Dark Gift

by Kim Richardson

  “Why you didn’t want to help me at first,” I said, eyebrows raised. “Why you were a little pissy with me and still are sometimes. Why you kept telling me you didn’t want to get involved with our side of the world. It makes sense.”

  I took another sip of my wine, noticing how fast the delicious substance was disappearing from my glass. Tyrius made a little chirping noise, and I turned to look at him. His lips were twitching, his tail slashing across Gareth’s couch. He looked so comfortable there, and having a good dream no doubt. I didn’t want to wake him from that, only to give him the terrible news of Steven. Not yet.

  “I don’t live among the other elves and half-breeds,” said Gareth. I pulled my eyes away from the cat to settle on the elf. “But I always stayed informed of what was happening.”

  Gareth leaned back in his chair, his wine glass resting in his hand on his lap. “And not all the half-breeds in the community were in agreement with the way I was treated. I have a large clientele base of half-breeds that come regularly to my shop. Have been for years.”

  I raised my brows. “Why am I not surprised.” Not only was the elf skilled in pullomancy. He had some deadly herbs hidden in his shop—herbs that had helped me kill the fae queen. God knows what else was hidden in there.

  My heart pounded at the question I was dying to ask. “What happened to Emma?” I looked around the room to give him time to answer, but I couldn’t find anything remotely feminine about it. All the furnishings were bulky wooden pieces with leather couches and chairs, which screamed male.

  “She’s gone,” said Gareth, not meeting my eyes.

  Damn. She was dead. I should have kept my mouth shut. Nice going, Rowyn. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Gareth’s eyes snapped to mine. “She’s not dead.”

  My mouth fell open. “Oh. I just thought... I assumed since you said gone...”

  The elf shook his head, sending locks of his hair lifting off his head. “She’s gone as in she left. Things fell apart about three years ago.” He clamped his mouth shut and I had the feeling he was keeping an important bit of information from me. “We grew apart. It happens. And her leaving was the best thing for both of us.”

  I set my empty wine glass on the table, feeling a little lightheaded. Nothing a little more cheese couldn’t cure. “Did you ever think of moving back? I mean, closer to the community?” Leaning forward, I made a cheese sandwich with two crackers and a slice of cheese in the middle. If Gareth didn’t stop me, I was going to eat the whole plate. You snooze you lose.

  “No,” Gareth laughed dryly. “I’d seen their true colors, what they stand for and who they truly are. I prefer to live out here among the humans. Business is good. There’s no reason why I’d pack up and leave when I’ve established a reputation here with a regular clientele.”

  “Hmm,” I said, munching down my itty cheese sandwich. I didn’t know much about how to run a business apart from my own Hunts, which had me barely scraping by. I had to get better at saving money and sticking to a budget.

  Three years was a long time to be alone. Not that I believed Gareth didn’t have any female lovers come into his life since then, or maybe even a girlfriend. It still didn’t explain why a healthy male in his prime was living alone...

  “What?” said Gareth suddenly making me jump.

  “What? What?” I said, my cheeks burning.

  A smile quirked the elf’s lips. “You’re staring.”

  I tapped my finger to my glass. “It’s empty.”

  Gareth grinned as he set his own glass on the table and poured me another full glass of red wine, placing the now empty wine bottle in the middle of the table. I might handle alcohol better than your average human female, but there was no way I was driving home after this glass. Guess I was going to sleep on the couch with Tyrius. Or maybe...

  I don’t know why but my eyes traveled to Gareth’s bedroom. The door was open, so I took that as an invitation to look. I could see a large king-sized bed with dark gray bedding and pillows and two night stands next to it topped with books. He made his bed. I didn’t even make my own bed. God he was so neat it was irritating because it made me feel like a slob.

  I could feel Gareth’s eyes on me while I checked out his bedroom, so I looked back at my glass of wine, laced my hands around the cup and took another sip. Heat rose from my chest all the way up to my face. I didn’t know whether it was from the wine or from being so close to Gareth and talking so openly about his intimate life. The same elf had been so reclusive and secretive with his answers seven months ago.

