Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) Read online

  “You okay?” I asked Wyatt, who looked rather stunned.

  “Yeah. It doesn’t hurt when he does it,” he replied, distracted.

  Great. One more thing the angel did better.

  “Thank you,” I said, walking over to him. He was examining the various cables on the table.

  “Don’t mention it.” He didn’t meet my eyes, his tone distant and flat.

  “How’d I do? Was it a decent job?” I asked, wondering if I’d actually managed to properly fix the wound.

  He shot me a quick glance before returning his gaze to the cables. “I believe the humans would tell you not to quit your day job.”

  Crap. I wondered what I’d done wrong, how quickly Wyatt would have died. Would he have been in terrible pain? Would he have just dropped dead one night as we slept? Panic crept back up my chest.

  “Stop. I took care of it. He’s fine now. Healed and better than ever.” He still didn’t look at me, but Gregory’s voice was soft, with a reassuring note. I saw a faint tint of blue around him, felt his spirit self reach out to mine in a quick caress. How could he be such a cruel asshole, then change to this one moment later?

  “We don’t have to go out to dinner tonight,” I told Wyatt, turning away from the angel. “You can rest and I’ll cook something.”

  Outside of the gashes he hadn’t been wounded, and he’d helped me take out a fair number of demons lately, but I wanted to be sensitive. Wyatt was my boyfriend, after all, and I did love him, in a demon sort of way.

  “No, I’ll be fine. I really want to get out and have a normal evening with you. An evening without some monster trying to take us out.”

  I felt a twinge of guilt. For forty years I’d lived as a human, under the radar, but now I was the Iblis. I didn’t think we’d ever have a normal evening again.

  “Can you even stand?” I asked, bending down to help him up. He rested his weight on me and gingerly got to his feet, testing the leg.

  “I’m still a bit light headed, but the leg feels fine. I think I’m good to ride with you up to Columbia to dispose of this demon, but maybe we should just get take–out instead.”

  I helped Wyatt into the other room, sweeping various game controllers and magazines off a couch so he could lie down. “You relax here a bit, and I’ll clean up. No hurry. Wait until you’re less dizzy, and we can leave then.”

  Gregory was still in the room, crushing the chips with a fist when I returned. I ignored him and began sopping up the blood with paper towels, kicking the dead demon out of the way. Whoever it was, he hadn’t even bothered with a human form, or maybe he didn’t have the skill to manage it. There was some fur, long curved claws, a reptilian snout, and a whole mess of stuff that I’m thinking should have been on the inside of him. It was like he’d exploded from Wyatt’s bullets.

  “I need to talk with you about the upcoming Council meeting, and go over a few key things,” Gregory told me as I stuffed the dead demon, along with the bloody towels, into a garbage bag. “You’ll meet with me tonight and you can eat with your toy some other time.”

  That was another downfall of being the Iblis. I now had a seat on the Ruling Council of angels. It seems when we were exiled long ago, a spot had been designated to give a voice to the demons on matters of mutual significance. It had been vacant for two and a half million years, and I wasn’t thrilled to be filling it. Gregory, on the other hand, seemed perversely amused by the prospect and eager to see me in a room full of bureaucratic angels. I’d have to meet with him to go over things, but not tonight.

  “No,” I told him. “I’ve got a dead body to take care of. Wyatt has bullet holes in his house. I’m hungry, and tired, and I want to get freaky naked with my man. You can come back some other time.”

  Suddenly, I had an idea. “Unless you’d like to put a gate in my backyard for me. Then I’ll stay and spend the evening listening to you. Just a little gate to Hel, so I don’t have to keep trekking to Columbia with these bodies every day or so.”

  “If you’d take care of the root cause, then you wouldn’t have to worry about any of this,” the angel said. “You can continue to shirk your duties, to avoid responsibility all you want, but eventually you are going to be forced to face this demon. It will be far more painful the longer you drag things out.”

  “One little gate. Just one little gate, and you can have me for the whole evening.”

