been twisted into a knot since he took Cole’s advice and asked the director for Aria’s current location so that he could reassure himself she was okay. He’d been told she’d left. Then, he’d found out she was very much not okay.

Her rounded ice-blue eyes burned through him, warming him with their intensity. Even the many piercings adorning her face were a welcome sight as they glinted their greetings like flashing neon signs. He recalled the slight tang of metal on his tongue as he’d tugged her lip and its accompanying ring into his mouth.

A warmth bloomed in his chest that he didn’t want to give a name to. He’d missed her. He wanted—

“Miss Grey has not indicated her request for a lawyer, Mr…?” The law enforcement officer questioning her fished for information.

Seke needed to focus on the job at hand. There would be time for him to admonish her for her foolish behavior — or savor the sight of her — after she was no longer in jeopardy. He switched his attention back to the interviewer, settling back into calm and collected. “Seker. And I do believe that she has, or else I would not have been informed to seek her out at this location. Now, what grounds do you have to hold her?”

“She’s a person of interest in an ongoing investigation.”

“Oh, I see,” Seke answered drolly, the tone implying he had already found a flaw in their procedure. “And is she being charged with something?” It was a rhetorical question. He knew she had not; otherwise, she would already be booked and shuttled off to jail… much like the last time.

“This is just a friendly conversation,” the man said easily. “Trying to get a bead on things.” He kept his composure, not even changing his reclined position. Not a newbie. Seke would bet he wasn’t even local but a Fed.

Damn it, Aria. What have you gotten yourself into now? “Something of federal concern, it seems? Do tell, Agent…?”

That got a quirked eyebrow and even a smirk. “Lowe. Well done, Mister Seker. Correct, we are investigating a string of deaths across the country. Murders, actually.” The false pride was thick in Lowe’s sarcasm. The agent aimed to catch Seke’s eye again.

Hoping to get a reaction? Not likely.

“And what does Miss Grey have to do with any of this? I can assure you she is no murderer.” It was true, and Seke knew that for a fact, but he had to toe a line of truth. He could not divulge too much.

Humans had no idea the supernatural existed, could not fathom the truth of the fantastical beings they shared the world with. The fact made their little heads explode, so instead, those who spewed forth anything resembling such were labeled as insane. It was just as well; the supernaturals did not want to be acknowledged anyway. Fear would drive the humans to do crazy and stupid things, forcing his kind to retaliate.

Neither side could afford a war, so the easier thing to do was to let the humans be blind to the existence of other.

“There are several instances where a woman was heard screaming at the victim at the time of death.”

“Is that all you have? That is very thin,” Seke retorted, contempt both in his tone and expression.

“Some instances have audio.”

“And?”

“The sound clips have all been analyzed in-depth and concluded to be from the same voice — the same person,” Lowe continued, trying to break through Seke’s calm.

All he got was a raised eyebrow. “I can poke all kinds of holes in that.”

“One case — a death in a bar about fourteen months ago — shows video footage along with audio, giving us a face to match the scream. Now that her mugshot is on record, we’ve been able to use facial recognition to suggest that that woman bears a remarkable resemblance to Miss Grey.”

Well, that one was closer. “So, you surmise Miss Grey was there, but if she was, what does that tell you? A woman, screaming as a man died in front of her? Not that abnormal of a reaction, is it?” Seke cast Aria a quick look, winking when he caught her staring.

At least, she was being quiet. He knew how hard that was for her on so many levels. The woman had a hard time keeping her mouth shut — and not only when she was announcing an imminent death. “I do not even think you have enough to call it circumstantial.”

“I found her in the house of, and standing over, a dead body!”

Seke smiled. The agent was losing his composure instead of the other way around. The god enjoyed when that happened. It only helped to fuel his belief that he was superior to the human law and those who implemented it. “Have you determined a cause of death? Is there any indication on or about Miss Grey to implicate her involvement?” Seke placed his fingers on the table and pressed forward, making sure to catch — and hold — Lowe’s attention as he waited for the man’s reply.

“She had a knife.”

Aria’s eye roll was nearly audible, and Seke knew that a smart-assed retort was ready to spill from her tongue. Not the time. Throwing a hand in front of her face, Seke silently ordered her to back off. The