Shadow took a step back, filling his lungs with air, as if the accusation had physically thrown him off-balance. “I am human now, and my own person.”
Rev squinted. “Not for long.”
Jake cleared his throat. “About that… You said the ruby keeps you alive. Does it mean you’d stay with us longer if you ate another one?”
“Too bad we don’t have any to spare,” Rev said, without a hint of remorse.
Gray’s first instinct was snap at his father, because there was no need to be unnecessarily cruel, but then the meaning behind the words sank in, and he discreetly glanced at Shadow, sensing a cold emptiness somewhere deep inside him. Was Shadow capable of understanding that his time was limited and what it really meant?
The way light died in his ruby-tinted eyes suggested he did. Or had it just dawned on him now?
Chapter 15
The second the banana reached Gray’s mouth, Shadow became so flustered he gasped. Gray was eating it, not sucking on it, but its shape still brought back so many fond memories of lips on Shadow’s cock.
Gray’s lips. Now devouring a banana.
Gray was looking into the distance where the Lowe Estate loomed while Shadow sat at his feet by the bike. He wasn’t allowed on the vehicle on his own, but riding on it behind Gray was all he wanted anyway.
Shadow would have preferred to watch Gray eat bananas all day, but they were here to work, so he’d learned a lot about the human world in the past two days of reconnaissance at the estate.
The owner of the Pigeon Heart, Bill Lowe, was a private man. After making his fortune on Wall Street, he pretty much retired and was dividing his time between properties in the Bahamas, Europe, and his main home in the state of New York. But despite occasionally staying in a Manhattan apartment for shopping and other entertainments the city provided, Lowe much preferred a so-called quiet country life. In his case that constituted extensive golfing, which was basically pushing a ball into a hole with a stick.
The Pigeon Heart had been a gift from Lowe’s former business partner, who’d offered it to him almost fifty years ago, when rubies hadn’t been that rare or expensive. But the gem had significantly risen in value since Mr. Magpie had started taking off them off the market in preparation to fight his creator, so armed guards patrolled the property at all times. It seemed like overkill to go through so much effort just to keep the jewel at home, but Gray had told him people would protect not only what was expensive but also what had sentimental value.
Either way, the man wasn’t important. The jewel was.
Hidden in the dark, on a hill a considerable distance away from the high walls surrounding the private golf course, house, and gardens of the self-made billionaire who owned the most expensive piece of rock in the world, Gray appeared mildly satisfied.
The break-in wouldn’t be easy, but, there were patterns in the movements of the guards, as well as the schedule of the other staff.
Once Shadow sneaked into the huge house in his non-human form and found the Pigeon Heart in an underground vault, he’d offered to bust it out by any means at his disposal, eager to please Gray, but his human liked to assess things in detail. Apparently, it would have been too risky to take it forcefully without a plan. Despite his bravado, even Shadow had to admit that while getting into the vault was doable, getting out with the jewel would have been another matter.
Every time Shadow roamed the estate in search of useful information, Gray took care of his human body for a couple of minutes. Time and time again, Shadow had come back with enough details to oil the cogs in Gray’s mind. Intel on the guards’ schedules, locations of rooms, and he even memorized the appointments marked in Mr. Lowe’s diary.
It was past 1 a.m. when Gray decided to pack up for the night. The drive to the cheap motel they stayed at took a little over twenty minutes, as Gray didn’t want to stay too close to his mark, and by the time they parked, Gray was scowling, rubbing his forehead and Shadow would have done anything to relieve him.
“What do you like to eat most?” Shadow asked, eager to provide distraction from whatever pain Gray was suffering.
Since Gray accused Shadow that he didn’t try to get to know him, Shadow realized that maybe he was in fact missing something vital to humans, so he set out on a mission to find out everything.
He already knew Gray’s favorite color, his preferred brand of motorcycle, and that he considered bananas superior to oranges.
Gray sighed when his gaze met the broken neon above the entrance of the diner just a stone’s throw away from the motel. The ‘n’ remained dark when the rest of the letters lit up bright green, and for some reason that had caused Gray great discomfort when he’d first noticed, so Shadow had nodded and agreed that it was a disgrace. Though in reality it didn’t bother him at all.