Isla started to reach for it but pulled back at the lastsecond.“May I?”
“You can touch the ring, but I can’t remove it.”No, theonly way thisparticular pieceof jewelry could comeoff his finger was if he was dead or his finger was severed.
She smoothed her finger over the stone.“Yes,” she murmured.“We do have its mate.”
Excitement shot through him.Excitement, and a whole lot ofhope.He’d been waiting decades for this moment.Get ready, Heaven, becauseI’m coming home.
“Then Icanhave it?”
The three Wardens glanced at each other, and then, in acoordinated move, they formed a circle around him, each about ten feet away.Beneath him the ground began to glow with an eerie green light and the ice-bluegemstone he’d been hunting for a century appeared before him out of thin air.
It was as beautiful as he remembered, its oval shape andsmooth, polished surface reflecting light in unpredictable angles onto thegrass.
“You can hold it,” Galen said, “but it cannot leave thiscircle.”
Too relieved and enthralled to question Galen’s words, Razrreached for the apple-sized diamond.The moment his skin touched the coolsurface, a sense of comfort washed over him.Comfort and joy and vindication.He wished he could have punished the evil bastards who had stolen it.Thethieves deserved death for taking all three of Gems of Enoch and murderingtheir caretakers, but there would be time to hunt them down later.Rightnowhe had to take his prize to his superiors and get hiswings and powers unbound.After that, he could bond the gem to another humanhost and then finally,finally, he’d have access to its powers again.
Except...had Galen said the stone couldn’t leave the circle?That wasn’t acceptable.
Dropping his hand, he rounded on the Warden.“This diamondbelongs to me.I have the right to take it.”
Isla laughed, and he swore she’d justgottentaller.No, shehadgotten taller.She now stood half a head aboveGalen who, at around six-five, was as tall as Razr.“We are bound by laws youcan’t even begin to understand,fallen.”The emphasis she’d put on“fallen” made him wonder if she meant it as an insult...or if she knew he waslying.“You might be the original owner, but we made the storage contract withthe one who entrusted it to our care.It is not our place to hand it over toyou.”
Son of a bitch.He ground his molars in frustration.Hisstolen property was right in front of him.His waking nightmare was withininches of being over.And these museum guards were going to keep it fromhappening.For the millionth time, he wished he had the full use of his powers.He couldn’t even channel the gem’s powers through his ring without a host toamplify its energy.
But he did have friends.Friends in very low places...andfriends in very high places.If he took his case to the Angelic Court, theycould grant him an army of angels to help him reclaim hisproperty—whichwas really Heaven’s property.Thesedhampireswouldn’t stand a chance.
“I can come back with a hundred angels,” he warned.“Athousand.You can’t keep what is rightfully mine.”
Galen barked out a laugh.“A million.It wouldn’t matter.AsIsla said, we’re bound by laws beyond your ken.The things we store are beyondyour reach.But you are welcome to try.We haven’t seen much battle recently.”
“Or ye could stop being a fuckingdobberand find the current owneryerown damned self,”Rhona suggested.“Everything ye need to know is at the tip ofyerfingers.”
Could it be so easy?Curious, he palmed the diamond andclosed his eyes.In a flash of light, an image popped into his mind.A female.A stunning female with long silver-blue hair and eyes the color of the stone inhis hand.Her pale skin was flawless and brilliant, as if she’d walked througha cloud of diamond dust.More information cameathimlike a data download, and within seconds he knew where she worked and where shelived.
Smiling, he opened his eyes.And then he casually tried topocket his diamond and walk away.The Wardens even let him.Hell, they smiled.
Probably because the moment he stepped outside the glowingcircle, the stone melted away and he was struck by a bolt of lightning.
Still, electrocution and third-degree burns aside, it hadbeen a pretty good day.
Chapter Four
It turned out that Jedda Brighton had some damnedimpressive credentials in the fields of gemology and mineralogy.According toRazr’s cursory research on the wealthy recluse, she’d gone to the best schools,she owned her own business in the form of an outlandishly upscale Londonjewelry store that dealt exclusively in rare and exotic gemstones, and she wasworld-renowned for her uncanny ability to locate pockets of valuable mineralsdeep in the earth.
All ofthat information was publicknowledge.What wasn’t public knowledge—at least, human public knowledge—wasthat her human-realm jewelry store was a front for the underworld trade ofcursed and enchanted gems.
Which meant that she was, almost certainly, a demon.
Maybe even one of the very demons responsible for the Enochgems’ loss.
A deep growl rumbled in his chest as he made his way acrossthe polished stone floor of the building where he expected to find his target.Mozart’s symphonies wafted softly in the background, lending a bizarre normalcyto the attending crowd of assorted demons, werewolves, vampires, and even a fewhumans who reeked of evil or greed.The massive castle, high in the mountainsof Austria, was apparently the setting for this year’s annual UnderworldSorcery Event, at which Jedda had been promoted as a guest speaker.
Razr had missed her presentation, but he’d arrived in timefor the awards dinner.People were mingling, their hands and claws full ofappetizers and cocktails, or in a few cases, mugs of blood.The stone in hisring vibrated, needlessly warning him of his proximity to demons.The constantbuzz kept him checking to make sure it didn’t start glowing.One ofAzagoth’ssons, Hawkyn, aMemitimskilled in alchemy, temporarily altered the surface properties of the diamondto conceal the color and the glow.He didn’t want to take any chances thatJedda would recognize that the gemstone in his ring had been cut from the oneshe’d left with the Wardens.
As hesearchedthe crowd, thevibration grew stronger.Abruptly, the energy shifted, going from a buzz to apulse, and excitement shot through him.
The stone in his ring onlypulsedlike that in the presence of its mate.Jedda must have it with her.
