by Debra Dunbar
Well, I wasn’t about to hit her back. Things would escalate, then she’d wind up knowing I was at the very least half-demon. But there was something very suspicious about Hallwyn. How had she gotten this job when she seemed so terribly unqualified? I knew that happened with humans all the time, but elves weren’t padding their resumes and bluffing their way through job interviews. Well, maybe they were, but angels were pretty good at detecting lies and I assumed they were the ones coordinating the job placement through this Magical Interventions company.
Although, come to think of it, that was a weird assumption. With few exceptions, angels weren’t familiar with how the human world worked, at least not to the level that they’d know about career websites or head hunters. They must have completely outsourced this kind of thing. And if their placement folks were anything like those in the human world, they were getting a percentage of that hefty fee that Jorge had mentioned.
I watched Hallwyn pull her gloves on and hop in the golf cart, gunning it as she headed back, I supposed, to leave for the day. Glancing down at the vine with the bunch rot and the cutworms, I decided to do one giant “fuck you” toward Hallwyn and heal it. Of course, she was stupid enough that she might think the ridiculous glowy-hands shit she’d done actually worked, but part of me hoped she’d think there was another elf coming in behind her and fixing her mistakes. Maybe she’d worry that elf would take her job. Vindictive, I know, but I hated that elf and I wanted her to be watching over her shoulder.
So I reached out to touch the plant, closing my eyes as I pulled the disease into me. My stomach rolled as the blackness poured through my veins. Then taking a deep breath, I began to destroy the bunch rot that I’d just sucked into me.
When that was done I took a few cleansing breaths, preparing myself to heal the plant before I dealt with the cutworms, but just as I exhaled I heard a sound behind me—a snarl, then a whoosh.
Pain blazed like lightning through my head and I felt myself fall.
It seemed like seconds later that I was opening my eyes and staring at the dark, loamy dirt of the vineyard. I lifted a hand to my head and felt the sticky wetness of congealing blood. And as I looked around I realized that I was no longer in front of the vine with the bunch rot. Whoever had hit me on the head had dragged me off somewhere.
And dragged was the operative word. My clothes were filthy, and I had scratches on my arms and chest where my V-neck shirt had exposed my skin. My wrists were bruised and sore, and my head felt like a split melon. I rolled over and groaned, pulling my phone out of my pocket and squinting as I held it up in front of my face. It wasn’t broken. And the time it displayed let me know that I’d been unconscious for longer than I’d thought. I hoped my elven half would heal head trauma with the same accelerated pace as other injuries, because I’m sure I had a concussion.
And I was late. I’d told Irix I’d be back half an hour ago. I’d need to run, and the prospect of racing through the vineyard and to my trailer with this headache wasn’t at all appealing.
I carefully stood, testing my ability to remain upright and decided against running. I’d walk. And I’d text Irix to let him know that I was okay, and was heading home as quickly as I could manage.
Chapter 11
At my trailer, I walked in on a Mexican standoff. Irix had his arms folded across his chest, leaning against the wall that separated the living area from the bathroom. Harkel was mirroring his stance, only he was in the kitchen area, leaning against the side of the refrigerator. Both stared at each other with hooded eyes, the air crackling with tension.
Tension and pheromones. Crap. Crap. I’d known Harkel was coming over tonight for our “talk”, but hadn’t expected him for another hour at least. So much for hunting. Actually, so much for sleeping. Whatever happened, I had to make time to recharge myself tonight or I wouldn’t be able to do anything in the vineyard tomorrow after work.
They both turned toward me, their expressions changing dramatically. I would have laughed had I not felt like I’d been hit in the head with a bulldozer.
“You are injured!” Harkel was on me in two strides, but so was Irix. The incubus examined my head wound while the warmonger looked at the scratches on my arms and chest.
“Were you in a fight?”
“Who did this?”
“Why have you not repaired your injuries?”
