“I said—”
“Yeah, you said. But I’ve seen wargs rip others apart with their bare hands. You upset the pack, we’re both dead.”
So, Con turned out to be right.
The scent of sex entered Sin’s lungs like an aphrodisiac, warming her from the inside, while the feel of it in the air shimmered over her skin. She felt drugged, loose, completely dreamy. The tendrils of mist swirling around their feet as they walked up the center of the medieval-like town only added to the surreal texture of the world they’d entered.
“Con?” She brushed up against him, intentionally, and groaned at the feel of his hard body against hers. “Maybe I should wait outside the wall.” She’d been inside brothels, harems, and orgies and never had she encountered anything so raw, so intense. It was as if the village itself seethed with primal instincts and hungers that were never sated.
Con must have felt it, too—the evidence made an impressive bulge in the front of his jeans. “You’ll be vulnerable out there,” he muttered. “We’ll hurry.”
He took her hand and led her along the main thoroughfares, where a few people kept to the sidewalks and glass shop fronts revealed people inside the pubs, stores, and eateries. Oddly, Sin realized they’d been passed by only a couple of vehicles. Even odder, every now and then she caught sight of couples screwing in alleys and side streets. Some were clothed, some naked, some in various states of undress. And…
“Is this a gay village?”
“No.”
“Then why is most of the action male on male?”
“Pricolici are horny,” he said roughly, as he dragged her past a couple who seemed to be doing their best to prove Con’s point. “Especially during their teen-human-equivalent years, which extend into around their fiftieth year. You know how male dogs will hump anything?”
Right now she’d hump anything… She gulped. “Yeah.”
“It’s pretty much the same with young, unmated male wargs. The females are less insane with lust at that age, so the males burn off their excess testosterone with fights and sex. Usually both at the same time.”
“Which explains why a lot of them are bloody.”
“Winner does the loser.”
Speaking of which, she watched in morbid fascination as two young males beat the crap out of each other, until one knocked the other to the ground and mounted him. The loser immediately stopped fighting, and the sudden expression of pleasure on his face, as well as his stiff cock, said this wasn’t a rape situation at all.
“Are there any rules here?”
He tugged her to get her moving again. “Can’t fuck, fight, or walk naked on main roads or in places like restaurants, where humans might accidentally go if they find their way into the town.”
The human in her appreciated the need for rules, but the sex demon in her wanted to get down and dirty, right in the middle of the town square, just to cause a little trouble and shake things up. She shuddered at the thought, felt a wet rush between her legs, and started toward the fountain. As if Con knew what she was up to, he let out a low, erotic growl, squeezed her hand, and dragged her from the square.
They ducked down a side street—and ran into three fighting males. Fascinated and wondering how that was going to end, Sin stopped, digging in her heels when Con tried to force her away. She didn’t get a chance to see how the males were going to settle the battle and sex, because Con grabbed her by the waist and hauled her out of there. She’d have fought him, but… yeah, it just felt too good to have his arms around her.
She shivered with nearly uncontrollable desire as he put her down half a block away from the fighting trio, though for just a second he hesitated, his fingers digging into her hips, his panting breaths matching hers.
“Why are you affected so strongly by all of this?” She gripped his wrists, holding him there, wishing he’d come closer. “You’re… old.”
He laughed, a deep, clear note that rang through her in a pleasant wave. “I’m young by dhampire standards.” He sobered as he gazed at her, then took a deep breath and pulled away. “I’m not normally affected like this. It’s you. You’re putting off some hellacious fuck-me vibes.”
“Not enough, apparently,” she muttered.
He either ignored her or didn’t hear her, but he took her hand again and led her down a couple more cobblestone streets until they reached the outskirts of town and the narrowest road yet, which ran alongside the town wall.
Once again, she slowed as a distant, odd sound caught her attention. “What’s that? Sounds like a dogfight. Big one.”
