The Nymph's Curse: The Collection (43 page)

“Did you intend to kiss me when you were pointing your gun at me?”

“No. Did you know I was going to kiss you?”

She gave him a coy smile. “That wasn’t the only thing I had in mind.”

“So you were using me? You’ve used me this entire time? You thought you could seduce me and get me to do your bidding?”

“I made a mistake. I thought you were like every other guy out there.”

“You mean you thought you could get away with manipulating me?” He opened the car door and stepped out. He poked his head back in the car. “You don’t know me. But I give a shit about people. I like to help people. You didn’t need to fuck with me. I would have helped you find your sister. All you had to do was be honest.” He slammed the door just as she started to talk.

He didn’t want to hear her excuses. If they were anything like “We’re nymphs” he was better off without her and her ridiculous lies.

The car door opened behind him and her footsteps rushed toward him. “Stop, Dane. You have to listen. I’m telling you the truth.”

Dane spun around. “It’s too much. You can’t possibly expect me to believe that you are anything more than human. There are a lot of crazy things in the world, but a nymph isn’t something I can just buy into. You’ll just have to go find another man to
seduce
.”

Reaching up, she grabbed him by his arms and shook him. “Stop. I know you don’t get it. I don’t expect you to. But you need to know Natalie wasn’t human. Whoever killed her had to know this. They had to know what she was if they had any chance of bringing her down.”

“Yeah, it was called a gun. They shot her, Aura. They shot her.” His voice carried an unintentionally cold edge. “She wasn’t immortal,” he said, trying to be softer.

“Then it’s not her. She would have healed.” She pulled her arm out of her coat sleeve and exposed her perfect flesh to the biting wind. “Just like I did.”

“I admit I don’t understand
that
.” He pulled out of her hands and pointed at her arm. The image of the woman’s pink chest filtered into his mind. “And I don’t understand what happened with the woman, but there was some amount of healing.”

She coughed lightly as if trying to speak some words that choked her as they tried to come out. “Where was the gunshot?”

“Over her heart.”

“There’s no way that could have healed, unless she was more than human. And you know it.”

He did know it. It didn’t make sense. But he also knew she couldn’t possibly be telling him the truth. Supernatural beings only existed in books.

Officer Grant sauntered over with his little black flashlight pointed at them. “You guys done having your little lover’s quarrel?”

“Fuck off, Grant,” Dane snarled.

“No, little Danish. You fuck off. I don’t give a shit about whatever is going on between you and
her
.” He pointed at Aura like she was a piece of garbage that had blown onto the beach.

“Listen here, you little prick, I know you think you’re top shit, but let me tell you … you will treat my friend here with respect or I will take your pepper spray and stick it up your — ”

Aura grabbed his arm. “Watch,” she whispered.

She moved to Officer Grant and touched him softly upon the chest. “Don’t get upset, Officer.” Her voice was so sticky sweet it made his teeth hurt.

Aura couldn’t think she really had some crazy ability. Grant had just treated her like trash. There was no way that he was going to fall for her luring charms.

“Aura?”

She shot him a look and he shut his mouth. This was her game and he could only stand by, watch, and when it didn’t work he could tell her “I told you so.” At least she could no longer lie. This would settle the matter of her thinking she was supernatural — though when the investigation was over, he would need to find her some help. There were meds for her kind of thinking.

Aura reached up and ran her fingers over the little bit of exposed skin on Grant’s neck. The kid looked shocked at her familiar touch for a moment, but she smiled up at him and something changed. His eyes seemed to glaze over and his face seemed to glisten in spite of the cold.

A strange surge of jealousy filled Dane. She was sick. She needed help. And yet, in spite of it all, he still cared for her. He tried to shake off the feeling as he watched her trace her fingers along Grant’s jawline.

“That’s enough.” He touched her shoulder, but she didn’t look back.

“Grant?” she crooned.

The boy nodded.

“Do you want to kiss me?”

The boy nodded again.

“Would you be willing to do anything for me?”

