Sapphires and Desires (The Gem Fairy Series Book 1) (11 page)

“Damon?” I ask loudly. “Are you okay?” I shake him harshly.

His eyes open ever so slightly then close tightly. “Get out of here,” he murmurs.

“No, what’s wrong?” I ask him.

He didn’t drink
that
much last night, did he? Then I remember what he said before I left to go get Geoff’s clothes last night. He’d said that he was weak. Could he possibly be so weak that he passed out and couldn’t get up?

“Starving. Leave now.” he mumbles.

“I just ordered pizza, it should be here in thirty minutes.”

“No…not food…” he says slurring.

Duh. Why would he want food? That wasn’t going to help him get off of the floor.

“Get out now,” he says louder this time. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

I sigh. I can’t just leave him here to…what…die? Why was he being so dramatic? I lean down and place my lips on his softly. His eyes open automatically and he tries to push me off of him but he’s so weak that he can’t even manage that much. His eyes open wider and he tries harder to push me off.

“Stop it,” I say and kiss him harder.

He tries to say something in protest but I ignore him. Then as if he’s truly starving, he begins kissing me back harshly with hunger. It’s almost like he’s dying of thirst and I’m a big ol’ cup of icy cold water. I pull away and slide his shirt off. His glamour hits hard and strong as he finally let’s go of his last restraint. I tug off his pants and he pulls me back on top of him, already getting stronger.

When the pizza guy shows up I’m almost too exhausted to get the door. I lay naked on the bathroom floor, my eyes uncontrollably closing.

“Sorry, love. Didn’t mean to drain you like that.” He apologizes and pulls his pants back on so he can get the door.

A moment later he returns with a box of steamy hot pizza. He gets a slice out and shoves it into my mouth. I take the hint and chew it quickly, I’m starving. I grab it from him and stuff the rest of it into my face.

“Hungry are we?” he teases grabbing another slice for me.

“Starving…” I mimic him in a raspy voice.

He laughs and sits down beside me.

“I wasn’t that dramatic.” He argues.

I look at him with a ‘are you joking’ eyebrow raise and he laughs again landing a kiss on my lips.

I look at him with surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “That was out of line.”

I nod slowly and the smile on my face disappears. I’m fine with the casual sex slash sex to save your life thing but I don’t know this man and as much as he may love me I do not love him, I don’t know him. A part of me feels bad. I mean how hard would it be to love someone your whole life and then one day they don’t remember you? It would fricken suck.

“How is Geoff doing?” I ask him sitting up and changing the subject...

“Well…he’s still breathing. Healing, obviously. I think he’s well on his way to recovery. He’s very lucky. Very. He very easily could’ve bled out before we even got there last night.” He tells me.

“Do you think he’ll wake up soon?” I ask him.

“Yes. Hopefully in the next couple hours.”

Damon leaves the room and I finish off my second piece of pizza before jumping in the shower. I make sure that the water is so hot that it burns my skin, if you ask me, there’s no other way to shower. I love the hot water. My shower is cut short by a knock on the door.

I turn the shower off so I don’t have to shout over the running water,

“Hello?” I ask.

“He’s awake,” Damon says.

I quickly jump out and throw on my clothes, wrapping a towel around my wet hair.

When I make it out to the rest of the apartment Geoff is awake and sitting up.

“Well you sure look like a drowned rat, Laytah.” Geoff teases.

I smile and ignore his joke. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“What the hell happened? I remember having a bunch of fun at the club then I remember waking up bloody in the dark and calling you and then well…I sort of remember you guys uh giving me a shower…” he trails off and then stares at Damon like he’s some sort of freak.

“Dude, I don’t know what drug you gave me last night in the shower but holy man was that ever a trip. Hey, so what the hell was I totally over reacting about the blood? How am I not dead or in the hospital or at the very least where is my stab wound?” He asks.
Drug
? I then remember the blood Damon gave him, could that be what he’s talking about.

“Well, uh…
dude.
You were lying in someone else’s blood. You were just drugged that’s all.” Damon says emphasizing the word ‘dude’ as though he’s never heard it.

“Oh shiiiiit. Really? I’m such a baby. I kind of wanted a big old stab wound to show my friends though.” He jokes. Well I’m actually not sure if he’s joking.

“No joke about people slipping things into drinks in clubs then, hey? Thought that only happened to women.” Geoff shakes his head and reaches for a slice of pizza from Damon.

“Uh yeah…” Damon replies awkwardly while handing him the whole box of pizza.

Geoff bites into it and spits it out. “Bleh what is wrong with this pizza?” he gags.

I raise my eyebrows in confusion. My pieces tasted fine.

“It tastes like chloroform.” He spits.

“May I ask how you know what chloroform tastes like?” I ask him teasing,

He just laughs. “Seriously, what’s up with the pizza?”

I take his chewed on piece and take a bite. Tastes fine.

“It’s fine…” I say slowly. “Since when are you picky about pizza?” I ask him.

He shrugs. “Believe me I’m not picky about pizza. I’d eat almost anything right now I’m so hungry but that is absolutely disgusting. Hey wait a minute…how did we get to Philly?” He asks suddenly realizing where we are.

“We drove here over night. Thought you might want to get ready for your third semester. You know, and get out of your parents’ house.” I suddenly hope he doesn’t have to work today.

“Weren’t you guys drunk? How did you drive?” He asks.

“No I only had two shots.” I lie. He only saw me have two anyways.