Con nodded, but kept walking. “When aggression sparks in a large group of wargs, they shift, no matter what time of day or month, so they can battle in beast form.”
She whistled, low and long. “You wolfy people have turned fighting into an art form. Living with you must be loads of fun.”
For some reason, he tensed. “We ‘wolfy people’ can be very gentle with our families.”
True enough. From what Sin had seen, Runa was a perfect example.
At the end of the street was a cul-de-sac with four small, thatch-roofed houses, each separated by several yards of land and thick copses of trees. As they approached, a muscular male wearing nothing but jeans exited one of the houses, his gaze fixed on Con. Beside her, the scent of aggression wafted off Con.
“What’s going on?” she asked under her breath.
Con didn’t answer right away, and as they got closer, the dark-haired male bowed his head, though with obvious reluctance.
“He’s an alpha,” Con finally replied. “But I’m older, stronger, and more alpha. We determined that a few years ago.”
So… Con had beaten the crap out of the guy. That must have been interesting. “Did you make wild, passionate love to him after you proved victorious?” She was only partly teasing, was imagining the fight, the sex, and again, a primal response rose up, and God, her bones were going to melt if she didn’t get Con between her legs. Soon.
One corner of Con’s lush, gorgeous mouth turned up. “I passed on that.” The male didn’t lift his head until Con stopped in front of him. “Dante. Good to see you.”
Dante gave a curt nod. “Sable is inside.” He shifted his gaze to Sin, his expression dark. Dangerous. “Who is the female? She is not warg.”
“She’s a colleague.”
Dante’s lip lifted in a silent snarl. Clearly, he didn’t want her anywhere near his family, but Con didn’t give him a chance to protest. Still holding her hand, he entered the house, where the scent of roast venison made Sin’s mouth water, and once the door closed, her lust eased so abruptly she sagged against Con. He caught her, held her steady until she could stand on her own again.
“You okay?”
She nodded, grateful for the temporary reprieve.
Children’s laughter came from somewhere in the house, and a tall, red-haired female wearing green sweats and a sweatshirt came around the corner, grinning when she saw Con.
“Father!” She hurried to him, but dropped to her knees at his feet. He lifted her into a huge hug.
“Father?” Sin asked, and he shrugged.
“Technically, I’m Sable’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, but we’ll pretend there aren’t so many greats in there.”
“What brings you here?” Sable gave Sin a warm smile before hugging Con again, giving his neck a little nuzzle and kiss, much the way pups greeted older canines. For some reason, the display of affection put an odd lump in Sin’s throat. “Would you like to stay for supper?”
“I’m here for only a minute,” he said. “No time to even sit.”
Frowning, Sable stepped back. “What is it?”
“You’ve heard of SF.”
“Of course.” She waved her hand dismissively. “We have guards at the gate to prevent foreign wargs who might be infected from entering.”
“You need to take your family somewhere else. Somewhere isolated.”
“But why, if—”
> Con gripped Sable’s shoulders and forced her to look into his deadly serious eyes. “Because soon it’s going to become known that only turned wargs are susceptible, and security at your gate will no longer be needed.”
For a moment, confusion swirled in Sable’s eyes, surely matching Sin’s own, and then the blood in Sable’s already pale face drained, making her freckles stand out like a dalmation’s spots. “Oh, gods.”
“It’ll only be a matter of time before a warg civil war breaks out,” he said grimly. “Get your family to safety.”
She gave him a shaky nod. “Just a minute.” She darted out the door, leaving Sin and Con alone in the entryway.
“I don’t understand what just happened,” Sin said, still staring after the shaken female. “Why would the news about turned wargs be bad? Isn’t your… daughter… a dhampire?”
“Not even close.” A child squealed somewhere in the house, and Con smiled fondly. “Back when our numbers were far greater, female dhampires often mated with wargs. Eight hundred years ago, my only daughter did so. Her offspring followed suit, mostly breeding out the dhampire blood. Sable is pricolici, and her mate is as well.”
