“A replacement for the Enoch gem wouldn’t be easy.It wouldhave to be a stone at least as powerful as the Ice Diamond.”She gestured toAzagoth’sjewels.“Not even these would do.Well, maybe theLucifer ruby, but it wouldturn mesoevilI’d have to bedestroyed.”Sheswallowed so hard that the sound echoed around the room.“And even if I found agem that would work, removing the energy the Enoch gem gives me would bedangerous.I’d have to be bled out and mutilated almost to the point of death.”
He cursed, long and hard.This was a disaster.“Sowhat you’re saying is that if I want my gem, you have toeither be tortured or killed.”
Her gaze snapped up tohis, andmore dust billowed out of her.“Yes,” she croaked.
Mother.Fuck.He couldn’t kill her.That simply wasn’t anoption.But he was going to killthe fuckout of whoever stole thething and gave it to her.
“Where did you get it?”When she didn’t reply, he felt thefirst stirrings of unease.“Jedda,” he prompted again, “where did you get thegem?”
“Don’t,” she begged him.“Please...”
Oh, shit.No.Son of a bitch, this couldn’t be.Theunease veered sharply to dread, the same gut-twisting, heart-pounding sensationhe’d felt when he’d sensed something wrong with the custodians of the gems buthadn’t found them yet.
“We had a deal,” he ground out.“I tell you about my robes,you tell me whatever I want to know.”
That wasn’t exactly the deal, but he doubted she’d quibbleover it.Not now.But he wished she would.He wanted desperately for her tohave a solid reason to not tell him what he feared the most––that she had takenthe gems in the first place.
It made sense.The gems had been in use at the time, oneturning all demons in a mile radius to ash, one healing all injured angelswithin a ten-mile radius, and one creating a barrier through which no demonscould pass to reach the humans who stood at the center of a fifty-foot circlewith the gems.He, Darlah, and Ebel had been miles away, using the harnessedgem power to devastating effect on hordes of advancing demons.He’d never beenable to figure out how demons had broken through the barrier, but now he knew.
Demonshadn’tbroken through.An elf had.
Jedda started inching toward the door again, but this timehe didn’t feel bad for her fear.Some vengeful part of him welcomed it, andwhatever shame he felt for that was drowned out by the memories of thescreaming custodians.
“Tell me!”
Jedda jumped.“I...my sisters and I...wefound the gems.In a cave––”
“Bullshit!”The obvious lie broke his last tenuous thread ofcontrol, and with a roar, he seized her by the throat and backed her against adisplay case full of weapons from the Great Demonic War of Talas.“You stolethem.You killed the humans who heldthemand youstolethem.”
“No!”Clawing at his arm as he held it at her throat, sheshook her head wildly.“Just the one human.My sister killed her.My othersister andI, westole the gems from the other twohumans and ran.They were alive when we left them.”
Fury and hurt blurred his vision, so he got right up in herface.
“They died right after,” he snarled.“Their lives were boundto the gems and to us.When the gems were stolen, they died.Slowly.Theirorgans dissolved and their bones broke, and they collapsed in on themselves.Took hours.”
He trembled with the force of his rage and the horror of thememories.The human who had been bonded to Razr’s gem, a young man namedNabebe, had been chosen by Razr, rescued from certain death as a baby abandonedin the streets of eighteenth-century Baghdad.Razr had raised him, trained him,and given him eternal lifeas long ashe was inpossession of the gem.
Razr’s voice broke as he told Jedda exactly what hadhappened to the boy he’d considered a son.
“Nabebescreamed until his throatwas raw and he drowned in his own blood, andI couldn’t stop it.”
All Razr had been able to do was hold the boy and vow toinflict the same punishment on those responsible.
“Oh, gods,” she croaked.“I’m sorry.I didn’t know.Iassumed only elves bond with gems.I mean, humans are…humans.”She stoppedfighting him, tears welling in her eyes, but it didn’t move him at all.“It wasa long time ago––”
“And that makes it okay?”he asked, incredulous.
“No, just listen.We...my sisters and I...Things weredifferent backthen.”She reached up, attempting topeel his fingers away from her throat again.He loosened his grip, but rightnow he wanted to keep her where she was, where he could feel the beat of herheart in the palm of his hand.“Gem elves’ moral alignment comes from the gemswe absorb.Gemstones from the human realm are mostly neutral, and gems from thedemon realm are usually tainted by evil.Then there are enchanted stones.Themost powerful stone we absorb becomes our life-stone, the one we will diewithout.It also determines our alignment.”She swallowed and licked her lips,as if needing time to collect her words.And her breath.“See, when gem elvesare born, the parents have gems standing by, ready to infuse the infants withinmoments of birth.”
He released his grip a little more, and she relaxedslightly, the heated flush in her cheeks turning mottled.“Neutral gems?”
“Not always.Obviously, the parents’ alignments play a role,but so does the sibling factor.”She cleared her throat.“Now, do you want tohear the rest?Because it’s easier to talk when someone isn’t threatening tokill me.”
That was probably true.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she swore.“Where would I go?Idon’t know how to get out of this place.”
That was also probably true.Plus, the door was locked.
