Judy blushed. “You are a such a flirt, Kynan Morgan. Does Lori know that about you?”
“It’s why she loves me.” He lit up, as he always did when he talked about his wife, and Gem sighed. His bone-deep loyalty to Lori was one of the most attractive things about him. She couldn’t fathom how it would feel to have someone love her like that. Being a half-breed in a world where both humans and demons valued pure blood over all else left her on the lonely outskirts of society.
Even her own parents liked to pretend she was pure demon, and when small things reminded them of her mixed parentage, their unintentionally hurtful comments left her longing for the company of someone who understood.
A commotion at the bus stop up the block snapped her out of her pathetic musings. A man was shouting at the people waiting with him. They were backing up, he was advancing . . . and then he turned and looked directly at Gem.
“What choo lookin’ at, bitch?” He swaggered toward the ambulance, his loose-limbed gait a theatrical show of arrogance.
“Go back to what you were doing, buddy,” Kynan said, his voice low and soothing, but edged with warning.
The guy whipped out a gun from the waistband of his sweatpants and leveled it sideways at Ky. “Fuck you, man.”
Gem held her breath. She could handle this, but doing so would reveal secrets best kept that way.
Kynan’s pleasant, let’s-deal expression turned into something deadly and cold. A shiver of both unease and feminine appreciation rippled through her, and she realized that even after knowing him for two years, this was the first time she’d seen the military man he’d once been.
“Give me the gun,” he said, “and you might walk away from this.”
“I ain’t stupid, you motherf—”
Kynan struck, a serpent uncoiling in a lethal blur. The man’s shocked curse ended in a grunt as Kynan took him to the pavement, face-down. In a matter of seconds, Kynan was standing over the man, holding the gun, one booted foot crunched down on his neck.
“Call the police,” he said in a honeyed, easy drawl. As though he disarmed lunatics every day.
Gem sprang into action like a seasoned soldier following a superior’s command. Geez, she had it bad for him. The cops must have been a block over, because by the time she hung up with the 911 dispatcher, a cruiser was rounding the corner. The cops spent about five minutes taking a report, and then they gathered up the stunned thug and took off.
“You’re kinda handy to have around,” Gem said, after the cops were gone, and Judy, her hands shaking visibly as she stuffed condoms into baggies like a robot on an assembly line, agreed with an enthusiastic nod.
Kynan shrugged. “That guy was so out of it he probably couldn’t have pulled the trigger if he’d wanted to.”
He was being modest, but his take-down had probably prevented disaster.
Her cell phone rang with a jaunty jingle. “One second.” She flipped it open, hoping Eidolon had finally gotten off his ass and called back. She’d left him several messages, though most had been with Wraith, who was about as reliable as a witch doctor’s miracle cure. “Doctor Endri.”
“Hello, Gem.”
The voice froze the fluid in her spine. With forced casualness, she turned away from the others and lowered her voice. “I told you, no. I’ll never help you.”
“Your parents would like you to reconsider. They’re begging, in fact.”
The air exploded from Gem’s lungs in a painful burst. The ability to speak went with her breath, and for a moment it was all she could do to stand upright.
Shock made her fingers clumsy, and she fumbled the phone, nearly dropping it.
“You bastard,” she whispered. “What did you do to them? Where are they?”
The line went dead, and she sagged against the ambulance, cold sweat beading on her skin. What now? God, what now?
“You okay, Gem?” Kynan was watching her, concern darkening his eyes to nearly black. “Anything I can do?”
She pasted on a fragile smile. “I’m fine. Thank you.” She turned to Judy, whose expression of worry matched Kynan’s. “Can you take me to the hospital so I can pick up my car? I have a family matter to attend to.”
Six
Tayla and Eidolon had ridden through the city in silence for half an hour, since she’d grown tired of arguing. Eventually, he made her hold the gemstone artifact again until they arrived at a run-down apartment complex, that, as scroungy as it was, didn’t compare to the slum where she lived.