Page 78 of Accidentally Vacationed with an Incubus

“Maybe I should read these in another room,” I murmured.

Jen didn’t speak. She only nodded as silent tears spilled down her cheeks.

And I wanted nothing more than to toss the damn files aside, pull her into my arms, and promise her that everything would be okay. But she needed me to do this. So instead, I pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, ignoring every instinct screaming at me to stay, to hold her, shield her, comfort her.

Then I turned and left.

My bedroom was silent, save for the soft squeak of the mattress as I settled onto it. I took a slow, steadying breath. And then, with a sinking feeling in my gut, I opened the folder.

The first two pages contained the autopsy reports—one for a male, the other for a female. Two anatomical figures, each marked with a handful of carefully drawn wounds were accompanied by terse medical descriptions.

Both of Jen’s parents had sustained lacerations to the forehead—her father from impacting the steering wheel, her mother from the dashboard. Evidence of a crash. A note from the medical examiner stood out, a small annotation in the margins:Minimal blood present at the wounds. No indication either individual attempted to brace for impact.

The autopsy results revealed internal trauma consistent with a collision, though significantly less than what was expected. A toxicology report confirmed no drugs, no alcohol, and nothing out of the ordinary. At the bottom of each form, the mortal medical examiner had been cautious, indicating that the cause of death, the final blow that meant her parents couldn’t have walked away from the crash, was inconclusive. However, they had seemed certain of one thing and had ruled that the manner of death was homicide.

My eyes drifted reluctantly to the sticky note on the first page, scrawled in almost illegible handwriting—Rowan’s, presumably.

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Jen’s mom didn’t try to cast a spell. Jen’s dad didn’t even start to heal. They didn’t throw their arms up to protect themselves—Dead before the car crashed?

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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 beensomeindication 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 determineexactlywhat 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.

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