Sixty fucking blows.
He normally healed within a few hours, but it took him daysto recover from that kind of angel-inflicted torture.
Another blow landed, and his vision blurred.
He didn’t even feel the next one.
“Gods, you’re heavy.You’re damned lucky my speciesis freakishly strong.”
Razr was also lucky that there was a Harrowgate just a blockaway from Jedda’s house or she’d have been forced to explain to a taxi driverwhy she was hauling around an unconscious, bloody man in the middle of thenight.
She gasped with effort as she unceremoniously dumped Razr’sunconscious body onto her bed, and so much for her new jade and amethystcomforter and sheets.All ruined by sticky smears of blood.
What was up with that, anyway?Why had Razr needed to betortured?And why did she care?She hadn’t cared about anyone since the day anangel killed one sister and sent the other into the wind.She’d been lonely attimes, but mostly being alone meant not having to compete with anyone else foranything.Like the gems that kept her alive.
Oh, their parents hadplanned aheadof time to avoid competition between Jedda and her sisters, and for the mostpart it had worked.But her species was naturally competitive, and honestly,she was surprised that she and her siblings hadstucktogether for as long as they had.Most gem elf siblings lost touch within acouple of years of reaching adulthood at the age of sixteen human years.
She wondered where Reina was, if she was even still in thehuman realm.The last time Jedda had seen her sister had been a decade ago atan underworld gem and weapons show on the outskirts of theCa’askullregion ofSheoul.They’d run into each other at adisplay booth for cursed magnetite, and it had done nothing to heal the hurtbetween them.
Absolutely nothing.Reina knew how to contact Jedda, but shehadn’t.
Not that Jedda was totally blameless.She’d followed uponce, but after finding that Reina no longer lived at the location she’d givenJedda, she’d given up.Sure, she could attend the weekly gem trade in theelvenrealm where Reina would surely be on a regular basis,but Jedda was stubborn, and she wasn’t going to be the one to make overtures atthis point.
A sound outside her front door followed by a wave of intenseevil jolted her out of her thoughts and raised thehackleson the back of her neck.Silently, she slipped to the living room window andpeeked between the sapphire curtains.There, hanging in the shadows just offher porch, was a demon she recognized from the sacrificial dinner.He juststood there, his back against the side of the house as he looked out toward thestreet.
Not.Cool.
She whipped open the door.“What are you doing?”
He turned to her, flashing sharp, ugly teeth.“Shrike wantsme to keep an eye on you.Make sure you deliver what you promised.”
“Tell Shrike he can go fuck himself.I don’t need ababysitter.”
The bastard started toward her, but screw that.She wasn’tgiving him a chance to so much as lay a finger on her.Throwing out her hand,she summoned the power of the very gem Shrike wanted her to find, the ice-bluediamond of myth and legend.All around her the air shimmered as heat built.Witha merethought, she released the energy, hittinghim with a shockwave that sent him tumbling all the way to the street, where helanded in an awkward heap against a lamp pole.
“Stay off my property,” she shouted.“Or next time that wavewill take you apart.”
It wasn’t true, but he didn’t need to know that.Oh, shecould have summoned twice as much power, but she lived in a human neighborhood,and there was no sense in drawing attention to herself.Especially since manyhumans were aware of the existence of the supernatural thanks to recentnear-apocalyptic events, and nothing good ever came of humans and their fear.
Still, she’d always wondered how truly powerful her gemwould be if paired with its mate and the angel who possessed it.
Before he killed Manda, Ebel the Angry Angel had said thatthe paired gems were capable of widespread destruction on an atomic level, andshe believed it.Even now she could feel her gem’s power like a pulse insideher, as if it wanted to unleash everything it was capable of.
Shivering, she went back inside and fetched the med kit fromthe bathroom.Razr wasstill passed out cold, so shegently stripped off his slacks.
He didn’t wear underwear.Oh, my.
Her mouth went as dry as the sand forest in herelvenhomeland as she took in his magnificent body.Everything began to burn, parts of her she’d all but forgotten she had in thefive years since she’d last been with a man.The fallen angel was about asperfect as anything she’d ever seen.Made sense, she supposed—she’d neverthought angels would be anything less than perfection.But seeing one naked andup close?No one could blame her for wanting to take pictures and post to allher friends on Instagram, right?
Cursing her ethics, she arranged him on his belly to allowaccess to his shredded back.Shame at the fact that she’d just ogled him shrankher skin.Gods, he must have been in so much pain.She’d nearly passed outherself during the beating, unable to stomach the sight of muscle and boneexposed by the deep lacerations.
Making matters worse, Shrike had reveled in the gore,growing angrier with each strike, as if he’d been taking some deep inner painout on Razr.When it was over, he’d thrown down the cat and fled the officewithout a word, leaving her to gather Razr’s unconscious body and find her wayout of the castle.
At least the wounds had stopped bleeding and were alreadystarting to heal.Still, this was one of the times she wished she’d chosen thegarnet Gem of Enoch instead of the diamond.Jedda and her sisters hadn’t knownwhat power each of the gems had possessed at the time they’d chosen andassimilated them, but neither Jedda nor Reina had been completely happy withthe outcomes.Manda had embraced the killing power of her stone, but Reina hadno desire to heal anyone and had been furious.And while Jedda’s gem had givenher a handy ability to violently repel demons, being able to heal would havebeen cool too.
Very carefully, she cleaned Razr’s wounds and appliedbandages, each one drawing anelvencurse from her.Such a perfect body, torn to shreds on a regular basis.He had no scars—atleast, none that were visible.She’d heard there were species of demons thatcould see scars no one else could, and she wondered what one of those demonswould see if they looked at Razr.
Jedda saw a very fit, very toned male.