The boy gave another trance-like nod.

The muscles in Dane’s shoulders and back started to twitch — he really was losing his mind. It was slipping one neuron at a time. Pretty soon they would have to wrap him up and send him to the State Hospital in Warm Springs. It all didn’t make sense.

“Grant … I want you to take off all of your clothes and take a swim in the lake. Okay?”

Officer Grant reached down and unzipped his coat. Aura stepped back as the kid stripped down to his underwear. His almost naked body steamed in the freezing air.

He looked up at Aura with, what Dane assumed to be, a seductive grin. “You want these off too?” He snapped the waistband of his form-fitted boxer briefs.

Things had gone far enough. “Aura, whatever you’re doing you need to stop it right now.”

She gave him a devilish smile. “Do you believe me?”

“Just because you can make a man strip down to his skivvies doesn’t mean you are what you say you are.”

“Oh really?” She turned back to Grant. “Swim.”

The kid charged off into the night like he was some kind of Olympic gold medalist.

“Stop!” Dane called after him, but the kid didn’t even slow down.

Everyone standing around the investigation turned and watched as Grant dove into the frigid water.

Dane rushed after him. “Somebody get him a blanket!”

The blanket covered Officer Grant from his pale, fur-covered knees to just under his protruding tiny pink nipples. A little part of Aura felt guilty as she stared at his blue-tinged lips. His skin was raw and red from the cold. It was unethical to use her power like she had, but she had been forced to prove her abilities to Dane.

When she looked over to him, Dane was still staring at her. His jaw was rigid and tense, almost as if instead of shock and excitement, he was angry. Maybe she should have lied and covered up the truth of her initial intentions, but he pleaded for honesty and she had complied. She should have known better. Few men wanted complete honesty — even when they asked for it.

“Get in the car and get warmed up,” Dane ordered, as he pushed Grant into one of the waiting cars. “Aura. Come here.”

She followed behind him as he led her to his patrol unit.

He spun around and leaned up against the car, like he needed it to hold him upright. “So you’re telling me that you can do that to any man at any time?”

She nodded.

“How far can you take it? Can you get them to kill another person? To kill themselves?”

“Are you interrogating me?” she asked in a voice that dripped with danger.

He pushed his arms over his chest, as if protecting himself from the blows that she was thinking about landing. She’d told him a secret very few were privy to. Yet, he treated the knowledge with a trivial indifference and, more infuriating, contempt and suspicion.

She should have never opened up her heart, her mind, or her mouth. The desire to trust was best left to humans.

“I’m just asking, Aura. You have to understand that this is a new one for me. I just want to understand.”

He was a cop. Of course he would want to put her in a little box. He needed her to be on the correct side of the line of right and wrong. There was no room in his life for a woman who kept secrets and didn’t always make perfect choices. “I wouldn’t kill anyone. Or have anyone killed. I’m not like that.”

“What about your sister? Would she have been the kind to kill?”

Aura’s mind moved to her sister. Had she been the type to kill? To let another kill for her?

When they had been young and wild, they’d moved from horse to woman and back without a thought. Life was safe, comfortable, and though not easy, it had been understandable. Most things were black and white. When humans had invaded their lives that safety disappeared. Trust quickly followed. Then their freedom. They could only run where they couldn’t be captured.

“What are you thinking?” Dane asked, but it was almost an order. “Talk to me. Help me to understand.”

Aura glanced around at the roaming police officers who were still going over the scene and talking to the fisherman.

“Just believe me. Neither of us is capable of killing.” Their past had proven such a thing. Her eyes strayed to the black van where her sister’s body lay. “I need to see her.”

He moved to stand up, but then slumped back against the car. “I have more questions.”

“I thought that you would. But please, before they take her away … I need to say goodbye.”

Some of his hard edge seemed to crumble away as he looked at her. “Are you sure you want to see her?” He stood up and moved toward Aura, taking her hand in his. His hand was warm despite the bitter cold and she let his warmth soak into her as she stared at their joined hands. “Let them clean Natalie up first. Then I will take you to the crime lab and you can identify her.”

