Page 37
Story: Accidentally Vacationed with an Incubus (Briar Coven #2)
The wounds weren’t nearly severe enough to have killed an incubus demon.
And Rowan was right. Even if the injuries had been fatal, his magic should have fought to repair him.
There would have been some indication of healing—incubi didn’t just die.
Their bodies resisted it, fought against it with every ounce of their magic.
But according to the mortal medical examiner, while they couldn’t determine exactly what had killed Jen’s parents, their injuries confirmed they had been in the car when it crashed.
Which left two impossible questions.
How did two people who were already dead crash a car? And how did they actually die?
I turned the page, and my pulse stalled. Crime scene photos.
A cold wave of panic ripped through me. A woman sat slumped in the passenger seat, her hair falling over a deep gash on her forehead, her glassy, unseeing eyes fixed somewhere beyond the camera. She looked almost identical to Jen.
It’s not Jen. It’s not Jen. It’s not Jen.
I repeated it over and over, forcing myself to breathe. It might not have been my mate in the photo, but it was my mother-in-mating. A woman I would never have the chance to meet. A woman stolen from my mate before I could thank her for bringing Jen into this world.
A slow, seething determination rolled through me, smothering the panic in my chest.
I will find out who did this. I will find out who took my mate’s parents from her.
The next photo was of her father, slumped over the steering wheel. His face was turned away from the camera, and I was grateful for that. But that didn’t stop the rage from rising. I had never met him, but he was still from my clan. And someone had taken him from us.
I turned to the next image, and my stomach twisted. A close-up of the driver’s side footwell. Jen’s father’s leg had snapped at an unnatural angle, the sole of his shoe twisted upward, facing the camera.
A sticky note was attached to the bottom of the photo. Rowan’s handwriting, nearly illegible, read:
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Dust on the gas pedal, but not on Mr. Myers’s shoe? Maybe a brick or something concrete used to drive them into the tree? Removed after?
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Frowning, I lifted the photo closer, squinting at the gas pedal. Rowan was right. There, wedged deep in the grooves, was the barest hint of gray dust. But the sole of Jen’s dad’s shoe was clean.
I turned to the next image. A shot taken from inside the warped hood of the car. A close-up of the brake line. Cleanly, deliberately cut.
The next photo was of Jen’s room. It was nearly identical to how it looked now, except for the mess.
Teenage debris littered every surface. Stacks of empty glasses and plates crowded her nightstand and dressing table.
Discarded clothes and accessories were strewn across the floor in careless heaps.
And her bed... It looked as if she had been lying there moments before, a human-shaped impression surrounded by a sea of candy wrappers.
To the side, an empty, heart-shaped box of chocolates sat abandoned.
A sudden, irrational surge of jealousy twisted through me. Someone had tried to woo my mate with cheap chocolates.
I bet it was her stalker.
Fucking Rowan.
The same Rowan who had been so obsessed with Jen that he had conducted his own investigation, conveniently dropping off these police files—filled with his own notes—so he could heroically prove her innocence.
I let out a slow breath.
Look at everything first. Hate on the orc later.
I turned to the next photo. Jen sat curled on the sofa in the living room, surrounded by police officers.
In the shadows of the upstairs landing, barely visible in the background, the familiar figure of BooDini loomed.
The little ghost hovered at the railing, its sheeted form crumpled in distress, staring down at the scene below in confusion.
Jen looked... emotionless. Grief hit everyone differently, but she hadn’t even shed a tear in the photo.
She just sat there, hands resting limply in her lap, her beloved tattered hoodie swallowing her small frame, a backpack slumped beside her.
Her gaze was unfocused, staring into nothingness as the mortal police combed through her home.
It was unsettling. Wrong.
A sticky note read:
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Why call the mortal police and not the Headless Hollow Sheriff’s Department?
Someone inside had to make the call—someone who ‘invited’ the mortals, bypassing the town’s magic. Otherwise, the mortal police would have never been able to find the house.
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The next photo was of Jen’s tattered checkered bag, its contents carefully laid out beside it.
An emptied wallet rested on one side, its contents—her ID, a photo of her parents, and about a hundred dollars—neatly arranged beside it.
Next to that, her phone, a pouch of crystals, a tin of trinkets, a tea flask, and a change of clothes had been methodically placed, as if someone had wanted to catalog every detail of her life.
Below the bag, set apart from everything else, lay a pair of wire cutters, the metal glistening with fresh oil, sealed inside an evidence bag.
Jen never denied cutting the brakes , I reminded myself. In fact, she was pretty adamant that it had been her.
A sticky note was attached to the photo, the handwriting sharp and almost frantic:
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Why pack a getaway bag only to not run away?
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My lips pressed into a thin line. Nothing about this case made sense.
I turned to the final document. Jen’s interrogation transcript. Fifty-three pages of it. I exhaled sharply and flipped through the thick stack of paper. And despite my irritation, I was reluctantly thankful that the orc had highlighted the most important parts.
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OFFICER HUGHS: Walk me through the day leading up to the deaths of your parents.
JENNIFER: I spent most of the day... moping around. Mom told me to have dinner ready for when she and Dad got back, and then we’d go to the movies.
OFFICER HUGHS: Back from where?
JENNIFER: The Cadmuses’ house. Ms. Cadmus has been sick, and they were spending a lot of time over there.
OFFICER HUGHS: Did you feel like your parents were neglecting you?
JENNIFER: ... Yes.
OFFICER HUGHS: You’re a young woman. Did you not have friends to spend time with?
JENNIFER: *question unanswered*
OFFICER HUGHS: Tell me what happened next.