It was Harkel’s last question that caused me to catch my breath. I didn’t repair myself with the same process and speed as a demon. Nor was I as quick at healing as a full elf. This was one of those times where I’d need to tread carefully, and by that I meant ignore his question and hope he didn’t repeat it.
“I was healing plants in the vineyard and I was attacked.”
Which meant whoever attacked me had seen me healing that vine. They knew. Whether it was one of the plague demons or a sorcerer hired by a rival winery, or Hallwyn come back to make good on her threat to kill me for my insolence, whoever attacked me knew.
“Who would dare attack a demon?” Harkel curled his lip. “Unless it was an angel. But angels do not hit demons on the head with blunt objects.”
“The elf.” Irix shot me a worried look.
“We argued. I think she came back and hit me.” And I was such an idiot for letting my temper and pride get the best of me. It made sense. She’d been furious that I’d slandered her, called her a fraud. She’d come back, no doubt to punish me, and seen me working what was clearly elven magic on a vine. I was lucky to be alive. I was lucky she hadn’t finished me off after braining me with some farming tool.
Why hadn’t she? I was an abomination, a half-elf, a blot on their precious genetic purity. And I’d called her a fraud. The first alone should have signed my death warrant. Both together should have definitely signed my death warrant. Why had she dragged me through the dirt and left me there alive?
“An elf dared to assault you?” Harkel looked as if he were about to go postal on every elf this side of the gateways. If this is how he looked as he went into battle, then I was surprised the opposing army didn’t just turn around and flee.
“You need to leave,” Irix told me. “I know this internship means a lot to you, but your life is more important. We’ll go back to New Orleans, and hope she doesn’t trace you there.”
“Why would she run and hide from a paltry elf? I realize that sex demons are not as skilled in physical confrontation as other demons, but surely she could decapitate an elf.”
“I’m not running away to New Orleans,” I told Irix. He was right. It was too dangerous for me to stay here now that Hallwyn knew what I was, but I hated the thought that I was going to spend the rest of my life, or at least the next few centuries, hiding away from elves and demons. I was going to have to face this sometime. And now that it seemed the truth of my genetic makeup was coming out into the open, I wanted to deal with it head on.
“Good for you,” Harkel slapped me on the shoulder and nearly knocked me over. “And to show you how sincere my affection is, I will kill this elf that has assaulted you.”
“No, don’t kill the elf.” Crap, this was just getting more and more complicated.
Harkel frowned. “No? You would prefer I keep her alive? Actually, that is a far more satisfactory response. I will incapacitate the elf, bring her here and together we will torture her. She will regret the moment she hit you. We will fill the night air with her screams, coat the floor with her blood and excrement. Slowly we will peel the skin from her body, allow her to heal herself, then do it over and over again.”
That sounded horrific. “I think that’s a bit excessive. I’ll handle it. I’ll go over there in the morning before my shift and talk with her and we’ll work it out.”
Irix glared at me. “No, you won’t. You’re going back to New Orleans where you’ll be safe.”
“What happened to not ordering me around? Not forbidding me to do this or that? I’m not leaving my internship. I’ll handle it.”
I hoped I didn’t end up
having to kill Hallwyn. I really didn’t want to, even if she was a hateful bitch and had hit me over the head. Plus, Jorge and the management at DiMarche would wonder where their elf had gotten to. The police would get involved, and possibly the angels. No, I somehow needed to make this right without strangling Hallwyn.
“Perfect,” Harkel announced. “And now we can have sex. Irix, you leave us. Amber, may I offer you a glass of wine and discuss meteorological conditions with you?”
He was so adorable. Well, when he wasn’t talking about stripping the skin from my elven co-worker, that is.
“I’m not leaving,” Irix crossed his arms in front of his chest and transferred his glare to Harkel.
“My bond is with her, not you,” Harkel snapped. “Get out. Leave us. You have no business being here.”
