Darkest Misery (16 page)

“Shut up,” I told him, grabbing his head and pulling him closer.

Devon's hands worked to unfasten his own pants, and every time his knuckles brushed my bare stomach, I tensed in anticipation. Then finally he was free, the heat of his erection splitting me in two and sliding inside me, backing me harder against the wall.

I wrapped my arms around his neck for support, trying in vain to taste his skin and being stymied by the shirt he'd never removed. I bit his shoulder and figured it was his fault if I stained his clothes.

Devon thrust harder, his cries growing louder and more guttural until he gasped for breath. “Jess, I'm sorry.”

I held him as he shuddered over and over, and my body let out a silent scream of frustration. I was certain Devon could sense it. Even if I'd been prepared to do so, there was no such thing as faking an orgasm with a satyr. Not when unfulfilled lust was their meal of choice.

My distress only increased when he pulled out, and he brought me close and buried his head against mine. “I'm so sorry. I feel like an idiot teenager all over again. I'm going to make this up to you.”

I patted him on the back and relaxed my body against his. The warmth of his skin, especially the heat of his still-hard cock, had my nerves singing with a beautiful agony. I wanted to wrap my fingers around him and plunge him back into me, and I didn't think he'd mind if I did.

But being held by Devon was a weird phenomenon. Weird enough to distract me. He wasn't usually the hugging sort, and although the first time we'd had sex I'd spent the night in his bed, that had been the only time. And we hadn't exactly spent the waking hours there cuddling. Our sex had always been hot, but never particularly emotional.

Really, the whole point of sex with Devon had been to help me separate sex from emotions. With Lucen, I could let my feelings be involved, even if I knew his weren't in the same way. Devon, however, was the friend with benefits, a Lucen-endorsed treatment for my human outlook on relationships. There was no hugging or holding and rarely any kissing.

As if in response to my thoughts, Devon wrapped his fingers through my hair and took my mouth in his. A hint of the same desperation underlay the languid brush of his lips, but he seemed better in control.

I couldn't help succumbing to the gentle touch of his tongue or running my fingers over the hairs on his chin. “So this is why you sought me out, huh?” I removed my hand from his face, disturbed by the intimacy of the gesture and its effect on me. “Of all the people in Grenoble, I'm the one you thought it would be okay to leave hanging?”

Sarcasm—the best defense against confusion.

Devon swallowed noticeably. “I'll have you know, if you were a normal person, I would still have gotten you off.”

“Uh-huh. I'm supposed to believe you?”

“It would be the charitable thing to do.” He slid his arms down me and carried me over to the bed. “But I'm going to make it up to you. I have it under control.”

I pushed myself backward so he could climb onto the bed, and I ran my hand along his stomach. Devon closed his eyes and nearly fell on top of me, shuddering. “Yeah, you're under control.” I smirked.

Cringing, he placed his hand on top of mine. “Okay, fine. It might take a little more time,” he said, clearly struggling for words. “That's all.”

So I gave him time, and when Devon finally worked off enough of his overloaded lust to return the favor, there was no denying it had been worth it. I was more exhausted than ever though as I lay on the bed, and only the power of my curiosity kept me from falling asleep.

I wrapped my arms around my pillow and stared at Devon. “How are you going to survive if you're like this after only a few hours?”

He waved his hand idly. “As you said, there's a whole city of people. Worst case, I'll cut off someone in Boston and…” He caught me frowning. “You should be happy. I'd be setting someone free.”

“And addicting someone local in their place. No net positive there.”

“It'll be a temporary move only. If it makes you feel better, I'll find someone unattached. Someone who might enjoy it.” To make his point, he ran a finger down my spine, and I shivered. “Unless you want to make yourself available every few hours?”

Alas, part of me was tempted. “I'll be busy, covered in dusty books and mysterious artifacts at World.”

Devon flopped on his back. “Pity.”

“So spill it. Why are you here, and how did you find me?”

