Jaded [The Moonlight Breed 9] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) by Gabrielle Evans (good novels to read TXT) 📗

“Nithron,” Zuriel mumbled, reading the name over his friend’s shoulder. “Okay, but we already knew he’s not from here.”

“Look closer.”

“Shifter hybrid. Demon hybrid. Class-two preter. Minimal threat.” He understood what he was reading, but he wasn’t sure it convinced him. “It says low threat? What kind of demon is a class-two?”

“An Aíma, apparently. They’re blood demons from what I understand.”

“None of the victims were missing blood. They weren’t even bleeding.” Well, he couldn’t say for sure about any of them except for Lily, but he hadn’t seen a scratch on her. He assumed the others had been similar.

“The other guards checked out,” Nikola informed him. “All, except one other.”

“Marcel,” Mihail add, tapping his finger atop the guard’s name. “Rissian’s mate. He was born to a pack in Germany, and then removed from their registry four years later.”

“Shifter hybrid,” Zuriel read, noting the absence of any further information. He’d been in the same room as Marcel on several occasions, and he’d never scented anything amiss. “Maybe there’s nothing else because he was removed.” The excuse sounded flimsy, but so was the case against the prince’s mate.

“I still think it’s worth checking out,” Mihail argued. “We can investigate quietly.”

“How do you suppose we do that?”

“Well…” Jacobi popped one hip out to the side, huffed on his fingernails, and rubbed them against his chest. “Are we genetically modified Desirables or not? I’ll take Nithron.” He wiggled his eyebrows and giggled mischievously.

“Fine,” Zuriel conceded. “I’ll pretend to be Rissian and question Marcel.” He didn’t like it. There was potential for so much to go wrong, but it was something. “We’re not going to tell Spiro until we know something for sure, though.”

“Falsely accuse a palace guard or a royal consort?” Nikola snorted as he pushed his hair out of his face. “Yeah, no thank you.”

Zuriel knew his mate would take the suspicion seriously, but if they were wrong, there was going to be a huge fallout when the smoke cleared. Despite Spiro’s protests that he wasn’t extremely close to his siblings, Zuriel highly doubted investigating Rissian’s mate would bring them closer together.

“Let’s go.” Reaching for the button on his jeans, he jerked his head toward the door. “Spiro is meeting with his brothers right now, and I know Nithron is down at the clinic with the bodies.”

“Awesome,” Jacobi responded excitedly. “I’ll be Locien.” He sighed a little and fanned his face. “That family has such lovely genes.”

“Okay, Casanova, keep it in your pants and let’s get this over with.”

“What if something goes wrong?” Ever practical, Mihail planned for all scenarios.

Unfortunately, Zuriel didn’t have a good answer for this one. So he just kicked his pants off and shrugged like he wasn’t about to vibrate out of his skin. “Then I guess we bend over and grab our ankles, because we’re completely fucked.”

Chapter Thirteen

“You can do this,” Zuriel said to himself as he stood outside the door of Rissian’s room. He was a complete replica of the elf, right down to his slightly pointed ears. Of course, Rissian was much bigger than him, so he’d had to borrow some of Spiro’s clothes, but he knew no one would be able to tell the difference physically.

“You’re back early,” Marcel greeted when he finally gathered the courage to step into the room. “How did it go?”

“Same as usual,” Zuriel replied, hoping that was a suitable response since he wasn’t sure what the meeting was even about. “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.” Marcel kicked his feet up on the coffee table and dropped his head onto the back of the sofa, stretching out his bare torso. “I’ve seen death before, but this…this was different.” Rolling his head to the side, he lifted one hand and crooked a finger. “Come sit with me.”

Eyeing all the naked skin, Zuriel had serious doubts about getting too close to the shifter. Damn it, he should have thought this through better. As mates, it was natural that Rissian and Marcel would touch and kiss—among other things that he’d rather not contemplate. The only problem was that Rissian wasn’t really in the room.

“Have you eaten?” he asked, stalling for time while he tried to think of a good reason to stay right where he stood.

“Nah, I don’t really feel like food right now. Every time I close my eyes I see Lily’s face. She was so young. And Jaeah.” A weary sigh fell from his lips. “I’ve known him since we were kids. He was the first friend I made when I moved here. Who would do something like this?”

Zuriel cleared his throat, chastising himself for falling into the trap of sympathy. Marcel’s words were pretty, and they were definitely convincing. It was his thoughts that Zuriel was there to investigate.

“Everyone is devastated, but we’re going to find out who did this.”

“Why are you standing all the way over there?” Sliding the zipper of his jeans down, Marcel arched his back and pushed the denim off his hips, leaving him totally naked.

Resisting the urge to turn away or shield his eyes, Zuriel silently berated himself for being such a pussy. The self-lecture did the trick, but he found it much harder to slip into his mask of uncaring sex slave than he had before meeting Spiro. Still, he managed to accomplish it, viewing Marcel’s nude form clinically, but with just enough manufactured desire to appear believable.

“I can make you forget for a few minutes, but it won’t fix anything. You’ll still feel just as hollow and sad when we’re finished.”

Marcel shrugged and beckoned him closer again. “I’ll risk it. I just need a few minutes of peace before I have to return to patrol.”

“Why is he being so distant? What did I do? Fuck, we don’t even have to mess around. I just want to hold him for five minutes.”

Marcel’s pleading thoughts flitted into his mind, and Zuriel resisted the urge to wince. Words could be manipulated,