  I regretted it the moment it was out of my mouth. A slow smile crept across his face, and the power he leaked grew, practically blistering me with its intensity. I’d always been partial to the sin of lust. I routinely said all kinds of nasty things to everyone else. Smutty propositions, innuendo, downright porn talk were all a major part of my vocabulary, but I’d been trying to keep things clean with this angel. I got the feeling he was a hair’s breadth from dragging me off to be his private, captive pet. Still, it was unlike me to be this nervous. Maybe if I acted bold he’d back off. Call his bluff, play a game of sexual chicken with him. I was a demon, after all, and he spent his existence avoiding sin.

  “All yours,” I told him, moving closer and trying to feel less like a rabbit toying with a panther. “This council stuff can’t take long. You can make my gate and we’ll spend the evening together. I’m sure there are all sorts of things you can teach me. And I’m very sure there are things I can teach you.”

  To make my point, I took his hand and lightly bit his thumb, looking up at him from under my eyelashes. Something flashed across his eyes, and he snatched his hand back.

  “Tempting, but I don’t indulge in pleasures of the flesh. And I’m not putting a gate to Hel in your backyard. I’ll come by tomorrow. Early.”

  His words were sharp, and the power he emitted had decreased significantly. Success. I might not get my gate, but at least I knew I could make him turn off the seductive angel routine.

  I nodded, biting back a smile, and he vanished.

  “Sam, we will talk right now,” Wyatt said behind me, his voice full of cold fury. He’d heard me proposition the angel. I was so fucked.

  “Wyatt, I didn’t mean it.”

  But I wasn’t sure whether I meant it or not. If Gregory had assented, I doubt I would have stopped with a handshake and a peck on the cheek. I saw Wyatt’s face, sadness mixed in with the anger, and I felt guilty. I was the worst girlfriend ever. I just couldn’t do this. I couldn’t keep pretending to be a human. I wasn’t. I was a demon. An imp.

  “I was just trying to get him to back down from that creepy, predator thing he’s got going on. He’s all about purity of the spirit and virtue. I don’t even think he has sexual organs as a part of his physical form.”

  “The sin is sex with humans. You’re not a human; you’re a type of angel. He wants you in every way shape and form, Sam. And you clearly want him too.”

  “No, physical sex is a sin,” I insisted, ignoring the last part of his statement. “You heard him say he didn’t indulge in pleasures of the flesh? Angels risk their level of vibration, their purity, by assuming corporeal form. That’s why their physical form sucks so badly, they refuse to commit deeply to it, refuse to experience anything beyond a miniscule sensory input. He’s really old. There is no way he’d risk his path to enlightenment on a sweaty fuck with me, or anyone else.”

  “He’d risk everything for you, Sam,” Wyatt said. “He’d trade heaven for an eternity in the depths of hell to possess you.”

  Okay, that was way over the top. Wyatt was getting overly dramatic. Gregory liked to annoy me, irritate me, and this was just his way of doing it.

  “That’s ridiculous. He’s bound me. I’m already his. You heard him; he’s trying to redeem me or rehabilitate me, or something. I knew he’d back down, otherwise I wouldn’t have come on to him like that.”

  Now that was a lie. I’d gambled, and I wasn’t sure which outcome I’d really wanted. Wyatt knew, and he knew I was trying to divert him from our original subject.

  “Physical intercourse aside, you’ve been having so
me angel equivalent with him. You’re cheating on me with him.” His voice was raw and filled with pain. I knew this was important to humans, but things were different with my kind.

  “I’m a demon, Wyatt,” I protested. “We don’t do monogamous relationships.”

  I had been unusually committed to him though. Some hanky panky with a guy I’d Owned up in Atlantic City this fall, but nothing else. For a demon, that made me practically a nun.

  “Remember that jockey this fall?” I asked. “He wanted to fuck me and I ripped up his number. I’ve never contacted him.”

  I could see Wyatt was considering that statement.

  “Wyatt, I don’t mind if you have sex with others. You’re my boyfriend, my best friend. I would resent anyone interfering with that part of our relationship, but I don’t care about exclusivity in sex.”

  “Seriously?” Wyatt shook his head in disbelief. “You wouldn’t mind if I had sex with one of our friends, someone we see regularly? Like Candy or Michelle?”