Instead of answering, he picked up the pendant Lucen gave me and examined it. “He has surprisingly good taste in jewelry for someone who spends all his time in T-shirts.”

I removed the pendant from Devon's hand. “Not everyone has a job that goes with wearing designer suits. Stop changing the subject.”

“Fine.” He grinned. “It wasn't hard to find you. I knew you were heading to Grenoble, and it made sense that you'd be in a hotel close to World. This one is the closest.”

And then he probably bashed the hotel clerk over the head with his magic and got them to give up my room number. It was easy enough to fill in details. I couldn't judge, having recently done something even more devious.

“And you're here why?” I raised an eyebrow.

“You have to ask? Part of convincing Lucen not to go chasing after you was promising to find a way for us to protect you.”

Right. I should have figured it out. Lucen had told me how plans had changed. Apparently this was what he'd meant. “And you got stuck with bodyguard duty. Why not Gi or Melissa?”

Devon rolled on his side and began playing with my hair. “A couple reasons, but the main ones were Lucen trusts me, and since arrangements had to be made fast, they required someone able to act without taking the time to bring an addict along. I could handle it.”

“Oh, yeah. You handled it great.”

“You go ahead and make fun of me, but I lasted hours. Gi or Melissa would have broken down on the flight and joined the mile-high club.”

“And you didn't want to?”

He looked at me aghast. “Have you ever used an airplane bathroom? Some of us have standards.”

While I laughed silently, Devon took the opportunity to stop messing with my hair and rub his thumb over my breasts. White-hot heat shot through my core, burning off the giggles.

“So that's why Lucen's back at the meeting today.” I managed to get the words out between heavy breaths, determined not to be distracted.

Devon was just as determined. He nudged me over and lowered his lips to my skin. “Yes. Dezzi doesn't want either of you dead, but Claudius has put her in an awkward position. As her lieutenant, I can be sent away on domus business for her without Claudius raising an eyebrow. Meanwhile, you escape, and she keeps Lucen close to her side, and hopefully he does a decent job of pretending not to be concerned about your disappearance. It might placate Claudius.”

My skin sizzled where he grazed his teeth over me. Without meaning to, I grasped his hair, holding him in place and teetering on the brink of leaving my rational self behind to indulge once more in the sensations he aroused. But I couldn't yet. There was some problem with this plan of his. Something he was making me forget…

It came to me all at once, and I yanked Devon off me. “What about the information I asked you to get from Claudius? If you're here, you're not helping me.”

Devon sighed, hovering over me, and for a moment I thought he might ignore my question. His breathing was hard, and his body was very clearly ready for more. It took a lot of effort not to reach up and reclaim all that glistening skin.

Then he bounded off the bed. “Your resistance to my charm is disheartening.”

“I've let you charm me enough for one night, don't you think?”

“Not at all.” He pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket and tossed it to me before flopping back on the bed with a smug smile. He'd referred to himself as a teenager earlier, and he was acting like one, far too obviously pleased with himself.

I sat up, barely catching the phone. “And?”

“I decided your plan, while clever, wasn't the best idea. We didn't need Claudius believing there were more issues in the domus than he already thinks exist. So I forewent the idea of lying to him and straight up raided his possessions.”

I overlooked his casual use of “forewent” for the more important issue. “You raided his possessions?”

“In a manner of speaking. I caused a distraction, got him to leave his room and searched it before he returned. I got the idea from Lucen, who got it from you. Anyway, he didn't appear to bring anything tangible with him, but I found a file on his phone and sent it to myself.”

I frowned at the image, which was hard to understand in such a small size. “It looks like a scrap of paper with some words on it. Or maybe those are glyphs?”

“Both, I think.” He pointed to a couple spots. “I also think that's real parchment, not paper. It's old, whatever it is, and odd. I honestly have no idea if this was what you were hoping to find, but it's the only thing I thought might be related. The time period appears to be on target.”

I swore and zoomed in on the photo for a better look, but I could make no sense of it. “I don't know if it's what I need either, but thank you.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Can you send it to me?”

