“And that was how long ago? Have you done it since?”
“It was eight centuries ago, and no.” He pinned her down with his eyes, making damn sure she understood what he was saying. “Until you.”
Oh, yeah, she got it, inhaled a ragged breath and swallowed hard. “Are you…”
“Close.” Too fucking close. Even now he was inching toward her, his mouth watering.
“And what, exactly, does that mean?”
“It means I have an overwhelming desire for your blood. Only your blood. Eventually, feeding from anyone else will make me sick. Probably already will. The addiction grows with each feeding. It’s like a drug. I’ll need more and more, until I can’t stop.”
“Is the only way out to kill the female or to bond?”
“It’s possible to detox. But it takes a long, miserable time. Some dhampires have died before the addiction broke.” Kicking the habit wasn’t easy, and even once it happened, dhampires couldn’t so much as be in the same room as the female whose blood addicted him, or it started up again, even more fiercely.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing the virus is out of your blood.”
“Thank the gods.” He gestured toward the back door before he lost himself to temptation again. “We’d better go.” He paused. “How long before you need sex again?”
“Several hours, probably. You seem to have some powerful juice.”
It was such a male thing to puff up with pride over that, and sure as shit, he did. “I’m not surprised.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course you aren’t.”
“Ah, hey…” He eyed her curiously, realizing that what he was about to ask her probably wouldn’t rub her the wrong way, but he wasn’t sure he truly wanted to know the answer. “What about vampires? Pure vamps. Does their… juice… work for you?”
“It does,” she said, and he had to bite back a growl at the unwelcome images burning into his brain. “The effect just doesn’t last very long.”
Not surprising. Vampires didn’t produce sperm, but since they ingested blood and any other liquid they wanted to drink, their bodies produced fluids like anyone else’s. They could cry, piss, spit, and ejaculate, all in smaller quantities.
“Why do you ask?”
“Curious.”
She started toward the concealed door at the rear of the house with a shake of her head. “You medical people are way too curious about stuff like that.”
Funny, but even though he’d been working as a paramedic for years, he hadn’t ever considered himself a “medical person.” The job had been… a job. A hobby with a bonus of a massive danger element involved, which was cool. But now that he thought about it, the life had seeped into his bloodstream, and the fact that half of his favorite TV shows were on the Discovery Health channel should have been a clue.
The other half of his favorite shows were on the Playboy channel. He mentally measured Sin for a naughty nurse outfit, and when she gave him a sultry glance from over her shoulder but kept walking, her rear swaying temptingly, he knew he’d been caught.
“I’m a succubus,” she called out in a teasing, singsong voice. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Of course you do,” he muttered as she opened the door, which was concealed on the outside by a vine-covered trellis. As they stepped out, he halted, sniffed the wind, but nothing unusual was on the crisp, morning air.
“Do you sense anything?”
“No,” she said, “but—” She cut off with an oof, and he whirled to her, a cry of his own somehow making it past his heart, which had jammed up in his throat.
Sin staggered backward, her face pale and twisted by pain, her chest caved in by what looked like a pool table’s eight-ball—with spikes. It was a demon weapon, designed to punch through armor and skulls. Once the victim was impaled, the spikes would grind, slowly, so the victim died in excruciating pain.
Sin sank to her knees, her mouth working soundlessly. Fear strangled him as he hooked her beneath her arms and dragged her inside the house.
“Sin? Sin! Hold on. Just… hold on.” Shit! He lay her on the braided carpet in the living room as gently as he could. Blood streamed from her mouth, and each breath wheezed loudly through her closing airway.
Oh, gods, she couldn’t die now. She’d been through too much, had led a miserable life, and she deserved better than this. Fighting the urge to panic, he called on all his medical training and reached deep for the clinical detachment he always had when treating patients.
It didn’t work. Inside, he was terrified. Outside, he was sweating bullets. But at least his voice was level, and he hoped Sin was fooled.
