Dark Fates (A Paranormal Anthology)(108)

Mentally kicking himself, he picked up his phone and dialed the office. Again. Bypassing maintenance, he selected an extension for the infirmary.

“So you really took a human from Enoch? What is the matter with you?” The distinct feminine laughter underscoring the words was so very Cara. A relatively young Watcher by their standards and a dove shifter, she endeared herself to everyone with her upbeat moods.

“It could be senility,” Fox commented as he traced a finger down Jubilee’s uninjured cheek. She had the softest skin. “Or maybe I’m just bored.”

“Uh huh. So, what can I do for you, tall-dark-and-angsty? Need a last will and testament drawn up?”

“You’re funny.” He wasn’t amused, but, if he didn’t add a rejoinder to the banter, he would send up a red flag. Not that he hadn't already sent up fireworks by taking Jubilee from Enoch.

“I try.” A smile purred in her words. “All right, seriously, what do you need?”

“Human female. Slender build. Approximately 165 centimeters in height. Eight, maybe nine, stone for weight.” Too slender by far, and her skin stretched tautly over her bone structure. He shifted the jacket to the side to get a good look at her shoulder. It had a mottled appearance. “Injuries include a bruise to her cheekbone, significant redness, swollen and puffy to the touch.” He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder, then worked her out of the jacket and swore. “Her right shoulder looks dislocated, black and blue striping.”

And burns. Burns littered the skin along her clavicle to her neck. As though someone had been torturing her.

But why there? There were far more efficient places to inflict excruciating pain without damaging her beautiful skin. Tossing the jacket off to the side, he stripped off the rest of her clothes. How many other injuries was she hiding?

“Is that it?”

“Scars on her forearms, relatively new.” And perfectly vertical along the veins but not quite right in their placement. He studied one and then the other. Miming a movement with two fingers, he followed the scars. They weren’t self-inflicted.

The Andropov person hunting her would die quite slowly. Perhaps while looking at his entrails. Fox could keep him alive for a long time and simply remove one piece after another.

“Old scars.” He kept their location to himself. The girl’s breasts were small but gently curved. Her ribs stuck out too sharply. She’d been starved in addition to the other signs of physical mutilation. “Old bruises along her legs.” His gaze zeroed in on her thighs. They were unblemished.

He found another scar on the sole of her right foot and nearly dropped the phone.

“Yo, Fox? Is that it?”

“Yes,” he lied automatically as he stared at the geometric letter branded on Jubilee's foot. It was from the angelic alphabet. None of the nephilim marked humans in this fashion. He straightened and bared his teeth. Someone had chosen her, but then they hadn’t done anything with her. They’d left her to fend for herself. The question was who?

Cara was still talking, and her voice punched through the cold rage brewing in his gut. “Can you set the shoulder?”

Naked, she didn’t look so innocent or young—too underfed and bony, but the promise of curves was there. Thumbing away some of the smudged makeup under one of her eyes, he gave in to the hunger to see what the cosmetics hid from him.

“Fox?” Cara elongated his name, and he remembered she was still waiting for his answer.

“Yes, I can set the shoulder. But she’s human. Won’t she need something for it after I put it back into place?” He put the phone on speaker and set it on the nightstand. Might as well get the ugly part of it over. Bracing her shoulder with one hand, he grasped her wrist and tugged.

It popped back into place with an audible thwock, and Cara screeched. “What are you doing?”

“I set it.” A quick glance at Jubilee’s face revealed a twisted grimace. She was still asleep, thankfully, but she was also in pain. Fox scowled. “What kind of pain meds do humans take?”

“Um, I don’t know?” Cara sounded uncertain.

He’d called the infirmary for a reason. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean I don’t treat humans as a general rule.” She sounded exasperated. Clicking noises filled the background. “Check her temperature, watch for signs of shock. Is her cheekbone broken?”

With two fingers, he explored the bruised area. “It doesn’t feel broken.”

“How’s her scent? You should be able to scent bleeding even if it’s under the skin.”

Irked that Cara had to remind him, Fox knelt down and pressed his nose to Jubilee’s cheek. The sweet feminine scent wrapped around him and drew him closer. His cock went stiff, and lust crashed through his good sense. Dark, sweet, and decadent thoughts produced images of her sprawled beneath him, her legs wrapped around his hips while he thrust balls-deep into the velvet embrace of her *. The tart hints of her arousal clung to him, beckoning him, and it took a physical effort to shove away from her before he joined her on the bed and did his damnedest to wake her up.

“No fresh blood.” His response came out low and guttural. Even his teeth had sharpened, and his claws had sliced out. Turning away from her face, he focused on her throat. He could bite her right there, and everyone would see it.