Elven Blood (Imp Book 3) (27 page)

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “These things happen all the time. No big deal.”

Holy shit! She
had
murdered—a human, too. And not just any human; Wyatt’s father. She was just like every other hybrid, just like I expected. By Wyatt’s rules, I’d be justified in killing her. Worry gnawed at me. Even with the confession, Wyatt might not agree, and Wyatt aside, I was conflicted myself. Part of me was elated, but another part didn’t want to see her die. Lightning. What else could she do? What other skills did she have?

“You don’t believe me.” She rose to her feet, angry.

“Watch.” She walked over to the barn door and raised her hand. Lightning streaked from her palm and blew a huge chunk off the elm in the pasture. Smoke and pulverized wood filled the air as the limb crashed to the ground. Piper and Vegas raced around the field in a panic, bucking frantically in their efforts to escape the killer tree limb.

“Damn. I rather liked that tree. Although I guess it did need pruning.”

“Did you not see what I did?” Amber rounded on me. I half expected a bolt of lightning to come my way any second. “I just blew up a section of a tree.”

“Sweetie, I’ve been doing that from the moment I was born. Do you want me to blow up the other half? Would that make you feel any better?”

She looked confused. “So, you’re just like me?”

“Well, not exactly. You’re only part demon.”

She looked pale. “A demon? I’m a demon? Is Wyatt one too? Which one of my parents was?”

“Nope. Wyatt’s human. He’s not biologically your brother, but honestly, demons don’t care about that sort of thing. He’s still your brother as far as we’re concerned. It’s kind of complicated. You were placed with your human parents, swapped out for their human baby—kind of like foster care, only they weren’t aware of it.”

Amber shook her head in confusion. “So was my birth mother a demon? My father?”

“With hybrids, the father is always the demon. We are genderless, but we can impregnate a female of any species. So your sire was the demon.”

“Why didn’t my birth mother raise me?”

I patted her on the shoulder. “See, that’s the problem. The demon part of you is no big deal. Lots of humans have demon somewhere in their ancestry. Hybrids don’t have a lot of power, so the angels don’t make too much of a fuss. Your mother is the problem. She’s an elf.”

Amber’s eyebrows practically hit the ceiling. “Okay. Now I’m thinking you’re crazy. There are no such things as elves. Not in the North Pole, not in hollow trees making shortbread. No elves.”

“Right. There are no elves here. That’s part of the issue. The elves live in Hel, side by side with the demons. They don’t take kindly to mixing the gene pool. Your elf mother tucked you safely away over here so her friends and family wouldn’t kill you.”

We’d gone from “wow, I’m a demon,” to “wow, my brother’s girlfriend is insane.” Amber was beginning to regard me like she needed to shoot me full of electricity and make a break for it.

“You know, it was really nice meeting you. Very enlightening. Look at the time. I really need to get going, and I’m sure you want to get back to your orgy.”

Amber edged slowly toward the door. I’d found a shovel, and snatched it up, blocking her exit. I couldn’t let her leave until I’d decided what to do.

“The circumstances of your birth leaked out, and your elf mother is now in prison. The elves want you dead, your body returned so they can cover it all up.”

She halted, her eyes wary, hands twitching by her side. “You’re crazy. Insane. Mother was right. I should have never come here.”

I ran a hand through my hair. “You seem like a nice girl, and with you being Wyatt’s sister and all . . . I really don’t want to kill you, but it’s better I kill you than take you back to the elves for them to do it.”

“Don’t do it,” she begged, her voice soft and persuasive, the pheromones flowing. “Just let me go.”

I wavered. I wanted to let her go, and it had nothing to do with the faint succubi–like essence. There was a reason I was staying my hand, and I just couldn’t figure out why.

Amber took advantage of my moment of inattention and shot me with a bolt of electricity that would have killed a human. Instinctively I swung the shovel, but instead of hitting her it swooshed through the air throwing me off balance and numbing my arm as it rang against the barn wall. She was fast. Damned elves. As if that wasn’t enough, she hit me with another huge blast of electricity.

“Ouch! Bitch! Cut it out!”

Amber flitted around the barn at a ridiculous speed. “Seriously? You want me to hold still while you bash my brains out? Not likely.”