“I can’t remove the thing,” he said calmly. “You’ll bleed out. I’m going to get help.”
Her trembling fingers closed around his wrist. “No,” she rasped. “Too… dangerous.”
“If I don’t, you’ll die.” This time, his voice wasn’t so calm.
“Don’t… leave… me.”
They always leave me. A lump formed in his throat. “Listen to me, Sin. I swear, I’ll come back. I won’t leave you.”
A single tear dripped down her cheek as he squeezed her hand and leaned over to brush his lips across hers. A deep, primal rage rose up in him. He would get her brothers, and he would tear apart the bastard who had done this to her.
The pounding on Eidolon’s apartment door came as he was getting ready to leave for the hospital. At this hour of the morning, pounding was not good. He was getting a late start, but he’d been up until three A.M. with a full emergency department. Diseased and injured wargs had been crammed into every nook and cranny, and as he was leaving, injured demons had come in as well—demons caught up in the escalating warg civil war.
The only good thing that had happened in the last few hours was that his father had gotten Eidolon, Wraith, and Con a reprieve from torture, and he’d pulled some strings and gotten the Carceris to lay off until Justice Dealers could determine whether or not the Warg Council had a case against Sin. It wasn’t much, but at least she didn’t have to run from the demon jailers for now.
He just wished he’d hear something from her.
Tayla answered before he did, but her shout kicked him into high gear, and he jogged down the hall, nearly tripping over Mange as the dog darted between rooms, chasing Mickey, Tayla’s ferret. Eidolon cursed when he saw Con standing in the foyer, bloody and holding his arm at an awkward angle.
“What happened? Where’s Sin?” Eidolon caught Con by the wrist and powered his gift into him. Con hissed as the pain started.
“Call your brothers. Come with me. She’s dying.”
“I’m on it,” Tay said as she flipped open her cell phone. “I’ll have them meet us at the 84th Street Harrowgate.”
The desire to rush to Sin’s rescue was nearly overwhelming, but after years of yanking Wraith out of deadly situations, he’d learned to be prepared. “Tell me what happened,” he said with a calm he didn’t feel, but Con jerked away.
“We have to go. Now!”
The guy’s eyes were wild, his panic rattling Eidolon as much as anything. Con was always level. Gently but firmly, Eidolon shoved him against the wall and started the healing process again. “Listen to me. You’re no good to her if you’re dead. This will just take a minute.”
“She might not have a minute,” Con rasped, but he didn’t fight. “She’s been hit by an exomangler. It’s ripping her apart.”
Eidolon’s blood pressure bottomed out. He’d seen the damage those things caused, and it wasn’t pretty. “What happened to you?”
“Had to go through a forest full of assassins, all lined up to kill Sin.”
Tay came down the hall, her blood-wine hair up in a ponytail. She was dressed for battle, including red leather pants, jacket, and weapons tucked everywhere. “All your brothers are on the way.”
Eidolon breathed a sigh of relief. He’d expected Lore and Wraith, but Shade was iffy. He wouldn’t want to leave Runa and the kids.
/>
“Wraith is leaving Serena and Stewie with Runa, and Kynan will stay in the cave, too.”
Good. Nothing was getting past Ky. Eidolon checked his watch. Gem was on shift at the hospital, so no worries there, and Idess was all but living at UG because of the overload of souls needing guidance out of the hospital and into the light. It was also the safest place for her now that she was basically human, and the assassins after Sin had taken a new tack to get her by using family.
Con’s last wounds sealed up, and they were out of there. They met Eidolon’s brothers at the Harrowgate just as E’s cell rang. Gem.
He flipped open the phone. “Quickly.”
“The disease is affecting born wargs now,” Gem said.
Eidolon’s chest constricted, and he could barely speak. “What happened?”
“It’s Bastien.” There was a rare hitch in her voice. “It seems to be moving even faster than the original strain. E… he’s not going to make it.”
