Diamond by Tigris Eden Read Free Book Online Page B

without actually doing it. They were sending a message. Whoever had attacked wanted to know if there were any weaknesses in his defenses. There was. And so, back to the matter at hand.
    “You even get what Lavarious wanted?” Onyx asked Amethyst, his dark shades focused on the petite woman at the table. The question broke Diamond out of his thoughts.
    “Yeah, bitch. I got it,” Amethyst joked. “What? It was easy. Hell, it was too easy. But my girls get in and out of the darkest of places. Even places like Gryphon’s.”
    Gryphon’s tower was where all the water came from. Dark Water turned into drinkable water once it was filtered and reheated several times. Whatever Biel brought to the atmosphere had contaminated almost everything.
    Genysis had gone dark about six months ago. No lights, no nothing. It was as if the entire tower was in some sort of deep sleep. But Lavarious had Amethyst’s girls watching from high up on the wall. Water was still pumping into the city, and as long as it arrived on time, he had no reason to believe things were bad. He still kept watch. His gut warned him that something was happening over there, and he had a feeling about what it was. Diamond wasn’t blind to it. They’d found a group of outsiders seeking entrance inside the gates. When they’d been turned away, they’d scaled the wall. Cleared it in one leap. He didn’t know if they were Splices, or some other kind of mutation. He just chose to ignore the issue until he saw actual results. Gryphon had shown at the last council meeting and informed everyone that he was still on track. He’d said that once he had groundbreaking results, he’d report back fully.
    Diamond pinched the bridge of his nose. What happened to smooth and easy?
    “You didn’t see anything while you were there?” Diamond sat back in his chair, completely perplexed. If Amethyst had what he wanted, how come she didn’t reach out sooner?
    “Not a damn thing. There was some movement, but very little. But I’ll put all your minds at rest…not a Rager in sight. If there was an outbreak, we would have known about it by now.”
    “Why didn’t you come to me sooner? You said you got what I wanted. Where is it?”
    Amethyst leaned forward, reached into her back pocket, and pulled out a cloth. She unwrapped it. Inside was a vial of blood. She rolled it towards him before standing on top of the table and hopping down.
    “My job here is done. Gonna go and check in with Zira. She gets angry if we’re apart for too long.”
    “In a moment. We’re not done yet,” Onyx said, flashing Amethyst a grin. His sunglasses in place, he nodded in the direction of Diamond. The male never removed the glasses. There was a long-standing joke that they were permanently glued to his face.
    Emerald looked over at Diamond as he stared down at the vial. It wasn’t the answer to their prayers, but it was hopefully something they could use to their advantage. As long as there wasn’t another outbreak. Amethyst was right. If there had been true cause for concern, they’d all know about it.
    “They were testing our defenses,” Diamond stated plainly.
    “Who?” Onyx questioned. Everyone at the table looked in Diamond’s direction, wanting answers. Guidance.
    “It could be the Ibanez brothers or rebels from the inner-city gangs. Who the hell knows? The female was a Splice.”
    There were nods from those around the room. Splices were genetically altered humans. Some were enhanced, others, like the female sent to blow him up, were mindless drones, controlled by their handler. Depending on how they were programmed, trigger words would set them off. Whatever he’d said had set her off. Bottom line, he needed to up the security around the Quarry and find out who was after his head. They would need to outfit the guards with C-Tech. It added an extra punch to their ammo, and did the most damage.
    Onyx worked on C-Tech, energy harvested from sites where pieces of the comet’s tail