She continued to shoot painful volts into my flesh while I attempted to deflect them with the shovel. They wouldn’t kill me, but it really fucking hurt. Finally I tossed the shovel aside and prepared to launch my own energy at her. I really didn’t want to, but I wasn’t about to run around with a shovel while she cooked my ass. Luckily I hit with the first strike, and she dropped down from the rafters with a shriek. Before she could recover, I was on her, trying to hold her steady.

“Just calm down and listen to me,” I shouted as she struggled, continuing to send small sparks into my skin.

“No,” she snarled, and I saw the demon behind the elf.

Amber was panicked, desperate. She’d murdered once, and I knew she’d do it again. There would come a time when she would lose control, and people would die. But when I looked into her eyes I saw the threads of her future before me, like a cobweb of possibilities. Spots glowed, highlighted, and I knew there were significant things this supposed abomination should do. If I killed her, all that would disappear, perhaps taken up by another, or perhaps lost forever.

I made my decision. I don’t know what happened as I straddled her, but something bloomed up inside me. Killing her would be wrong. I couldn’t do it even if she had murdered Wyatt’s father, even if she were predisposed to kill again. I couldn’t sacrifice this girl in order to avoid confronting Haagenti. Her life for mine? I couldn’t do it.

With that realization came a surge of despair. Haagenti. I had no way out, no option left but to face him, and face what would certainly be my death. I knew what the probable outcome would be. It was time to say goodbye to my long vacation. Goodbye to Wyatt and my friends, and face the end of my life like a big girl.

I loosened my grip to let Amber go, only to feel something hard smash into my side, knocking me off her.

“Son of a bitch,” I exclaimed, fixing the broken ribs as I looked up. It was Wyatt. And he was pissed.

“Sam, why are you pinning down my sister?”

I’d never seen Wyatt look this way at me. Cold, furious, suspicious. He held my discarded shovel, ready to smack me again. He’d always trusted me, supported me in all my demon weirdness. He’d helped me kill demons, broken all kinds of Internet security laws for me, shot an angel in the head to protect me. He was the one being I trusted to always back me up, no matter how crazy things got. But he’d found me struggling with his sister, and all that had fallen away.

“I wasn’t,” I stammered. “I mean, I thought about it, but I decided not to. I’m not Wyatt. I won’t do it.”

“Wyatt, she’s trying to kill me,” Amber wailed, jumping up and running to hide behind her brother. She was working the faint succubus pheromones as well for the helpless little sister angle.

“I can’t kill her, Wyatt,” I told him. I was miserable that he needed to know. “But you need to know that she’s the hybrid. I realized it the moment I saw her.”

Wyatt was stunned. He shook his head. “No. I was there when they brought her home from the hospital. I saw her grow up. You’re wrong.”

“Check the list, Wyatt. I’m sure she’s on it. She can’t get into your house. She can’t get past the demon barrier. I had to hide her from Leethu. It’s her.”

“I won’t let you kill her,” Wyatt said, his voice firm with resolve. “She’s my sister, and she’s done nothing wrong. You promised me, Sam. You promised me you wouldn’t kill the hybrid unless she’d murdered. How could you betray my trust like this?”

“She did kill, Wyatt. She murdered your father. Electricity. You’ve seen me create lightning. Well, your sister can too.”

Wyatt shook his head again, and turned to look at his sister, who was still cowering behind him. “No. It was accident. Wasn’t it Amber?”

She looked at the ground, squirming under his scrutiny. “I was just a child, Wyatt. He was mean. I haven’t done it since.”

I would have done anything to have spared Wyatt the pain that shot across his face. “He wasn’t mean, Amber. Yes, he had his faults, but he was a wonderful father, and I loved him. How could you kill him? Our own father.”

Tears glistened in the girl’s beautiful eyes. “I was five, Wyatt. Five. You saw how devastated I was afterwards, how many years of counseling I went through.”

He stared down at her, weighing her words. “I won’t let you kill her, Sam. Or turn her over to the elves. No matter what she’s done, she’s still my sister. I’ll live my whole life with that stupid barrier, killing off Haagenti’s thugs. Tell them you couldn’t find her. I don’t care what you tell them, you’re not taking my sister.”

I ran my hands through my hair. There was no good way to say any of this.

“Wyatt, I swear to you I’m not going to kill her. I planned on it, but I’m not now. There’s a bigger problem, though. Don’t you see? The elves won’t give up. Others will come to track her down, and it’s a miracle no one has discovered her so far. Any demon that gets within twenty feet of her can tell. A werewolf a mile downwind can tell. And if she stumbles across a vampire? They’ll be on her faster than a fat man on a Hot Pocket.”