  I squirmed. A one night stand with a stranger was one thing, but it did bother me to think of Wyatt with one of our friends. It would be more than sex, it would be sex and friendship. That would be dangerously close to infringing on what we shared.

  “If he were just some random guy, I wouldn’t care as much,” Wyatt continued. “But I see how you are with him. The angel equivalent of sex, the time he spends teaching you things, how you gravitate right to him to discuss chip spices: all this interferes with what we share. He’s edging me out, and soon, he’ll be the one you spend time with. He’ll be your best friend. He’ll be your partner in crime.”

  “No, Wyatt. He’ll never edge you out. There’s no competition here.”

  I understood what he meant, but he and Gregory weren’t at all the same. How could I convince him that my feelings for Gregory were poles apart from the things I felt for him? I did my best to honor his human need for exclusivity in physical intercourse, but this thing with Gregory was different.

  “You’re not jealous of my brother, Dar,” I added. “I’m friends with Michelle and Candy. I don’t have sex with them, but I do things with them that I don’t do with you. This angel doesn’t mean the same to me as you do. Yes, I care about him. I enjoy spending time with him. And I’ve done things with him that you and I can’t do together. That doesn’t make me love you less. It doesn’t make you less of my best friend.”

  Wyatt searched my face, looking for signs of deception. “I can’t help but be jealous of him, Sam.”

  “I’ll try not to angel–fuck him again.”

  Wyatt winced. I saw him consider my sort–of promise. “I can’t hold you to that, Sam. You’re a demon. I’ll try and wrap my head around the fact that what you do with him doesn’t have anything to do with what we share. Just let me know if you do, so that jerk doesn’t surprise me with it at a really bad moment.”

  I held him close, burying my hands in his blond hair and rubbing my face against his stubble. I was so relieved that I’d somehow managed to get through this horrible incident without the heartbreak of losing him forever. This was unfamiliar ground. I was trying to balance a relationship with a human and my own demon nature. This thing I shared with Wyatt was like constantly teetering on a knife’s edge, and I kept tumbling down.

  “I will, Wyatt,” I vowed.

  I took the demon corpse in the Hefty bag and pitched it though the gate in Columbia, while Wyatt waited in the car. Then we picked up take–out and went back to his house, where he relaxed on the couch. He protested as I scrubbed blood and gore off his walls and floor, insisting he’d do it later. I knew better. Left to his own devices, the mess would be there for years. Wyatt’s housekeeping style was kind of “early demolition”.

  For the first time in the two and a half years we’d known each other, I spent the night at his house instead of him coming to mine. We’d had gentle make–up sex, and Wyatt promptly dropped off to sleep, encasing me in a straitjacket of arms and legs, crushing me against his chest. I was sweaty and hot in his embrace, unable to shift even a fraction of an inch. He always slept like this. At first, I hated being confined in the uncomfortable grip of a human, but now it felt intimate. It felt like he never wanted to let me go. Random moments throughout my day, I’d find myself longing for him to hold me immobile and breathe into my hair. Nights never were quite right without the kind of bondage spooning Wyatt practiced in his sleep. I’d grown to enjoy it, to need it.

  I lay there all night, thinking of the differences between us. He was a human, physically weak, and I was immeasurably stronger. I could crush him with so little effort. Instead, I’d always held back, let him call the shots and set most of the parameters in our relationship. We had sex without my hurting him, without broken bones or torn flesh. He made compromises too. I knew he deliberately overlooked my more disturbing actions, that he emphasized everything about me that seemed more human. This was what he needed to do to come to terms with having a demon girlfriend. We both knew I wasn’t human, and to pretend so was a lie, but we lived with it.

  I should have used this argument to break things off, to set him free. He’d be hurt, but he could live a normal life with a human woman. Have children. Not worry about the demons Haagenti was sending ripping him to bits, torturing him in order to pressure me to return to Hel. He’d probably live a lot longer. Bounce grandkids on his knee.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t give him up.

  2

  It was after lunchtime when Gregory arrived for our meeting. So much for “early”.

