“I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
The sound of a clearing throat had Lore growling at the interruption. But when he turned to see all of his brothers—and Kynan—standing there, the viciousness turned to confusion.
“Ah… yeah?”
Shade stepped forward. “Runa and I are in your debt.” He breathed deeply, cast his gaze at the ceiling. “I don’t know what the fuck has been wrong with me these last few days. I wanted you dead, I turned on my brother, and I don’t know why.”
“I do,” Idess said, and five sets of eyes focused on her. “It was Roag. He wasn’t just inciting the ghosts. His very essence was affecting all of you. When he was near, you were all more angry. More aggressive. It was what he wanted.”
“Where is he?” That from Wraith.
“He’s been destroyed.”
Kynan’s dark eyebrows shot up. “He’s dead? For real? Not just invisible?”
“He’s not dead. His soul was annihilated. Erased. He cannot be reborn.”
“Holy shit,” Shade said. “How?”
“Let’s just say that my father is a very powerful man.”
“That’s a little understated, don’t you think?” Lore draped his arm over her shoulder and tugged her into him where she belonged. “You know, seeing how he’s the Grim fucking Reaper.”
Man, you could have heard the ghosts tiptoeing by in the silence. At least until Wraith shot Lore a look of sympathy. “Duuuude.”
“No shit,” Kynan chimed in.
“Well, whatever you and your father did,” Eidolon said, “we’re all very grateful.”
Idess’s gaze dropped to the floor. “It’s the least I could do.” She cast a glance at the ER doors as if she expected the Prince of Darkness himself to pop through them at any moment. “I think I can do something about your ghost problem, too.”
“Now that Roag is gone, shouldn’t they settle down?” Eidolon asked.
“A little. But they don’t belong here. They’re trapped, and they’re going to grow bitter. The ones who have been here the longest already are. It just took Roag to show them how to wreak havoc. Now they need someone to guide them to, ah… the light.”
For some reason, she tripped over the last part of her sentence.
“And you can do that?”
“Yes, but there will be more. You’ll need someone to purge your hospital on a regular basis.”
“Are you volunteering for the job? Because I’m thinking I’ll have a hard time finding another angel to handle it.”
Idess stiffened. It was a subtle motion that probably only Lore noticed. But yeah, something was definitely wrong here.
“I can’t,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
Lore expected his brothers to argue or try to convince her, but Eidolon merely nodded. “If you change your mind, I’d love to have you.”
Shade gestured to Rade’s room. “I’m taking Runa and the boys home. I don’t like having them here with the plague going on.” He squeezed Lore’s shoulder. “Thanks again. And welcome to the family.” Very slowly, he turned to Eidolon. Their gazes locked, and everything around them stilled. Then, Shade embraced E in a silent but powerful apology. When they broke apart, Shade’s eyes were wet.
Wraith and Kynan left with Shade, and once they were gone, Lore wrapped himself around Idess, because she wasn’t going anywhere for a while. “Speaking of the plague, what’s going on with that?”
There was a long, tense silence, and Lore wondered if Eidolon was silently cursing Sin’s existence or maybe he was still soaking up Shade’s apology—something Lore guessed was a rarity. “Hell if I know. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern of how it’s spreading or what segment of the warg population it’s affecting. Bodies are piling up in my morgue, and the Warg Council is breathing down my neck.”
“You have a morgue?” Idess asked.
“A morgue with no ME. He was a freaking warg.”
Lore considered that. “Can I take a look?”
“At my dead medical examiner?”
“The morgue.”
“Whatever gets your rocks off.” Eidolon started down one of the halls. “This way.”
They followed him to an elevator big enough to hold a Gargantua. They took it down, which was the only option, and it opened up into a chilly area the size of a gymnasium. Drawers used to store bodies made up one wall, their sizes varying from human to four times that large.
“What does your medical examiner do?” Idess asked.
Eidolon’s fingers trailed over an autopsy table like a lover’s, which made sense; this hospital was his baby, and he was proud as shit of it. “Since most demons aren’t concerned with justice that requires detailed proof and scientific evidence, our guy mostly just determines identity and a general cause of death. Mystical or natural, accident or homicide, type of weapon used… that kind of thing.”
Lore tugged off his glove, opened one of the drawers, and laid his bare hand on the stiff female inside. “This one died of natural causes. At least, she died of nonmystical causes.”
E frowned. “How do you know?”
“Because my resurrection power only triggers if the person died of natural causes. I can only bring someone back if the death takes place a few minutes earlier, but that same power tells me how someone died.” He glanced around the room. “Where are the diseased werewolves?”
Eidolon took Lore to a stainless-steel door. He tugged it open, and inside was a refrigerator a gourmet chef would give a nut for. If it wasn’t storing two dozen bodies.
Lore palmed a male’s forehead. The telltale sting of a supernatural death shot up his arm. “The disease is definitely not of natural origin,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean Sin is responsible.”
“She admitted to killing the first victim,” Eidolon said. “Apparently, she was interrupted before she could deliver a full dose of whatever she does. The warg ran to a pack-mate, who died a few hours after patient zero. The entire pack is wiped now, and the disease has spread to Europe.”
