by Larissa Ione
Chapter Eight
It was all Jedda could do to not erupt in a full-blown panic attack. And gem elf panic attacks were messy. Sort of an explosion of fine diamond dust poofing all around her in a massive, choking cloud. And that shit got everywhere and into everything. The last time she’d had a panic attack, the abrasive particles had clogged her vacuum cleaner’s air filter and scratched her glass coffee table.
Slowly, so she wouldn’t arouse suspicion, she lowered her stiff legs, allowing Razr to slip from her body.
He was still hard. Could he go again? Because she could. Over and over.
Damn, that was the best sex she’d had since...well, ever, the intensity and abruptness making it all the more intoxicating. His complete dominance of her, immobilizing her so she was helpless to do anything but surrender to his touch, had been unexpected, exciting, and something her human partners had never done.
She was still a little dizzy as she pushed away from him and grabbed a silk robe from the closet. Peridot green, of course.
“Look,” she said, sounding like she’d just gotten up after a wild night of partying and not enough sleep, “I don’t know why these gemstones are suddenly on the radar, but you heard me tell Shrike that I can’t find them. And even if I could find them, I’d have to give them to him or that Lothar curse is going to make my life a living hell.”
Gods, what was she going to do? Breaking the curse, if it was even possible, would buy her some time, but given that Shrike had sent a goon to watch her, she didn’t think she’d get that much more time.
And really, why were the stones in demand after decades of obscurity? Both her gem and Reina’s were safely ensconced in the most secure vault in the universe, and it wasn’t like the dhampires gave tours of the facility for people to see what was inside. She couldn’t even get inside, and she was a client.
Something must have happened with her sister. But what? Was she in trouble? Had she told someone about the gems?
Was she dead?
An ache of despair centered in her gut at the thought, but no, she’d have felt her sister die, just as she’d felt it when Manda took her last breath. But still, something might be terribly wrong.
Razr watched her, his thickly-muscled body still bare, his skin coated in a fine sheen of sweat, his impressive length glistening with her arousal. Even though she’d just had the most amazing orgasm ever, she still felt a swell of desire expand between her legs, diminished only by the sobering subject at hand.
Two fallen angels wanted the one thing she couldn’t give up.
Razr scrubbed a hand over his face as if trying to scour away the disappointment in his expression. “We’ll figure something out. Shrike is an overconfident douchebag, and I have faith that you can produce at least one of the gems.” He gestured to the bathroom. “Mind if I use your shower?”
Relieved to put this off, even for just half an hour, she nodded. “Towels are in the cupboard by the sink, and there are some travel-sized toiletries like toothbrushes and soaps in the drawer beneath the towels. There’s a steam feature in the shower too—might help if your back still hurts. Take your time.” Hopefully he’d take a lot of time, because she needed to figure a way out of this mess. “I’ll make some lunch if you’re hungry.”
His naughty smile nearly made her already shaky knees threaten to collapse. “I’m starving,” he said in a low, husky voice. “That little taste of you wasn’t nearly enough.”
When he turned to walk away from her, the flex of the muscles in his ass and legs pushed her over the edge, and she sank into the bedside chair to collect herself for a moment. How could she be so attracted to someone she barely knew, at a time when her life was in danger?
Groaning, she buried her face in her hands. What the hell had she done? How much trouble was she in? One fallen angel seemed bent on torturing her until she gave him what he wanted, and the other seemed determined to seduce her into giving him what he wanted.
Not that she could. But what a way to go.
She wallowed in self-pity until she heard the water turn on, and then she went to the guest bathroom to clean up and dress in an azure sweatshirt and jeans before checking to see if Shrike’s minion was still outside. He was, but he was smart enough to be hanging out on the other side of the street. People walked past him as if he wasn’t there, and she figured he was using whatever trick it was some demons used to make themselves invisible or unnoticeable to humans.
Shit, she was screwed.
