Ripper (Hunter #1)(38)

“Not so different. Your brothers are blissfully absent today, but you’re still recovering. How do you feel this morning?”

“Surprisingly good.” I didn’t seem to have any ill effects from the drugs that Goth * had pumped into me. “How are you?”

“Beyond my heinous sexual frustration, I’m fine,” he said with a wink.

“Yeah, sorry about that.” It probably didn’t bode well for the relationship that I fell asleep on our first night together.

Gray reached across the bar to tenderly brush the hair out of my face. “You needed rest more than me last night. I’m glad you could sleep. I was happy you were willing to come home with me. After I failed you with the wolves, I thought you might want to go home with your brother.”

“He doesn’t cook like you do.” Jamie microwaved everything.

“Well, breakfast is about the limit of my talents,” Gray admitted. “Get used to bacon and eggs.”

“And you didn’t fail me. You couldn’t see through the illusion. I couldn’t for a while. Whoever that witch was he was damn good.”

Gray didn’t seem to agree with me, but he moved on. “I already put out some feelers. I’ll figure out who the f*cker is. I didn’t get a great look at him. He was running away when I made it to the scene. Do you remember what he looked like? I could bring in a sketch artist.”

I tried. I really did, but all I could get was black hair and a pale face. I could remember a lot about that night. I remembered the wolves and the men who chased me back into the alley, but when I tried to picture his face, my mind went a little fuzzy. It was likely one of his powers. “I think his eyes were dark. Can we ask some of your underworld contacts? A guy with talent like that wouldn’t go unnoticed.”

Gray sighed as he plated the rest of the food and I followed him to the table. He held the chair out for me and I sat. “We should talk about that, actually. I don’t have a lot of contacts. I’m not…well liked.”

I frowned as I stabbed one pancake and then another, dragging them onto my plate. “Why? Because you’re half demon? That seems a little hypocritical. You can’t help who your father is.”

He laughed, but it was hollow. “No, I think my father is the least of my worries in this case. I’m law enforcement.”

I dug into the excellent pancakes. “So? The king is supposedly looking for his own law enforcement. Shouldn’t you all work together?”

Gray laughed at my naiveté. “It can be hard for supes to function in the real world. An awful lot of them are criminals. Don’t get me wrong. There are supes in the police department, of course. I’m just different. I don’t discriminate. If a supe steps out of line, I don’t send him to the Council for a slap on the wrist. I bring them to trial if I can and I put them down if I have to.”

That sounded reasonable to me. “And the king doesn’t think that supes should have to follow the laws of the regular world?”

“No, he doesn’t. He believes supes should rule themselves and the only real law is to stay hidden. Donovan and I have had a few run-ins. The last was when I lawfully arrested a group of wolves for running an illegal gambling den. He used his influence to get them out on bail and then, of course, they disappeared. I had linked that group to drug running, but they were gone before I could prove anything.”

I was a little outraged at the thought. “Maybe this Donovan person was involved.”

“I doubt that,” Gray said evenly. “He was a thief at one time, but he’s been careful to stay away from drugs. More than likely he handled the situation himself, but I don’t have any proof. So you can see it can be hard for me to function sometimes. They don’t exactly want to talk to me. I’ve been getting stonewalled on this case.”

I perked up because it was morning and he had to talk to me. “I would expect that they would want to help you figure out who’s killing their daughters. Maybe they’d also like to know who’s prostituting their daughters out.”

“Figured that out, did you?” Gray sat back in his chair. “I can tell you who’s doing that, sweetheart, but I doubt he’s involved in the deaths. He’s an * of epic proportions, but he’s hardly a killer. Well, not the serial kind. I’ve heard stories of what happens when you cross him, but then women never cross him.”

“Why?”

“He’s a fertility god, so believe me when I say he has a way with women. He runs a club downtown. Everyone in the supernatural world goes there.”

“If you don’t think he’s involved in the murders, why bother with him?” I reached for another pancake. Luckily Gray seemed to have made enough for a small army.

“I think that club of his gets us access to information. It’s kind of the hub of that particular world,” the Ranger said seriously. “There’s only one problem. I can’t get in.”

“Because you’re law enforcement?”

“That and I might have tried raiding the club about a year ago,” Gray explained with a sigh. “I also might have actually arrested the * before I had concrete evidence on him. He pushed me to it. Dev Quinn is such a prick. He has a mouth on him that would make a saint crazy. I have no idea how he’s still alive. Someone should have shot him for mouthing off a long time ago.”