Elven Blood (Imp Book 3)

by Dunbar, Debra

  Shit. I promised Wyatt. And this girl in front of me hardly looked like a murderer. There had to be something she’d done in her past. Maybe hit a deer with her car? Wasn’t murder, but maybe it was close enough.

  “Ack,” I said again. I couldn’t seem to communicate.

  Amber smiled, apologetic and absolutely charming. “I’m so sorry to just show up like this. I know you’ve been very busy, but I’m returning to college tomorrow and I really wanted to meet you before I left.”

  Shit. She was leaving tomorrow. What the heck was I going to do? Here was my salvation, right in front of me, but she was Wyatt’s sister. There was no way he would be on board with this, no way I could possibly convince him to turn her over to Taullian. He’d never believe her to be a murderer, a monster.

  “Ack,” I replied.

  “Wyatt talks about you all the time. He’s very fond of you. I’ve never seen him like this with someone before.” Amber was graciously ignoring my rudeness and lack of verbal skills—clearly the elf part of her heritage.

  I was debating the wisdom of inviting her in versus sending her away when I heard car tires on my gravel road. Crap. Leethu’s orgy participants were arriving. I couldn’t have them see Amber, couldn’t risk that they’d tell Leethu, or that the Succubus herself would discover the elf hybrid. I wouldn’t put it past her to just lop the girl’s head clean off.

  “Come in, come in.” I grabbed her by the arm and practically dragged her into the house, slamming the door as the compact car full of horny young men pulled into my driveway.

  I heard footsteps upstairs. “Is that my party?” Leethu called down.

  Oh shit. Shit, shit.

  “You … uh, you need to get into this closet and just stay really quiet for a bit.”

  I didn’t wait for the inevitable protest. I grabbed Amber and shoved her in, slamming the door in her face. Leethu’s footsteps danced down the stairs, full of eager anticipation.

  “Stay there,” I called to her. “I’ll let them in and send them up.”

  Fuck, this was all starting to resemble a 70’s sitcom. The doorbell rang and I opened it, fully expecting to see Mr. Furley at the door. Instead I saw four men, varying in age from eighteen to thirty, all with the biggest ear–splitting grins I’d ever seen. I hoped the one was eighteen. I wouldn’t put it past Leethu to be bonking a minor. It’s not like human laws really applied to her anyway.

  “Oh good, you’re here,” Leethu said. She was standing right behind me, clearly ignoring my edict to stay upstairs. I closed my eyes and prayed with all my might to whatever mythical deity listened to demons that Amber would stay quiet in the closet, and that Leethu and her harem would make a quick retreat up the stairs.

  “Should I put on a pot of coffee and bring out a cheesecake?” Leethu asked. “Would anyone like a beer or a glass of wine? Perhaps some nachos?”

  What the hell? She was a succubus, not Paula Deen. She was supposed to fuck these people, not play hostess.

  The men crowded around Leethu eagerly. Of course, the underage one wanted a beer, and a couple seemed interested in nachos. How long could I keep Amber in the closet? I should have knocked her out first, just to make sure she didn’t get impatient and come crashing out.

  I raced into the kitchen and grabbed a roasting pan, filling it with beer, bags of chips, and plopping the cheesecake on top.

  “Here,” I thrust it at a surprised Leethu. “Take it upstairs. Have them eat it off you, drink beer out of your belly button or something. Hurry, hurry. Let’s get this party started, folks.”

  Leethu seemed particularly intrigued by the food sex idea and made her way upstairs, a line of horny men trailing after. I waited until she was safely in the bedroom before I opened the closet door to let Amber out. She stared at me in shock, her hair a tangle of gold after being crushed in between the winter coats. It’s pretty difficult to unnerve an elf. I’d need to remember that stuffing them in a closet usually works.

  “Why am I in a closet?” She didn’t sound angry, which I’d expected. Instead, she seemed curious and rather amused. No doubt her demon half coming through.

  “My sister is here, visiting, and she’s having a bunch of pizza delivery guys over for an orgy. Thought it was best if they didn’t see you.”

  Her eyes got huge. They were very expressive. “Why? What would they do if they saw me?”