Muttering obscenities in both English and Elvish, she threw together a quick version of her favorite shepherd’s pie recipe and Yorkshire puddings. Although Jedda had grown up in France, her mother had been a fan of British food, and Jedda liked to recreate her mother’s dishes now and then, even if she had to eat them all by herself.
Sometimes she invited her employees to dinner, six humans whom she considered friends but who didn’t know the truth about her. But for the most part, when she cooked she did so for herself.
While she prepared the meal, she considered her options. She had to look for the crystal horn Shrike wanted, for sure. But clearly, she couldn’t give up the gem that had become part of her body and soul. She wouldn’t give up her sister or her stone, either.
She did, however, need to find Reina.
As the food cooked, filling her flat with the savory, warm scent of beef, she peeked out the window again. Ooh, new goon. Shift change, she supposed.
“Something interesting out there?” Razr’s deep voice, coming from down the hall, made her shiver.
“Not interesting,” she said as he stepped up next to her, dressed in his clothes from last night. The male could definitely fill out a suit. “Annoying. Shrike sent some creep to keep an eye on me.”
Razr yanked the curtain aside with a growl. Menace billowed off him, and for a moment she thought he’d go right through the window. “Stay here.”
“What?” She tried to stop him as he threw open the front door. “No, wait!”
He didn’t stop until he was nose to nose with the demon across the street. She couldn’t hear the conversation, but she could see it getting heated, with Razr backing the guy up against a light post. A few seconds later, the demon scurried away in the direction of the nearest Harrowgate.
“What did you say to him?” she asked when Razr came back inside.
“I introduced him to a few of my friends.”
She frowned. “What friends? I didn’t see anyone.”
It was his turn to frown at her. “You didn’t see the griminions?”
The oven timer went off, and she started toward the kitchen. “What are griminions?”
“Seriously?” His heavy footsteps followed behind her. “I mean, I know not every demon knows what a griminion is, but you didn’t even see them? Creepy little short dudes in robes? Glowing eyes, claws for hands...”—he held his hand at just below groin level—“...about yea high?”
“I told you, I’m not a demon. And no, I did not see any griminions, and from the sound of them, I’m glad I didn’t.” She eyed him askance. “You say they’re your friends?”
“Well, not friends, exactly. More like coworkers. They were in the area.”
She was about to ask what their job was and who Razr worked for when the oven timer went off again and the phone rang simultaneously. “Do you mind getting the food out of the oven while I get the phone? I’ll just be a minute.”
It was Sylvia from her shop with a question regarding the pricing of a couple of rare stones from Australia. By the time Jedda worked out the kinks and got off the phone, Razr had set the table and dished up.
“This looks amazing,” he said as they dug in. After a bite, he made a sound of ecstasy that had her remembering what they’d done in the bedroom. “It is amazing.”
“It’s nothing special.” She shrugged, outwardly nonchalant, but inside, her heart did a little happy dance at the compliment. “Do you cook?”
“Nah.” He reached for a Yorkshire puddi
ng. “I mostly eat cafeteria food.”
Cafeteria food? She studied him, realizing she knew absolutely nothing about him. She’d brought him home, cared for him, slept with him, fed him...and he was a complete mystery.
If this were a movie, it would either be a fun romantic comedy or the setup for a slasher film. She swallowed dryly and got up to fetch something to drink, taking note of the knives next to the stove. As if they’d be any help if he decided to chop her up. The weapons he wore on his body made a mockery of her little cooking knives.
Not to mention that he was a fallen angel, probably capable of melting her in her socks.
She fetched a couple of sparkling waters from the fridge and sat down. “So why is it that you eat a lot of cafeteria food?”
Razr took a break from shoveling down shepherd’s pie to unscrew the top off his bottle of water. “I live on sort of a campus. It’s a training facility for a special kind of angel called Memitim.” She must have looked as confused as she felt, because he added, “Memitim are basically earthbound human guardians. They have to earn their way into Heaven.”
