Into the Rift by Cynthia Garner Page B

pheromones increased, though now they vibrated with building rage and sorrow. “Damn it.” He breathed out a sigh and crouched beside the body. He folded back the tarp to reveal her face.
    Nix noticed a slight tremble in those long fingers and couldn’t deny the sympathy she felt for him. Despite his meeting Amarinda more than a hundred years ago, the two had managed to maintain a close friendship. Before he’d left Scottsdale, they’d both worked for Maldonado—Tobias as one of Maldonado’s enforcers and Rinda as a kind of jill-of-all-trades. Nix had never really been sure exactly what the female vampire’s job had been.
    Nix moved to the other side of the body so she could see Tobias’s face better. His expression was controlled, placid even, but she could detect the stirrings of rage in the way his pupils dilated until there was only the smallest circle of gray rimming them.
    She pushed aside the feelings Tobias’s reappearance in her life engendered and focused on the job. She could get through anything if she just kept things on an impersonal level. Just forget you know what he tastes like, how his skin feels against yours, how full you feel when he’s deep inside you . She tried to ignore the eager thump her clit gave and drew in a steadying breath. “Can you smell anything?”
    He closed his eyes and inhaled. After a few seconds he grimaced and opened his eyes. “There’s a little bit of shape-shifter and some vamp other than Rinda’s scent. That could be odors here at the scene and not necessarily on her body. And then, there’s you.” The look he gave her suggested he could sense her physical reaction to his presence, probably even smell the involuntary stirring of arousal within her. “But there’s something more, something beyond this overpowering odor of all these humans.” He glanced at Dante with a mumbled, “No offense.”
    Dante scowled. “Offense taken.”
    Nix pressed her lips together while the two men sized each other up. Even as alpha as he could be, Dante was one of the most easygoing guys she knew, yet she wouldn’t be surprised if Tobias managed to rub him the wrong way. When he wanted to be, Tobias could be a real charmer. Most of the time he didn’t bother to put forth the effort.
    Tobias cocked an eyebrow but didn’t respond. With slow deliberateness, almost as if he were taking the time to say good-bye, he drew the tarp back over Amarinda’s face and stood. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, drawing Nix’s gaze there. The material pulled taut across his groin, showing the outline of his cock. She jerked her gaze away and glanced at his face. Thankfully he hadn’t seemed to notice where she’d just been looking.
    “There is something… It’s familiar, yet not. I don’t know what it is.” Frustration colored his voice, made the low tones tight and even raspier. “Who the hell did this?” His gaze caught Nix’s. “Humans? Or someone trying to make it look like humans?”
    She didn’t have an answer. Not yet. “Since she wasn’t killed here, it’s hard to say. But the strongest scent is human, not pret.”
    “That might be technically accurate,” Tobias murmured. He pressed his lips together and drew in another slow, deep breath. “That other smell. It smells like… demon.” All demons had an underlying scent of burned wood or paper that was undetectable to humans. From the scent you couldn’t tell one demon from another, but you could separate demons from other prets. Vamps and shape-shifters had no trouble picking it up. He looked at her, a hint of accusation in his eyes that immediately made her mad.
    Not back in her life five minutes and already he was pointing fingers. She couldn’t help being part demon, damn it. “Not every unexplained murder has a demon behind it, you know.” She darted a glance around, making sure the police officers and assorted crime scene specialists weren’t within earshot, then looked back at Tobias