Blooded Blade by J.C. Daniels

Author:J.C. Daniels [Daniels, J.C. & Daniels, J.C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: shapeshifter romance, fantasy romance, urban fantasy romance
Publisher: Shiloh Walker, Inc.
Published: 2022-10-30T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Hours later, after driving non-stop save for a break to refuel and empty my bladder, I arrived at HQ and dumped Liam Riordan’s head on the desk.

It was still in the cooler from my trunk and as the uniformed guard studied it, I nudged it closer.

“I want my fee deposited. Now.”

The older HQ task manager pushed a pair of eyeglasses up his nose, then gave up after they slid back down, taking them off and settling them on top of a thatch of thick, curly gray hair.

“Our Mr. Riordan, I assume?” he asked, sounding bored as he came off his stool and sniffed the cooler before unsealing it.

“No. It’s Tinker Bell. She’s on the top of the DOA list last I heard.”

The task manager barely blinked. “You’re in a foul mood, aren’t you?”

I didn’t answer. I’d been feeling miserable for days and today hadn’t helped at all. I was still filthy, stinking to high heaven and sticky with sweat and blood, but I hadn’t wanted to stop to deal with any of that. Those voices, endless whispers in the back of my head, hadn’t silenced more than a few minutes here and there until I’d crossed into East Orlando.

I desperately wanted to crawl someplace quiet and hide so I could figure out what was going on.

But the one place that had felt safe didn’t feel so safe anymore and fuck Damon for doing that to me.

If the old guy across the collections’ desk counters from me was put out by my silence, he didn’t show it.

“Alpha Lee’s looking for you,” he said as he hefted the pressure-locked lid off the bio-hazard cooler. “Just in case you’re wondering.”

“Peachy.” That was the last thing I needed to hear. “Can you confirm identity?”

“Hold your horses.” He sighed, clearly unconcerned about my impatience, and pulled on gloves to reach into the cooler. “Where’s the rest of him?”

“In the gullet of a big, hungry gator.”

That caught his attention. “A gator.”

“He holed up in a shack in some Louisiana bayou and put up a fight, tried to take my throat out. I loaded him up with Night and an alligator decided he wanted to take him off my hands.” Hitching up a shoulder, I offered a bland smile. “Since he was a DOA tag, I figured I only needed the head, so why fight the gator?”

The desk clerk grunted. “Guess the head shot was to put him out of his misery?”

“Yeah.” I made the mistake of looking down in Riordan’s wide, filmy eyes. “Poor, dumb bastard.”

“He chose to go on a killing spree, Colbana. You did what you had to.” The clerk used some blood from the neck stump, dabbed it on a slide. While the DNA scan hummed away, he tried to get a retinal scan but grunted and gave up after a minute. “Too dead for it. Better scanners in the morgue, but as long as the blood trace checks out, you’ll be fine.”

In under five minutes, he’d confirmed the kill, gotten my signature for delivery and payment processing and finished all needed paperwork.

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