“Oh. Well, that must suck. Are you––were you––one of these Memitim?”
He shook his head. “I was born in Heaven, a full-fledged angel. Right now I’m helping to train the Memitim.”
Jedda gave herself a moment to process that. She’d really never given the Heavenly realm much thought, and it had certainly never occurred to her that there would be more than one kind of angel, let alone earthbound ones.
“You know, you’re not what I would have expected from a fallen angel.”
He paused with the mouth of the water bottle near his lips. “Yeah? What did you expect?”
“Shrike.” She spread her napkin in her lap. “I mean, other than you, he’s the only fallen angel I’ve ever met. He’s what I would have expected. You don’t seem as...damaged.”
“I’m...not sure how to respond to that.” He smiled, his charm proving her point. “I feel like I need to defend myself and insist that I’m all kinds of damaged.” He tipped the bottle up, and she became mesmerized at the way his throat worked with each swallow, his supple skin rippling over straining tendons. “So,” he said after he’d downed most of the bottle, “you say you’re an elf.”
“I am an elf.” She tucked her hair behind one pointy ear so he couldn’t miss it. She didn’t miss the way he’d changed the subject. Now she was super curious about his damage.
His mouth quirked in amusement. “A lot of demons have pointy ears.”
“I’m not a demon.” How insulting. And how many times did she have to tell him that? Annoyed, she reached for her bottle of water, but in her haste, she knocked it over, striking the marble napkin holder. The bottle shattered, spilling foamy seltzer everywhere. “Dammit.” She reached for a napkin, but once again her haste cost her, and she sliced her arm on a broken piece of glass.
Blood splashed on the table, and before she could mop it up, tiny emeralds, citrine, lapis, and a dozen other gemstones formed in the splatters of blood.
“That’s...interesting,” Razr murmured.
“It’s nothing.” She swiped her hand through the mess, and instantly the gems disappeared into her palm. “I’ll get this cleaned up––”
“Wait.” He seized her wrist and pulled her hand close. “What just happened?” Gently, he pressed a napkin against her wound, which was already healing, but was also spilling out a couple more gemstones. “What’s going on, Jedda?”
At his no-nonsense tone, soft but steely, her breath burned in her throat and her blood burned in her veins. Gem elves did everything they could to hide this secret. If people knew the truth about them, they’d be hunted into extinction, slaughtered for the wealth they carried within their bodies.
Jedda didn’t know Razr. Didn’t trust him. And yet, there was something about him that made her want to trust him.
“Jedda?” he prompted. “You can tell me.”
“No,” she rasped. “I can’t.” All around her, diamond dust poofed into the air, turning the kitchen into a priceless snow globe.
“Okay then.” With a little cough, Razr released her, keeping the blood-soaked napkin. As he turned it over, a couple of sapphires pinged onto the tabletop. “I’ll tell you what I think’s going on. You sweat diamond dust and bleed precious gems, and you’re worried I’ll hang you by your feet and bleed you out for them. Am I right?”
He’d called it. Son of a bitch. She supposed there was no point in lying anymore, so she stared at the sparkling water as it drip, drip, dripped to the floor.
“My species...we don’t locate priceless gems just to sell. We use them like fuel. They’re what our bodies are made of. Our bones, our muscles, our organs. We can sense them. Not to toot my own horn, but that’s why I’m such a successful gemologist.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Do you need different kinds of gems to survive?”
“You mean, could I live off, say, rubies, exclusively?” At his nod, she shook her head. “Every gem has a different chemical and mineral composition, and our bodies need certain types of stones for different functions. I need diamonds to cry and for the protective coating on my skin, for example.”
Reaching out, he trailed a finger along her bicep, leaving behind a heated tingle. “Protective coating?”