I took a few steps toward Wyatt, wanting to wrap my arms around him, wanting to rub my face against his chest and smell his warm, human smell. He backed up, brandishing the shovel, and something inside me broke. Oh please no. Not this.

Amber peeked out from behind her brother. “Is she telling the truth? Am I really some kind of elf/demon freak? I’ll be walking down the street one day, minding my own business, and someone is going to jump me and rip me apart?”

“I’ll protect you,” Wyatt said desperately. “You’ll be okay.”

“How, Wyatt?” I asked. “She can’t get in your house; she’s half demon. Are you going to seal her up in a vault somewhere? Hidden away, safe from everyone? What kind of life is that? Death would be better.”

“You’re just saying that to save your own skin,” Wyatt snapped. “I know how you are, Sam. I love you, but I’m not blind. Kill her, turn her over to the elves, and get Haagenti off your back. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you won’t consider any other alternative that might actually take effort or possibly put your own self at risk.”

“I’m not going to kill her! Not killing her. Not, not, not!” I yelled.

His accusations were really unfair. I’d put myself at risk over and over for him. I’d put my neck out for Candy, for Dar, and for a bunch of smelly homeless people that I didn’t even know. But I understood. He’d discovered horrible truths about the little sister he loved, found me straddling her as she tried to fight me off. It was a shock, and right now I looked a lot like the villain. Heck, maybe I was.

“Then consider some alternatives. Help me think of a way to keep her safe. For me.”

I’d do anything for Wyatt. Attack an ancient angel to protect him, fight off a hoard of assassin demons, kill my own brother if need be. I’d help him protect his sister, and then I would turn myself over to Haagenti for probable execution. Wyatt would finally be safe.

“I’m listening.” I sat down on a hay bale and opened another beer. “Bring on the alternatives.”

Wyatt looked bleak. “Maybe Candy can hide her with one of her werewolf packs. No one would think to look for her there. And they can defend her against any humans or demons the elves send.”

“Would they risk violating their existence contract over this?” I asked him softly. “She’s part succubus. How long could a young werewolf resist her? How long before she falls in love with one of them?”

Wyatt’s face fell. He was clearly desperate, out of options.

“Stop discussing me as if I were a package or something,” Amber said, stepping out from behind Wyatt. “I’m going back to college tomorrow, going on with my life. I’m not going to live cloistered away in a fortress, or foisted off on people I don’t know.”

“Sam’s right,” Wyatt told her. “You’ve been lucky so far, but you’ll be in even more danger now that the elves know about your existence. They’ll be looking for you.”

I admired her gumption, and I got the feeling she was going to do whatever she wanted, regardless of what either Wyatt or I said.

“Sam, what can we do to convince the elves she’s dead?”

I had only one option left, and if it worked, it might solve both our problems. “We need to check and make sure there isn’t another Joseph Barakel,” I told Wyatt. “If so, then I need to kill him. He’s the real risk here, the link that someone can trace to Amber.”

“No,” Wyatt’s voice was firm. “I’m not helping you find and kill another human. I’m not. No more killing humans, Sam.”

I bit back my words. His sister’s life was on the line, and he wouldn’t let me kill this one guy to protect her? I’d never be able to find this guy on my own. I’d better just hope he was already dead of natural causes.

“Okay. I’ll try and see if I can get the elves to think she’s already dead. I’ll dig up an elf baby changeling from the same time frame; try to fake a demon energy signature in the corpse. We might be able to convince the elves that the baby really was dead all along. They’ll call off the hunt, and even if someone picks it up again, the trail will lead to a dead end.”

Wyatt looked hopeful. “Amber will still need to stay clear of vampires, demons and werewolves, but that will be less of a risk once the elves no longer have a bounty on her head.”

I nodded. “I’ll give her some ideas on how she can bring her abilities out, so she can better defend herself.” If I ever made it back alive from Hel, that is.

“Thank you, Sam,” he said, but his words lacked the warmth they’d always had before.

I left them alone and walked back into the house. I’d lied. I was positive the dead elf baby wouldn’t pass, that the whole ruse wouldn’t work, but I’d give it a shot, do what I could to make sure Amber was safe. I’d do it for Wyatt. Then I’d walk right out into demon lands and face Haagenti. I’d never see Wyatt again, but I wasn’t sure how he felt about me after tonight anyway.