Scent of Cin

She didn’t recognize her own body, rigid in death. The fire red teddy, crumpled on the floor, had been ripped from her cold alabaster skin exposed for the scalpel to cut. On the sterile metal table, her blood dried in a trail down the legs to the drain on the floor.

The last remnants of her life.

Cinnamon Murphy watched from the upper corner of the room, feeling raped and defiled by the men spreading her lifeless body before the angel of death himself.

Confusion, loneliness, and fear were not emotions Cin was accustomed to feeling. And yet, there she was, dead on a slab in the mortuary, awaiting the scalpel with turmoil she’d never experienced in life, and wondered why she was hanging around instead of going after that big bright tunnel in the sky. Moments ago, if asked, she’d have said being a hotshot detective should have been a first class, express train to Paradise. Let alone getting the hellions off the street before they could cause damage, protecting the innocent, righting the wrongs, putting the depraved behind bars.

But if the men in tacky Hawaiian shirts—sans lab coats—with the roaming hands gave any indication, she had more work to do, and unfortunately, she was dead. Unable to grill the bad guys and stuck in hellhole limbo, she watched somebody’s grunts touch her body. Tugs and pulls, pinches and rough fondling gradually muted as if she were numb, under anesthesia, but with an edge of awareness seeping in. The air changed, shifted, when another man stepped into the room.

“Enough.”

The deep baritone pulsed through her, inciting momentary desire in her body lying on the table. Although she’d been afraid before, the demon’s voice made her aware of two things. First, she was dead, even if self-aware, and unfortunately not dreaming. Definitely dead, otherwise she’d be off that table and slicing clean through the demon’s head in a heartbeat. Second, her apprehensions were verified by the looks of horror etched on the two men backing away from her body. One of the demon’s lackeys crashed into a gurney. Surgical instruments scattered across the floor.

If his own terrified men fled, what did he have planned for her? And why did desire course through her body for a creature she’d pledged her life to eradicate?

They dashed for the door. Her prostrate body, unable to tremble, was left alone with the dark man standing at the end of her table. Tall enough that he would’ve towered over her if they stood side by side. Instead, his waist brushed against her bare feet.

Despite the anxiety clawing at her throat, she put her observational skills to work, trying to understand how she had gotten here and the identity of the men, starting with the demon at her feet. Surely he was a demon, dark as shadow. The light bounced off his bronzed skin and jet black shiny hair. Encased in a black leather jacket, his shoulders stretched wide and long legs strained against matching leather pants, tight enough to see the musculature and fine shape beneath.

Wait a minute, Murphy.

At least seven feet, maybe more, he was too tall to be a demon. A Nephilim, a pre-flood product of a demon and a human woman, a man among men, a fallen angel. Or something like that. She hadn’t paid much attention to the history sessions she’d sat through when she’d first joined the volunteer Hellion Squad—which she’d done every solstice since getting her detective license. To her, a product of a demon and a human was, quite frankly, demon. No “half” about it.

This complicated matters. She always knew where she stood with a demon, but a Nephilim could be tricky.