Obsidian Wings (2 page)

Daylight was appearing when she pulled up to the crime
scene. Yellow tape cordoned off the area, and three cars were parked neatly at
the side of the road.

She got out of her SUV and jumped the ditch separating the
road from the slaughterhouse. One of the people guarding the place walked to
meet her. He was one of RISC’s, a young guy with red hair and a tendency to
blush at the slightest provocation.

“Eric,” she greeted. “Any trouble?”

“Nope, but it’s early. The people of the Moor like to cause
trouble. I’m sure they’ll be showing up soon.”

She smiled back at him, but when she caught a glimpse of the
body hanging from the side of the building, she lost her affability. “Rice said
she’d been tortured.”

He dropped into place beside her as she strode to the
corpse, his voice grim. “Yes. The assholes worked her over pretty good.”

“You think there was more than one killer?”

He shrugged. “RISC is sending transport to take her in, so
we won’t know much until she’s examined. But I don’t see how one person could
have gotten her nailed up there like that. She’s a big woman.”

“A couple of strong men wouldn’t have had much trouble.”

“She’s a bird shifter.”

“Birds are scarce around here.”

“Scarcer, now,” he said.

She nodded a hello to the other two standing guard. They
were RISC cops named Shelly and Aaron.

“It’s bad,” Shelly said. “Whoever did this enjoyed the hell
out of it.”

Rune heard a vehicle arriving and watched with something
close to relief when Jack got out of his truck.

“Wow,” Shelly murmured, a gleam of admiration in her eyes.
It was understandable. Jack’s big, muscled body was crisscrossed with belts
holding his weapons, and the patch over his destroyed eye lent him an extra air
of danger.

His sexiness wasn’t subtle—it beat a woman over the head
until she could only gawk and, in Shelly’s case, forget to close her mouth.

Rune grinned, despite the horror awaiting her.

She waited until he was beside her before she went to
examine the body. The other three stayed put—they’d seen more than they’d ever
wanted to see already.

Rune stared up at the victim, clenching her fists so hard
her nails bloodied her palms. “God, Jack.”

“Somebody hates the Others,” he said, his voice hard and
disgusted.

“Somebody hates…” She gestured helplessly. “Somebody hates.”
If anyone understood hate, it was Rune.

The woman—the bird—hung messily from the wall. Her size was
intimidating, even in death. She was over six feet tall, and her long limbs
were muscled and thick. She’d have been a frightening adversary in life.

She’d been nailed to the building through several places,
including her wrists, her legs, and her feet. One of her enormous wings had
been ripped from her body when she’d been in her shifted form. It was nailed to
the wall beside her.

She’d been stabbed so many times her entire chest was one
raw, choppy wound.

Bloody bones and tendons, stripped of the meat that had once
clung to them, littered the ground below her.

Her eyes were open. Flat, staring eyes, missing the spark of
life. Despite that, the horror imprinted on her face was as stark and recognizable
as the smears of blood on her legs.

“Matheson used to—” Then Jack shut his mouth, avoiding her
stare.

“Strad used to what?”

He gestured at the woman. “He knows the birds. One of us
should call him.”

She remembered the fight at Hawthorne, when the berserker
had flown in on an enormous bird. Maybe this one.

Shit.
“I’ll do it.”

He nodded. “Should I take her down?”

She pulled her cell from her pocket. “No. RISC is coming.
They’ll have to catalogue everything.”

He wasn’t going to argue.

“Strad,” she said, once the berserker answered. “I’m at a
crime scene on Timber Road. The old slaughterhouse.”

“You need me?”

She closed her eyes at his dark, smooth voice. “Yes.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

RISC beat Strad there by five minutes. Rune watched as they
began to photograph the scene and the body, then went to meet the berserker at
his truck.

He climbed out, automatically reaching for the long, silver
spear resting in its bed in the back of his truck. “What is it?” His gaze swept
her face.

She nodded at the slaughterhouse. “A woman was tortured and
murdered. I called you because Jack said you knew the birds.”

“The victim is a bird.”

