Ruby Shadows Read online

  I sat up in bed, careful not to wake her just yet, and took the sacrificial knife and the plate I’d left out on my nightstand. Carefully I made the cut in my wrist, wincing as the bitterly cold blade bit into my flesh. I made eggs, pancakes, bacon, fresh fruit and a grapefruit half appear before placing the plate on a silver tray I had conjured and wrapping my wrist in a clean handkerchief to heal. Gwendolyn had missed both lunch and dinner the night before and I wanted her to have plenty of fuel to keep going today—we had a long road to travel ahead of us.

  And nothing but heartbreak at the end of it.

  * * * * *

  Gwendolyn

  “Wake up, mon ange. Breakfast is served.”

  The smell of breakfast food, warm and comforting, tickled my nose and I stretched in the big luxurious bed Laish had carried me to the night before after he’d finished making me come. I’d fallen asleep in his arms, my head pillowed on his broad chest as he stroked my hair and whispered how much he cared for me.

  It was one of the sweetest, most tender moments I’d ever shared with anyone in my life and it had been with a demon. I told myself that wasn’t right but then again, I’d also shared the hottest sexual experience of my life with Laish as well. Letting him go down on me and make me come had been more erotic than anything I’d ever imagined and more deliciously addictive than I would have believed possible. Already I wanted his hands and mouth on me again—though I knew I shouldn’t.

  Just remembering the pleasure he’d given me made my toes curl and my pussy throb—but it also sent a wave of guilt washing over me.

  Shouldn’t have done it, whispered a little voice in my head.

  Had to do it, I argued to myself. There was no other way.

  And is that what you’re going to say when you get to the last barrier—‘Oh well, I just have to fuck him? There’s no other way?’

  I pushed the thought away with some difficulty. It was true, we were getting to the end of our long road today. Laish had told me the night before that once we entered the Sunless Sea, it was only a few hours journey to the last barrier—the one that separated us from the Abyss. And once we were there I would have to make some tough choices—choices I didn’t want to think about now.

  “Breakfast, Gwendolyn. Aren’t you hungry?”

  Laish’s deep voice and the warm smells of delicious food tugged me—I let them pull me out of my worry and guilt and tried to put my doubts and fears aside.

  Opening my eyes at last, I sat up and saw that he was standing beside the bed, holding a silver tray. He was wearing another one of his immaculate suits—a black one with a red power tie that made him look like a Wall Street billionaire. But it was the tray that drew my eyes. On it was a veritable feast and a small vase with a single red rose in it. My somewhat battered Zephyrhills bottle was there too, looking plastic and cheap next to the gleaming silver and snowy linen napkin.

  “Wow—this looks amazing,” I said as Laish sat it down in front of me. “Breakfast in bed—what did I do to deserve this?”

  He propped some pillows behind my back and smiled.

  “Nothing—merely trusted me.”

  “Trusted you?” I frowned and then his meaning sank in. “Oh, you mean to…” I felt my cheeks get hot as I remembered all over again exactly how much trust I had placed in him, spreading my thighs and letting him lick me…

  “Don’t get flustered, Gwendolyn,” he murmured, handing me a fork. “Just eat.”

  “Fine.” Trying to cover my confusion, I took a big bite of scrambled eggs. They were delicious—fluffy and light with just a hint of salt and pepper—just how I liked them.

  “Is it good?” Laish asked, pouring a little syrup on my pancakes.

  “Amazing,” I said, going for another bite.

  “I am glad. You had next to nothing to eat yesterday—you must be starving.”

  “I am,” I said. “I feel like I could eat a horse. Or—”

  Then I stopped with a forkful of scrambled eggs halfway to my mouth when I remembered exactly why I hadn’t eaten much the day before.

  “Or?” Laish raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Did you hurt yourself to make this for me?” I asked suspiciously. “I know you did, Laish. You got it all ready before I woke up so I couldn’t protest about you cutting yourself, didn’t you?”

  “Don’t be silly—I simply wanted to serve you breakfast in bed,” he said lightly.

  I frowned. “I don’t want you to do that anymore—I don’t like the idea of you having awful pain just to feed me.”

  He frowned back. “Gwendolyn, be reasonable. I cannot let you starve. And besides, it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as Belial led you to believe.”

  “That’s not what you said last night,” I accused. “You said—”

  “Your food is getting cold, mon ange,” he said, rising from the side of the bed where he’d been sitting. “Think of this, if it did give me pain to prepare it for you, then it would be very remiss of you to waste it in arguing when you could have been putting my sacrifice to good use.”

  “Fine,” I muttered, spearing another bite of eggs, since the one on my fork had gotten cold. “But at least tell me how you do it. Why is it that you can make food that won’t damn me with your own blood? You never really explained it before.”

  He sighed and sat back down on the bed again.

  “It has to do with the fact that I was not always as you see me. And no—I will not discuss what I was with you now—we have too much to do. But when I make the Sacrifice of Blood for you, I am drawing on that small part inside me that is still the original being I was created as. There are a few—a very few—drops of good still within me. These are what I use to make the food for you. It is not my blood—though it looks like it—but the few pure drops of my essence that I am transmuting into sustenance for you.”

  “But…won’t you use up all your goodness—I mean, all that you have left—feeding me? If you’ve only got a few drops?” I asked anxiously.

  He shook his head. “Actually, the reverse is true. Each time I sacrifice for you—each time I bear pain for the sake of another—the good in me is multiplied. So technically I could continue feeding you in this way forever. Because good begets good as evil begets evil.”

  “Oh.” I cut a piece of pancake and chewed it thoughtfully. “So does it hurt because you’re having to separate the good out from the evil?”

  “Something like that.” He patted my knee. “And now, please just eat. We have a very long day ahead of us. I will leave some clothing for you in the bathroom and I suggest you take a nice, hot shower before we go. It is likely to be the last one you get while you remain in the Infernal Realm.”

  I did as he suggested. After finishing my breakfast—I really was starving—I took a hot, refreshing shower and then changed into the clothing he’d provided. Today’s outfit consisted of a long, silky sleeveless gown of white with a pattern of blood red flowers on it. It had a slit up either thigh to make riding easier and there was also a hooded, long-sleeved traveling cloak in dove gray to go over it. For shoes I was still wearing my little black ballet flats but Laish must’ve had someone clean and mend them thoroughly. They looked like new but when I slipped them on, they still fit me with the comfort of perfectly broken in shoes.

  Eryn settled on my shoulder, looking like a delicate snowflake on the dove gray cloak, as I packed the spell books and the book on angels Laish had said I could keep in my leather satchel. I was tempted to go back to the library and look for more but it really wasn’t practical to lug so many heavy books around Hell. Reluctantly, I decided to make do with what I had.

  Descending the spiral stair case I couldn’t help hearing voices floating up from the bottom floor.

  “I tell you, my Lord, Druaga is insisting on having a hearing and I think the Council of Elder Demons is going to agree to it.” It was Belial’s voice—I was certain.

  “He has no case against me.” Laish sounded bored and preoccupied. “Once they r