Darkness Splintered (DA 6) (28 page)

I sighed again. “I guess if you’re going to insist —”

“And I am.”

“Then you’d better escort me to bed, James.”

He did. And, frustratingly, did nothing more than that.

The first thing I did when I woke was ring Mike at his office. It was eight thirty, so I had no doubt he’d be there by now.

“Good morning, Risa.” The voice was plummy and feminine, and belonged to his secretary, Beatrice. “You’re calling early – hope there’s not a problem.”

“There’s not.” The vid-phone was turned off on her end, so I couldn’t see what color her hair was this month. But the last time I’d been at the office it had been pale purple, and the month before that a vibrant red. Despite her age, she loved hair color variety as much as I loved Coke and cake. “Mike left me a message to give him a call ASAP. Is he around?”

“Just a moment, and I’ll put you through.”

There was a click, a brief moment of silence, then Mike’s aristocratic features came on-screen. I didn’t actually know how old Mike was – he didn’t look old, and yet he didn’t seem young, either. His hair was black but cut short, the dark curls clinging close to his head like a helmet. His eyes – a clear, striking gray – seemed to hold eons of knowledge behind them. Given Mom had once commented that he had a genius-level IQ, I guess that was to be expected.

“Risa,” he said, his voice low and pleasant, “thank you for ringing back so promptly.”

“I thought I’d better. It sounded urgent.”

“Not so much urgent, more a warning.”

I raised my eyebrows. “About what?”

“About the tax department’s crackdown on small businesses. I just wanted to make sure you have all receipts in order, just in case RYT’s is in line to be audited.”

“Aside from the last couple of weeks, yes.” And he knew that, so why ring me? It wasn’t like the possibility of being audited was new, but as far as I knew, businesses like our café were generally only targeted when certain flags were thrown up. “Have they contacted us?”

“No, I just wanted to ensure everything was in order on the off chance we were.”

I frowned. I wasn’t sure why, but something just didn’t feel right. “Mike, is everything okay?”

One dark eyebrow rose. It made his nose look overly large. “Yes, of course it is. Why?”

“You just seem… out of sorts.” I cleared my throat. “And then there’s the dinner invitation, which basically came out of nowhere.”

“Not really. Your mother and I —”

“I’m not Mom,” I reminded him gently. “I can’t give you what she gave you.”

Something close to horror flitted across his face. “Good god, you don’t think I want to —”

“No,” I cut in hastily. “I don’t. But I do think that perhaps you’re missing her, and I’m the next best thing to being with her.”

But even as I spoke, I couldn’t help noticing that for all his outrage, his gaze remained steely. Calculating.

Something was
definitely
going on, and maybe I needed to find out what. And hey, what was one more problem on an already overloaded plate?

“I do miss her,” he said. “Enormously. But to imply I might wish to capture what I had with her with you is beyond —”

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Mike,” I cut in again. “The invitation surprised me, that’s all. And I’m more than happy to have dinner one night.”

“I have no desire to make you uncomfortable,” he replied, voice cool.

“Mike, it’s fine. I’m busy for the next day or so, but I’m free anytime after that.” If the Raziq, my father, or the wanna-be queen of the world didn’t have other plans for me, that is.

He sniffed. It was an oddly regal sound that stirred the edges of memory, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. “Friday then?”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I shall let you know when and where. Until then, good-bye.”

And with that, he hung up. Great. I’d managed to offend the man my mother had not only trusted financially, but apparently depended on emotionally and physically for a good part of her life. It seemed to be my lot of late to make all the wrong moves.

“You have trusted your instincts up until now,” Azriel commented. “It would be foolish to ignore them, even if the person involved was a friend of your mother’s.”

I twisted around. He was back in his usual spot, his arms crossed as he stared out the window rather than at me. The morning sunshine caressed his skin, lending it a warm golden glow.

“Which is why I agreed to meet him for dinner. It’s easier to sense when someone is lying face-to-face.” I eyed him for a moment, sensing tension even if there was no evidence of it in the way he stood. “Are you annoyed that I’m meeting him?”