Devon held out his hand, and I returned the phone. “What would you do without me?”

Happy but yawning, I dropped back to the pillow. “Get some sleep.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I wasn't sure how it happened, but when I woke up, Devon was still in my bed. Vaguely, I remembered falling asleep while he rubbed my back, but shouldn't he have left? He must have his own room somewhere because he didn't have any luggage with him, and it had been far too early for a pred to fall asleep when I'd finally lost consciousness.

Not that I entirely minded his presence. Sleeping around other people made me feel vulnerable, but I'd already done it once with Devon and survived. Plus, there was something nice about having a familiar person so close when I was in such unfamiliar territory.

It was just confusing. Again.

I gazed at him a moment as he lay on his back, dark hair fanned out across the white pillowcase. His breaths were a steady rhythm in the otherwise quiet room. Amazing how innocent people appeared when they slept.

Along the nearby wall, thin strips of daylight outlined the drapes, providing just enough brightness to see by. Whatever time it was, I could tell it wasn't late enough for me to have gotten sufficient rest. Alas, sufficient probably wasn't happening.

The clock on the far side of the bed was blocked by Devon's body, and when I shifted to check it, he snaked an arm around me. I fell back to the mattress and let him press us together. Warm skin, hard muscles and a heavy erection met me, rousing me further awake, though Devon's eyes remained closed.

This wouldn't do. I was on a timetable. But as I went to poke him in the chest to wake him up, my gaze was drawn down the length of him, and my will buckled slightly. Devon lacked Lucen's broad physique, but his narrower shoulders and chest were solid muscle. Rather than poke him, my finger traced the line of dark hairs between his pecs. I could afford to be nice and ease some of his emotional distress before I left him for the day, right?

He must have sensed my feelings. His eyes opened, and he smiled, wrapping his other arm around me too. “This is not a bad way to wake up. We should do this more often.” His voice lacked the telltale signs of grogginess, suggesting he hadn't been sound asleep after all.

“That seems…” I floundered for the right words, but all I could think of was
disturbingly intimate
.

Devon could sense it too. “Relax, Jess.”

“I am relaxed.”

“Which is why you tensed down to your toes.”

I rested my head on his shoulder because it was better than letting him see how my cheeks burned. “Is this what being away from your addicts does? It makes you act funny.”

“No, this is what facing the possible end of the world does. It makes me think about priorities.” He lifted my head. “How many nights a week do you stay with Lucen?”

“Before recent events, you mean? About three.” That was the schedule we'd set anyway, but we hadn't had much opportunity to test the feasibility of it. The idea was to give Lucen plenty of time to see his addicts without me accidentally running into one of them. Although I'd had to accept this was part of life with satyrs, I didn't need more reminders of it.

Devon ran a finger over my lips. “Tell me honestly that you wouldn't like spending one or two of those free nights with me.”

I couldn't, but it scared me regardless. I could feel my heart beating against my chest. “So a quickie in your office at Purgatory is no longer enough for you?”

There I went again, hiding in the jokes.

“Not all of them were quick, and no. Last night reminded me of the joys of extended get-togethers.”

“So you want more sex?” And those kisses and the sleeping here last night—that was nothing? I couldn't tell how I wanted him to answer. His behavior and my emotions were tangled in a knot that I feared to pick. My love life was complicated enough as it was.

Devon's cool eyes seemed to be searching me for something. “This has no impact on you and Lucen, Jess. You love him, and I'm glad. He loves you, and I'm glad. But I have more fun verbally sparring with you than I do with anyone else, and I have even more fun fucking you, and I
like
you. You're smart and sexy, and you make me work for every time I've managed to leave you speechless. I've tried to keep my distance emotionally, but it gets harder the more time we spend together. And the more time we spend together, the more I want to spend. You can't tell me you feel differently.”