  His sudden willingness to share prompted me to ask more questions. “What’s your interest in the demon killings?”

  Gareth looked at me from over his glass of wine. “I thought you might be the one doing the killing.”

  My breath caught and I went hot. “Are you serious?” I eyed him, trying to figure out if he was joking or not.

  “Very,” answered the elf, his features carefully blank. A faint feeling of apprehension slid under my skin at how he’d said it. I gripped my glass, wanting to smash it on his head at this very moment.

  Instead, I slammed my glass on the table, spilling it, pushed my chair back and shot to my feet. “How can you even think that?” My anger rose with my voice, fueled by way too much wine in too little time.

  Gareth watched me, his expression slightly amused at my eyes narrowed. “You have archdemon blood, Rowyn. Not just a regular demon, but the most powerful that exist. The kings of all demons. Who knows what it’s doing to you? Corrupting you. Changing you.”

  My face screwed up with anger. “So you heard that too, huh? You heard everything. Well, good for friggin’ you,” I snapped, my heart pounding. “I never hurt any of those half-breeds. I would never hurt the very vampire who’d help saved my ass from the dark witch Evanora.” I stepped forward until I was looming over him in his chair. “If you knew me at all or cared to know me, you’d know I could never do that. I’m not a monster.”

  Maybe I was a monster, but at least I was a nice one.

  Gareth barely acknowledged my presence as he sipped the last of his wine. “I know that now.”

  “But you thought I was,” I said, seething. “You just said so.” Anger burned through my misery and my feelings of betrayal. The elf wasn’t a friend. He never was. He’d been watching me all this time, studying me, waiting to see if I’d screw up. He’d thought I’d killed those half-breeds. He’d thought I was changing into something...

  I’d had enough. “Thanks for the wine and cheese.” I turned and walked over to the couch where Tyrius was sleeping. The cat was breathing soundlessly. He looked so peaceful and comfortable it pained me to move him. But I was not staying here for another minute.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” asked Gareth as I heard him push his chair back to come after me.

  “What does it look like?” I retorted as I stroked my sleeping friend’s head. “We’re leaving.”

  “You can’t wake him up.” Gareth moved to stand on Tyrius’s other side, his stance protective. “He’s still not recovered. He needs his rest.”

  I gritted my teeth. I knew Gareth cared about Tyrius, probably a hell of a lot more than he did about me, but he’d thought I killed those half-breeds. What the hell am I doing here?

  “I know what I’m doing,” I said finally, not looking at him. “He can rest on the way home.”

  “Leave him be, Rowyn,” ordered the elf, and I didn’t like his tone. No male orders me around.

  I turned around and pressed my right hand on my hip, hating how pathetic I looked with my left arm in a brace. “Or what? What are you going to do about it, Gareth?” Tension spiked through me, responding to my anger. I’d fight with one arm if I had to. I didn’t care.

  Gareth looked away from me, his eyes narrowing and his face partly hidden in shadows.

  “And if it had been me?” I asked. “Were you planning on killing me with your elf dust like you did the angels?”


  “I only killed their mortal suits,” said the elf belligerently, his eyes back on me and his features looking irate. “The angels are fine. I’ve told you this before. Why don’t you ever listen?”

  “How do I know you’re not lying?” I asked. “You could be lying.”

  Gareth looked shocked. “I’m not lying.”

  “Right. Whatever you say. I’m still leaving.”

  “Don’t be foolish.” Gareth cursed. “You’re acting like a child.”

  A small growl escaped me. “I’d think seriously hard about your next words, elf. The wine might make me do something crazy.”

  Gareth shook his head and raked his fingers through his hair. He looked at me, his face losing its anger and seeming more desperate. “I would never hurt you, Rowyn.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Gareth let out an exasperated cry. “You are an infuriating woman. You know that?”

  I smiled brightly. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me all night.”

  “You should stay,” said the elf, his voice heavy with distress.

  “How about I punch you in the neck with my good arm?”

