Base Instincts

  Personally, Slake thought that it and its London-based clinic were a good idea, and not even so much for the medical aspect. The hospital and clinic provided jobs and education, not to mention sanctuary, inside their no-violence-allowed walls. Which wasn’t to say that UGH’s and UGC’s staff were a bunch of saints. Apparently, pain meds were optional for patients who were assholes, and the concept of bedside manner was a totally human notion.

  Whatever. Slake didn’t plan to ever be a patient. Besides, there was only one kind of bedside manner that worked for him, and it damned sure didn’t include needles or sutures or antiseptic.

  Although . . . he wouldn’t mind if “bedside manner” involved a certain male medic.

  On the topic of a certain male medic, he did a quick scan of the emergency department. At the reception desk, a vampire was arguing with a chubby, ratlike demon in scrubs, and across the room under rows of caged lights, several patients of varying species waited for their turn to see a doctor. And there, in one of the exam cubicles, his gloved hand resting on a patient’s distended abdomen, was Raze. As Slake watched, the glyphs on Raze’s arm began to glow, and the female patient cried out before sighing and relaxing.

  Raze said something that made her smile weakly. He smiled back and took her hand in his with a tenderness that left Slake in awe. In Slake’s world, there was no room for kindness. He showed none and received none. Sometimes, he didn’t believe it existed.

  But Raze wasn’t just doing a job for a paycheck. Clearly, he enjoyed helping others. And just as clearly, Slake thought sourly, Raze had never been in the real world. Anyone who’d seen as much as Slake had lost their sense of empathy.

  Raze fiddled with a dial on a machine next to the female’s bed and then peeled off his gloves as he exited the cubicle. He waved at someone down the hall, but the moment he saw Slake, he came to an abrupt halt.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he growled. The grumpy ass.

  “A bouncer at Thirst told me you were working here today,” Slake said, leaving out the part where he’d had to threaten the bouncer with the loss of vital organs if he didn’t cooperate. His threats had probably gotten him banned from Thirst, but whatever. They’d worked. “You have two jobs?”

  Raze shrugged, one powerful shoulder rolling under green scrubs embroidered with the Underworld General caduceus symbol, a blade with stylized bat wings circled by two serpents. “I started here a while back, but I work part-time at Thirst. A few of us do both.”

  A stunning dark-haired demon with arm markings similar to Raze’s exited the Harrowgate, the name Eidolon stitched onto his white lab coat. Almost simultaneously, another impossibly handsome demon with matching tats came through sliding doors that appeared to lead to an underground parking lot. Although the newest guy wore jeans and a black Star Wars T-shirt, he strode through the place like he owned it, whistling to the tune of Johnny Cash’s “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” his shoulder-length blond hair brushing against the glyphs on his throat as he walked.

  “Damn, there are a lot of you here,” Slake said, unable to hide the appreciation in his voice. “Which begs the question . . . what are you?”

  The blond newcomer slowed, smiled wide enough to reveal fangs, and slapped Raze on the back. “We’re Sems.”

  “What?”

  “Seminus demons,” he said. “Incubi. We’re kind of awesome.”

  Raze wheeled away to toss his gloves in the trash. “Thanks, Wraith,” he said flatly. “You’re always so helpful.”

  Slake looked between Wraith and Raze. “You’re sex demons?” The reason for their model-handsome good looks suddenly made a lot of sense, and so did Slake’s intense attraction to Raze.

  “Yup. Cool, huh?” Wraith gestured to the Seminus demon with the short dark hair. “That’s my bro. Raze is related to us somewhere down the arm.”

  Slake blinked. “Somewhere down the . . . arm?”

  “It’s really not important,” Raze muttered, but Wraith shouldered him out of the way and gestured to the sleeve of tats that began on his right hand and extended all the way to his neck, just like Raze’s did.

  “It’s called a dermoire. The glyphs are a paternal history, and we each have our own symbol.” Wraith fingered the hourglass symbol just below his jaw at the top of his dermoire. “This one is mine. The one below it is my father’s. The one below that is my grandfather’s. Keeps going. See, this skull glyph belongs to my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, who happens to be Raze’s great-great-great-grandfather.”