My mouth went dry. Devon's speech didn't do much to ease my confusion or chase away my fear. If anything, it made the confusion worse. My head swam with emotions I couldn't sort out. “I don't understand how I can do both—love Lucen and like you. Or how either of you are okay with both.”

“We're not like most people you're used to.” He coughed dramatically. “You're even less like most people, which is probably where your confusion comes from. In your head, you're a normal human. Oh, I know you've accepted you're not,” he said, cutting off my objection, “but years of acculturation aren't unlearned in a couple weeks.”

No, they couldn't be, and Devon excelled at pointing out things I didn't like to hear and making me listen. I hung my head, gathering my thoughts, and got a nice view of the man beneath me for my troubles. Damn, he complicated things, but my body didn't care.

“Okay. I mean, yes. I mean, I like the idea of spending more time with you too.”

He grinned. “So, are we good?”

My head spun, and I really wished Lucen were here to give me his opinion on what happened. Logic told me he'd agree with Devon, but it would have helped to hear it from his lips. “We're good.”

I was merely very, very confused.

And late. Very, very late.

As it turned out, Devon hadn't stayed up much later than me, his internal clock as messed up by the flight and time zone changes as mine had been. While I showered, he got dressed and planned to spend a few more daylight hours sleeping in his room, which was conveniently located in the same hotel. Apparently he trusted I'd be safe locked up inside Gryphon archives during the day.

Someone knocked on the door as I was finishing drying my hair. Before I could yell at Devon not to answer, I heard the door swing open.

Dragon shit on toast. I was going to be late even if I skipped breakfast, and there was only one person that could be.

“Agent Kassin,” Devon exclaimed. “How unpleasant to see you as always.”

I dropped the hairdryer and hurried into the room. The scene was worse than I'd feared. Devon was only partially dressed. His shirt was unbuttoned, and he was wearing no shoes. Tom did not look amused.

Flustered, I ran my fingers through my damp curls. “Devon was just here to…”

“Make sure no one tried to knife Jess in the middle of the night.” He smiled as he finished buttoning his shirt. “I'm disappointed there were no Gryphon guards outside her door.”

“He brought us some potentially useful information,” I said. That had been the story I was planning to spin. For all the good it would do now. What Devon had been doing in my room was quite obvious, and Tom was obviously quite disgusted.

Devon picked up his phone and gestured to me with it. “Let me know when you leave.”

“Yeah.” I breathed a sigh of relief as he slipped past Tom and out the door.

Tom didn't bother to disguise his contempt, and only then did I notice he was carrying coffee. He set the coffee on my desk. “What happened with the other one?”

I assumed he meant Lucen, and my cheeks warmed. Tom probably thought I was sleeping with the entire Boston domus. “He's in Boston.”

“Were you paying any attention to what I told you about spending time with satyrs?”

“That was also in Boston. Look, can we agree that I stay out of your personal life and you stay out of mine?”

Tom crossed his arms. “My personal life doesn't consider me a snack.”

“No, but when you get angry, your experimental coworker occasionally does.”

He set a brown paper bag next to the coffee. “And I was trying to be nice. When you didn't show up at the café like we planned, I brought you breakfast.”

I peeked into the bag and discovered a croissant. Damn it. Now I felt guilty, although I suspected part of Tom's motivation had been to get me working earlier. “Thank you.”

I had no interest in spending more time in the room while the rumpled sheets on the bed and my clothes on the floor reminded Tom of what I'd been up to, so I ate my breakfast as we walked to World.

“I got the email you sent last night,” Tom said. “Is that what Devon gave you?”

I stuffed the last piece of croissant in my mouth so I could ditch the bag before entering the building. “No, I haven't sent you the photo from Devon yet. What I sent last night was information from the goblins. Too much information, I'm guessing. We'll have to search through it and see if anything useful is there.”

I emailed Tom the photo from Devon and explained in more detail on our way to the archives. Tom had already sent the goblins' information to Marie, and he passed the photograph on to her as well, in case it helped. Down in the basement, he put the photo up on a larger screen so we could see it better.

