Page 31 of The Succubus's Song

Mara made eye contact with each of the retreating guards. She made a show of running her nail through some of the blood on her chest, slowly licking it off before sucking her entire finger into her mouth.

Emmett let out a long sigh as he watched them go, unaffected by Mara’s antics.

Finley’s cock twitched in response.

Christ, that wouldn’t turn on any sane person, Finley thought to himself. Maybe that’s something we don’t bring up again.

“About time you showed up,” he grunted. Finley caught the way that Emmett curiously glanced between the two of them, clearly noticing they had arrived together in the middle of the night.

“What happened?” Mara’s tone was all business. Emmett looked around before pointing towards the library doors, taking off at a brisk walk.

“We should discuss this inside. I’ve evacuated the library,” Emmett informed them as they followed him through the massive entrance.

“What?” Mara gasped as they stepped inside.

Finley was equally astounded. He hadn’t been involved with the university very long, only since his sister arrived, but he’d never known the library to close.

“Has it ever been closed?” Finley echoed Mara’s horror.

“No,” Emmett grunted, running his hand through his hair. He looked ready to snap.

“Have you told Calum?” Mara asked. They were following Emmett at a breakneck speed down the steps from the library’s entrance through the main floor. He led them through the stacks of books, weaving in and out of tables that were left in disarray.

Finley spotted cups of tea that were still steaming, sandwiches half-eaten, and books left open on desks.

Emmett must have cleared everyone out of here in a hurry.

“No, I didn’t tell Calum,” Emmett sighed before coming to an abrupt halt at the end of a small aisle. They were standing between two bookshelves, at least ten feet tall.

Finley couldn’t help but notice this small corner of the library felt completely isolated from the rest of the space.

“Are you going to?” Mara prompted. Finley could tell from her tone that Mara thought Emmett should tell their prince, but she posed it as a question anyway.

“Not until we have more information,” Emmett grunted. His body blocked them from going any further, and he sighed deeply. He picked up his head and looked right at Finley. “If you don’t want to see something like this, I don’t blame you.”

“Why just me?” Finley asked. Mara simply turned around and looked at him, raising one elegant brow in disbelief. “Fine, fine,” Finley grumbled before turning his attention back to Emmett. “I’ll be all right.”

Emmett nodded, stepping to the side. He kept his head down as Mara and Finley peered past him, clearly not wanting to look at the scene again.

Finley poked his head out from the bookshelves and gasped.

They were standing in a small atrium with four desks; all the chairs had been upended, forming a sort of fence around the scene. It looked like grotesque, haphazard barbed wire.

A mutilated body was pinned on the table in the center. The man had been stripped nude and castrated—that much was obvious, although Finley couldn’t immediately identify a cause of death.

Blood had pooled on the desk’s surface and underneath, which Finley assumed meant the body had been there for a while.

“Fuck,” Mara hissed, her eyes going wide as she broke away from Finley’s side and got closer to the corpse.

“Yeah, I figured you would want to see that,” Emmett groaned, poking his head out from behind the bookcase.

Finley took a few cautious steps forward to join Mara’s side, getting a better view of what sparked her reaction.

The man’s right hand had been pinned to the table with what looked like a piece of bone or ivory. The words ‘Finish the job’ were scrawled across his chest in his own blood.

“God damn it all,” Mara cursed, stumbling a few steps backward as if she suddenly needed to get as far away from the scene as possible. Finley saw her eyes fill up with tears and was at her side in an instant.

“Come on.” Finley gently wrapped an arm around her waist and led her back towards Emmett. Emmett nodded at them grimly, indicating in the direction of his office.

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