Holy hell. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The call-waiting beep sounded as he entered the Harrowgate, and he switched over.
“It’s Arik. We have trouble.”
“Thank you, master of the obvious. My hospital is overrun by victims of the warg conflict. I have to go—”
“It’s not that. SF… it’s affecting born wargs now.”
Eidolon slapped his hand on a glowing patch in the black stone that amounted to a Hold button for the Harrowgate door, which, if closed, would cut off the phone’s signal. “Fuck me, I know.”
“Not in this lifetime.” Arik took a deep breath. “Our specialists are freaking out. Born wargs share a lot of genetic code with wolf-shifters. Wolf-shifters share a lot of genetic material with leopard and other shifters. And as you know, all shifters are related in some way to anything that can shift.”
Iced adrenaline trickled into Eidolon’s system. “You think SF is going to jump species.”
“Yes. And once that happens, there’s nothing to stop it from jumping to humans.”
Or to any other creature on the planet.
Including Sems.
Someone had run over Kar with a truck while she was asleep. That had to be what had happened, because she’d woken up on Luc’s couch feeling like, well, she’d been run over by a truck.
She’d followed him upstairs and ignored his stomping around while she showered and dressed in a pair of his sweats and a green flannel shirt, both of which swallowed her whole. He’d thrust a bowl of stew at her, stared until she ate it—and then watched, wide-eyed, as she promptly threw it all up.
The morning-sickness thing was weird—she’d had a couple of bouts of nausea around the time she found out she was pregnant, but she’d been fine since. She would have chalked it all up to nerves, except that now she was so miserable that death was starting to look good.
“Kar?” Luc’s deep voice was a strangely soothing murmur in her ear. “You were moaning in your sleep… Holy fuck, you’re hot.”
“Not hot,” she mumbled. “Cold. Need a blanket.”
She heard him shuffling around, felt a blanket come down over her, and then he was nudging her head up. “Hey. I have some Tylenol. You need to take it.”
Her stomach rolled. And then she coughed… so hard her ribs screamed. “Luc… do I have an infection? From the gunshot?”
“You shouldn’t. It healed with your shift.” He frowned as he thumbed up her eyelids. “Your pupils are dilated.” He sank down next to the couch and peeled the blanket away from her chest. “I’m going to take a look at you.”
She felt her shirt being unbuttoned, and despite her misery, she smiled. “Any excuse to get your hands on me.”
“I don’t need an excuse. You’re easy.”
“You—” Her eyes flew open, but when she saw the rare smile turning up his lips, she knew he’d been teasing her. Which was weird, because she would not have taken him as the playful kind. “You should smile more often.”
“Can’t.” He grunted as he opened her shirt to expose her chest. “My face might freeze like that.”
She laughed, but immediately cried out at the pain that wrenched through her abdomen.
“Shit.” Luc jerked his hands away from her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she croaked. “Hurt to laugh.”
His gaze swept her with the intensity of an X-ray machine, and she suddenly felt like he was seeing all the way through her. “I’m sorry. About everything.”
About the baby, was what he meant. “Don’t be.” She swallowed, and grimaced at the sudden soreness. “The sex was great. You were only my second, but it was so… good.” Another swallow, another grimace. “And the baby is the best, most normal thing that’s happened to me in years.”
Luc averted his gaze, so it was impossible to tell what he was thinking as he finished unbuttoning her shirt. He peeled the flaps open to reveal an odd bruise around her navel… and the color drained from his face.
“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”
“SF. Jesus Christ, I think you have the virus.”
Sixteen
Massive bleeder. Pulmonary contusion. Pneumothorax.
Voices and strange words pierced Sin’s fog of pain. She thought she heard Con, and maybe Shade. Or Eidolon? A sudden, hot agony electrified her body, and she screamed. And screamed.
Until blackness took her.
