“Why are you here?” she asked, not bothering to temper her irritation at all.
Conall cocked a brow. “I work here.”
Well, duh. But he wasn’t exactly upset to see her, as he’d been in the parking lot. “And?”
A sheepish grin lit his face, exposing sexy fangs. “And maybe I was hoping to find you.”
She snarled. “I knew it. Eidolon probably asked you to keep an eye on me. Or get to know me or some shit.” She jabbed him in his very muscular chest with a finger. “Well, fuck you and fuck him. And Shade. And Wraith. I don’t want anything to do with you or them or this hospital, and I sure as hell don’t want to get to know any of you.”
“I don’t want to get to know you.” Conall’s hand closed around hers, and an instant shock of lust sparked at the contact. “I want to fuck you.”
“Oh.” Oh. Well, that was more like it. Her blood heated, but at this point, that wouldn’t take much. She was jonesing for sex, and the more she looked at Conall, the more antsy she became. This might just be the distraction she needed from her thoughts and fears about everything that could go wrong in an operating room. But Sin narrowed her eyes at him, because nothing around here seemed that simple. “You promise that’s all you want?”
His gaze seared her as he boldly dragged it up and down her body. “I swear I want only to get into your pants.”
What a relief. Finally, someone in this damned hospital who didn’t want to get to know her or get into her heart or head. “Well, in that case…” She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hall, figuring she could find a suitable room, but he yanked her to a halt outside a supply closet door.
“In here,” he said, tugging her inside with him. “No one ever looks in here.”
In a heartbeat he had her backed up to the wall, his mouth on hers and his thigh between her legs. His lips were soft but his kiss hard, and he tasted like brandy and exotic, dark coffee. Kissing was not her favorite act, but Conall wielded his tongue and fangs like erotic weapons that penetrated her defenses with remarkable ease.
He palmed her breast, and a moan escaped her. God, she never moaned, had always been silent in her passions. Her sexual needs controlled her, but she refused to give any of that control over to the males she slept with. Determined to take charge, she dropped her hand to Conall’s fly and cupped his erection. Oh, my. This was going to be good.
Wetness flooded her sex as her blood heated even more. Conall was only making it worse by dragging his lips down her neck, nibbling and kissing as he kneaded her breasts and rocked his leg against her core.
“I’ve never done it in a storeroom.” Her voice was rough and low, throbbing with the same arousal that was now working its way between her legs.
His smile tickled her collarbone. “These rooms see a lot of action. Though not so much now that the Sem brothers are mated.” He froze. His gaze snapped up at her. “Wait.
Who are they to you? Cousins? Friends?”
“Assholes.”
“Yes, but how do you know them?”
She bucked in frustration. “They’re my brothers. Can we get back to it?”
“Brothers?” He cursed. Backed up. “We’re not doing this.”
Sin’s entire body cramped at the lost contact. Getting this worked up and breaking it off led to pain and misery, and no way was she letting this jerk tease her and leave her. “We are doing this.” She fisted his collar and forced him back to her.
His hands came up to peel hers away. “No. We aren’t. Those guys are hyperprotective. Once, an orderly tried to seduce Shade’s sister, Skulk, and… let’s just say that the guy still walks with a limp. I’m pretty sure he’s missing his tongue, too. Don’t know, because he doesn’t talk anymore.”
“Dammit.” Sin tore off her top and ripped open her jeans. “They don’t know me, don’t like me, and they have no say in what I do.” She shoved down her pants and thong and stepped out of them, loving the way Conall’s eyes darkened from sterling silver to wrought iron despite his sudden paranoia.
Conall swallowed. A couple of times. “No.”
At least the conviction had gone from his voice. Still, he backed toward the door. “Don’t do it, vampire,” she warned. “Or whatever you are.”
“I have to.” His hand came down on the doorknob.
“Open it, and I’ll tell them you tried to rape me.”