  Gareth sighed through his nose. “What Lisbeth and the archangels and archdemons did to you was wrong.” When he saw that I didn’t object, he went on. “Whatever’s inside you, I wouldn’t say its evil as much as its powerful. Dark, but great. And power can be controlled with the right tools, whether it’s dark or light. And if some of that power had materialized, I would have taught you to control your emotions, to control the darkness. I wanted to help you, Rowyn. Not hurt you. Never hurt you.”

  Oh crap. He’d said it. Gut clenching, I stared at the elf’s face, shocked. “You would have done that?”

  “Of course.” Gareth’s gaze was intent and his voice determined as he watched me, probably wondering if I was going to pick up the baal demon and flee.

  I looked away from Gareth. “But it wasn’t me,” I added softly, pondering whether someday it might be.

  A deep chill overtook the core of my being as I stared at Tyrius, still sound asleep. Today had been a royal screwup, and I was tired, the effects of the wine making my lids heavy. Strangely enough, I believed the elf. He’d pissed me off thinking that I could have killed those half-breeds, but I still believed him when he said he would never hurt me. I trusted him, surprising myself further. And there was no way I was driving home. I let myself fall to the couch next to Tyrius. It was surprisingly comfortable as I settled back into the cushions and I had to keep myself from moaning.

  Visible tension left the elf and his posture relaxed as soon as my butt hit his couch.

  “Now the werewolves are going to come after me,” I said and gave a little nervous laugh. “My life just keeps on getting worse. It was bad enough to have the angels on my ass. Now the werewolves want me dead too. And we still don’t have much to go on with the half-breed killings. Except we know there are at least five demons doing them.”

  From beside me, Gareth shifted his feet. “Can’t get any worse than a pack of werewolves hunting you.”

  “It’s worse than that,” I breathed, suddenly very awake.

  The elf crossed his arms over his chest, the dim light catching his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  I rubbed my temples, the start of a migraine showing itself, the effects of drinking wine too quickly. “Lisbeth will think I’ve completed her contract.” I swallowed, my throat tight. “And now she’s going to give me another name.”

  11

  The next morning, I’d woken up to find myself lying face down on the couch, covered in a soft comforter blanket. I was mortified when I saw the drool next to where my face had been. Damn. I had drooled in my sleep. Not sexy.

  The elf was already in his kitchen making breakfast while he conversed happily to a very curious Siamese cat sitting on the counter next to him. The elf was making pancakes from scratch, from the looks of organic flour and mixing bowls. Tyrius had probably told him pancakes were my favorite—or his. Yeah, his most probably.

  And yet, somehow waking up to the smell of fresh coffee on Gareth’s couch felt strangely intimate. Seeing him standing in his kitchen over his stove making pancakes made things more familiar, and even more intimate.

  It didn’t help that the elf looked incredibly sexy as he cooked, the way his butt shook as he flipped the pancakes in his pan. He was wearing a simple black t-shirt that hugged his muscles perfectly, showing off his strong, powerful shoulders and wide back. His ass did look great in those jeans.

  I was not crushing on him, but it was hard not to appreciate a man who was protective, strong, and had a damn sexy body like that. It left me with a mild sense of unease.

  I have to get out of this house.

  After using the bathroom, I’d plashed water on my face and washed under my arm pits. I needed a shower after last night’s fight with the werewolves, but there was no way I was taking one here, not at the elf’s place. I’d brushed my teeth after Gareth shouted from the kitchen that there was a spare toothbrush still in the box in the top vanity drawer and then settled myself at the kitchen table trying to think of something other than Gareth’s tight butt, which was seriously distracting.

  “Look, Rowyn!” said Tyrius as he leaped from the counter and landed on the kitchen table. “Real pancakes! All from scratch! Not the frozen ones you stick in the toaster like when you do them. Only gran makes them from scratch, and that’s only on special occasions.” His eyes widened. “It feels like Christmas.”

  I smiled at my furry friend. “It does. Except for the no-snow part.”

  “And that right there,” said Tyrius as he crossed the table and tapped his paw on a tall glass bottle with a maple leaf on the label. “That’s real friggin’ maple syrup. Not the corn stuff. We have to take some back for Kora.” He spaced out for a moment, and I could see foam forming at the edges of his mouth.

