Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [62]
Too late, of course. He’d severed his artery and he only twitched once as he bled out, heartbeat becoming thready and then nonexistent under my now-crimson hands.
I rocked back on my heels. “Shit.”
Dmitri pulled me up and away from the body, giving Irina a terse, “Wait for us in the car.” He guided me out of the dining room and held my shoulders, forcing me to look up at him. “What the Hex was that?”
Under his touch, I realized I was shaking. “I think we both know what that was, Dmitri.”
He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. I didn’t want to deal with the truth any more than he did—that what we’d seen Joubert do to himself could only be daemon magick, something human witches weren’t supposed to be able to use.
Of course, Alistair Duncan had proved that wasn’t always the case.
“Has to be a blood witch, right?” said Dmitri, falling into his old role of asking me questions until I answered my way to the truth.
“Right,” I said. What I didn’t say was that the Blackburns killing Joubert didn’t make any sense. They could barely afford to buy cup noodles, never mind patronize an exclusive fetish club to the point where they’d be ripe for blackmail. Hex it, what would you blackmail them for? Their jars of blood and black leather pants? Unless Joubert had been the one to dose Vincent—and he struck me as the kind of guy who only went after small, helpless things in a violent manner—they had no motives.
“Let’s toss the house,” I said, pushing my half-baked collection of bad hunches to the back of my mind. “Try to find out who the other partner in the club is.”
“Never thought I’d actually be saying this, but shouldn’t we call the cops?” Dmitri asked.
I turned my back on Joubert’s body and the sick stink of were blood, and went into what turned out to be the kitchen. It smelled bad in there too, but it was bearable. “Not yet,” I said. “I don’t want my captain busting in just now.” Under stress, I have this unfortunate tendency to get rude and hostile and sometimes kick people in the shins, none of which I thought Morgan would appreciate.
“Fair enough,” said Dmitri. He opened the fridge and winced, his nose wrinkling. “Hex me. Somebody needs to deal with the science experiments in here.”
“At least it’s not heads. Or fingers. Or—”
Dmitri held up a hand. “I get it.”
“Why did you take Irina as a mate?” I blurted. “How could you not know what it would do to me?”
Dmitri sighed, his back to me, leaning against the closed door of the fridge. “We’ve been over this, Luna.”
“I know, I know.” My voice took on a bitter edge I hadn’t known I was capable of. “You have to do what your pack says. Wouldn’t want to get put on a choke chain.”
He hit the fridge hard, with a closed fist, and I jumped. “You think I like this?” he snarled, turning around. His eyes were ink-stained again, black overtaking the green in the space of a heartbeat. “You think I woke up one day after a night of wrestling with this thing and said ‘Gee, I wonder how badly I can hurt Luna today?’ Is that what you think I did?”
“I don’t know,” I said, sticking my chin out. “But I think getting to screw Irina out of screwing me must have been a definite perk.”
I was pissed off, and I didn’t care anymore what Dmitri thought. He’d stomped on me just like any other pack were, and like any plain human asshole guy, he’d traded up for a newer, sluttier model.
Dmitri growled and came at me around the kitchen table, backing me up against the sink.
“Get off me,” I snapped, pushing at his chest with the flat of my hands. “Go wait in the car with your whore.”
He roared and pinned my arms down at my sides, squeezing my wrists so tightly I felt the bones shiver.
“Don’t call her a whore,” he whispered.
“Then what should I call her?” I struggled