“Oh, hell.” Lore scrubbed his hand over his face. “What are you going to do?”
“I need Sin here. She’s the key to all of this.”
“That’s not going to be easy—”
“Tough shit,” Eidolon bit out. “She caused it, so she can damned well be at my disposal.”
Lore shook his head. “It’s not that. She’s going to be busy.” He leaned against Idess, needing her strength. “She committed to a lifetime of slavery in order to get Rade back.”
Idess gasped, and Eidolon sucked in a harsh breath. “We’ve got to get her out of that.”
Lore had tried that before, and had ended up serving for thirty years. “I’m open to suggestions.”
Cursing, Eidolon closed the fridge door gently, as though he didn’t want to disturb the dead. “You two have had a rough couple of days. Get some rest. The ghosts can wait. Let’s meet soon and talk about what we can do to get Sin out of her situation.” He took off, leaving Lore and Idess alone in pretty much the last place Lore wanted to be right now.
Right now, he wanted to be inside her, working off the day’s events in bed, where there would be no assassin masters, no fallen angels, no evil brothers, no werewolf diseases. There would be only Lore and Idess, and lots of bare skin.
Lust flared in his belly, and she must have known exactly what he was thinking, because her liquid caramel eyes gleamed with heat, and her face flushed. “What do you say we take the doctor’s advice and head back to my place to get some… rest?”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t go with you.”
“Then your place. We don’t have to go to mine.”
“No, Lore. I can’t go anywhere with you.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. Lore stopped breathing completely. “Ever.”
The confusion and devastation in Lore’s expression nearly made Idess’s knees give out.
“What is it?” Lore gripped her shoulders. “Dammit,
what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”
“Can we go someplace else to talk about this? Some place where there aren’t a bunch of dead people staring at us?” Which included ghosts, because several had followed them down here even though they had a tendency to avoid places that reminded them they were dead.
They took the elevator back up, and Lore led her to an empty patient room. Regret and pain fluttered in Idess’s chest as she sank down on the bed. He prowled the room like a panther.
“Tell me what’s wrong.” His words came out as a gruff command, but she didn’t take offense. Anxiety was the driving force behind his tone, and she knew it.
“I don’t know how.”
“There’s nothing you can say that will make me angry or upset with you. You know that, right? Why don’t we just leave. Get out of this place. Go to some nice tropical island and drink rum and Cokes and roll around on the beach? Forget all this. God knows we could use a vacation.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t leave here, Lore. Well, I can, but only to go to Sheoul.” She hugged herself, suddenly chilled. “I’ve been summoned, and if I go top-side, I’ll be taken.”
“Taken?”
“To Heaven.”
He went rigid, and his voice broke. “But you said you were ruined. That we had sex and—”
“I was wrong.” Her lie pounded as loudly as the pulse in her ears. She couldn’t tell him the truth, couldn’t let him mourn. She loved him too much for that.
“The right thing to say is congratulations, isn’t it? I’m supposed to say I’m happy for you, right?” He bowed his head, and his voice faltered. “What kind of asshole am I that I’m not happy? What kind of selfish prick wants to grab you and beg you not to go?”
“Oh, Lore…” She leaped off the bed and held him so tight the air whooshed from his lungs. “I want to stay with you.”
“Is there… is there a way? I know I shouldn’t ask. I know I should be all noble and shit… but I’m not. I’m a selfish bastard, and… fuck. Just, fuck.”
In an attempt to stay calm, she ran her hands up and down his back, as if doing so grounded her and kept her from breaking into a million pieces. “I could hide out in the hospital for the rest of my life. That’s my only option.”
His big body shuddered. “Part of me would rather have you do that than leave me. But the other part of me can’t let you live like that. You’re too good for me, for that kind of life… God, Idess, when do you have to go?”
“Soon.” There was no point in dragging this out. If she did, it would only get harder and she might actually be tempted to ask Eidolon if she could rent out a room.
His chest heaved and his arms tightened around her. “What can I do to stop you? Or help you? Hell, I don’t know what I want.”
“I know what I want,” she whispered. “Make love to me. One more time.”
“Anything, angel.” Lore swept Idess up and carried her to the bed. Silently but quickly, he locked the door and stripped, first himself, and then her. He was gentle as he stretched out beside her, and his hands shook as he framed her face and kissed her. Tender lips caressed hers, slowly at first, and as the heat between them built, his kisses became more urgent. His hand trailed from her throat to her breast, and she hissed at the heady feel of his callused fingers petting her sensitive flesh with such finesse.
Moaning, she threw one leg over his hip, forcing him to slide between her thighs. His hard arousal rubbed against her sex, drawing a moan from him, too. And when he began to rock into her, sliding his shaft through her slick moisture and stroking her clit with every pump of his hips, they both gasped.
“I don’t want this to end,” he murmured against her lips. “Maybe we can do this forever. My brothers can bring us food, and we can just stay here like this.”
Tempting, so very tempting. She twined her hand in his and squeezed. “I need you inside me. Please. Now.”