  “Your eyes are bugging out of their sockets,” I told him. “No coffee for you, Tyrius.”

  “Screw the coffee,” said the cat. “I’m having real maple syrup.”

  I frowned, knowing I was going to have a cat high on sugar in a few seconds. And that could get ugly. A felt a tightening in my gut as I shifted in my chair. “Did Gareth tell you what happened?” I didn’t know how long Tyrius or the elf had been awake. Seeing that Gareth had drunk a cup of coffee and he’d already finished preparing the pancakes, I would have to guess at least a half-hour.

  Tyrius lost his excited energy as he sat next to my coffee mug. “He did,” said the cat, his shoulders slumped and his features creased in worry.

  I shifted in my chair. My left arm still hurt, and I’d kept the brace on, knowing I needed another half-day for it to recover fully.

  “I couldn’t go through with it, Tyrius.” I reached out with my right hand and wrapped my fingers around my mug, the ceramic nice and warm under my skin. “I couldn’t kill him. I knew I was condemning my grandmother, but it felt... wrong. I Hunt and kill for a living, but never the innocent. And now he’s dead.”

  “Not your fault, Rowyn,” said Tyrius, though the worry wrinkle above his eyes was still there. “Don’t you think for one second that it was.”

  I met Tyrius’s blue eyes. “But it was.”

  “You didn’t want to kill the werewolf,” said Tyrius. “You had to, otherwise he would have killed Gareth.” I looked up in time to see Gareth flinch. “You changed your mind.”

  “But I still ended up killing him in the end,” I said bluntly. “I still did it. I still ended up doing what Lisbeth wanted me to do all along.” Sighing, I took a sip of coffee. Damn that was good. I smacked my lips and said, “I should have stayed home. If I had stayed home, none of this would have happened.”

  “Can’t think like that, woman,” said the cat as he took a sniff around the small opening of the maple syrup bottle. “The past is the past. You need to suck it up and move forward.”

  “Yes, mother,” I told the cat as he beamed at me.

 
I took another sip of coffee, relishing the robust, warm liquid as it went down my throat. “Are you going to teach me pullomancy?” I asked the elf hopefully.

  Gareth turned around and dropped two pancakes on the plate in front of me. “No,” he said without looking at me. He turned and placed his pan back on the hot burner.

  I blinked, staring at him. “Why not? You said yourself that you wanted to help me. To teach me stuff. Why not teach me how to create elf dust?”

  “Don’t forget the maple syrup,” interrupted Tyrius as he pushed the bottle towards me with his head. I leaned over and grabbed it. Then I poured a generous amount of the syrup over my two pancakes until they looked like they were swimming in it.

  “No.” Gareth’s voice was blank as he reached over and poured more pancake mixture in the hot pan.

  Frowning, I jabbed my fork into the pancake. “I’m going to need all the help I can get right now. The angels want me dead. The werewolves want me dead. Am I forgetting another race of supernatural creatures that want my ass? Cause I’m pretty sure at the rate I’m going, I’ll be dead in a month. I thought if you could teach me pullomancy, I’d stay alive to see another birthday.”

  “No.”

  My blood pressure rose, making my skin around my face steam. “What’s the matter with you? One minute you’re all nice and telling me that all you want is to help me, and when I ask for that help, you turn me down.” I gritted my teeth. “Is it because I’m not an elf?”

  Gareth’s shoulders tensed a millimeter, but he never answered.

  Furious, I clenched my jaw, wanting nothing more than to throw my plate at him, but the moment the fork and pancake made contact in my mouth, I’d forgotten why I was mad.

  “Whoa,” I said, my mouth full. “These are really good pancakes.”

  Gareth turned around, seemingly pleased that I enjoyed his cooking. “More?” he asked as he held a spatula to the pan.

  My lips pressed together. “If you agree to teach me?”

  The elf scowled and then, ignoring me, he plopped two more golden pancakes onto the plate next to Tyrius, who was shifting from one paw to the next like he was stepping on hot coals.