  I shuddered dramatically. “You don’t want to know. Let’s go out to the barn and we can chat there.” I can figure out how I’m going to handle this impossible situation, I thought.

  I grabbed a six–pack of beer off the counter and led Amber out the French doors, past the winterized pool and patio, and into the barn. There, I invited her to sit on a hay bale, popped open a beer for her, and began looking around for a useful tool just in case she confessed to offing eight fraternity brothers and burying them under her crawl space. There had to be a sturdy shovel somewhere

  Amber drank the beer. She clearly wasn’t a stickler for the law, but then again, neither demons nor elves were particularly lawful races.

  “So, Wyatt has told you about me? That I’m basically the devil?” I tried to make conversation as I looked around for an appropriate weapon and pondered how I’d get her to confess to something I could reasonably consider “murder”.

  Amber made an exasperated noise. “Why is it that assertive women, women who are successful in a male–dominated society are always labeled bitches, demons, and devils? If you were a man with a lucrative rental empire, a mid–life–crisis sports car, and a much younger piece of eye–candy on your arm, everyone would be congratulating you and patting you on the back. But because you’re a woman, you’re Satan?”

  I halted in my search, wincing at her depiction. “Yes, but I really am. The Iblis. Ha–satan.”

  Amber waved her hand dismissively. “Every successful individual has had to make tough decisions. As much as we’d like the world to be filled with peace, love, and a cornucopia of plenty, it’s not. You don’t have to live with that label though.”

  “Yeah, actually I do. I don’t want it, but I’ve got the title and all the stupid responsibilities that go along with it. Meetings with assholes, four–nine–five reports, people who want my head on a platter.”

  Boomer came into the barn and made a beeline for Amber, rubbing himself all over her and looking at her with adoring hound eyes. I wavered in my resolve, watching her as she petted the dog. She didn’t seem like a demon hybrid. Maybe Leethu had done the impossible, maybe she truly would pass as an elf.

  “You need a vacation,” Amber said. She had noooo fucking idea how badly I needed a vacation.

  “Does your brother know you’re here?” I had a sudden thought, a worry that Wyatt would walk in on us as I killed her. If I killed her. She smiled at me and my heart sank. She’d probably never murdered even a mouse in her life.

  “No. I stopped by to see him before I came to your place, but I can’t seem to get in. It’s weird. It’s like he has some kind of invisible wall around his house.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help myself; the whole thing was so funny. Of course. She was half demon. She couldn’t go through the barrier. Wyatt had inadvertently locked his own sister out of his house.

  “Hey, did my house smell particularly good to you? Sort of sexy?” I grabbed a beer and sat down on another hay bale.

  “Well, yeah. But I figured that was because you were having a sex party. Maybe incense? Or one of those pheromone sprays, like elk musk or something.”

  Amber fingered the top of her beer can awkwardly. “What does your sister look like? I mean, not that I swing that way or anything. Because I don’t, you know. She just … her accent. Well, you know….” Her voice trailed off in embarrassment.

  I laughed again. Didn’t swing that way. Yeah, right. Liar.

  “Leethu is gorgeous. She likes women as well as men.” And dogs, and cats, and birds, and anything she can get her little paws on. But then again, so did I.

&
nbsp; Amber’s face turned crimson as she turned away. I took a swig of my beer and watched her—a demon/elf hybrid. There had never been one before her. What power did she have? Elf magic? Demon energy? All wasted inside someone who thought they were nothing but a human woman.

  “Look, you’re not who you think you are. Don’t restrict yourself to the narrow confines of what defines humanity. Just go with it. Let that amazing, terrifying, powerful being inside you reveal itself.” I had no idea why I was telling her all this.

  She glanced at me and took a deep breath, as if she were making an important decision. “I can’t. If I do, I’ll kill someone.”

  “Yep,” I agreed, taking a swig of my beer. “Some people need killing, though.” Maybe she was more demon than I had originally thought.

  “I’m not joking,” she protested. “I’m responsible for my father’s death. It would be so easy for me to do it again.”