“You hurt her last time you were here,” Irix replied. “She’s young. And she’s mine. I won’t let you hurt her again. We’re both willing to discuss options and come to a mutually agreeable solution, but two things—I’m not leaving, and you will not hurt her again.”
Something that looked like regret flitted across the warmonger’s face. “She’s a demon. True, sex demons are not as hardy as others, but regardless of her youth she shouldn’t have had any problems with the relatively gentle approach I took.”
He hadn’t seriously injured or hurt me the way that Irix had been. I’d been told some demons enjoyed getting rough when playing with a succubus or incubus. I’d just never thought Harkel would be that way with me. I hadn’t been afraid of the warmonger when we’d been together in Hel. He’d been a bit forceful during my blow job, but I’d actually enjoyed that. If he could dial it back to that level, we could totally have some fun together. If not, well then Irix was right, we would have a problem.
“She doesn’t like rough.” Irix took a step forward. “She likes gentle, and if you can’t be gentle, this isn’t going to work.”
“Perhaps the succubus should speak to what she likes and doesn’t like.” Harkel also stepped forward. “She’s not in your household. She’s not accepted a breeding contract from you yet. You might have a tie. You might have a sexual history with her. But none of that means she is yours to speak for or even demand exclusive access to.”
I opened my mouth, but shut it after a quick look from Irix. What was he up to? Whatever it was, I hoped it didn’t end up with him being sliced to ribbons.
“She is mine. At less than a century she should still be under the care of a dwarf. The only reason she is here is because her sire, the succubus Leethu, gave her to me to train and guide. I am her mentor, her tutor, and her lover. I decide what is best for her until she is of an age to do so herself.”
Okay, that annoyed the crap out of me. By demon standards, I was a minor, but I’d been brought up as a human, and at twenty-two I was legally an adult. I got what Irix was trying to do, but it bothered me that he had resorted to calling me an infant.
“She seems like an adult to me. And when I met her in Hel, she was unaccompanied and fully willing to accept all I offered. She’s not yours. And if she so chooses, she’ll be mine.”
They were nose to nose and all I could do was stand by the door and hold my breath. This wasn’t going to end well.
It didn’t. Irix punched Harkel in the stomach, following it up with a quick uppercut to the chin. The warmonger rocked backward, but shook off the blow. With a snarl he grabbed Irix’s head and slammed him downward onto an upraised knee.
Blood poured from Irix’s nose. He wrapped his arms around the warmonger’s hips and drove him backwards into the stove, denting the front with the impact.
“Stop! Both of you, cut it out right now.” I threw my pheromones into the mix and cranked them up to eleven. And just for good measure, I stomped over to the demons as if I planned to get in between the two.
They ignored me, continuing to whale on each other and smash into my cabinets. I wasn’t stupid enough to actually get between two fighting demons, so I did the next best thing—I whacked them over the head with a chair. Since they were grappling, one swing managed to hit both at the same time. Just in case they didn’t get the memo, I hit them twice more.
“Stop.”
Finally, they pulled apart and looked my way. In addition to the cuts they’d inflicted on each other, both were bleeding profusely from their heads. I threw the broken chair aside and folded my arms across my chest.
“Irix is right,” I told Harkel. “I’m not quite twenty-two years old, and I can’t take the kind of sex you were trying to dish out last night. You can’t claw me or bite me like that. I’m too young to repair those injuries quickly and I’m not the sort of demon that enjoys them. What you did with Irix would have probably killed me. If that’s what you want, then I’m not the succubus for you.”
The warmonger’s jaw dropped. “You’re how old? When he said less than a century, I thought he was lying. You shouldn’t be able to Own at your age. You shouldn’t have the sex demon prowess that you have. You shouldn’t be out of the nursery.”
“I’ll be twenty-two in another two months. I swear on all the souls I Own, that is my true age. I have skills that have come to me very early, but there are those I lack. I can’t handle the kind of rough sex you want. I don’t know if I ever will be able to, but I definitely can’t do it now.”