“Now I’m even more confused—”
“One of her cubs is varcolac.”
Oh, shit. “How did that happen?” She waited for a response. And waited. “Con?”
“It’s not important,” he said flatly, the dismissal just blatant enough to piss Sin off.
“If it’s not important, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to tell me, right?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And it’s not like we have anything better to do.”
“It’s a very dangerous secret, Sin. Something that could destroy my family.”
Her anger veered sharply to hurt, which made her ping right back to anger, because dammit, he shouldn’t be able to affect her like that. “Ah. So you think I would use the information to harm them. Nice. Must have been hell to stick your dick into someone so repugnant.”
Angry, guttural words fell from his lips. Good. He deserved to be as irked as she was. As the curses died down, he trained his laserlike gaze on her, his expression tight, shadowed with unmistakable warning. “When a born warg gives birth to a human baby, they are usually put down before they can utter a cry. But Sable couldn’t do that. She bit the infant and had the mark of a born warg tattooed onto him.”
“So I’m guessing she could get into a lot of trouble if the child is discovered?”
“Under warg law both she and the child could be executed.”
Sin grimaced, though she wasn’t surprised. After a hundred years in the demon world, very little surprised her anymore. But now she understood his reluctance to spill the secret. “If both parents are born wargs, how did the kid pop out human?”
Con hesitated, his eyes hooded and unreadable. Finally, he blew out a breath and answered gruffly. “Sable came into season while she was on a private sabbatical. She mated with a turned warg, but they were interrupted by The Aegis. He was killed. Just hours after that, Dante found her, took her during what remained of the heat, and when it was over, they were bonded. She came to me when it was time for the birth and confessed that she thought the cubs might be the dead male’s. She gave birth to fraternal twins—one warg and one human. She nipped the human, had him tattooed, and returned to the pack. Not even Dante knows the truth.”
Jesus. That was one hell of a secret. “So they need to get the kid to a place where he can’t catch the disease once the town opens up and turned wargs are free to come and go.”
“Exactly.”
Sin pondered what he said, and then blurted, “Where is your daughter? You know, your daughter daughter.”
A sad smile touched his sensual lips. “She died in childbirth. I didn’t know her well—I’d left the clan by the time she was born—but I felt her die.”
She didn’t have time to utter an awkward condolence because the door burst open and Dante stalked through, his big hand wrapped around the back of Sable’s neck. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, her face streaked with tears. “Is what my mate said true? Was Roman born a… human?” He said “human” like he might say “filthy maggot.”
Con glanced at Sable, who nodded. “Yes,” he said, his eyes as cold as his voice. “And if you hurt the child or Sable, I’ll hang you by your entrails and make you suffer for a month before you die.”
Trembling with emotion so powerful that Sin could smell it like bitter smoke, the male warg released Sable and closed his eyes. When he opened them, crystal tears glistened on his lashes. “I would have killed the infant if I’d known back then,” he said, and Sable’s pained cry brought a cringe from him and a hiss from Con. “But I’m not that male anymore. The cub is mine, and I will defend him with my life.”
With a sob, Sable flew into Dante’s arms, and he held her tight, his tears joining hers.
Guarded respect softened the hard line of Con’s jaw. “You’ll take Roman somewhere safe?”
“We’ll leave within the hour.”
Sin stood aside while arrangements were made and good-byes were said, and even though they had to leave the peace of the home, Sin was more than happy to get out. She could deal with lust much more easily than she could deal with strong emotion.
“Come on.” Con closed the door behind them. “I want to get out of here before—”
“Too late,” she breathed. High-octane lust, even more intense than before, flooded her body, making her mind fuzzy and her sex ache.
“Shit.” He took her hand and forced her to jog through the streets, using the main thoroughfares as much as possible.
