Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson #11)(40)

We walked in the dark a ways, the chill less chilly with Reyes near. It was like having my own personal traveling heater and latte maker. The man could make a latte.

Also, he’d given me his jacket. It was like a huge, comfy blanket, and it smelled like him. I struggled to keep from molding it to my face and breathing him in.

Since I had no idea how we were going to get home—Reyes basically teleported over—I turned to him. “So,” I said, my breath fogging on the air, “any idea how we’re getting back?”

We’d stopped in a grove of trees, and Reyes was leaning against one, watching me. Studying.

When he spoke, it was with that same Scottish lilt. The one that melted my knees. And my panties. Mostly my panties.

“Come here, lass.”

I did. How could I not? He pulled me into his arms, where it was warm and safe.

“Care to tell me what happened?” he asked in his normal accent. Oddly enough, it still worked for me.

I shrugged. If he wanted a conversation, he’d get one. “Care to tell me why you want me to drop the Foster case?”

He tensed and looked off into the distance but said nothing.

“How about the fact that you’re a god. I mean, you just found out. What do you think? What do you remember?”

Silence again.

“What about the god glass? It’s clearly upsetting you that I have it.”

Nothing.

I pushed out of his arms and walked to a brook. The moon overhead glinted on the bubbling water. “Okay, we can always talk about the promise you made to Michael. Do you remember that?”

When I turned back, he was watching me again, his dark eyes glistening as though the moon danced inside them.

“You promised him you’d get all three gods of Uzan off the plane. He tricked you, since you had no idea at the time that you were one of the three. But is there like a loophole? How are we going to get around that?” I waited, but not long. “And speaking of the god glass, there are innocent souls trapped in there. Now they are trapped with an assassin demon named Kuur and a malevolent god, Mae’eldeesahn. I have to get them out. I’ve been racking my brain, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what a hell dimension is like.”

At that point, I was more or less voicing my stream of consciousness. If he didn’t want to chat with me, I’d chat with me. I was excellent company.

“And, according to Kuur, the only way to get a soul out is to open the pendant and say the person’s name, but only the one who put them in there in the first place can release them. If that’s the case, we are seriously screwed. Not to mention the fact that we don’t know any of their names.”

I cursed the sadistic priest who’d condemned all those people to a hell dimension in the 1400s. What would they be like now? Would they even still be there? Would there be anything left of their sanity to salvage? I had no idea what six hundred years in a hell dimension would do to one’s psyche, but it couldn’t be good.

“You know, I was thinking about my in-laws.” I strolled closer, craving his heat. And his scent. And the power that continuously hummed through him like an infinite source of energy. “You know, from your supernatural side? By being married to you, I am Satan’s daughter-in-law, Jehovah’s sister-in-law, and Jesus’s aunt by marriage. We’re like the ultimate nuclear family. Oh, and do you know what a god eater is? Apparently I showed something to ADA Nick Parker, something prophetical, and he called me a god eater.”

I turned away from him, breaking the spell he was trying to cast.

“Also, hell is going to freeze over, so that’s apparently a real thing.”

“They didn’t deserve me.”

I whirled around. He’d finally dropped his gaze. “Who didn’t deserve you?”

“The Loehrs.”

I stepped closer, confused. The Loehrs were his birth parents. His human birth parents. He’d chosen them out of all the people in the world to be a part of. And now they were Beep’s guardians, caring for her and loving her like nobody else could.

“Reyes, they’re good people. They’re going to take care of Beep as if she were—”

“Exactly. Good. They didn’t deserve me. Bad. The Fosters did them a favor.”

As his words sank in, I began to understand his misgivings about my taking the case. “So, you think that what they did was okay?”

“I think they did the right thing.”

“The right thing?” I put my hand on his chest. “Is that what this is all about?”

He didn’t answer yet again. His jaw flexed under the weight of his stress.

“I think they have the ability to see into the supernatural realm. Not totally, but just enough to—”

“Know evil when they see it?”

He stuffed his hands in his pocket. “No. I just think that’s how they target their victims. You’ve talked to them, I take it? To Mr. Foster, too?”

“Yes. I went to his office this morning.”

“They’ll adore you,” he said. “Like they do Shawn.”

“Shawn? Why? What does he…?”

He’d turned away from me. His profile with its perfect angles and sensual curves almost glowed in the warm light of a yellow moon. It cast shadows where his lashes fanned across his cheeks. The effect was stunning.