  Slake eyed the two braided tribal rings around Wraith’s neck. “Why do you have a glyph around your neck, but Raze doesn’t?”

  Wraith grinned. “Means I’m mated.”

  “So there are females of your species?”

  “Nope. We reproduce with the females of other species, but our offspring are always purebred Seminus males.”

  Huh. Slake glanced over at Raze, who seemed extremely engrossed in opening a box of surgical masks. From this angle, Slake couldn’t see Raze’s personal symbol, but now he wanted to know what it was.

  “And you guys are sex demons,” he mused. Wasn’t that curious. He’d never heard of sex demons that went for their same gender, but he knew damned well he hadn’t read Raze’s signals wrong. He certainly hadn’t read the kiss wrong. “So . . . you do males too?”

  “Dude.” Wraith cringed. “Fuck, no. Females only.”

  “Really.” Slake looked over at Raze again, whose face had gone an interesting shade of red. “No exceptions?”

  The Harrowgate flashed open, and Wraith waved at the female wearing a lab coat with the name Gem stitched onto the chest pocket in big loopy, multicolored swirls, her blue-streaked black hair pulled up in twin pigtails. “Other males can participate, but—”

  “Slake, can I talk to you?” Raze ground out from between clenched teeth. “Outside?”

  “’S’okay,” Wraith said. “I gotta catch Eidolon before he gets busy helping people and crap. Later.”

  The moment Wraith sauntered off, Raze grabbed Slake, and the next thing he knew, he was being dragged into the parking lot. The manhandling was something he’d normally beat the shit out of someone for, but as Raze threw him up against a concrete pillar and got in his face, all he wanted to do was kiss the guy. Continue what they’d started in the alley behind Thirst.

  “No more questions,” Raze growled, the low, breathy sound rumbling through all of Slake’s erogenous zones.

  Then realization dawned. “Your friends don’t know, do they? They have no idea you’re into males.”

  Gold flecks, like sunlight glinting off a lake of emerald, glinted in Raze’s eyes. “What the fuck did I just say?”

  In a quick motion, Slake gripped Raze’s shoulders and spun him around so it was Raze’s spine biting into the post. Before the incubus could recover, Slake covered his mouth with his own. Raze froze, his body taut, his teeth clenched behind lips as cold and unyielding as the pillar. Slake kept up the pressure for a few seconds, making it clear that he didn’t give up easily.

  Point made, he put his mouth to Raze’s ear and whispered, “Was that why you broke it off last night? Right when things were getting good?” Never mind that Slake had been about to do the same. “Because you don’t want anyone to know you’re into guys?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.” Raze tried to shove Slake away, but he held his ground, pulling back only enough to look the guy in the eye. “Actually, a lot more complicated.”

  Slake understood that, since he wasn’t exactly a typical, shining example of his own species. “Tell me.”

  Raze snorted. “You gonna share your trauma first? I didn’t think so. So step off, asshole.”

  Gods, this guy was hot when he was pissed. Slake had never been one for angry sex, but something about Raze made him want to tear off both of their clothes and make use of the hood on that new BMW behind them.

  He was about to say as much when the hospital’s sliding door
s opened and two paramedics rushed out, heading for one of two black ambulances parked nearby. One, a blond guy with eerie silver eyes, shouted at Raze.

  “It’s Thirst,” he yelled. “Some kind of explosion.”

  Slake’s heart skidded to a panicked stop in his chest. If Fayle had been injured or killed, he was in a shit-ton of trouble. The muffled trill of a phone ringing jumpstarted his heart again, and then Raze had his cell to his ear.

  “Yeah, shit, I’ll be right there.” He pocketed the phone and tore away from Slake. “I gotta go.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Whatever,” Raze said. “But get in my way and I’ll send you back here—in the back of that ambulance.”

  Slake almost laughed. Almost. Because if Fayle was dead, being in the back of an ambulance would be far preferable to whatever punishment Dyre could come up with.

