Dragon Heartstring(47)

“Perhaps.” His voice fell to a raspy whisper. A rumbling growl rattled her bones. A flash of flame and shadow and all was black.





Chapter 1





I paused the image on the comm screen, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. Pale and naked, the mutilated woman was splayed spread-eagle on her back in the snow, her bloodless skin only a shade darker. Dirty-blond hair, matted and tangled, covered her face—all but one glassy, green eye. A slit made with precision and patience opened her entire cavity from throat to pubic bone, exposing internal organs. What seemed to be left of them, anyway.

“Did you get any close-ups?” I asked Macon.

“Yes. Your favorite smuggler is getting better at his illegal activities.”

“You know I love you, don’t you?”

“Stop sucking up. It doesn’t suit you, Moira.”

“But I do appreciate it,” I said, setting his comm device in my lap. “Seriously.”

“Well, when I get fired from my job, you can hire me here at The Herald.”

“First off, you don’t get paid as an intern at the precinct. And secondly, you can’t write or edit worth a damn, so what could you do at a college paper?”

He rolled his eyes. “True. But payback for this will be you helping me pass my Ancient Lit class.”

“Done. Now, show me what else you got.”

Macon tapped the comm screen to play. “Here. Look.”

Sure enough, his video panned to photos of the victim’s hands and ankles, bruised from restraints. Just like the others. The last shot zoomed in on her lower torso and legs. Bright blood stained the inner slopes of pale thighs. I heaved in a deep breath and blew it out. “This blood doesn’t look like it came from the mutilation.”

“No. I asked my boss, Torrance, about that.” Macon’s voice dropped, grave and thick. “The tearing came from the sheer violence of the, uh…”

Macon swallowed hard. He seemed to be struggling to find words to describe such brutality to one of his best female friends. Finally, he cleared his throat, pushing his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, and continued in a professional manner. “I heard our forensics guy talking to Torrance. Said the DNA evidence proves there was a multiple-rape. Like the others. But this time was much worse.”

“Dear God.”

I set down his comm device on the desk. Standing up, I stared out the window, unable to look at the images for one more second. My hands trembled. I crossed my arms and closed my eyes in an attempt to steady myself. But the images kept flitting through my mind on instant replay. A horror movie come to life. The torture and terror these young women suffered wouldn’t leave me. Raped. Multiple times. Then torn open like sacrificial lambs. The fear they must’ve felt in those last moments. Anger welled inside, demanding justice for these young women. I twisted the medal that dangled on a silver chain at my throat, rubbing it for comfort between thumb and forefinger. Knowing that emotion was the one inhibitor of a journalist’s investigation, a fault that could make me lose focus, I wiped away the thoughts and forced myself to the task at hand. Investigation.

“How—how many?” I asked. “Six of them, like the last two victims?”

“This time there were seven.”

I whirled. “Seven?” Based on my theory that these heinous murders were committed by an exclusive cult of some kind, a new member didn’t quite fit.

“Yeah. The DNA on the first two are from six different Morgon men, but the new victim has a seventh.” The DNA for the human-dragon hybrid race was so distinct, there was no denying the murderers were Morgons. Macon pointed to the comm screen. “And look at this.”

I sat back down while Macon scanned the photos, then paused on a shot of the dead girl’s thigh. I frowned.

“Bite marks?”

“They slashed her carotid artery, then bit her. Well, one of them did.”

“Let me guess. The new guy.”

“Yep. The DNA around the bite mark matches that of the seventh culprit.”

I peered closer at the photo on screen. “Why bite her? The Devlin Butchers have been methodical up to this point. Violent, yes, but also precise.”

Some reporter had coined the phrase after they found the first body, saying she was split open like a slaughtered lamb. The horror these girls must’ve endured was one thing, but the repercussions for Gladium were exponential. While our city was one of the few which implemented desegregation laws for both species to live alongside one another, it was only in the past few years that amicable relations had begun to build beyond business. It wasn’t uncommon to see interracial couples together in public these days. My older sister, Jessen, for example.

Since the Dixon Desegregation Act two decades ago, named for the former governor who founded the law and pushed it through Parliament, the dividing line between races began to blur, opening doors for cooperative trade and for businesses to flourish. Opening the door for even more. Humans and Morgonkind merged, throwing Gladium into a bright spotlight, whether we liked it or not.

When my sister, the eldest daughter of a powerful Gladium family, and Lucius Nightwing, the eldest son of the most powerful Morgon clan, united in marriage, our world tilted. Rumors of dissent and criticism from provinces abroad filtered into the city. Even so, professional and personal relations between the races had never been better.