He hissed. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” Her body was aching. Hot. So hot she couldn’t even feel bad about the threat she’d just delivered. Foul curses fell from Con’s made-to-please mouth. “You bitch.”
“Hey, you approached me. Got me all worked up. You need to work on your follow-through.”
“Oh,” he began, in a husky tone, “I have no problem with follow-through. What I have a problem with is your brothers and what they’ll do to my balls if they find out I fucked you like an animal in a damned closet.”
“An animal?” The images of him taking her rough and hard filled her head and actually made her sweat a little. “Really?” She was proud of the way she didn’t sound hopeful.
“What? You’re the tender loving type?” He snorted. “Not buying it.”
She’d never had tender, loving sex, so no, she wasn’t that type. Even the nicest of her masters had never been overly gentle, and the sex partners she chose for herself never hurt her, but neither did they pretend that she was anything but a screw. And she didn’t want them to, because they were nothing but a screw to her either.
“I’m definitely not that type,” she said. “So let’s do the animal thing. Or are you too chicken?”
A decidedly wolflike growl erupted in his chest. “Don’t test me, female.”
Her chin came up, and she said clearly and distinctly, “Chicken.”
The growl intensified. “You are very lucky the moon tide hasn’t stirred my blood yet.”
“Bawk. Bawk.”
His control snapped like a two-hundred-pound mastiff tethered by kite string. He let out a howl and surged toward her, and oh, wow… the truth hit her just before his body did. Moon tide. Wolfy growl. Bloodsucking fangs, but warm-blooded.
He was a vampire, but he was also a warg. He was a dhampire, a rare cross between a vampire and a werewolf. So rare, in fact, that their existence was thought by many to be a myth.
Conall caught her by the shoulders, spun her, and put her against the wall so his chest was hot against her back and his erection was hard against the seam of her butt.
“I warned you,” he rasped into her ear. “Know this; I’m not going to have sex with you because you taunted me with childish name-calling.” She heard the unmistakable, soft rasp of a zipper, and then felt the searing heat of his cock on the bare skin of her ass. “I’m going to fuck you because you need a sound thrashing.”
She gasped in outrage, and then gasped in pleasure as he sheathed himself inside her. Her core clenched around him, and she clenched her teeth. She wouldn’t make another sound, wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he could affect her in any way.
Again, habit. Habit born of humiliation, of the knowledge that she was a disgusting, horrible, evil creature that climaxed only when her partner did. Any partner. Under any circumstances. And if that wasn’t the most fucked-up thing ever, she didn’t know what was.
Conall’s breath fanned her ear as he thrust into her, his rhythm wild and raw. Even his grip on her hips was fierce as his fingers dug in.
“Bite me.” The command slipped out before she could take it back. She’d never allowed her vampire partners to bite her, but by the time she could gather the words to stop him, it was too late.
His fangs penetrated her throat, and sweet, blissful pain and ecstasy coursed through her. Conall let out an appreciative moan, and his thrusts became deeper, harder, bringing her to the brink of ecstasy she couldn’t tip over until he came.
“Please,” she whispered. “Now.”
He disengaged his fangs and tongued the bite before
saying in a voice thick with lust, “I want to satisfy you before I come.” His hand reached around her, and he rasped one finger over her swollen clit.
“Can’t… can’t… until…” Oh, God, this was good. “Until you do.”
His hand clamped down tighter on her hip. “Semen is a trigger for you?”
When she nodded, because the ability to speak had deserted her, he began a new, frenzied pumping that accompanied a roar of release. His hot seed splashed inside her, the fuel her fire required, and she joined him in a ferocious climax.
They collapsed together against the wall, his weight on hers just short of crushing. But it was a good weight, the kind she’d never taken the time to enjoy. She could only stand being touched like this for so long.
As soon as she caught her breath, she reached her threshold for intimate contact. “Get off me.”
“Your gratitude astounds me,” he said flatly, but he pushed away.
“I should be grateful that you fucked me?”
