Betrayal's Shadow Read Free Page B

organically for millennia without the use of chips and circuits. Yet it had taken the devastation of plague and death to rip the inherent skill from his people, leaving them with this paltry substitute to search for information.
    “You find her?” Kamau’s deep voice was somber. The thick black forearms crossed over his chest contradicted the patience in his words.
    “Isabella’s body? Yes and no. I tracked her to a morgue in Tucson. She’d been cremated.” Ansgar had trouble releasing the words and managed a shake of his head at Leonis’s surprise.
    “There was nothing to bring back. They have too many bodies. After a few weeks, they need to make room. The police reports were detailed, though disturbing.” Isabella’s cold, mutilated body listed by number, another Jane Doe casualty on the Tucson Police Department’s unsolved roster, was too raw, too painful.
    Leonis’s fingers stilled.
    Kamau waited for additional explanation, his expression hidden while he pressed folds into his leather falconry gloves. On unspoken command, the panther shifted from Ansgar to settle at Kamau’s feet in a deceptively casual pose. Her head covered one of his feet and her eyes fixed on the open doorway.
    The perfect lookout.
    Ansgar turned his head to the side, stretched his neck, and avoided Leonis’s gaze. “The police report indicated twenty to thirty shallow stab wounds, five deep and fatal. There wasn’t a medical examiner’s report on record.” He gripped the chair rail. “Her personal effects fit in a ziplock bag.”
    The crime scene photos had been bad, but he struggled to overlay them with his memories. Isa as an infant. Isa playing with the other Guardian children in the Sanctum’s gardens. Isa, stubborn and innocent, flirting to get her way. She’d possessed spirit and energy, characteristics too much like his sister, Briet.
    “Xavier?” Leonis’s question held weariness.
    Bristling at the implied assumption, Ansgar fought down a reaction. He knew the purpose here wasn’t to commiserate, only to provide impartial delivery of the facts. Ansgar and Kamau’s job was search and retrieval. It wasn’t Leonis’s fault he got the fun job of asking the hard questions before briefing Salvatore and the rest of the Guardian council.
    Better him than me . “No evidence to link him to her death. Once I got past the human police personnel to search, there was no sign of the creatures Xavier used previously against the Sanctum or his usual attack patterns.” He swallowed back defense of his fallen commander and continued. “Her body was found with a dead undercover cop. Same wounds on him.”
    “You conjecture that this is a random act of human violence?” Leonis asked.
    Random, hardly. Ansgar ground his teeth on the words. Some details would have to wait. “There’s nothing to prove otherwise.”
    “Any remains?” Leonis tapped his fingers on the table.
    “They buried the ashes. No risk of exposure for us.”
    Leonis and Kamau both grumbled.
    The council would be relieved with the lack of exposure. However, the lack of details to probe further into Isa’s death would leave other questions. No help for that.
    “Was she …” Kamau’s sour expression and his hand tightened enough around his glove to cause permanent wrinkles in the leather signaled the direction of his comment.
    “Report said she bled out, along with the human. No other sign of violation.” No, Isa hadn’t been raped. Just attacked and then left to die slowly in a dark, narrow alley without the comfort of her brethren. Ansgar took a slow breath to battle the anger he seemed unable to lock in place.
    His people trained in defense against random human violence, though to repel an assault required diligent training and a mindset to retaliate. Many of the Guardian women were gentle creatures. Isa had been such. His sister still was.
    “And Turen?” asked Leonis.
    Ansgar caught Kamau’s gaze as his eyes narrowed at the scribe.
    “Too much,