Gem couldn’t care less about dangerous demons and rogue Guardians.
When Tay told her what happened with Lori and Kynan, Gem hadn’t waited around. All she could think about was finding Ky, and as she moved swiftly through the zoo in the direction he’d gone, she prayed he was okay. That his bitch of a wife hadn’t injured him. That Jagger hadn’t done worse.
When she reached the old tiger habitat, she came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the Aegis leader standing there, shoulders sagging, head bowed. His pain rolled off him in seismic waves, vibrating through her at regular intervals, nine-point-oh-my-God on the anguish scale.
“Kynan?”
He didn’t appear to have heard her, but she knew he had, and she approached carefully.
“She’s gone,” he said, when she eased up next to him. “I can’t find her. Even if I could . . .”
She didn’t think. She simply wrapped her arms around him. The contact made something break inside him, and his legs gave out, dropping them both to their knees. And then he was sobbing and she was holding him, and even though she knew he hated her for what she was, she didn’t care.
For now, the man she loved was in her arms, and somehow, she couldn’t feel guilty for being glad.
Twenty-six
They met up at UG.
Shade had finished mopping up with E and Tayla, had then sent them ahead to the hospital so his brother could get patched up from his encounter with the slayers who’d tried to kill him. Shade had remained behind to find Wraith and Gem.
Wraith had gone MIA, but he’d found Tayla’s sister standing near an old fountain, watching as the man she’d called Kynan walked away. She’d seemed upset, but Shade had no idea why, and really, he didn’t care. Touchy-feely-mushy crap made him uncomfortable.
They traveled through Harrowgates to the hospital, where E and Tayla were tangled together on the couch in the staff lounge. Talk about touchy-feely-mushy crap. They practically glowed with some sort of after-bond bliss, and her new dermoire stood out starkly on the creamy skin of her left arm. Eidolon, dressed in scrubs, sported his own new marking; mated, post-s’genesis males lost the face tats but gained a linked circle around the throat. He had no idea when they’d completed the mating ritual, but it had obviously happened at the zoo—what, somewhere between the apes and the hippos, between fighting demons and slayers?—but Shade was glad. He still wasn’t sure he trusted the Aegi, but she’d saved E from a fate he’d been dreading, had given Shade his brother back.
And speaking of brothers . . .
“Has Wraith shown up?” Shade asked, grabbing a Coke from the fridge.
E shook his head. “He was pretty messed up. I’ve been ringing his cell, but . . .”
“Yeah.” Wraith had probably sucked some junkie dry and gone to ground. If Shade focused, he’d be able to feel his younger brother’s energy, but Wraith would feel it, too, and he’d dig in deeper. “I hope he’s okay.”
The very idea that some sonofabitch might be impersonating Wraith left him wanting to take someone apart. Too bad they hadn’t found any Guardians who were still breathing. Shade wanted answers, and he wanted them now.
He’d never been a patient sort.
“Hey,” Tayla said, extracting herself from E’s embrace. “I guess I need to do that integration thing, huh?”
Her attempt to steer the conversation away from the black hole that was their brother couldn’t have been more obvious, but E grinned. “How about now?”
“Hold on.” Shade moved to the couch. “Can I have your hand?”
E tensed, probably some sort of instinct the bonding had released, but Shade couldn’t be sure. Mated Seminus demons were so rare that he’d never met one and had no idea how they were supposed to react when their mates were near other incubi. Considering how horny incubi were, a protective instinct probably wasn’t a bad idea. Then again, the bonding made it impossible for either one of them to willingly have sex with anyone else.
Tayla reached out, and he took her palm in his. Warmth washed over him as he probed her body, moved through her bloodstream to her womb. This was his specialty, the ability to manipulate a female’s reproductive organs—he could trigger ovulation in order to ensure conception, though he was not yet fertile. His heart rate spiked as he probed, his instincts firing up because even though she was E’s mate, she was female, and she was ovulating. But she hadn’t quickened with his brother’s seed.
“Well?” E asked, his voice husky with emotion.
“Sorry. No little Es in there.”
Tayla pulled her hand away, and he winced at the sudden loss of sensation. “Was there supposed to be?”