Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) (2 page)

“Now, Sam,” he insisted, his voice firm in spite of his pallor.

I knelt down beside him, put my hands on his leg, and sent in tendrils of my spirit self. Wyatt gasped as I carefully explored the wound. There. Skin, blood vessels, torn muscle, but no nerve damage. I could do this. He groaned softly at the caress of my energy inside him. He wouldn’t enjoy it as much once I started fixing things, but right now my energy was lighting off all sorts of pleasant nerve endings throughout his body.

“Feels incredible when she does that, doesn’t it?” the angel asked, his voice smooth as silk.

Wyatt jerked and I felt my energy rip along his cells. Fuck! I tried to align my energy tendrils with his movements, so I wouldn’t tear him to bits.

“Hold still,” I told him tersely. “I almost killed you.”

“Sam, have you done this with him too?” Wyatt asked, his euphoria turning to anger.

“It’s even better when you do it back to her,” Gregory said. “Oh, but you can’t do that can you? You can’t return the favor. Because you’re a human.”

“Sam?”

“He’s just fucking with you Wyatt. Don’t pay any attention to him. And hold still.”

“I believe she said it was ‘epic’ when we did it.” The angel smiled slightly, as if at a fond memory.

“Sam, answer me right now!”

I had done this with Gregory. More actually. Our entire spirit selves hurtling together outside corporeal form, joining in a flash of light. It
was
epic. It wasn’t anything like the physical sex that Wyatt and I had. That was awesome too, just different. I was pretty sure Wyatt wouldn’t see the difference. Plus Gregory was an asshole. I loved Wyatt.

“I did not have sexual intercourse with that angel,” I lied. Sort of lied. It wasn’t
really
sex, by the textbook human definition anyway.

“I didn’t say sexual intercourse, Sam,” Wyatt said sternly. “I asked if you did this. Put yourself into him, joined with him beyond the physical self.”

Damn. Wyatt knew me too well.

“Absolutely not. Never.” I lied again.

Gregory made a disapproving tsk tsk noise and dumped the contents of the chip bag on the table to examine further.

“Sam, you’re lying,” Wyatt thundered.

“Yes. Yes she is,” Gregory agreed.

“Wyatt, he is trying to get you worked up. Just hold still, so I don’t kill you. We’ll talk about this later. In private. Please, sweetie?” I begged him.

Wyatt took a deep breath. “Ok. But we will discuss this.”

Again I edged the tendrils of myself deeper, to re–check the wounded area and ensure there was nothing beyond what I originally sensed I needed to fix. Slowly, I repaired muscles, skin and checked my previous work on the blood vessels. Wyatt stiffened and clenched his teeth, but couldn’t help vocalizing his pain. I knew it hurt to fix him this slowly, but I was trying to be as thorough as possible.

“Will you at least check this for me, make sure I’ve done it right?” I asked Gregory when I’d completed and pulled my energy back. Wyatt panted with glazed eyes, still sprawled on the floor.

“No. You’ll find out soon enough, won’t you?” the angel said cheerfully.

Asshole. I looked down at Wyatt and thought of all that could go wrong, imagined all the horrible ways he could die because of my attempts to fix his wounds. Fear of his mortality mixed with feelings of love for him. I don’t know what I’d do without Wyatt. He was a part of me, he was everything to me. . ..

“Oh all
right!
” The angel slammed his fist on the empty chip bag and glared at me. “Fine. But not because I like him or care about him in any way. I’m doing this as a personal favor to you.”

I stared at him in surprise. Where had that come from? Why had he changed his mind, and why was he so pissed at me about it? I moved aside as he approached Wyatt.

“Sam, I don’t want him to touch me,” Wyatt snapped.

Great. The one being that actually could heal Wyatt, that could ensure any mistakes I made were corrected, and Wyatt didn’t want him to do it. Gregory paused and waited for my verdict, eyebrow raised.

“Wyatt, this is important. You didn’t want to go to the hospital? Fine. But I need you to let him check my work.”

Wyatt frowned at Gregory. “I’ll only allow this as a personal favor to you, Sam,” he said, echoing the angel’s words.

Gregory knelt down, his physical form blurring slightly with an intense glow. Placing his hands on Wyatt’s leg, he murmured a word. There was an explosion of light. Spots swam before me as I saw the angel rise and walk back toward the table.

“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 some 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.”