“Yeah.”

He ran a hand over his face. “Fuck.”

She studied the ground, giving him a moment.

“What color is her hair?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

She looked up at him. “Light brown. Brown eyes. She’s over
six feet tall.”

He nodded, and there was a quick gleam of relief in his
eyes. He said nothing as they walked side by side to the building.

He stared up at the tortured woman, his face blank. The
berserker gave nothing away.

But she knew him.

She could feel the rage radiating from his huge body.

“Was she a friend?” she asked.

“No. Not really.” He took his cell from his pocket and
stepped away to make a phone call.

She heard him anyway.

“Cree,” he said. “Tell the scepters we found Lara. She’s
been murdered.” He gave her directions and then clicked off, pushing his phone
back into his pocket. He didn’t look at Rune.

And she had a bad feeling.

She put a hand to her stomach and watched him as he examined
the body. When she could stand the silence no longer, she spoke. “Berserker?”

But then an enormous form sped toward them, blocking out the
lightening sky.

Rune couldn’t help but gasp and step back at the sight. The
bird was huge and dark and scary as fuck, and she wasn’t sure it could halt its
insane speed before it crashed into the building.

Another bird, smaller but still huge, was behind it.

The world was suddenly full of the
whoosh whooshing
of
wings as more birds arrived.

Rune hadn’t been aware River County held so many of them,
but there they were.

Strad stood with his arms crossed and his feet apart,
watching them come. Something in his eyes made her stomach hurt a little more,
but she couldn’t figure out why.

What was freakier than the tortured, destroyed body nailed
to the wall?

Something was. Something sure as hell was.

The arriving shifters weren’t just birds—they were eagles.
Golden eagles. At once majestic and intimidating, they glided and then flapped
their lethal wings, and every person in the town was surely staring into the
heavens with astonishment and wonder.

In the end, six of them dropped to the ground. Almost
immediately she had trouble drawing breath as the birds sucked all the oxygen
from the air.

It was as surreal an encounter as Rune had ever
experienced—not even with Damascus had she felt such awe.

As soon as they landed, they shifted to human form. Huge and
naked, all six were very nearly as intimidating in human form as they’d been in
bird form.

“Holy shit,” one of the RISC workers whispered.

The four males were all somewhat smaller than the two
females. Even the dead female on the side of the slaughterhouse was larger than
any of the male birds who’d gathered in a semicircle around the two females.

Muscles bunching over luminous, golden skin, the Others
walked to the berserker. The bird in the lead was a woman with long hair that
flashed golden one second and dark red the next.

“What color is her hair?”

She was nearly as tall as Strad and every part of her was
carved and defined. She faced him with an obvious familiarity in her eyes—eyes
that matched her hair. Golden, then flashing a strange reddish-brown.

After staring at him silently, she put her hands on his
shoulders and stood on her toes to kiss him, a quick, soft kiss that was almost
over before it had even started.

Rune dropped her fangs and shot out her claws, the sound
loud in the sudden, complete silence.

The berserker and the bird snapped their heads around to
look at her.

She had to forcefully rein in the black anger growing inside
her. She wanted to kill the bird. Kill it, cook it, and eat its fucking guts.

But more than that, she wanted to hurt the berserker.

Jack’s words and his hesitation were making more sense.

“Who the
fuck
are you?” she asked.

The bird put her hands on her bare hips and stared Rune
down. “I am Cree Stark. Who the fuck are
you?
”

Rune smiled, and her monster broke free. She forgot the dead
bird, forgot the watching RISC workers, forgot everything.

Her only thought was showing the bird just who the fuck she
was.

“Whoa, whoa,” Jack said, and planted himself between the two
females. “Back away, Rune. There’s a death here.” He glanced pointedly at Cree
Stark. “One of hers was murdered.”

Rune gave her head a
hard
shake.
He was right. She could feel heat climbing her cheeks and cursed herself
silently for her stupid show of…

Jealousy.

She retracted her claws and fangs.

It was the addiction that linked her to the berserker and
made her possessive. The blood and the bite made her crazy.