He took a step away from me, a look of horror on his face. Was this the demon equivalent of being a pedophile? Maybe demons didn’t have sex with those under a century old?
“But in Hel…you were clearly willing. You made the advances, accepted my energy and my tie. And when I came to see you at the winery, you were open to the idea of another encounter with me.”
“I still am. Harkel, I’m very attracted to you. I want you. But not if you can’t have sex with me as you would a human. And I need to have Irix present. Leethu sent him to tutor me, and I trust his guidance. I was in Hel without his knowledge, and did many things out of youthful ignorance. I don’t regret them, but I need to make sure he’s present to supervise any sexual encounters with other demons in the future—at least until I’m of an age to make informed decisions on my own.”
I’d been pissed at Irix for making me sound like an infant, and I’d just done the same. But it seemed to work. Harkel was no longer backing away with an expression of shock on his face. He seemed to be carefully considering my words.
“She’s an amazing succubus,” Irix added. “I completely understand how you would want her for your own—whether that’s through a bond, a household affiliation, or a breeding contract. And from what she’s said about you, I can see she is quite interested in furthering your acquaintance, and possibly exploring a long-term relationship with you. But given her age, I need to guide her.”
I had dialed back the pheromones once the two demons had stopped fighting, and noticed that Irix was increasing his. It was subtle, not the smack-in-the-face he’d done two nights ago. This was a hint, an invitation. It was as if he wanted Harkel to reach out and meet him halfway.
Harkel’s gaze locked on the incubus’s. “I did enjoy the other night.”
And now the sexual tension was thick enough to spread on toast.
“Me, too.” Irix smiled. It was the sexy little smile he gave me when he wanted to drag me off to bed, only this time it was directed at the warmonger. “And unlike Amber, I like a bit of blood and guts in my sexual encounters.”
Harkel caught his breath, then looked my way. “I still want you, Amber, but I worry I won’t be able to restrain myself. The other night, when you were afraid and crying out…it pushed me over the edge. I lost control. Now that I know your limitations, I worry that I will damage you and that you will no longer want me afterward.”
“Which is why I need to be present,” Irix said. “Not just present, but a participant. If you feel the urge to bite or shred skin with your claws, I’ll be there to take care of that urge.”
“So you will stand by our side and intervene?”
Ir
ix took a step toward the warmonger. “There is no way I could just stand there and watch you and Amber together, not after what I experienced with you the other night. I respect your tie with my young succubus charge, and acknowledge that your presence here is because of her, but I can’t deny that I too am attracted to you, Harkel. I want you. And I want you in a very different way than Amber does.”
The warmonger’s brown eyes flared with orange lights, and the smile that curved his lips made me shiver. “I will be in charge, and you will both do as I tell you to do.”
His fantasies spooled into my mind, and I could tell that Irix was also receiving the images.
“But I am the buffer between you and Amber,” Irix warned. “If you so much as scratch her, then she leaves and it will just be you and me.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a threat or an erotic promise, and judging from the expression on Harkel’s face, I got the feeling he would be thrilled with either outcome.
“We have a deal.” The warmonger leaned against my dented stove and watched us with hooded eyes. “Strip. Slowly. First her, then you.”
“Can I shower first?” I asked. “And have Irix help me fix my head wound?”
Harkel’s eyes danced, a wicked smile curling up one corner of his lips. “No. Irix may assist you with the wound, but I want you all sweaty and dirty.”
Ugh. But I’d been with human men who had similar fetishes. Irix walked up and I felt the tingle of his energy, my scalp knitting just enough that my elf-healing jumped into overdrive. I went to shed my T-shirt, but Irix stopped me, gently easing it up over my head then ducking down to trace a line of feather-light kisses up my stomach to the band of my bra. Meanwhile his hands were busy unzipping my shorts and sliding them down to my ankles. Then he worked his way down my stomach and thighs with his lips, bending to carefully remove my sneakers and socks, and slide my shorts all the way off.