He nods. “I work tomorrow but I can call in sick. “

Chapter 7

The next few days fly by like something else. Geoff finishes up getting prepared for his next semester and does his laundry and cleans his apartment, as per my request. Then Damon runs him back home in a car that I have no idea where it came from. Geoff still looked insanely pale when he left but I guess that’s what happens when you lose so much blood. He still refused to eat much of anything and claimed that his stomach just wasn’t up to it yet. I really didn’t blame him. He drank a lot of water ate a couple puddings, again, as per my request. Damon glamoured him to forget about the lady he met at the club, thankfully. Geoff promised he’d come back in a couple weeks when he’s done working over the break and help me move my stuff out of my apartment before it gets moved by the school. Where I’m moving it to is the next question.

Damon disappears for a couple days, says he has some important business to deal with and I only hope that he means dealing with that crazy vampire that bit Geoff but I somehow doubt it. Having a couple days all to myself makes everything seem almost normal again until one morning I wake up with my whole body tingling like when your foot falls asleep except for my whole body. It lasts for about an hour before it stops and then I can suddenly hear people down on the street talking. I mean like I suddenly have some freakish super hearing. Which was kind of cool for the first couple hours as I listened in on some pretty weird conversations but it wasn’t so cool after that when I was trying to fall asleep and could hear everyone in the building doing stuff till three in the morning and then woke up at six to the annoying chatter again. And it isn’t just chatter I hear, it’s the clinking of plates, TVs, toilets flushing, people having sex, microwaving food, farting. Yeah okay, I think I’ve made my point. It sucks to have super hearing even though it sounds awesome.

When Damon finally returns he helps me control it…a little. I wonder how he could stand to be in that club with the blasting music all night. We spend the next week hanging out, you know shopping, watching movies, playing board game and turns out I really like the guy. He’s not just sexy, he’s fun, cute, tough, sensitive, brave, strong, funny, and everything you could ever want in a man. Guess that’s why I married him back in the day. For those few days with him, we don’t talk about the fae, or anything out of
my
world. It’s nice. I wish it could always be like this. If things were normal and we were normal, I can’t help but wonder if Damon would make a good boyfriend. But I don’t have time for that now. Funny how I shot him and then days later decide he might be good boyfriend material. Yeah, my life is pretty messed up right now.

“Hey, you’re cheating.” I accuse him with a giggle.

“How?” he asks with a smirk.

“You can’t do that. You have to move your guy here.” I explain moving his player over three spaces.

“Why?” He questions. I know that he’s faking dumb, I know he knows the rules because we’ve played this game a million times in the last couple days.

“Because…you can’t go backwards unless you roll a six. Anyways, why would you even want to move backwards? Those rolls are meant to make you lose. You can’t get to the finish by going backwards.” I cry.

“Why not? It’s closer behind me than it is ahead of me.” He laughs.

“Uggh.” I exaggerate.

“You complain a lot you know that?” He teases.

I shrug and we are silent for a moment.

“So… when are you going to tell me that we have to leave?” I ask him.

“Leave?”

“Yeah back to
your
world.” I elaborate.

He sighs. “
Our
world. And soon. Another week maybe. “As you found out, time moves slower in
our
world. A month is equal to about two days. So really we’ve only been gone for half a day we’ve only been here for a little over a week I believe.”

“So if I went to Andaglon and stayed there for six uh
fae
months would I look almost 8 years older than I was when I went?” I ask.

“No. You would look only six human months older. But technically you are done aging so you wouldn’t age at all.”

“Done aging?” I ask confused.

“Yes, as soon as you were in the accident a week ago you stopped aging.”

I sigh, surprised that my head hasn’t exploded from all this talk about the impossible over the past week. I usually can’t deal with homework assignments without anxiety how am I dealing with all this?

As if reading my mind, Damon places his hand on top of mine on the rug.

“It’s a lot to take in, I know. I’m trying to help with the anxiety but did you know that your anxiety spikes harder than anyone I know?” He laughs.

“What do you mean? I have an anxiety disorder. So yeah, I do know.” I admit sheepishly. Admitting that my brain doesn’t work properly isn’t something I like to tell people.

“Ah, that is obvious. I’ve been using a little glamour to keep your nerves down. Keep you from well…shooting me again.”

So that’s why I’m so creepily calm? Why I haven’t balled my eyes out or smashed lamps or thrown things? I’m being compelled not to? Suddenly I’m angry.

“Whoa, calm down.” He urges squeezing my hand.

I pull it away and stand up from the ground kicking the board game just because I can. Not because I’m
that
angry but because I want to prove to him that he cannot control all of my emotion. He is not
god
.

“No!” I shout causing a scene or well maybe it could better be described as a temper tantrum I’m not sure. “Stop controlling me.” I say.

“Why? So you can throw more things? Shoot me again? Try and climb off of a cliff again? You’re psycho.” He says rolling his eyes.

“Am not! Not my fault that my life’s turned to shit in the last week.” I cry.

He stands up and grabs my wrists as I’m about the throw a textbook into the floor. I’m not normally a violent person, and I don’t think that in this moment I am necessarily being violent. I am more or less trying to prove the point that he doesn’t control my emotions but it’s ultimately backfiring and making me look like a psycho spazz. Why wouldn’t he let go of my emotions?

I stop my tantrum and sit on the edge of my bed. He sits next to me, a little closer than I find comfortable. Especially because I’m angry at him.