  Ah yes. Wyatt’s father had been electrocuted while putting in a line for a dryer. Amber had been a very young witness. She’d blamed herself for the death. Wait. Oh fuck no. No way.

  “You shot a lightning bolt at your father.” A statement. Because I knew very well what had happened, and it had nothing to do with household appliances.

  She startled, looking at me as if I were a mind–reader then slowly nodded, her eyes wide with fear and grief. “He was always so mean to Wyatt. Wyatt adored him, and he treated my brother like dirt. That day, I just snapped. It came right out of me: a bolt of electricity. And I kept pouring it into him until I was sure he was dead.”

  “It’s okay,” I reassured her. “These things happen all the time. No big deal.”

  Holy shit! She had murdered—a human, too. And not just any human; Wyatt’s father. She was just like every other hybrid, just like I expected. By Wyatt’s rules, I’d be justified in killing her. Worry gnawed at me. Even with the confession, Wyatt might not agree, and Wyatt aside, I was conflicted myself. Part of me was elated, but another part didn’t want to see her die. Lightning. What else could she do? What other skills did she have?

  “You don’t believe me.” She rose to her feet, angry.

  “Watch.” She walked over to the barn door and raised her hand. Lightning streaked from her palm and blew a huge chunk off the elm in the pasture. Smoke and pulverized wood filled the air as the limb crashed to the ground. Piper and Vegas raced around the field in a panic, bucking frantically in their efforts to escape the killer tree limb.

  “Damn. I rather liked that tree. Although I guess it did need pruning.”

  “Did you not see what I did?” Amber rounded on me. I half expected a bolt of lightning to come my way any second. “I just blew up a section of a tree.”

  “Sweetie, I’ve been doing that from the moment I was born. Do you want me to blow up the other half? Would that make you feel any better?”

  She looked confused. “So, you’re just like me?”

  “Well, not exactly. You’re only part demon.”

  She looked pale. “A demon? I’m a demon? Is Wyatt one too? Which one of my parents was?”

  “Nope. Wyatt’s human. He’s not biologically your brother, but honestly, demons don’t care about that sort of thing. He’s still your brother as far as we’re concerned. It’s kind of complicated. You were placed with your human parents, swapped out for their human baby—kind of like foster care, only they weren’t aware of it.”

  Amber shook her head in confusion. “So was my birth mother a demon? My father?”

  “With hybrids, the father is always the demon. We are genderless, but we can impregnate a female of any species. So your sire was the demon.”

  “Why didn’t my birth mother raise me?”

  I patted her on the shoulder. “See, that’s the problem. The demon part of you is no big deal. Lots of humans have demon somewhere in their ancestry. Hybrids don’t have a lot of power, so the angels don’t make too much of a fuss. Your mother is the problem. She’s an elf.”

  Amber’s eyebrows practically hit the ceiling. “Okay. Now I’m thinking you’re crazy. There are no such things as elves. Not in the North Pole, not in hollow trees making shortbread. No elves.”

  “Right. There are no elves here. That’s part of the issue. The elves live in Hel, side by side with the demons. They don’t take kindly to mixing the gene pool. Your elf mother tucked you safely away over here so her friends and family wouldn’t kill you.”

  We’d gone from “wow, I’m a demon,” to “wow, my brother’s girlfriend is insane.” Amber was beginning to regard me like she needed to shoot me full of electricity and make a break for it.

  “You know, it was really nice meeting you. Very enlightening. Look at the time. I really need to get going, and I’m sure you want to get back to your orgy.”

  Amber edged slowly toward the door. I’d found a shovel, and snatched it up, blocking her exit. I couldn’t let her leave until I’d decided what to do.

  “The circumstances of your birth leaked out, and your elf mother is now in prison. The elves want you dead, your body returned so they can cover it all up.”

  She halted, her eyes wary, hands twitching by her side. “You’re crazy. Insane. Mother was right. I should have never come here.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “You seem like a nice girl, and with you being Wyatt’s sister and all . . . I really don’t want to kill you, but it’s better I kill you than take you back to the elves for them to do it.”

  “Don’t do it,” she begged, her voice soft and persuasive, the pheromones flowing. “Just let me go.”