“No. And you do not have to explain your motives to me.”

He might be saying he wasn’t annoyed, but the emotion swirling through the link between us suggested otherwise.

“I agree – I don’t. I just wanted to.” I flipped the bedcovers off my legs and walked over to him. He didn’t move, so I wrapped my hands around his waist and rested a cheek on his shoulder. “Misunderstanding, an unwillingness to trust, and sheer pigheadedness – all mostly on my part, granted – is no way to start a relationship. I’m trying to make up for all that, but you have to do the same, Azriel.”

“I do not understand what you mean.”

But he did. The tightening of his shoulder and arm muscles was evidence enough of that. If his hands had been visible, I very much suspected they’d be clenched.

“Why are you so annoyed that I agreed to have dinner with Mike?”

He was silent for a moment, then said, “I do not actually know. It is irrational given I know full well your reasons for doing so.”

I couldn’t help grinning. “It may be irrational, but it makes my little heart sing.”

He turned and wrapped his arms around my waist. “And why would that be?”

“Because that particular irrationality is called jealousy, and it means you really do care for me.”

He studied me for several heartbeats, a smile tugging at his lips and his expression somewhat bemused.

Then he sighed, shook his head, and said, “For a very smart woman, Risa Jones, you are sometimes extraordinarily dumb.”

Chapter 11

I blinked. To say I
hadn’t
been expecting a comment like that would be the understatement of the year – in a year that had been full of them.

“I’m gathering you
have
got a reason for insulting me like that. Or are insults some weird reaper way of showing affection?”

He smiled. “It is hardly an insult when it is the truth. And you have had the answer to the question you fear to ask for some time now.”

“You know, you’re not making anything any clearer.”

His amusement grew. “Why do you think you are pregnant?”

My eyebrows rose even as I wondered what the hell
that
had to do with anything. “I got pregnant because we had unprotected sex.”

“Yes. And as I told you once before, a reaper can only ever have a child with his Caomh.”

Caomh
. The reaper term for life-mate. I could only stare as the word echoed around my brain, unimaginable and impossible.

“But nevertheless fact,” he said softly. “You carry the truth of what has lain unspoken between us since the very beginning.”

I swallowed heavily, not daring to believe that fate had, against all the odds and two very different worlds, made this man mine.

“Believe,” he said. “You are my body, my soul, the energy by which I live, and the song in my heart. It was not for our son, or the keys, or the fate of our two worlds that I pulled you back to life. I did it because I cannot live without you.”

And with that, he kissed me. It was a fierce thing, his kiss; fierce, and passionate, and joyous. It was everything I’d spent half my life searching for, everything I’d ever wanted, all wrapped up in one glorious action.

But it didn’t end there.

He touched me, caressed me, even as I ran my hands over his beautiful body, teasing him as thoroughly as he teased me, until sweat stung our skins and the smell of desire was thick in the air.

I wanted him; dear god, how I wanted him, but I didn’t immediately give in to the need. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him again, pressing my body hard against his, until it was difficult to tell where his skin ended and mine began. Desire and heat burned through and around us, until even the very air we breathed seemed to be boiling.

He slid his hands down my back, then cupped my butt and lifted me with little effort. A heartbeat later, he was in me. It felt like heaven and, for several seconds, neither of us moved, simply enjoying the sensations and the heat that rose with this basic joining of flesh. Then the heat became too great to ignore and he thrust deeper – harder – his cock sliding in and out of me with growing urgency. Energy flickered across our skin, dancing between us, tearing through us, until the music of his being played through me, and mine through him. It was a dance, a caress, a tease. It was movement, and heat, and desire. It was crazy and electric, a firestorm that ripped through us even as we remained in flesh. It fueled the urgency and heightened the pleasure, and the desire coursing through my body built, until it was all I could do to keep hold of the pleasure that threatened to tear us both apart.