Waking up took a long time. Between the buzz in her ears and the raw ache in her throat, it seemed as though she was stuck in a state of nothingness for an eternity. Gradually, she became aware that she was sore, thirsty, and on a bed. She blinked, opened her eyes. She was in Rivesta’s master bedroom. Standing around her were her brothers. All of them. And Tayla. And Con.
“What… happened?” Her voice sounded rusty. Beat up. And it became even more so when Con sank onto the bed next to her and took her hand. His fingers slid over her wrist as if checking her pulse, but unlike the times he’d done it in the past, there was more tenderness than professionalism in his touch. “Why are you all here?”
“One of Bantazar’s assassins hit you with an exomangler,” Lore said. “He’s dead.”
“A lot dead.” Wraith snorted and high-fived Lore. “Massive deadness.”
Sin could only imagine. And boy, was her imagination entertaining. Bantazar really was a grade-A prick, and his assassins weren’t any better. He was probably still pissed that she hadn’t taken him up on his offer to screw him for the names of assassin masters who were bidding on the big werewolf contract.
She rubbed her chest, where she remembered being hit by something that had felt like a cannonball. Aside from a little tenderness, she’d never have known she’d nearly had a tunnel drilled through her.
But… wait… the tenderness… there was something deeper there, and abruptly, she drew a harsh breath. It was the sensation of losing a lot of assassins. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t know who until she got back to the den or talked to someone who knew.
Right now, it wasn’t important, anyway. Fewer people trying to kill her was a good thing.
She put the dead assassins out of her mind and cast her gaze between her brothers. “So you all came?”
“It’s what we do,” Eidolon said simply.
Uh-huh. There was a catch. There had to be. “Okay, so you healed me. Thank you. What now?”
Wraith looked up from studying her Gargantua-bone dagger. “How did you escape the infernal fire?”
“Infernal fire?” She frowned, and then that horrible screech she’d heard at Con’s house pierced her memory as if the sound were right there in her ear. “Holy shit, that’s what destroyed Con’s house?”
Con cursed. “I should have known. I’ve seen what that shit does.”
“So have I,” Wraith said. “But I’ve never seen anyone escape it.”
“Con’s escape tunnel,” Sin muttered. “The heat couldn’t get to us, and by the time we were out of it—”
“We were too far away from
the house for the spirits to grab.”
“Someone wants you really dead,” Wraith said.
“Okay, so now that you’ve saved my life and pointed out the glaringly obvious, why are you still here?”
They all exchanged glances, which couldn’t be good. Finally, Shade cleared his throat. “Con said you healed a warg.”
“Did he also tell you what happened to her?”
“Yeah,” Eidolon said. “But I’m not sure how much difference her survival would have made. The virus has mutated. It’s affecting born wargs now.”
The information drilled a hole in her more efficiently than the exomangler had. She exhaled shakily and tried to keep her voice above a whisper. “So what now?”
“We’re going to have to take some drastic measures. We can’t afford to waste more time looking for infected wargs, and it’s getting too dangerous for you. I got the Carceris off your back temporarily, so we’ll bring you into the hospital and find some volunteers to infect and then cure, so I can work with the killed virus.”
“Getting volunteers to be willingly infected with a fatal disease won’t be easy.” Con shifted on the mattress, causing her to roll toward him a little more. The contact comforted her, made her wish he’d stretch out beside her.
“Want me to grab a volunteer?” Wraith asked, and Sin had a feeling his “volunteer” wasn’t going to be a willing one.
Con’s mouth tightened. “I can point you toward a couple of Warg Council members I’d like to ‘volunteer.’ ”
“We’re not forcing anyone.” Sin sat up and grimaced. Someone had put her into clothes that weren’t hers. Which made sense, given that everything she owned was at the assassin den. But whose brilliant idea had it been to put her in a hideous, pink, floral T-shirt? With glitter. At least the jeans fit. “I’ve fucked over enough people with this.”
“How about Luc?” Wraith sprawled in the bedside chair, legs spread, arms splayed wide, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “He’s running on borrowed time as it is.”