“Devon said some of the markings were glyphs, but he thought others were a language he couldn't recognize.”

Tom scratched his chin, zooming in more closely on the upper right-hand side of the photo, but unfortunately, the resolution only allowed for so much detail. “I think they're all glyphs, but not glyphs in the current style. We call glyphs a magical alphabet these days, but once they were a true alphabet. The magicians and priests—the people who ended up becoming Gryphons—used it to encode spells and other magic-related writing. The magi taught it to them. They used it to send messages that only those in the know could read.”

“Like a code alphabet?”

“Basically.” He nodded to himself. “I'm sure I've seen this before, but we'll need help translating it. If that really is the glyph language, then this is certainly old enough to be from the correct era. If it contains anything useful, I might have to grit my teeth and thank Devon myself.”

I snorted. “Start with me. It was my idea.”

A shadow of a smile passed over Tom's lips. “It wasn't enough that I bought you breakfast?”

“Not when you're just going to expense it.”

While the information Devon and Steph had procured for us excited Tom and Marie, putting it to use was slow and tedious work. Translating the glyphs would take time, and Marie needed just as much time to go through everything Steph had sent. Tom and I kept busy in the archives, him continuing his search for anything related to the Vessels, and me researching the fury prison, particularly whatever a key might have to do with it.

Our first real break occurred on the second day of our efforts. Marie found a scanned photograph in the goblins' files that was very similar to what Devon had obtained from Claudius. Certain we were on the right track with these photographs, Tom used them as a new starting point in his search. If the others had pieces of this parchment, then it stood to reason the Gryphons did too, and that it was important.

Olga, the Gryphon who'd been tasked to translate the parchments, came down to the archives as we were getting ready to leave later that day.

“I'm not getting far with these translations.” Her English was perfect, yet oddly accented with both Russian and French, and it struck me what an interesting mix of Gryphons came together to work at World. “This part—” she pointed to the upper left on the goblins' scan, “—is simple. Basically, someone made a note about who this belonged to. This says it's property of some goblin. The other one says it is property of a satyr. But the rest?” She shrugged.

“Nothing?” I cursed to myself.

“It's what-you-call-it—gobblegook. Meaningless.”

Marie cracked open a can of soda. “Maybe it is code?”

“Code written in code?” I raised an eyebrow.

“These things you are looking for,” Marie said. “The people who hid them would want them well-protected.”

Tom rubbed his hands together thoughtfully. “It's not impossible. Thanks, Olga. I might bother you again if we find another one.”

Olga's inability to translate the remaining text on the photos was dispiriting, but as Tom pointed out, it could also be another clue we were on the right track.

Since Tom hadn't specifically told me to keep quiet about what we found, and since Lucen and Devon had both proven themselves useful sources of information, I shared what we'd discovered with them that evening.

Devon had brought his laptop, and he set up a video chat with Lucen. While we drank French wine in Devon's hotel room, Lucen sat on his sofa drinking beer.

“Did the meeting end early?” I asked. “Why are you home?”

He raised a blond eyebrow. “You didn't hear what happened?”

“I've been buried in a basement all day. No, what happened?”

Devon muttered something that sounded like “Not good” and refilled my wineglass. I took it he'd been in contact with Lucen—or simply the outside world—over the past twelve hours. Something I hadn't been.

Lucen set his beer down and grimaced. “You want to start with the local or the national?”

“Ease me into the disasters. It'll give the alcohol more time to hit.”

“The goblins figured out their hard drive was stolen. That went over as well as you can imagine.”

I sipped the wine gratefully. “They accused everyone at the meeting.”

“Of course. And when it was clear no one at the meeting knew anything about it—not that they could sense anyway—they became angrier. Ulan wanted to blame the Gryphons regardless, and Gunthra suspected the furies were behind it. That agitated even more people.”

Nice work, Gunthra. She'd probably have been better off keeping her mouth shut, but if she wanted to keep people focused on the fury threat, it wasn't a terrible idea.