Yeah. Sure.

She stomped her monster back into hiding and took a deep
breath. Strad had stepped forward as Jack calmed her down.

The look on his face was both alarmed and proud.

Fucking berserker.

He wrapped his fingers around her arm but she avoided his
gaze and shook off his hand.

She knew one thing for sure. She did not like Cree Stark.
Her gut was telling her the stranger couldn’t be trusted, and Rune’s gut rarely
let her down.

Cree had begun to shift as soon as Rune went after her, but she
let the shift lapse and stood once again as a human. The other birds waited at
her back, not trying to calm her or interfere at all.

They were silent and unmoving, their flat, black eyes
darting with glossy impatience.

“You’ll have to go to RISC,” she told the bird. “My boss
will have some questions for you.”

“The birds handle bird business,” Cree said. “We don’t want
RISC involved.”

Rune shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what you want. We investigate
Other crime in River County. Go talk to Bill Rice.”

“And if I don’t?” Cree’s voice was cold and eager. She
wanted to fight—maybe as much as Rune did.

But Rune had been about to kill the bitch, so she really
couldn’t blame her for being unfriendly. “I’ll come find you. I’ll arrest you
and take you in by force.”

Cree’s lips parted in a smile. And from the sparkle in her
eyes, she was genuinely amused. “You don’t know a lot about the birds, do you?”

“Stop,” Strad said, quietly. He pointed at the sad, hanging body.
“Say your goodbyes to Lara. RISC will expect you before the day is out. Bring
Fin in with you.” He wasn’t asking.

Cree narrowed her eyes at him, but the berserker won the
ensuing staring contest and finally, she nodded. Then, with one last glare at Rune,
she strode to the murdered bird. The other birds swept along behind her like
silent shadows.

Two more cars pulled up. Rice had sent his own
investigators. Now that he’d taken total control of RISC, he was putting
everything he had into it.

And if they discovered who’d tortured the bird to death,
Rune and her crew would be sent after the son of a bitch.

“I’m not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed that
the birds don’t make an appearance more often,” Jack said, staring after the
departing birds.

“Rice has this covered,” Rune said. “Let’s go find the
twins.” She didn’t look at Strad.

She felt him though, walking like a big silent cat behind
her. She walked faster.

Once in her car she slammed the door shut and pulled out her
phone to report to Rice. Not that she had much to report.

As she talked, she watched the berserker in her rearview
mirror. He took his spear from its sheath on his back, then placed it carefully
into his truck.

With long, unhurried steps, he walked relentlessly toward
her.

“Fuck,” she said.

“Rune?” asked Rice. “What is it?”

“Nothing, Bill. If I get anything else, I’ll call.” She
clicked off and started her car. Before she could pull away, Strad opened the
passenger side door and climbed in.

“Fuck,” she said again.

Strad looked at her, one side of his mouth lifting in a
half-smile. “We should talk.”

“No. We really shouldn’t.”

“Rune—” His cell interrupted him. He cursed, then held it to
his ear. “Yeah.”

She stared through her windshield at the slaughterhouse but
didn’t actually see it. She was jealous of the berserker—not just jealous, but
territorial.

She didn’t like it. She didn’t like it at all.

He clicked off, opening his door as he stuffed the cell back
into his pocket. “Follow me.” He climbed from the SUV.

“What is it?”

He leaned down to peer at her through the open door. “One of
my sources. He saw Horner. Some members of COS are having a meeting right now.”

She almost couldn’t grasp what he was telling her. “Where?”

He smiled, and it sent chills down her spine. Chills of
fear. “In the Moor, sweetheart.”

Right where Lex had said. She hadn’t been talking about the
twins. She’d been talking about their abductors.

He slammed the door shut and jogged back to his truck.

Her heart beat almost impossibly fast, hard enough to hurt
the barely healed stake wound. She put a hand to her chest as she sped away
from the slaughterhouse, tailing the berserker.

Bach Horner was in their sights—and if they found Horner,
they’d find Levi and Denim.