“You’re a succubus, aren’t you? You need it, right?
Some sort of biological imperative.” He tucked his semi-hard cock back in his pants.
“Ah. So you lowered yourself to service me out of the goodness of your heart. How nice. Then yes, thank you for performing this distasteful deed. I will forever be in your debt.”
He laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t get anything out of it.”
Asshole. “You got an orgasm and blood. I’d say you got more than I did.”
“You got that right.” He winked, and suspicion bloomed. She had a sudden feeling he’d gotten even more than a moment of pleasure and sustenance. “This remains between us, right?”
“As long as you don’t piss me off,” she said as she tugged on her pants. “You gonna piss me off?”
He gave her a wolfish grin. “Every chance I get.” With that, he was gone, and once again, she was alone with her thoughts, and crazily, she felt more alone than ever.
Conall found Luc at the open rear of their rig, sitting on the step and chowing down on a very rare roast beef sandwich. So rare that blood dripped to the pavement. Con was tempted to look around for the cow it had come from, because surely it had to be close.
“Did Shade catch up with you?” Luc asked.
Shit. Did the Sem know Con had hooked up with his sister already? “No. Why?”
“Another warg was brought in on Medic Two’s last run.”
Medic Two was Shade’s ambulance with his partner, a False Angel named Blaspheme. “Same as the other two?”
“Yep. Shade wants all warg medics to stand down from calls to all warg emergencies.”
Conall swore. He hoped these cases were isolated, but he’d better inform the Warg Council as soon as possible. As a member of the Council, the lone representative for dhampires and the only councilmember employed by UG, he was duty-bound to alert them to potential trouble. Not that they’d pay heed to anything he said. In warg hierarchy, dhampires barely rated above turned wargs, and that was only because there were so few dhampires that they were no threat in any way to born wargs.
“So? What happened with Sin?” Luc cocked an eyebrow, and then the other when Conall pulled Sin’s thong from his pocket and twirled it on one finger. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You nailed her.”
For some reason, the way Luc spoke so casually, as if Sin was some swan Conall had picked up at a vampire bar, grated on him. Probably because he respected the Sem brothers, and he couldn’t quite dismiss their sister as a cheap suck-and-fuck, even though that was how he’d treated her.
“Yeah,” he ground out, “I nailed her.”
“Where?” Luc always wanted the dirty details.
“Stockroom.” He held out his hand. “Pay up.”
Luc snorted and reached for his wallet. “I really got taken on this one, didn’t I?” He handed over four hundreds and five twenties.
“Yeah, well, you can have the last laugh once the Sem brothers catch up with me.” Con ran his thumb over the bills. “Seems she’s their sister.”
“Dude.” Luc stretched out the word and then whistled, low and long. “Nice knowing you.”
Con could take care of himself, wasn’t too worried despite what he’d said to Sin about keeping his balls, but he did like this job and didn’t want to lose it. At least, not until he got bored with it. And he would. He always did. In a thousand years he hadn’t not gotten bored with anything.
Or anyone.
“So,” Luc said, “will it at least have been worth it? Being gutted by Shade, I mean. Was she good?”
His body heated as though remembering. And wanting again.
“Of course I was.”
Fuck. Con spun around to find Sin standing there, hands on hips and fury in her expression. Like a kid caught stealing candy, he whipped the money behind his back.
She looked at him as if he was an idiot and grabbed his arm, bringing it around.
“It’s not what you think,” he said lamely, because it was exactly what she thought.
“Really? So that big asshole behind you didn’t bet you five hundred bucks that you couldn’t fuck me?”
“Ah…”
“That’s what I thought. You dick. How stupid do you think I am? Your name really fits you, Con.” She snatched the money from him, took two hundreds and three twenties, and thrust the remaining two hundred and forty dollars back into his hand. Then, smiling broadly, she punched him in the shoulder. “Next time you make a bet like that, don’t cheat me out of my half. I owe you a ten.”
