by Debra Dunbar
Would this work? Could we possibly have a threesome relationship where no one felt left out, where each had a separate role and identity but where we could come together in mutual affection? And the sex…holy cow, the very idea of it was turning me on.
“I don’t know if this will work. I’ve been in threesomes and while they work fine for the occasional kinky sex, they don’t always work well in relationships, especially with demons. Three sex demons, maybe, but a warmonger is going to want to win, and that usually means being the sole focus.”
“What if he was the sole focus?” I asked. “He can’t be here forever. He’s got to go back to Hel. Let’s say he comes across the gates once every decade or so, spends a week with us, and during that week, it’s all about him?”
Irix frowned. “I won’t pretend, Amber. I won’t fake devotion for someone, even an ancient. I’m willing to meet with him, to entertain the idea, but if I don’t feel about him in a way that would create a stable threesome relationship, then the answer is no. And if the answer is no, I’ll use every bit of my incubus power to pull him from you so he willingly transfers the tie to me.”
At least he was willing to try. And as much as it made me ill to think that Irix would take on my debt to the warmonger for me, I got the feeling it wouldn’t be such a burden. Yes, Irix had always worked solo, but by his own admission, a link to a powerful, ancient warmonger wouldn’t exactly be a bad thing. I was glad he’d decided to keep an open mind as well as make a romantic dinner that smelled amazing.
Speaking of which… “I’m dirty and sweaty. I’m guessing I don’t have time for a shower before we eat?”
He lit the candles and that slow sexy smile of his spread across his face. “No, you don’t. Eat. Then we’ll both take that shower together.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice. I washed my hands and face, then plopped down at the table while Irix poured me a glass of wine. Whatever demons had formed Irix, they must have added in culinary skills because the guy could cook. The beef was tender with a crisp pastry crust. There were twice-baked potatoes with cheese, and roasted honey-glazed carrots. He’d made roasted brussel sprouts with a balsamic drizzle and a side of grilled fruit with a yogurt dressing. For dessert he pulled an apple crumble out of the oven and scooped vanilla ice cream on the top from a local creamery. I was stuffed, but I made him sit on the couch with his wine while I cleaned the dishes and put on a pot of coffee. This was perfection. This was the life I wanted. Rewarding work. Amazing food and drink. An easy sharing of chores. A smoking-hot incubus boyfriend whose presence I enjoyed in and out of the bedroom.
Rewarding work without having to deal with a snobby jerk of an elf, that is.
“As if worrying about Harkel figuring out I’m a half-elf/half-succubus isn’t bad enough, I now need to work side-by-side with an elf,” I told Irix as I put the last pan away and got out a pair of coffee cups. “Actually I need to ‘cooperate with her in every way’ because apparently she’s a botany expert who is at DiMarche to save our crops while I just point out diseased plants and prune shit.”
The wine glass stopped halfway to Irix’s mouth. “An elf? You’re working with an elf? I’m guessing since you’re sitting here alive and in one piece that she is blind or so stupid she didn’t immediately realize what you were?”
“I’m beginning to think the latter. She told me that my appearance was similar to an ear-mangled, ugly peasant-class elf. I think I was supposed to be flattered.”
He snorted. “Right. You look exactly like an elf except for the ears right now. And you clearly look like you’re descended from a high elf. She’s blind and stupid. And I’m grateful she’s such an idiot.”
“Me too, especially after she told me that there was no way I could have elf ancestry since no elf would stoop so low to have sex with a human, let alone procreate with one.”
“Elves,” Irix muttered, draining the contents of the wine glass and setting it on the coffee table.
“Yes, elves. And she’s an expert,” I grabbed the dish towel and began drying. “How fucked up is that? I study my butt off, spend a week helping the humans in Hel, and DiMarche brings in an elven expert.”
I heard Irix snort. “You’re the expert. There’s no one they could bring in that would possibly know more about this stuff than you.”
I flushed at the pride in his voice. “I know, but I’m a recent college graduate, a twenty-one-year-old human girl as far as they know. They might think I’m super smart, that I have a great future ahead of me, but they’ll never take my advice and assistance over that of an expert.”
“Especially when they think you’re human.”
I knew what he meant, but there was no way around that. Jordan, Darci, and the covens in New Orleans knew the truth. Kai and a few others in Maui knew the truth. But no one else could. Elves might be welcome in this world, but I wasn’t sure I would be, at least not right now. The humans were probably at a point that they’d accept me, but the elves that would soon be working side-by-side with them wouldn’t. I’d find a knife in my back one night, or poison in my thermos of iced tea.
Irix frowned. “How often do you have to work with her? I’m concerned that if she spends enough time with you, she might suddenly realize you’re more elf than she thinks. Or if she sees you heal a plant or grow something at super-speed.”
“I was careful that she wasn’t around, and that any healing I did was subtle. Manny has her occupied with black mildew right now, so I probably won’t see her again for a few days.” I thought about the Phomopsis and felt angry all over again. “It was weird, Irix. I got the impression that she didn’t know a cutworm from a borer. She didn’t seem to know the symptoms of disease or infestation. And she gave me instructions on what to do with a vine that would have resulted in the whole thing dying and the disease spreading on down the row.”
