by Larissa Ione
“Does it bother you at all?” Bran’s voice was a gravelly purr, as though he both enjoyed and hated taunting Con. “Do you regret sinking into blood addiction? Do you ever think about the female who died because of your lack of control? Do you ever think on how Eleanor died?”
Go. To. Hell.
Slowly, Bran peeled his fingers away, and Con took a grateful gulp of air. “You will return, and you will take your place on the Council. You are coming with me now.”
“Can’t.” Con started to thrash, straining against Bran’s heavy body and the hand that clamped down on his neck again.
“I will take you by force, Conall.” His knee came up to nail Con in the groin, effectively putting an end to the struggle. And maybe to future kids, as well. “What will it be?”
“The disease that is killing wargs is a threat to us all,” Con bit out. “You can have me when the crisis is over.”
“Show me your throat.”
Damn him. It wasn’t enough that Con had willingly lost the fight; Bran was going to make him endure complete surrender. Grinding his molars so hard they hurt, Con cranked his head to the side, leaving his jugular exposed. For a long moment, Bran did nothing. Con’s pulse ticked off the seconds, and the longer Bran kept Con in the submissive, humiliating position, the more Con began to sweat.
“You’ve made your point,” Con growled.
“No,” Bran said, with a sadistic laugh. “I don’t think I have.” He dropped his mouth to Con’s throat, and Con’s heart leaped up there to join the party.
“Don’t. The virus is in my blood.”
Bran’s hot breath whispered across Con’s skin. “How convenient.”
Very. Being fed on in a show of dominance was never pleasant.
The scrape of teeth along Con’s jugular made him tense because, like Con, Bran had never been cautious with his own life, and Con wouldn’t put it past the crazy bastard to bite despite the viral infection swimming in Con’s veins.
Finally, Bran leaped fluidly to his feet. “You have until the epidemic is contained or the breeding season starts. Whichever comes first.” He stepped into the Harrowgate, and the shimmering curtain solidified, leaving Con alone in the courtyard.
Alone with the knowledge that his days of freedom were numbered, and with the words “Be careful what you wish for” running through his head.
Five
“Let the bodies hit the floor.”
“Bodies,” by Drowning Pool, blared from Sin’s iPod Shuffle, and she sang at the top of her lungs as she walked with Wraith to the ER. After Con had taken off—without so much as a “Thanks for the meal”—Wraith had made her stop by the cafeteria for a quick snack to replenish her blood sugar or some crap. Apparently, Eidolon the Great had insisted. Something about passing out again.
Now, Wraith was stone silent, though a cocky smirk turned up one corner of his mouth. “So,” he said, tugging her earbuds from her ears, “you banging the paramedic?”
So much for the stone silence. She’d love to make his body hit the floor. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.” Not recently, anyway.
“But you want to.” When she opened her mouth to deny it, he cut her off. “You can’t lie to an incubus about sex. You should know that.”
“Whatever,” she muttered, and stuck the earbuds back in place.
Wraith’s boots sounded like mini-bombs striking the obsidian floor even through the blaring sound of the music, and with each step, her nerves twitched. No doubt the effect was calculated, because she knew he could move like a damned phantom when he wanted to. Once again, he yanked on the headset’s cord. “He wants you, too.”
“Well, gee, aren’t you just smarter than you look.” Knowing the battle was lost, she turned off the tiny MP3 player. “Hello, he’s a guy. And a vampire. He was responding to the feeding.” And to her succubus pheromones, which had a tendency to attract the attention of all nonincubi males, even if only subliminally. “What’s your point, anyway?”
He shrugged. “Just making conversation.”
Bullshit. He was trying to get as much information about her as he could. Her new brothers all responded differently to her existence—Eidolon accepted it like she’d been around for years, Shade made extra efforts to build a relationship, and Wraith… he kept her at arm’s length, and she had a feeling he would until he learned to trust her. She got that; she was the same way. Just because someone was biologically related didn’t make them family. Definitely didn’t make them likable.
Worse, family had the potential to hurt a person much more than a stranger ever could.
“You don’t like me, do you?” she asked.
“I don’t know you.”
She stopped in the middle of the hall. “Cut the shit.”
He grinned. “You’re a straight shooter. I do like that.”
“But?”
Wraith’s blue eyes glazed over as he stared down the hall, going someplace she couldn’t follow. “But we have a history of some real fuckwads in the family, starting with our father and ending with Roag. Lore has proven himself, but you… you’re a wild card.” His gaze shifted to her, and it was as cold as the arctic tundra. “I won’t let you screw with my brothers.”
“Screw with them? Maybe you could keep in mind that I saved the lives of two of Shade’s kids. And I never wanted to meet you guys at all. The only reason I’m spending as much time with you as I am is because Eidolon and Shade won’t leave me alone.”
Eidolon called her to come in for stuff related to the epidemic, and Shade was always inviting her to dinner with his family to thank her for what she’d done for his sons. And sure, the triplets, Rade, Stryke, and Blade, were cute and all, but dealing with drooly little rugrats was way out of her comfort zone.
