Dagan Krayl wondered why this one wasn't.
He shifted to get a better view through the half-inch crack in the door. Small, bare room. Concrete floor. Particleboard walls. No windows.
There were stains on the mattress. Old stains, reddish-brown, dark and stiff. Someone's blood.
Not hers.
Not yet.
But whoever had left her here would be back. So she had reason enough to be terrified. Reason enough to scream. Human females cried. And, at times, human males. But not this female.
Both her silence and her odd movements piqued Dagan's curiosity. Her head bobbed like a buoy in choppy water. Up. Down. He could hear the distinct rasp of each breath, more scrape than sob, accompanied by a muted grinding.
What the hell was she doing? From this position, he couldn't tell.
She paused, shifted a bit to one side and rolled her shoulder up against her cheek to push back the long, corkscrew strands of her hair. Then she dipped her head and went back to her task. The grinding resumed, and he realized that she was gnawing at the rope with her teeth, making a play for freedom.
A flicker of interest ignited. It appeared that despite the desperation of her circumstances her spirit was tattered but not crushed.
A fighting spirit.
Something to be admired.
He blinked, startled by the thought. She was none of his concern. He was here to harvest and kill.
But not her.
The prey he sought had a tarnished soul, one smeared with the worst sort of slime, the accumulated malfeasance and malady of a lifetime. Nothing less would satisfy dear old Dad. Sutekh, the Lord of Chaos. He dined only on malevolence and vice. Evil was the delicacy he craved.
As a soul reaper, Dagan was tasked with providing it. He was not just any soul reaper, but Sutekh's eldest son. The old man had a small army of soul reapers to harvest for him, but he had only four sons, and he had exacting expectations of his progeny.
He glanced over his shoulder down the narrow, dark corridor. He'd already checked the massive empty space upstairs. Only the underground bowels of the abandoned factory remained unexplored. His prey was here somewhere, and he ought to continue the hunt, not stand here watching the woman.
But something kept him from leaving her and prowling off in search of a darksoul. He knew what it felt like to struggle and strive, to ache for freedom. Be careful what you wish for—wasn't that a common mortal adage? Freedom wasn't always delicious.
Reaching into the back pocket of his faded, torn jeans, he took out a lollipop. The clear plastic wrapper crinkled as he pulled it off. He popped the sucker in his mouth and waited—flavor exploded. Coconut…pineapple. Pi?a colada. Not his favorite. He'd remember that next time.
He folded the cellophane in half, then quarters and shoved it in his pocket, because littering went against his grain, even in this condemned shithole of an abandoned factory in Chicago's far South Side. The clear paper crinkled and crunched in the quiet.
The woman's head jerked up. She must have heard the sound.
She turned her face toward him, blinked a couple of times and then froze. He didn't know if she cold see him, but she definitely heard him. That was a surprise.
A long scratch marked her neck and a fresh bruise darkened her right cheek, swollen and red against the smooth toffee cream of her skin. She'd been roughed up a bit, but she still had her clothes on. Didn't look like she'd been raped. Yet.
Dagan figured she had to count that as a good thing.
She wasn't gagged. Her captor hadn't bothered, either because there was no one around to hear her or because the guy liked to listen to her scream. Only she wasn't. Screaming.
He found that interesting.
Stepping deeper into the room, Dagan lifted his finger to his lips—stay quiet—and reached back to pull the door closed behind him. He wasn't sure why he wanted her quiet. Letting her scream would only bring her captor running, which would save Dagan the trouble of hunting him down. But he wanted a moment with her. One moment.
Why? One moment to do what? He came up with fuck-all for an answer.
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. Beautiful eyes, green and bronze, the shape almond tipped. The color was startling against her dark skin and even darker lashes.
For an instant, he saw only her eyes, tiger fierce. The room disappeared, and he saw only those eyes. They reached inside him, found something he hadn't known he'd lost, hadn't known he had in the first place.
The instant passed, leaving his pulse beating a little harder, his breath coming a little faster. He recognized that the source wasn't mere sexual attraction. It was…something else.