“See how I sparkle in the right light? It’s diamond dust. When I’m in a mine and my body detects deadly gasses or excessive heat, it absorbs the worst of it and lets me go deeper and stay longer than humans. Topaz gives me night vision. Stuff like that.” She gestured to the large gemstones she kept all around the flat, many displayed as works of art, some just filling glass bowls, and others lying around waiting to be dusted. “They all give off their own unique, life-giving vibrations. We don’t absorb them all—we surround ourselves with them too. Their energy is our fuel.”
Sitting back in his chair, he appeared to contemplate what she’d told him. “Is their energy infinite? Or do you have to replace the gems when their energy is depleted?”
She reached out and spun the table’s centerpiece, a crystal dish containing a mix of uncut gemstones, and watched the colors swirl in a multicolored blur. “Stones we keep around us provide infinite, but mild energy. For more intense energy and special abilities, we have to absorb the gems. The small ones are drained within a few months, and even the larger and most powerful ones can be depleted if we don’t return to our realm every decade or so to recharge them. We can also hit capacity.”
“Capacity?”
She nodded. “I’m so full of hematite that I can’t absorb another one unless I break a bone and need more to heal.”
“Are there ever any that you can’t be around?”
“Oh, yes. Some are so powerful that they can have a corrupting effect on us, like a drug that never wears off.” She’d seen that more times than she wanted to admit. “Of course, part of what makes us what we are is that we can’t resist gemstones like that. We want them, even though we know we shouldn’t actually use them. Those go into storage. At least, those of us who aren’t crazy put them into storage.”
There was a long pause as he stared at her with such intensity that she started to squirm. “Do you have any like that?”
“Several.” She pushed a piece of carrot around on her plate, her appetite ruined by the topic. “Most of them are there because they’re infused with evil, and I don’t want them getting out into the world. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if someone like Shrike got hold of a lapis lazuli that could turn water into arsenic on a large scale?” She shuddered.
“You have a lapis lazuli that can do that?” Razr stood and headed into the kitchen.
“I have a lot of gems that are even worse,” she sighed.
No way was she letting any of them go, and she’d paid the dhampires enough to keep the things stored for eternity. She especially didn’t want them to fall into the hands of evil gem elves. Members of her species were just too self-destructive when
they went evil, as Jedda knew all too well. Never again would she allow an evil gem to leave her possession.
Razr fetched the garbage and started to clean up the broken glass, refusing when she offered to help. “Okay, so you have this incredible affinity for gemstones. What makes you think you can’t find the Gems of Enoch? Sounds like if anyone can, it’s you.”
“I can’t just wish a gem into my possession,” she said, because that was the truth. “In order to find an enchanted stone at a distance, it has to be in use. That’s the only way it’ll send out a strong enough signal. But even then, I have to be somewhere close.”
He wiped up the last of the broken glass with a paper towel. “How close?”
She shrugged. “Once, a Svetnalu demon princess in northern Vietnam was using runes made from a lava beast, and I felt it from Malaysia. But that’s rare. Really rare.”
She and her sisters had felt the Gems of Enoch in use from twice as far away, but there was no way she was going to share that precious nugget of information.
“So you’re saying you have no idea where any Enoch gems are, and you don’t know how to find them.”
She took intense, sudden interest in her plate so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “That’s what I’m saying,” she mumbled.
There was a long silence, and she sensed disappointment rolling off him in a wave so strong that she swore she experienced it as well. Did she actually feel bad that she couldn’t give him the diamond?
Finally, as he sat back down across from her, he broke the silence. “What if I can get you the crystal horn? We can get Shrike off your back with it. At least buy some extra time, and I’ll help you find the Enoch gems.”
Help her? It wouldn’t make any difference. She couldn’t give up her diamond. But the crystal devil’s horn? Was he serious? “What about the horn? How can you help me get it? I thought you didn’t know what it even was?”
“After you and Shrike described it, I realized I’d seen it before.” He waggled his brows. “I just happen to know who owns one.”