He shot me a concerned look. “Are you sure she wasn’t just testing you, that she suspects what you are? Was that the plant you healed? If she goes back and finds that you didn’t follow her advice, and the plant is disease-free, she’ll know you at least have some magical ability, if not skills that are suspiciously like those of the elves.”
“I trimmed it exactly as she said and healed the rest, so if she’s double checking, she won’t know who healed it, or if the human chemicals finally did their job. Honestly, I don’t think she’ll double check. I don’t know if she lacks the skills to detect these things, if she lacks knowledge about the diseases and pests affecting plant life here, or if she just doesn’t care. She said her family were in charge of the royal gardens in Wythyn, so maybe she just doesn’t give a shit if this crop succeeds or fails.”
“She should. The angels are probably watching this first group of elves carefully. They’ll want to make sure they’re assimilating and becoming productive members of human society. If she fails at her first job off the island, they’ll ship her right back for re-training. And if they suspect she’s done it on purpose, she’ll go right back to Hel.”
I shrugged, handing him a mug of coffee. “Then she’s probably in over her head. Maybe she lied about her knowledge and experience just to get this job and get off Elf Island as quickly as possible.”
I didn’t know much about the hidden island where the angels sequestered migrating elves until they were deemed ready to enter the human world, but it couldn’t be pleasant going from a place of privilege and status to a world where humans were in charge, and you needed to serve them in order to have basic food and shelter.
“That could be the case.”
I sat beside Irix and we sipped our coffee in silence while I thought about the cutworms, the leafrollers, and the Phomopsis. And those were only three of the issues plaguing the DiMarche crops this year, all of them seemingly occurring out of the blue and all at the same time.
“I need to pick your brain on something,” I told him.
He smiled. “Pick away.”
I explained all of the myriad issues affecting
leaves, stems, trunks, fruit, and soil and how darned near statistically impossible it was for all these things to happen at once in plants right next to each other.
Irix tilted his head, a quizzical expression on his face. “It might be a coincidence, but I ran into someone today down at the Santor Winery. Harkel and I seem to be not the only demons in Napa Valley right now. I was in the tasting room, making plans with a few of the employees to slip into the back room with me, when in walks Txipa.”
I blinked. “Do I know him? No, I don’t think I’ve ever met this Txipa. And I can assure you that I’ve never given him a blow job either.”
Irix smirked. “She. And Txipa is a plague demon.”
Holy crap. “Do we need to call the CDC? Are we all about to come down with norovirus or something?”
“Maybe. I’ve got no idea what her game is, but where plague demons roam, disease follows in their wake. Txipa focuses on human disease, but her sister leans toward the famine side of pestilence. She likes to infect plants.”
Double holy crap. “Seriously? Plague demons come in pairs, like evil disease-spreading twins?”
“Exactly, although they don’t always travel together. Demons are created singly, and those with the correct traits can create an individual plague or pestilence demon. Sometimes a powerful demon will decide to combine skills that affect the animal kingdom with skills that affect the plant kingdom into one being.”
“So this Txipa is a blight and pestilence demon?”
“No. I’ve only known one demon that has the combined traits. Usually as they’re created, the powers are too great for one being, and the spirit-self divides into two.”
“So they are twins. One gets the plague toward humans and animals and one gets the pestilence toward plants?”
“Exactly, although there is some overlapping in the skills. If a demon infects a crop, it can transfer to humans, although that’s a very limited set of bacteria in my experience. Txipa is one of the unusual ones who was supposed to have both traits, but split at creation. She has a twin, who imaginatively was named Apixt.”
Demons. Not exactly the most inventive when it came to naming conventions for their young.
“Do you think Apixt is nearby? And that she, or he, is having a merry old time killing off my vineyard?”
Irix shrugged. “Could be. They both like to travel together. I managed to shoo Txipa off before she infected my chosen sexual partners with something annoying like genital warts or herpes, but I think she just moved on to another winery.”
Ugh. Hopefully not my winery.
“If we manage to track her down, do you think we can convince her and her sister to go elsewhere? Like Antarctica or something?”
“Yuck. You seriously want to go find a pair of pestilence demons? I was hoping we could head for that shower. Then head for bed. Then maybe around four in the morning or so, actually go to sleep.”
I hesitated. This wasn’t my responsibility. I was an underpaid intern who just noted damaged and diseased plants on a chart and trimmed vines exactly as instructed. Yes, Jorge did seem to appreciate my knowledge, but I was only here for a month. They had an expert. Let Hallwyn deal with it. She could run around the fields healing plants, then run around Napa Valley to chase away a plague demon and her plant-killing sister. Let her handle it. I’d do what I was paid to do, and spend this evening having so much sex with Irix that I had trouble walking tomorrow morning.
But could I do that? This was my vineyard. I had no faith that Hallwyn could identify the cause of any damage, let alone heal it. And even if she could, I couldn’t imagine her recognizing the work of a pestilence demon or knowing where to find the culprit. The Phomopsis seemed like a normally occurring disease to me. Nothing screamed demon about it. Unless she somehow managed to find out, she’d spend her whole time here curing one plant only to have it fall sick again the very next day.