There was no perfect time that she could think of that she would want to go and see her dead sister. “I need this, Dane. I need to see her. I need to see her to know that this is all real. That it isn’t some strange, awful dream.”

He got a strangled look on his face. “I understand that more than you know.”

The way he said the words piqued her interest, but it could wait. “Let’s go.”

Dane pulled up the yellow tape and led her underneath. The pudgy curly-haired coroner gave her an out-of-place smile as he opened the back door to his van. “So you’re her sister?”

Aura nodded and looked away from his upturned mouth.

“It’s a real shame. I bet she was one hell of a looker.”

There was an undertone of nastiness that made her skin crawl.

Dane moved protectively between her and the foul little man. “Bill, isn’t there something else you should be doing?”

“Well, actually I was just about to call the lab and let them know I was about to be on my way to bring her in.” Bill jingled his keys.

“Why don’t you go do that somewhere else?” Dane pointed toward the wooden dock that bobbed a little further down the shoreline.

“You sure you got this?” Bill asked. “I mean, I can help if you need.”

“No. That’s fine. Go.”

Aura was relieved as he walked away.

“I’m sorry about him,” Dane said, squeezing her hand. “He’s a bit
off
. I think it happens when someone is around death all the time. People tend to get a little strange.”

She’d been called strange on a number of occasions, but she still couldn’t empathize with the little penguin-shaped man that waddled down the beach. “Thanks for sending him away.”

“You’re welcome, but I sent him away for both of us. If he said one more stupid thing I was going to have to find some reason to arrest him.” He turned to the van, stepped up, and lifted her hand, indicating for her to follow. “I know you said you were ready for this. To see Natalie, but I have to warn you, she’s — ”

“She is
dead
,” Aura said. The words seemed to cement the wall that she had formed to protect herself from the reality that attacked from all fronts.

He squeezed her fingers as a miserable look centered on his face. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that she’s dead. She’s not going to come back.” Her voice cracked and she tried to swallow away the sadness that threatened to spill over. She had to keep control of herself. She needed to get through this, steel herself until she could get away from the prying eyes of the police that walked around the site.

Dane moved toward her like he wanted to take her into his arms, but she stepped back and dropped his hand. If she allowed him to comfort her, there would be no holding back. The sadness and anger that twisted just below the surface would break through and take her down and everyone around them. There would be no way she could open the bag that lay on the gurney in front of her and search for things that perhaps she could use to make sense of the tragedy. Perhaps she could find the answers, but only if she could stay in control of herself.

The bag was cold in her shaking fingers as she unzipped the little silver interlocking teeth. The scent of death wafted up from the bag, making a wave of nausea rise within her. The stench was unmistakable, decay, the deterioration of what was once vibrant and alive, but underneath the horrific scent was the fading scent of the woman — rich, earthy, mixed with the strange scent … of bird.

She jerked the zipper down past the woman’s face and slung open the bag. A familiar face looked back up at her. Aura’s heart pounded with excitement as she slapped her hands over her mouth. “Dane,” she exclaimed from between her fingers. “It’s not Natalie.”

“What?” He stepped closer. “Are you sure?”

Did he really think that she didn’t know her own sister?

“It’s not her. It’s Jenna Cygnini.” She dropped her hands from her smiling lips. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t make the smile lessen or her heart slow. She felt sorry for the woman she once knew, but was filled with overwhelming relief. Natalie could still be alive. She could still be waiting to be found. There was hope.

“Who is Jenna Cygnini?” He pulled out a pad of paper from his jacket and then stuffed it back in his pocket, as if he realized that she was going nowhere — that she wasn’t just another person to be questioned. “Is she one of … ” He glanced around, then leaned close. “You? You know a
nymph
?” He said the word in a barely audible whisper.

Relief that he believed her swept through her, making her feel the lightest she had since she’d arrived in Montana. There was no one around within hearing distance. “Yes. She’s a swan-shifter from Idaho.”