  Raze had always prided himself on his ability to remain calm during a crisis. To put fear on the back burner when things were crazy. But as he leaped out of the Harrowgate next to Thirst with Slake on his heels, terror pumped through him. Images of his parents, torn apart by demons, flashed in his head, and he knew he’d see the same kind of trauma in the bombing victims. Victims who were his friends. Marsden, Lexi, Vladlena . . . Fayle.

  Oh gods, no.

  The acrid stench of death made him gag as he stepped over chunks of jagged debris, his palm sweating all over the handle of the medic bag he’d grabbed from UGH.

  Chaos ruled the scene, chaos and charred bricks and twisted, mangled metal. Sirens and screams rent the air, which was thick with black, ashy smoke that stung his eyes and nostrils. New York City emergency responders scrambled to treat the humans who had been caught in the blast that had ripped apart both Thirst and the strictly human club that served as its front.

  Nate, wasn’t stupid, though, and he’d already deployed the mystics he kept on staff to alter human memories when needed. The last thing anyone wanted was a paramedic or cop coming across injured demons or discovering a vampire club in their own human backyard.

  “Damn.” Slake’s soft voice came from right next to Raze, but somehow it seemed distant, as if there was no place for anything here but screams.

  “Come on,” he barked, sprinting toward Thirst’s blast-warped side door.

  A few feet away, one of the mystics, Jen, was doing her, These aren’t the droids you’re looking for thing to a firefighter who had been heading toward the same door, now visible to humans thanks to a failure in the concealment spell that kept the place hidden from human eyes.

  Inside was . . . shit. Smoke clogged the air and soot covered the destroyed furniture, walls, and every piece of broken glass that littered the floor next to the bodies of the dead and injured.

  Pained moans and cries for help spurred Raze into action. Heart pounding, he frantically searched the victims, hoping his friends weren’t among them. Hoping Fayle wasn’t among them. She generally avoided the club, preferring to collect the sexual energy she needed to survive from quieter sources. But every once in a while, if she needed a quick fix, the club offered sexual vibes in spades.

  As he kneeled next to a goat-demon and pressed his palm against a spurting wound in the male’s furry leg, he heard a female voice call out his name, and he gave a mental sigh of relief.

  “Raze.” Fayle stood near the destroyed medic station, her face pale, but she was otherwise unharmed. “I was in the apartment when I heard the blast. What can I do?”

  She was useless around blood, fainting at the sight of anything more than a paper cut, but it was cool of her to offer. “Go back to the apartment and wait for me. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “What about me?” Slake called out from where he was crouched over one of the vampire waitresses, Ava, as she rested against a wall, her mangled arm held protectively against her chest. “What do you need me to do?”

  Raze eyed Slake, the bulge of weapons beneath his jacket, and wondered what the guy did for a living. Somehow, Raze suspected Slake was more likely to be the person who caused injuries than fixed them.

  “Get Ava to Underworld General Clinic. All the walking wounded need to go there. We’ll let the hospital handle the critical patients.” He increased pressure on his patient’s wound while he used his other hand to gesture to his medic bag. “And grab some triage tags and black flag any DRT you come across.”

  “DRT?”

  Right. Slake wouldn’t understand the medical slang. “Dead Right There. Deceased,” he clarified. “Tag ’em as you come across them. It’ll save medical personnel time.” And it would give Slake something useful to do while he searched for walking wounded to escort to the clinic.

  Slake leaped into action as Raze turned back to his patient. “Hey, buddy,” he said in his calmest medic voice. “What’s your name?”

  “B-Blead.”

  “Like bleed,” Raze said, keeping his tone light. The guy was going to be okay, but without Raze, he’d bleed out. “What you’re doing right now.”

  “Funny . . . guy,” Blead gasped, his goatlike snout wrinkling as a wave of pain wracked him.

  Quickly, Raze engaged his healing power to reduce the guy’s bleeding. Energy surged through his arm, running along his dermoire in a pulsing tingle instead of a steady buzz. Son of a bitch, he was running low on juice after six busy hours at the hospital.

  Instead of doing a full heal, he did a partial, enough to keep the guy alive until one of the uninjured staff members could escort Blead to one of Underworld General’s facilities.