Crazily, the faster they moved, the hotter she got. It was as if each step ramped her up even more, and by the time they reached the town square, she’d unbuttoned her top and was so ready for Con’s hands to be on her. Unable to wait another second, she jerked him to a stop. The potent scents of desire and danger rolled off him, swirled inside her, and she swayed, reaching out to brace herself against him.
“Sin… no. Don’t touch me.” His eyes were wild, glinting with shards of lust. “I’m going to… lose control. I’ll take you right here.”
Panting, her body tingling with awareness, she ran her palms up his stomach, skimming his pecs until she reached his broad shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind—”
A rough sound erupted from his throat, and lightning fast, he snared her wrists and held them away from him and against her own chest. “I will not cheapen you.”
She laughed, but the sound was hoarse. “Cheapen? Seriously? With the things I’ve done, I can’t get any cheaper.” Surprise flickered in his eyes, and she realized she’d revealed a hell of a lot more about herself than she had intended. More than she ever had, to anyone. She ran her foot up his calf, as much as a distraction as because she was on the verge of jumping him. “And for Hell’s sake, you did me in a freaking supply closet on a bet. How is this different?”
A shadow crossed his face, almost as though the reminder brought him shame, and no doubt it did; at the time, he’d implied that he’d lowered his standards to service her needs. He shifted away from her foot. “You’re bitter, little demon. Your past must have a hell of a choke hold on you.”
“Fuck you,” she said, but even to her own ears it sounded more like an offer than a kiss-off. “You don’t know anything.”
Clenching his teeth, he set her away from him. “I know that I’ll never take you in public, even in a place where public sex is normal and accepted.”
She raised her chin. “Maybe it’s normal for me.”
“I don’t doubt that it is.” The tone of his voice was naked, utterly lacking in the kind of judgment that should have accompanied what he’d said. “But I do doubt that you want it to be.”
Damn him. Damn him for somehow looking into her soul and reading her like a damned book. Her eyes stung as she spun around and headed for the town gate.
“Sin.” She ignored him. “Sin!”
This time, his sha
rp tone penetrated, along with a raising of her hackles, and she stopped. All around her, young males were watching, their eyes gleaming with hunger. Where had they come from? And why were they looking at her like that when they could be fucking each other?
“Con?” she asked quietly. “What’s going on?”
“They’ve sensed your arousal,” he murmured. “And your anger. They intend to have you.”
Nine
This was not good. Sin might as well be a female warg in heat, and few males would back down from that.
Baring his fangs in warning, Con wrapped his palm around the back of Sin’s neck. Unlike Dante’s hold on Sable, this wasn’t a domination thing; it was a sign to the advancing males that she was his, and they’d have to go through him to get her.
His. No, she definitely wasn’t his and would never be. Even if he weren’t destined for an isolated life with his clan, he couldn’t see himself tied to her—at least, not in a nonerotic way. And yet, he was vibrating with a startling, possessive fury, and he was still drowning in hunger so intense he could hardly see straight.
A couple of the younger males hesitated, but the more aggressive, dominant males continued to stalk them, the gleam of lust—and bloodlust—glowing in their eyes. The air was thick, drenched with violent anticipation, and Con’s skin tightened, preparing for an unwelcome shift into his beast form.
“Back slowly toward the gate,” Con said, his voice slurred by both need and the fact that his fangs had filled his mouth. “Don’t draw a weapon. And for all that’s unholy, button your shirt.”
Damn, he’d been afraid of this. Sin was a magnet for trouble. How had she managed to survive this long?
One of the youngsters lunged. Con knocked him back with a powerful blow to the jaw. Yelping, the kid wheeled back into the crowd. The display instilled a little respect into the others, and the distance between Con and Sin and the mob increased.
They had almost arrived at the wall when Sin’s harsh whisper cut through the fog. “The gate is closed.”
Son of a—Con risked a glance over his shoulder at the sentry, whose hungry gaze was fixed on Sin. “I freaking hate pack mentality,” he muttered.