Blood Stained Tranquility (13 page)

Eve had tried watching a few comedies on Netflix to distract herself. Unfortunately, every time she laughed, for some fucked-up reason she ended up crying shortly thereafter. Not even Gabriel Iglesias could stop her eyes from leaking and she freaking loved that “Fluffy” motherfucker!

She’d taken to browsing online instead. It was as mind-numbing as she was gonna get, she supposed. She was currently looking at the world’s most expensive phones. She had no clue how she’d gotten onto that specific page, nor did she care.

One of the phones on the list caught her eye. She re-read the price tag and the description. The entire outer case of the phone was made of marble; a high-tech smartphone encased in her favorite stone.

Man, if there was anything she wanted more than her mate that would be it.

She wished she knew how to materialize it. She could just ask one of the others, but it would be fuckawesome if she could just—snap her fingers and—holy shit!

A tiny spark of energy came to life on the desk just to the left of her laptop. Evesse blinked and turned her head. The energy stretched out into tendrils that interconnected, forming a square. No, not a square. It was . . . a long, thin rectangle.

She blinked again and the energy disappeared, but not before she realized what she had been looking at. It had been the exact shape of the phone she’d just been thinking about. She was sure of it.

Holy shit. Could
she
materialize it on her own?

Eve let go of the mouse and sat up straighter, focusing on the spot where she’d seen the energy. She pushed everything but that phone out of her mind. Even though she had no real clue how the inside of a smartphone was put together, she imagined one being formed right before her eyes.

With a flash, the energy came back to life, and that’s exactly what began happening. She watched as the white lines raced and came together, forming first the board and chips of the inside of the phone. The wires came next, followed by the touch screen, the inner casing . . . and finally, the marble.

Mouth hanging wide open, Eve sat back in her chair, staring at her shiny new phone. Almost disbelieving, she reached out and picked it up.

Yup. Solid. Real.

But would it work?

She pressed the power button. When it turned on, she was so fucking ecstatic with her newfound skill that she wanted to jump up and cry out in happiness for the first time in days.

She couldn’t believe it. Just like that. All she’d had to do was imagine it and it had formed. Why had she not been told it would be that simple? She had a million things she was dying to own!

Weapons. Weapons. Must have.

Screw all her friends. Someone should have told her. Why had no one bothered to give her that little piece of information?

Probably because I haven’t let anyone talk to me.

True . . . But if materializing things was that easy, why was dematerializing her body so hard? She clearly remembered having a hard ass time when she’d followed Ismini back to Earth. Even with all her concentration involved, she’d almost lost Ismini and flown straight toward God knew where on Earth.

Maybe she was more powerful now? Maybe dematerializing would be easier too?

Evesse was about to jump up and test her newfound theory, when the door to her room slammed open and Ismini stomped her way inside, her expression set in stubborn lines that Eve knew all too well.

“You.” Ismini pointed her little finger at Eve and looked ready to lay the beat down on her. “Get the fuck up.”

“Excuse me?” Eve had seen Ismini angry before, but this was totally different. Her white, purple, and light blue aura was exploding in all directions.

“Get the fuck up. I’m done with you locking yourself away from us. You’re going to spend some time with me right now.”

A warm surge of pride ran through Evesse. Lips twitching, she placed her new phone back on the desk.

“Are you freaking smiling right now? Seriously? Do you want to get smacked? I said get the hell up.”

Any pride she’d been feeling disappeared. In the blink of an eye, she was out of her chair and in front of her best friend. They both crossed their arms at the exact same time. They glared at each other. Then they glared at each other some more.

Evesse had no idea who moved first, but one moment they were staring each other down, and the next they were wrapping their arms around each other and holding on tight.

“You worried the hell out of me.” Ismini pressed her cheek to Evesse’s and somehow pulled her closer.

Eve just held Ismini, her throat too tight to speak.

“We freaking make it back after that, and then you lock yourself in here, refusing to speak to me,” Ismini scolded, her voice watery. “You jumped in there after me. Do you have any idea how that feels? What the memory keeps doing to me?”

“It’s not like you haven’t had a god keeping you nice and distracted.”

Ismini clearly didn’t appreciate Eve’s joke because she pulled back just enough to scowl at her. “We died together, you fucking bitch. Stop joking about it. I freaking love you. Sol loves you. You’re too important to us for us to just stand back and ignore that fact that you’re in pain.”

Seeing the tears pooling in Ismini’s eyes triggered Eve’s already too sensitive tear ducts. She wiped another tear away before it could fall. “I’m sorry. I’m just so . . . this isn’t me.”

Ismini let her go and grabbed her face, forcing Eve to look at her. “I know. Trust me, I
know.
My
R’mann
had every intention of killing me for another woman when I first mated to him.”

“Speaking of that.” Eve sniffed. “You seemed perfectly fine with her presence the other day.”