His movements became more and more urgent, until my whole body shook with the intensity of them. I burned, tightened, until I couldn’t breathe and it felt like I would shatter.

“Please,” I somehow whispered, “please.”

He responded instantly, his movements fierce. I shuddered, my control crumbling as my orgasm began to sweep through me, intense and violent. A heartbeat later, he cried out, his body stiffening against mine as he came.

For several minutes neither of us moved. He leaned his forehead against mine, his breathing harsh against my lips.

I smiled, and touched his cheek gently. “If you continue to love me like that for eternity, I will be one contented woman.”

“I do not believe I would have any complaints, either.” He lowered me gently. “As much as I would like to linger here, with you, we should continue with the key search.”

I sighed. “Yes. I’ll just grab a quick shower first.”

He nodded and stepped aside. I padded across to my wardrobe, grabbing underclothing, jeans and a T-shirt, then headed into the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later we were standing in front of Rubin Johnson’s little store, situated in McMahon’s Point, just across the bay from the opera house. The shop itself was one of those quaint, single-front two-story Victorians that were everywhere in Sydney, although this one was in the process of being renovated, if the splashes of paint across the windows were anything to go by.

“
That
is not paint,” Azriel said, voice grim.

I glanced at him sharply, then stepped closer. Unlike the shops on either side, the window here was only half frame rather than full. A wide shelf stretched the length of it, and was lined with necklaces, bracelets. No cuff links, but then, they’d certainly be easier to pocket than the intricate and heavy stone and silver work currently displayed.

The brown splatters I’d presumed were paint had a crusty, cracked look close up, which dried paint didn’t usually get. It was blood – old blood.

My gaze skimmed the jewelry, but none of it appeared to have been splattered. Not that I could see from this angle, anyway. But there were several globs of rusty red near the right end of the shelf and a spray of the stuff up the nearby wall. It was the sort of spray that could happen only when a major artery had been cut.

My gaze jumped to the interior of the shop. It had an open plan, with glass display cabinets lining the long wall to the left and a glass display table situated in the middle of the room. A counter stretched the length of the rear wall and, behind it to the left, a set of wooden stairs led upward. Nothing seemed out of place or disturbed, and there was no sign of anyone – dead or alive.

“That is because the body lies underneath this window. You cannot see it because of the thickness of the shelf.”

“We need to get in there.” I stepped back and scanned the walls. The place was alarmed, but there was no camera, at least out here. I hadn’t noticed one when I was peering in the window, either. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and tried opening the door. “It’s locked. We’ll probably set off the alarm when we go inside, but we should have enough time to examine the body before either the cops or the security firm get here.”

“Then let’s go.”

He caught my hand, and we reappeared just inside the door. The first thing I saw was the alarm panel. Neither the door’s nor the windows’ indicator lights were lit, meaning the system had been switched off. Suggesting, perhaps, that Rubin Johnson had not only known his killer, but had invited him in.

I turned and saw the body. He was barefoot, and wearing an old-fashioned woolen dressing gown that was so well worn the blue check was faded and patchy. He’d been shoved under the shelf like so much rubbish, his limbs at impossible angles to his body.

Azriel walked over and squatted next to him. “He has no head.”

“What?”

He glanced at me, expression neutral but his anger burning through my mind. “His head has been removed.”

“Why the hell would someone remove his head?” I scanned the rest of the room. He’d obviously been killed here – the arterial sprays across the wall and floor were evidence enough of that. “Surely no one would want a trophy 
that
 size.”

Or that macabre.

“I do not think it has anything to do with a trophy, but a means of stopping us. Or rather, me.”

“So you can’t read his thoughts.”

“Yes.”

“Which would imply whoever did this is fully aware a reaper can access the memories of the freshly dead.”

“Yes.”

Meaning Lauren had either realized she was missing the cuff link, or she was simply taking out anyone or anything that could pin down her location. And if the latter, that undoubtedly meant there had been something here that could give away her current whereabouts. Maybe she was a longtime customer.