  For the rest of the afternoon, he was forced to use his gift sparingly, moving from patient to patient to triage and heal the most severe and life-threatening injuries so that the other arriving UG medical staff could treat and transport to the hospital.

  He hated triage. Always had. Every instinct in him screamed for him to heal his patients, to stay with them until he was confident they were out of danger. But mass casualty situations didn’t allow for that, and he lost track of the number of times he had to pause for a few seconds to rein in his frustration.

  He also lost track of time as he worked. Every once in a while he’d catch sight of Slake as he helped rescuers haul heavy debris off victims or offered comfort to the injured. Once, Slake even saved a life by tying a tourniquet around a human’s leg that had been blown off at the knee. Where Slake had found the rope he’d used, Raze had no idea, but it was good thinking.

  A couple of times, Raze found himself admiring the way Slake handled the situation with confidence and authority, while still obeying orders from rescue personnel. Impressive, how he was able to keep his ego in check. Raze had figured Slake to be the kind of muscle-bound, arrogant warrior who would balk at taking instruction. So he was hot and smart.

  Knock it off. You’re only setting yourself up for disaster.

  Not to mention that he kept drooling over another male in the middle of a disaster. So. Damned. Inappropriate.

  Cursing himself, Raze wiped his brow on his sleeve and got back to it. The frantic pace of the emergency finally wound down as evening settled in, but as he helped another of Wraith and Eidolon’s brothers, a paramedic named Shade, wheel a patient out to the waiting ambulance, he heard Slake shout for help.

  He ran back inside, but he didn’t see Slake anywhere among the scorched and mangled debris. “Where are you?”

  “Over here!”

  Raze threaded his way to the far corner of the building and found Slake kneeling behind an overturned table, his voice low and soothing as he spoke to someone Raze couldn’t see. When he got closer, Raze’s heart stuttered at the sight of a female form lying on the floor, her lower half crushed beneath a massive section of wall. Slake was holding a frail hand in one palm as he tenderly brushed long brunette hair out of the female’s blood-streaked face.

  Lexi.

  “It’ll be okay,” Slake murmured, his tone hesitant and awkward, as if he wasn’t used to promising hope. “I won’t leave you. I swear.”
r />   Lexi’s golden-brown eyes were glazed with pain and shock, but she locked onto Slake’s gaze with the fierceness that only a lion shifter could manage. “Thank you,” she rasped. “Thank . . . you.”

  “No.” Raze’s voice sounded as destroyed as the club as he sank heavily to his knees. “No!”

  He gripped Lexi’s biceps and channeled what was left of his power into her, but a heartbeat later it became clear that she was beyond his capacity to help, even if his ability had been fully charged. He felt her drift away, her pulse becoming weaker as his pounded harder, until it stopped completely and her beautiful eyes clouded over.

  “Ah damn,” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” Slake said softly. “I didn’t know what to do—”

  “You did everything you could.” Raze shuddered, but long after it should have stopped, his body continued to tremble. He couldn’t let go of Lexi, not until Slake pried his fingers from her limp arm.

  “Come on, Raze.” Slake signaled to a team of rescue personnel as he pulled Raze to his feet. “Let them do what they need to do.”

  Raze nodded numbly, grateful for the way Slake had taken over and given him a chance to step back. He was also grateful for the way Slake stood protectively close, his hand a comforting, steady presence on Raze’s shoulder.

  “I liked her,” Raze said, his voice as thick as the smoke that lingered in the air. “I liked her a lot.” He looked at the trashed club, at the pools of blood that mingled with the soot and ash, and without an adrenaline rush and victims to treat, the reality of the situation finally sank in. “So much death and destruction. Why?”

  Slake shook his head. “Looks like Thirst took the bulk of the blast. At first, I thought the human club was the target, but if you look over there—” he pointed to the restrooms “—you can see where the blast originated. It was also focused, so it blew toward the front of the club. Someone wanted to take out the club without taking out the entire building. In fact . . .”

  Slake’s voice became a muted buzz, until all Raze heard was, blah, blah, maybe humans did it, blah, blah, inspect the materials used, blah, blah, blahblahblahblahblah . . .