Dylan's Witch: 10 (Supernatural Bonds) by Jory Strong

okay.”
    Warm lips touched his cheek, trailing a string of kisses to his ear. She captured the lobe, sucked, sending a jolt of pleasure through him.
    Teeth followed, gripping the skin of his neck for that second it took to convey, Mine , before she said, “I smell alligator and python. We better get back to discovery number one.”
    “What about this one? Anything?”
    “Whoever she is, she’s been dead anywhere from a month to four or five. I could be off, Conner. I’m basing this on bones I’ve come across that spent time in lakes and streams in places like Canada and Alaska. I’ve never hunted in this kind of terrain. I haven’t spent much time wearing fur in it either.”
    Her arms tightened on him when he would have moved back to the controls and made the call. “There’s something else.”
    “Something I’m not going to like,” he guessed.
    “Probably not.”
    “What?”
    “There are traces of magic on the bones. More sensed than smelled so don’t ask me what or why, I don’t know more than I’m telling you. But considering this find is on Miguel, we probably should have expected it.”
    Shit. He hoped it didn’t mean anything. He wanted to believe that once the body was identified and the family notified, this thing would be put to rest with the remains.
    “I’ll call it in. Then we wait for the fun to begin.”
    * * * * *
     
    Trace’s phone rang as they pulled into a parking slot reserved for official vehicles. “Perfect timing. What do you have?”
    He hit speaker so Dylan could hear Storm say, “Elaine’s son left the hospital a quadriplegic. I dug a little deeper. He was a decent student. Lettered in track and was on the wrestling team.”
    Dylan shook his head. Fuck . Stories like that weren’t uncommon in their line of work but he hated hearing them. He hated the waste and damage, the sheer pointlessness and horror of it.
    “Brady and I are on our way to the swamp. Conner and Khemirra were exploring and came across a fresh body close to some skeletal remains. Probably going to be a long day. The coroner and CSI are in route.”
    “Catch you later.” Trace pocketed the phone. “Shall we?”
    “The fun never stops.”
    They entered the county jail after locking their weapons in the sedan’s trunk. Hale met them on the other side of security.
    “She’s waiting for you,” he said, escorting them to an interrogation room. “I’ll watch on the monitor.”
    Deana Young didn’t glance up when the door opened. She didn’t acknowledge them when they introduced themselves as they sat.
    It was about what they’d expected when they’d discussed their strategy and decided to go with shock tactics, because right now they sure as hell didn’t have enough to gain access to Elaine Young’s financial records, not that they’d find anything there. A cash deal made a hell of a lot more sense when you were paying for murder.
    “Look at me,” Trace demanded, taking the lead.
    All it got them was the further hunch of thin shoulders. The further tuck of her head.
    Like a freaking turtle, Dylan thought. All that prevented a full retreat was the lack of a shell.
    “This isn’t going to go away, Deana,” Trace said. “No matter how much you want it to. We know the why and we’ll keep digging until we find out the who. What’s going to happen to David if Elaine ends up in here with you, charged with conspiracy to commit murder?”
    Dylan steeled himself against considering the answer to that question. At the end of the day, it often seemed like the innocent suffered considerably more than the guilty.
    This was his job, putting murderers in jail. And though technically this particular murderer was already in jail, he wanted everyone responsible for it.
    “Think about David,” Trace said, tone like a battering ram.
    There was the faintest tremble. A crack forming.
    She hugged herself. Rocked forward. Backward. Forward. Backward.
    Dylan leaned in, said in a softer voice, “Help us here,