She winked and left him, jaw-dropped and gaping, as she sauntered away.
Luc made a strangled sound. “Did that just happen? She wasn’t mad because you made the bet—she was mad because you didn’t give her half the money?”
“Yeah.” Con grinned. “Yeah, it did. I think I may be in love.”
“Man, don’t even joke about that. Females like her are a piss-bucket full of trouble.”
True. But females like that were also the kind that made life a challenge, and it had been a long time since Con had last been challenged.
Fifteen
Eidolon lost Lore twice on the operating table. And the most fucked-up thing about it was that both instances could have been prevented.
Someone or some thing had turned off the respirator, and then later, the lights at a crucial moment. These weren’t equipment failures. Eidolon had seen the respirator switch flip to the off position with his own eyes. Wraith needed to get a new exorcist and fast.
He put the finishing touches on Lore’s healing and told a nurse to have him taken to a recovery room. He’d be fine, but only because Eidolon had arrived when he had. Two minutes later, and Lore would have bled out right there in the emergency department.
After stripping off his bloodied gloves and gown, he stepped into the hall and was immediately enveloped by a crushing sense of hatred. The force of the animosity was so powerful that he staggered, and then he drew a sharp breath when he saw Shade leaning against the wall, expression as black and threatening as a storm cloud.
“Did he make it?”
“Don’t sound so excited.” Eidolon forced his watery legs to take him toward the waiting room.
“You’d better hope you made the right decision.”
Eidolon swung around. He inhaled deeply, seeking composure, but the hate swirling in the air like a toxin filled his lungs and spread through his body. The poison affected him at the cellular level, tapping into his inner demon and bringing his temper to the surface.
“I know you aren’t implying that I should have let Lore die. Because I’ve had it with this discussion, Shade. I’m done. He’s our brother, and we don’t let our brothers die.”
“You’re done? Yeah, okay. Me, too. You’ve made your choice, and so have I. So I guess there’s nothing left to say.” His voice degenerated into a rasp, and his eyes glistened. “Ever.”
Shade’s words, as sharp as a scalpel blade, sliced Eidolon in the heart, an
d his anger drained out of the laceration.
Gods, this had truly happened. Something had broken them. Crushing pain radiated outward from the center of Eidolon’s chest with almost the same intensity as when a brother died, severing the connection that allowed all purebred Seminus brothers to sense each other’s health and location. He was too stunned, too freaked out to speak. Even when Shade spun around and stalked off, Eidolon couldn’t drum up words as the canyon between them widened.
And as Shade disappeared around a corner, E swore he heard the cackle of laughter.
Idess slipped out of the shadows cast by a gargoyle statue in one of UG’s double-wide halls. Shade had just strode away, and Eidolon had gone in the opposite direction after slamming his fist into the wall. Neither one of them had seen her in the dark corner, where she’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. Her spying hadn’t been intentional; she’d been restless waiting for news about Lore, and she’d tried to burn off her nervous energy by pacing the halls.
She was glad she had. It looked as if Shade had become a true danger to Lore, and that was a development she’d have to keep an eye on.
There was another danger lurking nearby, as well. A hooded figure had watched the two brothers argue, and though he’d stood right next to them, they hadn’t noticed. But then, they wouldn’t, if they weren’t capable of seeing ghosts. Except that if the hooded creature was a ghost, he was the most unusual one Idess had ever come across. His form had been transparent rather than solid, appearing to her the way ghosts appeared to humans.
The evil in him was off the scale, his sinister vibe so malignant that she could feel it as prickles on her skin, and the closer he’d gotten to Shade and Eidolon, the redder their eyes got and the more vicious they’d been to each other.
After the brothers separated, the creature swiveled his head around to nail her with a bone-chilling stare. But there was no itch between her shoulder blades, and it occurred to her that she’d never experienced the demon-warning sensation in the hospital.
Or with Lore—the mansion incident could have been caused by other demons. Or with Sin. Or their brothers. And what did that mean?