Ismini shrugged one shoulder. “She’s fuckawesome.”

What the hell?

“Fuckawesome. Really?”

“Even Sol thinks so.”

Eve tried really hard not to be hurt by that. She really, really did. “So I’m out for a few weeks and you two bitches decide to replace me with the woman you died to bring back.”

Ismini shoved Eve’s shoulder lightly. “Shut up. It’s not her fault. And you’re irreplaceable, whore, so stop talking shit.”

Irreplaceable.
No denying that that one word was more than enough to mollify Eve. “Still, you seemed a little too cool with her being there.”

“My male is mine. Only mine. For eternity. Besides, she’s been through shit, and she’s in love with Crius.”

Eve had never met the God of the Underworld, but she was still surprised to hear that. “Wait? Really? So she seriously has no feelings left for Dyletri?”

“No, Evesse,” Ismini said, her tone implying she was struggling with patience. “I’ve spoken to her. She’s cool. And she knows a hell a lot more about being immortal than us. So you’re coming with me right the fuck now. She has a thing or two she can teach us.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re dragging me to ‘train’ with her.”

Ismini whirled around, hands on her hips. “Are you done? Because the woman didn’t do anything to us personally. She had nothing to do with setting up the sacrifice. She didn’t even want to be brought back.”

It wasn’t like Ismini didn’t have a point. Dimithinia couldn’t have had anything to do with the sacrifice. And, obviously, something about the woman had enamored Eve’s two best friends. Chances were, Eve would probably end up liking the female as well. Still, it was the principle of the thing.

“What do you mean she didn’t want to be brought back?” Eve asked.

Ismini hesitated, tucking a dark brown strand of hair behind her ear and chewing on her lip.

“Spill, Iss.”

Ismini shushed her and pushed at her chest, almost sending Evesse flying into a statue of Shiva behind her. Eyes paranoid, Ismini looked up and down the white, marble covered hallway.

“Supernatural hearing, woman. How many times am I going to have to remind you before it sinks in?”

The nerve of the woman.

Eve shook her head, disbelieving. “Woman, all I’ve heard for the last week—aside from Cy pounding music in his room—is you and your mate going at it. Everywhere. The fucking roof isn’t soundproof. No area here is. And I now have superhearing. So shut the hell up about that and answer my question. Why didn’t Dimithinia want to be brought back to life?”

Ismini narrowed her gray, purple, and light blue eyes at Eve. “I can’t control where my mate decides to take me.”

“Nor would you want to. I know.”

Her best friend’s eyelid twitched. “
And
, Dimithinia didn’t want to be brought back—”

“Because I knew that Crius would want nothing to do with me the moment I was given physical form.”

Ismini and Eve jumped and looked up guiltily. Dimithinia stood just inside one of the many openings leading outside.

It was the first time Eve had gotten a good look at the former queen of ancient Ritrio. Dimithinia wore dark blue jeans, a white tank top, and combat boots—an outfit that could in no way be considered ‘queenly’ attire, but there was no mistaking that she was someone who used to be royalty.

Her long black curtain of hair fell all the way down to her hips. Strands of it swayed in the light breeze coming in from outside. Back straight and expression proud, Dimithinia stood staring Eve down with eyes that appeared to glow like dark blue LED lights.

Between that and the woman’s dark purple, blue, and silver aura dancing in the sunlight, she made for one hell of an impressive sight.

“So . . .” Ismini cleared her throat.

Dimithinia took a step in their direction. That single step held more grace in it than Evesse had ever witnessed. She walked up to them, head held high, and with a gait that lay somewhere between “I’m a princess” and “I’m a badass”. The closer she got, the more Eve could see that her facial features were a mix of European, Asian, and what had to be a hint of Egyptian.

She was truly unlike anything Eve had ever seen. By the time Dimithinia came to a stop in front of her, Evesse was already begrudging the flare of admiration that was coming to life inside her.

“You . . . have an issue with me.” Dimithinia squared her shoulders. “Do you wish to discuss this?”

Whoa, that accent. Evesse was honestly at a loss for words for a second or two. Ismini gave her a big ass, gloating look.

Eve ignored Ismini, refocusing on Dimithinia. “I have two questions. First, are you sure you have no residual feelings, desires, fantasies, or even what you might consider tiny, insignificant hormone flares for my best friend’s man?”

Ismini face-palmed herself then groaned up toward the heavens. “Are you serious, Eve?”

“Damn right I’m serious. Now let her answer the question.”

Chapter 10

Dimithinia raised an eyebrow, amused. “I have none of those . . . things for Dyletri. I will always care for him. Greatly. Verily, he showed me kindness at a time in my life when only one other male cared,” Dimithinia said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She seemed to be telling the truth. However, Eve wasn’t done with her yet.

“And this other male . . . did you have sex with him, too?”

“Evesse!” Ismini looked ready to strangle Eve.