Linda Poitevin
Paranormal & Romance author
Paranormal Bookshelf
Sins of an Angel
a novel of The Grigori Legacy
My work-in-progress is a dark urban fantasy, replete with angels, demons, and the eternal, seductive struggle between good and evil. The first book, Sins of an Angel, is complete and has gone out to my agent.
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Excerpt from Sins of an Angel: a novel of The Grigori Legacy (all rights reserved and subject to revision)
Alex slid into the red vinyl booth across from Trent and righted her overturned cup to await coffee from the approaching waitress. Trent did not follow suit. “Not a coffee drinker?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“Tea?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.”
Alex slid her cup to the edge of the table. She watched the waitress pour coffee, shook her head at the offer of a menu, and watched the woman depart again, headed for another booth near the door. Across the table, Trent stared out the window, jaw clenched, fingers drumming on the worn tabletop. Alex suppressed the urge to reach across and smack his hand into silence, partly because it would be rude, but mostly because she didn’t dare touch him again.
She picked up the sugar dispenser, dumped a rough teaspoon’s worth into her cup, and stirred her coffee. Then she set the spoon on a napkin she pulled from the dispenser. “So. Nothing like coming into a new section in the middle of chaos,” she said. “Talk about trial by fire.”
“Are we going to talk about the killer or not?”
For a moment, Alex was speechless. Then, when words threatened to return, she opted to drown them in a gulp of stale, lukewarm brew so she wouldn’t say something she probably shouldn’t. Like kiss my ass.
She scowled at the pedestrians passing by on the sidewalk. She liked this man less and less with each encounter she had with him. Even without taking into account his propensity for sprouting feathered appendages. Or setting her soul on fire with the slightest touch.
Maybe she should just flat-out refuse to work with him and take her lumps. Roberts wouldn’t be happy, but facing his displeasure couldn’t be any worse than this.
Then again, how much worse could this get? If she and Trent could get past circling one another with raised hackles, and she could get past her unruly hormones, surely things would improve.
If.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry if I offended you earlier, but I was just calling it like I see it, and what I see is someone who doesn’t know the first thing about investigating one murder, let alone a serial case. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me; if I'm right, let it go. And if you can’t let it go, then for chrissake, ask Roberts to put you with another partner. Please.”
Trent turned his face to the window. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t want another partner.”
Something in the way he grated the words made Alex study his profile with a fresh eye. It had nothing to do with her, she thought with sudden insight. He didn’t want any partner. He didn’t want to be here at all. She set down her mug with a determined thunk.
“That’s it. I’ve had it,” she informed her partner. “Just what the hell is going on? Why were you assigned to Homicide? You don’t even want to be here - ”
Ferocity flashed in the gray depths of Trent’s eyes, so fast Alex almost missed it. So awful, she wished she had. For a millisecond, she remembered the rage she had seen in a winged man in the office. She swallowed. Thought she’d seen, she corrected herself. Only thought.
Just as she’d only thought she’d seen wings, too.
“Because I can catch him,” Trent said at last, his voice flat.
Alex might have laughed if the hairs on the back of her neck hadn’t been standing on end. She lifted a hand to smooth them down. Outside the window, a flare of lightning illuminated a street gone gloomy beneath clouds she hadn’t noticed until now. She glared at the man across from her. “Let me get this straight. We have an entire police force out looking for this prick, we’re using every forensic procedure at our disposal, every profiler, and you think you’re the one who will find him? And just how, pray tell, are you planning to do that?”
“I can feel him.”
Wow. What this guy lacked in experience, he certainly made up for in balls. Alex picked up her coffee again and shot him a look of exasperation.
“Newsflash, Detective Trent. You don’t hold the monopoly on a cop’s instinct.”
“It’s not instinct,” Trent said, his voice deadly quiet.
Alex’s hand froze with the cup hovering near her mouth. She so didn’t like the way this man’s reality seemed to operate. Or the way it skewed her own.
“It’s fact.” Trent leaned over the table. His glare bored into her, held her immobile. “When he stalks a victim, I feel him. When he kills that victim, I feel him. I feel his hunger, his need, his desperation. It’s just a matter of time until I’m close enough to catch him.”
Alex was sure she must look as stupid as she felt, with her jaw hanging slack and her eyebrows raised so high that her forehead felt stretched. But she couldn’t help it. Because she didn’t know how else to look when her new partner suddenly announced his psychic ability.
And she’d been worried about her own sanity?
With great deliberation, she set her cup back in its saucer. “You know,” she said, reaching for her car keys, “I think we’re done - ”
Trent lifted a hand in a sudden, imperious gesture.
Alex raised just one eyebrow this time. “Excuse me?”
“Quiet.”
Trent had gone rigid, his whole attitude one of intense concentration, alert to something she couldn’t see or hear. Thunder rumbled faintly through the glass beside them, vibrating down Alex’s spine alongside a sudden chill.
Her partner bolted from the booth. “He’s near.”
Alex’s hand jerked, overturning her coffee cup. “Shit!”
She hastily righted the cup, then pulled a wad of napkins from the dispenser and dabbed at the coffee stain spreading down the front of her white cotton blouse. She tried to remember if she had a clean shirt in her locker and then jumped anew as Trent plucked the napkins from her hand.
She opened her mouth to object, but the ferocity in his eyes stopped her cold.
“Didn’t you hear me?” he snarled. “He’s near. Now.”
People in the diner turned to look at them, some frowning, others only curious.
“Who’s here?” Alex motioned at the napkins in his hand. “Can I have those back, please?”
The napkins sailed past her to land in a soggy lump by the sugar dispenser. Alex watched their progress, then turned a dumbfounded gaze on Trent. Christ, was normal conversation with this man even possible?
“What in the hell is the matter with – ” she began.
Trent thrust his face down to her level, inches away. “He’s near,” he grated, “Not here, but near. And he’s about to kill again. And I will not lose him because of you, do you understand?”
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