  He usually appeared in my house, unannounced, but this time he strode in the front door holding a head by the hair. He plopped it down on my dining room table and waved a hand, causing a depressing amount of paperwork to cover the table surface. I ignored the paperwork and focused my attention on the more interesting item.

  “Is this a present?” I asked in delight.

  I picked up the head and sat it like a hat on top of my own head, modeling it with a flourish.

  “How did you know? I’ve always wanted one of these. And it fits perfectly.”

  The angel was not amused. “We’ve got a lot to review today, and as often as you get sidetracked, we’re liable to be at it for a week. Put the head down and focus.”

  Why the fuck did he bring a head if he didn’t want me to mess with it?

  “Should I put it in a vase? Display it as a centerpiece on the table? How can you expect me to focus on stupid, boring paperwork when I’ve got this amazing, decomposing flesh tempting me with its beauty?”

  “Fine. We’ll address this matter first, and then I’ll get rid of the thing so it won’t continue to distract you.”

  He took the head from my hands and stuck it back on the table. It made an entertaining squelch sound.

  “Do you know him?” the angel asked, pointing at the head.

  “Uhhh, no?” Was he serious? Just because I lived among humans didn’t mean I knew every single one of them. There were billions, after all.

  Gregory threw up his hands in frustration. “Check his energy signature. You might recognize him.”

  Now I was confused. “He’s human. He doesn’t have an energy signature. Do you mean check his DNA? The structure of his brain? Is there something specific I should be looking for?”

  “He’s not human. He’s a demon.”

  I was pretty certain the head was human. I always scanned stuff. It was a habit. Still, I checked again. When a demon committed suicide, they exploded their entire form out and nothing remained. Sometimes we died by another’s hands. Although our personal energy, our spirit–self, scattered, a signature remained, burned into the flesh. This head held nothing.

  “Nope. It’s human. There’s nothing.”

  Gregory frowned. “This human died in 1922 at the hands of a demon. He was Owned. Since I’m clearly not looking at a ninety year old corpse, it must be the remains of a demon form.”

  Demons Own. We rip the souls from human bodies and hold th
em within ourselves as long as we exist. We absorb the human’s memories, and can then create a replica of their shape and form. We kill too, but Owning is fun—messy, but fun. Gregory clearly thought this was the remains of a demon who’d been in an Owned human’s form at the time of his death, but I couldn’t find any trace of a demon whatsoever.

  “There’s nothing there,” I protested. “I believe you. I really do, but there’s no energy signature at all in this head.”

  I felt his suspicion hang in the air. “Honestly. I’m not even a thousand years old. I’ve never seen anything like this. Why would you think I’d know anything about it if you didn’t?”

  “You’re a demon, I’m not,” Gregory said. “And you know elves,” he added reluctantly.

  Ah. Elves. So he wasn’t as blind to their little extracurricular activities as I’d thought. He suspected sorcery.

  The elves snared human adults in their traps to use as servants, training talented ones in the arts, but all the truly skilled sorcerers were changelings—human infants taken away and dead elf babies left in their place. The elves had magic of their own, but humans had qualities that made them especially powerful. I’d had dealings with the elves. I’d retrieved a couple of their sorcerers that had gone rogue. Reaching for the head again, I did a more thorough search.

  “I can’t feel any residual magic,” I confessed. “I strongly doubt this head belonged to a sorcerer.”

  “Could this death be a result of a sorcerer’s magic?” he asked. “Maybe he killed the demon and stripped his flesh of any remaining energy signature to cover up his deed or the demon’s presence?”

  “Possibly. I really don’t know if they can do that sort of thing or not.”

  “Aren’t you friendly with some elves?” he asked. “Can you inquire? Investigate a bit.”

  Fuck. One more thing I needed to remember to do. I had Haagenti trying to kill me. I had a stack of breeding petitions that I needed to deal with sooner or later. I had my human businesses to run, a boyfriend to spend quality time with, impish pranks to pull. I had a pile of boring bullshit on my table I needed to wade though. And there was something else too. I couldn’t recall what.