JENNIFER: Mom and Dad never came back when they said they would.
We missed the movie. The food went cold, and I got annoyed, so I ate a bunch of candy instead.
Then Mr. Cadmus called. He said Ms. Cadmus had an accident, and my parents were on their way home to pick up the car so they could drive her to the healers. .. I mean, hospital.
OFFICER HUGHS: And then?
JENNIFER: ... I don’t know. I guess I snapped. I found the wire cutters, went outside, popped the hood, and... cut some wires.
OFFICER HUGHS: What did you do after that?
JENNIFER: I went back to my room, packed my bag, then lay in bed and waited.
OFFICER HUGHS: Did you hear your parents come back?
JENNIFER: Yes. I heard footsteps, then the car door open.
OFFICER HUGHS: And you heard them start the engine? At no point did you think to call out and warn them?
JENNIFER: ... No.
OFFICER HUGHS: No, you didn’t hear the engine start? Or no, you didn’t think to stop them?
JENNIFER: Both.
OFFICER HUGHS: Jennifer, you did hear the engine start. Otherwise, how would your parents have driven away?
JENNIFER: I don’t know. I don’t... I can’t remember.
OFFICER HUGHS: And you didn’t try to stop them?
JENNIFER: ... No.
OFFICER HUGHS: So, you caused your parents’ deaths?
JENNIFER: I—I didn’t mean to.
OFFICER HUGHS: But you could have prevented it by warning them.
JENNIFER: ... I guess so. Maybe.
OFFICER HUGHS: What happened next?
JENNIFER: I lay in bed. About ten minutes later, I heard the crash.
OFFICER HUGHS: Not ten minutes, Jennifer. It would have taken less than a minute to reach the crash site.
JENNIFER: It felt like ten. But... maybe it was one.
OFFICER HUGHS: And then?
JENNIFER: Mr. Cadmus called. He asked if everything was okay because he’d heard the crash, and my parents hadn’t made it back to his house like they said they would.
OFFICER HUGHS: Yes, we spoke with Mr. Cadmus. He wasn’t very forthcoming. Said you were a good girl. Never caused trouble, never gave your parents or the community any reason to worry. He thought it was... out of character.
JENNIFER: Did he get Ms. Cadmus to the healers? I mean, hospital?
OFFICER HUGHS: I believe so.
JENNIFER: ... That’s good.
OFFICER HUGHS: So, Jennifer. You’re admitting you cut the brakes because you were annoyed with your parents for spending time away from you and letting dinner go cold?
JENNIFER: ... I guess so.
OFFICER HUGHS: Anything else you want to add, Ms. Myers?
JENNIFER: I didn’t mean to.
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Rowan’s accompanying sticky note echoed my own unease.
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Jen seems distant and detached—not like her. And why did she say she didn’t hear the engine start, or that the crash happened ten minutes later than it should have? Could someone else have killed her parents and staged the whole thing?
DID JEN ACTUALLY CUT THE brAKES, OR DID SHE ONLY THINK SHE DID?
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A second sticky note followed, scrawled with a messy list of increasingly bizarre theories:
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Possession? Could a ghost have taken control of her? (Obviously not BooDini.)
Memory hex? Jen mentioned a bully named Priscilla—could she have cursed her?
Echo relic? Did someone else cut the brakes while wearing a relic, then pass it to Jen to implant the memory as her own?
Necromancer? Could a necromancer have reanimated the bodies to drive the car?
Voodoo? Possible, but would need a direct link to Jen or her parents.
Shadow Doppelg?nger? Did Jen cross any changelings who could have used their shadows to control her?
Fae? They have the power to coerce people into doing their bidding—was she manipulated?
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I exhaled sharply, my grip tightening on the pages.
Rowan, for all his skill at picking apart inconsistencies in the story and evidence, was absolutely terrible at coming up with plausible theories. Or... maybe that was the point.
A distraction. A smokescreen. A way to throw off suspicion.
Incubus demons were protective by nature. If Jen’s father had sensed that she had a stalker, he would have summoned his shadows to scare Rowan off. But orcs? Orcs were just as territorial—just as possessive—over those they considered theirs... just as strong... just as deadly...
What if Rowan hadn’t just investigated the crime?
What if he had engineered it?
What if he had killed Jen’s parents, manipulated her into believing she was responsible, and staged the entire thing?
But why?
Taking her parents out of the picture made sense if he wanted Jen all to himself, especially if her dad was a protective incubus demon.
But what was the point of engineering it so Jen would do jail time? That went against the very idea of keeping her close. Unless... Did he want to punish her for not returning his infatuation? Did he think that locking her away, isolating her, would make her desperate enough to reach out to him?
He had singled her out the very first night she returned to town...
Rage ignited in my chest, spilling out in thick waves of shadow, twisting violently around me.
I should have snapped his neck that night in the bar.
If I hadn’t been there, would he have tried to make his move then?
I remembered how he reached for her, how he tried to offer her comfort. Was that the start of his plan?
And when I got in the way, did he pivot? Switch to this ridiculous scheme? Did he purposely punch holes in his own story, carefully planting doubts in Jen’s mind, building up to a grand revelation where he could heroically clear her name?
The half-baked, convoluted theories scrawled in his notes—none of them made sense. None of them could be properly investigated, properly proven.
Because that didn’t matter.
What mattered was swooping in at the perfect moment. The moment she felt lost. Felt vulnerable.
The moment she needed a hero.
But Rowan didn’t know that she was already mine. Already claimed.
And I would burn the world to the ground before I let him take her.
Table of Contents
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- Page 37 (Reading here)
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