“How do they operate, these pestilence demons? Our vineyard is pretty bad off, but between the elf expert, the pesticides, and me, I think we can turn it around. Assuming they don’t keep coming back in the middle of the night and hitting us with more disease.”
He chuckled. “That’s not likely unless one or both of them has a grudge against this vineyard in particular. Plague demons hit something, then move on. They’ll drop a bunch of E.coli at a senior center, or aphids into a lettuce farm, then go do something else. They’re probably just passing through.”
Good. That meant that things would start to look up for the vineyards at DiMarche Winery. “Awesome. In that case: shower, sex, and sleep. But if you see either Txipa or Apixt around again, can you let me know?” Not my problem. Not my problem, I chanted in my head, trying to get my mind off the diseased vines and back on a night of sin with my incubus lover.
Irix took the coffee cup from my hand and helped me to my feet. “You’re hungry.”
I knew he wasn’t talking about food because I was stuffed to the point of explosion. “Yes. I healed that vine and it was pretty rough. It took a lot out of me.” I looked up at him, realizing that I just expected him to share his energy with me. How screwed up was that? When I was in Maui with him, I made it a point of pride to learn to go out and gather my own energy sources, even if he needed to supplement them. When Irix wasn’t around, I took care of myself. But as soon as he was back living with me, I got careless about finding my own supply of energy and began to rely on him. Sharing was a wonderful thing, but I needed to be more self-sufficient.
I reached out to touch his hand. “Are you sure you want to stay in? How about we shower up, then we both go out together and pick up some snacks?”
“I don’t mind feeding you, Amber. In fact, I enjoy taking care of you.”
“Sometimes. And sometimes you badger and scold me to be an adult and go take care of myself. You helped me last night when I was shaken and upset and just wanted to stay home in your arms. Tonight I feel better. Let’s get dirty in the shower, then go hunt. I’ll let you pick my prey if I can pick yours.”
He smiled. “Now that sounds like a fun evening.”
By the time we headed out the door I was clean and satiated, my body humming from the energy that Irix always shared through our bond. I still put on a skirt and heels, and my tightest tank top and push-up bra in anticipation of scoring some supplemental energy. Tomorrow I’d need to be in a condition to do some damage control and healing at the vineyard. Especially since Hallwyn seemed to be unable to do so.
Chapter 9
This morning we’d been treated to coffee again, and had traded stories about the elf. She was universally despised as haughty, rude, and an idiot, although Manny did grudgingly admit that she’d done some “glowy-hands magic” on the vines with black measles, and that they looked better.
Looked better. She should have been able to cure them. She was a full elf, and with her family heritage, this vineyard should be the picture of health with double the crop yield. Although maybe I was being too hard on her. The woman hadn’t been out of Hel for long, and I knew first-hand how different the plant life was here as opposed to in Hel. She said her family had been gardeners, so they hadn’t probably done more than forced blooms and ensured that already-perfect plants were pristine. She’d probably never experienced all of the things that were thrown at her yesterday.
Jorge drove up in the truck, and just like the previous morning, Hallwyn climbed out of the passenger side. This time she had on jeans so dark that I feared the dye might discolor her legs and a leaf-green button down with a Peter Pan collar and cap sleeves. Instead of the low, neat pony tail, her hair was wrapped around her head in a series of blonde braids. I noticed with some satisfaction that the tips of her ears were slightly pink. Perhaps someone should offer the elf a tube of sunscreen.
This time Hallwyn went off with Rosa, and I almost felt sorry for the elf. I’d worked with the Chilean woman when I’d first arrived for my internship, and she didn’t take shit from anybody. One wrong word and Hallwyn was going to win
d up with her ears yanked off.
I got my assignment for the day and headed out, making a quick detour through the row Manny had been working yesterday. The vines with the black measles did look better. Some of the spots had faded from the leaves and the grapes seemed to be sound. Looking around to see if there was anyone near, I put my hands on the plant and sent my energy into it.
There was still black measles. And while the leaves seemed to have improved on the outside, the reduction in disease was strictly cosmetic. Inside, the vine was struggling just as much as it had been before. If anything, this was worse. The humans tending these vines would think all was well—or at least well enough to not raise the alarm. With Hallwyn doing her “glowy-hands”, Jorge might not even send the crew out to spray again, putting his faith in the elf. The woman was a downright menace. And I couldn’t leave this plant like this, not in my vineyard.
Once more I pulled the disease from the vines, absorbing and neutralizing it then repairing the plant. That was what Hallwyn should have done. Idiot. Or maybe just lazy. Either way, I couldn’t keep doing this. Well, if I went out every night and managed to pull together enough energy, I could. If Harkel and Irix shared enough with me, I could. And with Hallwyn here, I wouldn’t worry about the humans thinking it odd that seriously ill plants had suddenly and miraculously recovered. All my work would be attributed to the elf.
And that irritated me the most. Lazy, stupid, arrogant elf. And she’d be getting all the credit for my hard work. Ugh. But what was more important—that this annoying elf woman fail or that the DiMarche vineyards have healthy plants and a bumper crop of quality grapes?