He pushed up on one arm, the muscles bunching beneath his writhing dermoire. His gaze slammed into hers. “I love you. Never forget that. Never forget… me.”
He loved her. Emotion bubbled up in her throat, leaving her voice completely wrecked. “Never,” she rasped.
In a powerful surge, he entered her. They both cried out, and then he was thrusting, long, slow glides that went deep and then so shallow he nearly came free of her. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more of him inside her. She wanted to feel his emotions. For the first time, feeding was a desire, not a chore.
Swiping her tongue over her canines, she willed them to extend, and they did with a vengeance, punching painfully out of her gums.
“That is so sexy.” As if his body agreed, he pumped faster.
“Yeah?”
He tilted his head to the side, exposing his bronzed neck. “Yeah.”
Tangling her fingers in his hair, she pulled him down. His scent filled her nostrils, and her core went molten. A masculine purr erupted from him, and she knew he’d felt it, too.
She dragged her tongue along his jugular, once, twice, three times, because she would never tire of tasting him and she wanted this to last. Wanted to remember everything about him. His taste, his scent, even the way he breathed.
“Jesus, Idess. I could come from that.”
“Mmm.” She licked him again, smiling at the way he sucked a breath between his teeth. “Can’t have that.” Mouth watering, she sank her fangs into him.
Her mouth filled with his silky, dark essence, and her body filled with power. The weird sensation she’d felt before, the one that felt as if someone was drawing his dermoire pattern on her skin with a pen, started up again. And every emotion he had punched into her… love, joy, despair. But mostly lust, and her body answered.
Between her legs, an erotic storm gathered, building like thunderheads in the spring. Lore’s body seemed to have a mind of its own as long as her teeth were in him, as if he felt her need and could only respond to it. Relieve it.
“Ah, yes… Idess… I… can’t… stop…”
As if she wanted him to! She wanted more. Harder. Faster. She wanted to be sore and aching, so that every step she took on the Other Side would remind her of him.
Bond with me.
He’d mentioned wanting to do that before they’d gone to battle with Rami.
Bond with me.
Oh, she wanted that. But when the Memitim Council destroyed her, he’d know when he felt the bond break.
“Bond with me!”
With a start, she realized he was speaking out loud. His words weren’t in her head. Lightning from the strengthening tempest ripped through her, turning her blood to fuel and setting her body on fire. She was drunk with Lore’s very essence, and his command to bond became a compulsion she couldn’t fight.
“Your blood,” he panted. “Give it to me.”
Disengaging her fangs, she sealed the wound with her tongue. High on the overload of physical and emotional sensation, she bit into her wrist and pressed it to his mouth. Greedily, he latched on as he tightened the knot of his right hand and her left.
Burning, pulsing energy washed over her. The sharp blast of her orgasm shattered her. And her soul crashed into his, twisting and spinning until there was only ecstasy.
When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, though he braced his upper body on his elbows to keep from completely crushing her.
For a long time, they just lay there, panting and sweating. She barely had the strength to lift her wrist to her mouth to seal the punctures she’d made. Tingles ran up her other arm. Frowning, she rolled her head to the side.
“Lore?”
“Mmm?”
“My arm.”
He lifted his head from where he’d buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. “Shit,” he breathed. “We really did it. My dermoire is setting into your skin.”
“How did you know what to do?”
“Dunno.” His fingers trailed over the shadowy pattern that pulsed just beneath her skin, and she sucked air. Wow. Ero
genous zone. Big-time. “Instinct, I guess. It just… took over.” He went taut, and she felt his fear right in her heart. “We shouldn’t have done it. What if your angel buddies see it? Being bonded to a demon has to be some sort of disqualifier for the job.”
No, breaking her vow of chastity with a demon had already done that. “It’s fine.” She smiled reassuringly, because the doubt in his eyes said he wasn’t buying it. “But I should go.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Just a little longer.”
She touched his face, committing every angle, every curve, every pore to memory. “It’s time.”
More than three dozen spirits waited for Idess at the emergency room doors. They rushed her, but she did her best to ignore them as she walked hand in hand with Lore, who had been silent since they left the room. His eyes were swollen with unshed tears, and his jaw was tight, as though he was afraid to open his mouth, lest sobs fall out.
She knew exactly how he felt, and not just because of the bond.
Her steps were leaden as they walked through the parking lot, the herd of ghosts on their tail. When they reached the far wall, he finally spoke.
“What’s going to happen?”
“I need the gate to open.”
He nodded and shouted at the medic who had accompanied them to Shade’s cave. “Yo! Con! I need you to open the vehicle entrance.”
The medic climbed into the ambulance, and he must have hit a switch, because the wall shimmered and disappeared as it had before. Outside, the column of light waited. And beyond it, on a different level, was a bluish, less-focused glow. It was the one waiting for the human souls. They stood there, confused… apparently unable to see the light from inside the lot.
“Come with me.” She led them to the gate, careful not to get too close to her own light. Not yet. “Go now.” All but one of them filed out the door and straight into the glow, which swallowed them up in little flashes.
A boy of perhaps ten human years remained behind. I’m afraid.
Swallowing the lump in her throat, she went down on her knees before him. “I am, too.”