0.5 Deadly Hearts Read Online Free PDF

while James leaned at her side. “It takes a lot for his ilk to breed. Good thing it’s easier for humans.” Elise toyed with one of the cookies from the second batch. They hadn’t spread as much as the ones she had burned, but she had no appetite for them.
    Malformed hermaphrodite , Courevore had said.
    “Most humans,” she added, tossing the cookie back onto the pan.
    She could feel James watching her, but she didn’t want to see his pity. She pushed the cookies around the pan with a spatula like it was the most interesting thing in the world. “You can’t take anything he said to heart,” James said. “Everything that comes from a demon’s mouth is a lie.”
    She stabbed a cookie with the end of the spatula. “What did you say to him?”
    “Hmm?”
    “You whispered something to Courevore when he tried to talk to you. It looked like it surprised him. What was it?”
    “Oh, I can’t even remember now. Just an idle threat,” James said.
    “Must have been pretty good to mess with his head.”
    An engine rumbled up the street, then stopped by the window. She pushed one of the flowered curtains aside and peered outside. The noise had been McIntyre’s pickup arriving—not the cops—but his car wasn’t the only one on the street. Rich’s beater was parked at the opposite sidewalk. There was a ticket flapping underneath his windshield wiper.
    “I might have an idea about Courevore’s offspring,” Elise said.
    The front door opened, and McIntyre and his girlfriend walked in carrying duffel bags. Leticia wore rubber gloves that covered her to the elbow. It was hardly the first time they had cleaned up such a scene, and they came well-prepared.
    “How did everything go?” McIntyre asked.
    “Perfect,” Elise said, popping the last of a cookie in her mouth. James was right. Even she liked Nutella cookies. “The Packards are going to need new flooring in the master bedroom.”
    “And groceries,” James added helpfully.
    Leticia laughed and headed upstairs.
    “This is going to take a while,” McIntyre said. He tossed his keys to Elise. “Why don’t you guys go get some grub?”
    “An excellent idea, but I think I’m full on cookie dough now,” James said.
    Elise hopped off the counter anyway. “No, dinner’s a good idea. There’s still one more batch in the oven, and they’ll be done in five minutes. Don’t forget to grab them when the buzzer goes off, McIntyre.”
    He threw an ironic salute at her.
    But when James and Elise stepped outside, she didn’t head for McIntyre’s truck. She went to Rich Harris’s car instead.
    The pavement was hot under her bare feet as she crossed the street, even though the light of day was fading rapidly. The driver’s side window was open a crack. Elise wiggled her arm inside. It was hard fitting her bicep in deep enough to reach the lock, but she managed to flick it with her middle finger.
    She opened the door, and the smell of sulfur seeped out—along with the distinct odor of blood.
    Elise pulled the lever for the trunk. James waited until she was at his side, swords at the ready, before swinging the trunk open the rest of the way.
    The smell that had been faint in the passenger compartment slapped her in the face, so bad that she nearly gagged. Elise stepped back with a hand over her mouth.
    “He nested in his trunk,” James said, voice weak with disgust. “He nested. In his trunk.”
    There were seven eggs nestled among the blankets. They were each the size of Elise’s fists pressed together, and the first six of them were drenched in blood; the one on the far left was even beginning to crack, like it was trying to hatch. They shivered with internal motion.
    Elise was about as touched by the sight of the eggs as she was by the sight of human infants, which was to say, not at all. “Baby hellspawn,” she said. “How sweet.”
    “Good thing you killed him before he, er, fertilized that last one,” James said.
    “Yeah,” she said. “I bet Rich