  I wavered. I wanted to let her go, and it had nothing to do with the faint succubi–like essence. There was a reason I was staying my hand, and I just couldn’t figure out why.

  Amber took advantage of my moment of inattention and shot me with a bolt of electricity that would have killed a human. Instinctively I swung the shovel, but instead of hitting her it swooshed through the air throwing me off balance and numbing my arm as it rang against the barn wall. She was fast. Damned elves. As if that wasn’t enough, she hit me with another huge blast of electricity.

  “Ouch! Bitch! Cut it out!”

  Amber flitted around the barn at a ridiculous speed. “Seriously? You want me to hold still while you bash my brains out? Not likely.”

  She continued to shoot painful volts into my flesh while I attempted to deflect them with the shovel. They wouldn’t kill me, but it really fucking hurt. Finally I tossed the shovel aside and prepared to launch my own energy at her. I really didn’t want to, but I wasn’t about to run around with a shovel while she cooked my ass. Luckily I hit with the first strike, and she dropped down from the rafters with a shriek. Before she could recover, I was on her, trying to hold her steady.

  “Just calm down and listen to me,” I shouted as she struggled, continuing to send small sparks into my skin.

  “No,” she snarled, and I saw the demon behind the elf.

  Amber was panicked, desperate. She’d murdered once, and I knew she’d do it again. There would come a time when she would lose control, and people would die. But when I looked into her eyes I saw the threads of her future before me, like a cobweb of possibilities. Spots glowed, highlighted, and I knew there were significant things this supposed abomination should do. If I killed her, all that would disappear, perhaps taken up by another, or perhaps lost forever.

  I made my decision. I don’t know what happened as I straddled her, but something bloomed up inside me. Killing her would be wrong. I couldn’t do it even if she had murdered Wyatt’s father, even if she were predisposed to kill again. I couldn’t sacrifice this girl in order to avoid confronting Haagenti. Her life for mine? I couldn’t do it.

  With that realization came a surge of despair. Haagenti. I had no way out, no option left but to face him, and face what would certainly be my death. I knew what the probable outcome would be. It was time to say goodbye to my long vacation. Goodbye to Wyatt and my friends, and face the end of my life like a big girl.r />
  I loosened my grip to let Amber go, only to feel something hard smash into my side, knocking me off her.

  “Son of a bitch,” I exclaimed, fixing the broken ribs as I looked up. It was Wyatt. And he was pissed.

  “Sam, why are you pinning down my sister?”

  I’d never seen Wyatt look this way at me. Cold, furious, suspicious. He held my discarded shovel, ready to smack me again. He’d always trusted me, supported me in all my demon weirdness. He’d helped me kill demons, broken all kinds of Internet security laws for me, shot an angel in the head to protect me. He was the one being I trusted to always back me up, no matter how crazy things got. But he’d found me struggling with his sister, and all that had fallen away.

  “I wasn’t,” I stammered. “I mean, I thought about it, but I decided not to. I’m not Wyatt. I won’t do it.”

  “Wyatt, she’s trying to kill me,” Amber wailed, jumping up and running to hide behind her brother. She was working the faint succubus pheromones as well for the helpless little sister angle.

  “I can’t kill her, Wyatt,” I told him. I was miserable that he needed to know. “But you need to know that she’s the hybrid. I realized it the moment I saw her.”

  Wyatt was stunned. He shook his head. “No. I was there when they brought her home from the hospital. I saw her grow up. You’re wrong.”

  “Check the list, Wyatt. I’m sure she’s on it. She can’t get into your house. She can’t get past the demon barrier. I had to hide her from Leethu. It’s her.”

  “I won’t let you kill her,” Wyatt said, his voice firm with resolve. “She’s my sister, and she’s done nothing wrong. You promised me, Sam. You promised me you wouldn’t kill the hybrid unless she’d murdered. How could you betray my trust like this?”

  “She did kill, Wyatt. She murdered your father. Electricity. You’ve seen me create lightning. Well, your sister can too.”

  Wyatt shook his head again, and turned to look at his sister, who was still cowering behind him. “No. It was accident. Wasn’t it Amber?”