“But you’re here now, and you’re in our lives. So what happens when the plague is over and you don’t need to come to the hospital anymore?” Wraith stepped closer, using his size in an attempt to intimidate her. “Will you disappear?”
She wrenched her neck to look up at him, but no way was she backing down. “That’s the plan.”
A low growl rumbled in his chest. “I couldn’t give a hellrat’s ass, but my brothers? Different story. Lore worries about you. E has accepted you into the family, and he’s not going to let you go. Shade… he lost a sister he loved, and now he needs you to help him heal. He probably doesn’t see that, but even as dense as I am sometimes, I see it. So guess what, little sister? Get used to having me around because I’m going to be your shadow until I’m sure you won’t hurt our family.”
Sin practically shook with rage. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she spat. “And I’m not your ‘little’ sister. I’m older than you are, dickhead.”
“Duh, the years you spent as a clueless human don’t count. Everyone knows that.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Just remember what I said. Don’t try to run away, because there is no place on Earth or in Sheoul where I can’t find you.” His voice was a rumbling, deadly murmur. “And trust me, you don’t want me on your heels.” He did a crisp about-face on the ball of his foot and took off down the hall, leaving her spitting mad and tempted to go after him, though she had no idea what she’d do if she caught up to him.
“Sin!” Eidolon gestured to her from the double swinging doors to the ER. “I need you. Now.”
Sin mentally flipped off Wraith and hurried after Eidolon, who didn’t even wait to see if she was following. He crossed to a room near the parking lot doors and flung back the heavy curtain.
There, lying in a bed, was a tawny-haired male, a teenager, maybe, his skin ashen in the few places where it wasn’t mottled by black bruises, blood leaking from his nose, eyes, and ears. Machines breathed for him, pumped fluids into his veins, monitored his vital signs. A young, humanoid nurse—a shifter of some sort, according to the star-shaped mark behind her ear—checked his status, her face pinched with concern.
Sin wanted to throw up. “Was he in an accident?”
“
That’s what this disease does.” Eidolon lifted the patient’s chart from a hook at the end of the bed. “It’s a VHF, a viral hemorrhagic fever. It causes multisystem failure, including the vascular system. Organs break down, and veins basically dissolve. The patient bleeds from all orifices—”
“Stop.” Horrified, Sin stumbled back a step, bumping into a cabinet behind her. God, what had she done?
Eidolon gestured to the nurse. “Vladlena, can we get a minute?”
“Of course, Doctor.”
Once she was gone, Eidolon gripped Sin’s shoulders. “Sin,” Eidolon said, his tone much kinder than she deserved. “I need your help. I need you to channel your gift into him and see if you can force the virus into compliance.”
“I’ve already tried with that other warg a few days ago. It didn’t work, and he wasn’t nearly as bad off as this guy.”
“I know. And this might not work either. But you’ve had a chance to see how the virus in Con’s blood was killed. If you can cause a similar reaction inside this warg, he might have a chance.”
“Dammit,” she breathed. “Okay. Yeah.” She curled her hands into fists in an effort to keep from trembling. It had been decades since anything had affected her so strongly, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it other than by burying her emotions down deep, the way she’d always done.
Bucking up, she gently gripped the warg’s blackened, swollen hand. “Why so bruised?”
“He’s bleeding subdermally as his capillaries rupture.”
Dear God. She closed her eyes, digging for every ounce of stone-cold detachment she had. She’d been a killer for years, had been to hell and back—literally—and she’d seen much, much worse than this.
She just hadn’t caused it.
“Why can’t he drink my blood like Con did?” She opened her eyes and shifted her gaze to Eidolon, the walls, the floor, because anything was better than staring at the dying kid. “I mean, I know wargs normally don’t drink blood, but wouldn’t that provide some sort of defense?”
“It worked on Con because he’s part vampire, and the blood he took from you went nearly immediately into his bloodstream. For anyone else, the blood goes into their stomach and is digested or regurgitated.”
Ick. “Can you inject my blood into them?”
“Even if your human blood type were the same as the victim’s, you’re part demon. Injecting your blood directly into a werewolf would kill him.”
Numbly, she nodded. Forced herself to look down at the boy, because he deserved that, at least. Slowly, so slowly, her mental walls finally slammed into place, blocking off the horror, the sorrow, the guilt. Oh, it would all come out again, painfully so, but right now, she needed to put up the shields that would allow her to handle this.
Concentrating, she opened herself up to her ability, and heat ripped down her arm from her shoulder to her fingertips, following the curves and lines of her dermoire. It glowed as her gift channeled into the werewolf.
The disease rolled over her, a dirty sludge of information that made her arm and mind heavy. In her head, the visuals swirled—she could see the twisted, squiggly virus strings wrapped around blood cells, squeezing the life out of them. The shape of the virus strands were different than the ones in Con, but she visualized the way Con’s virus had been destroyed, and then she blasted the warg with power. Stinging gooseflesh prickled from her shoulder to her fingertips, as she imagined reversing the disease, taking it back to its beginning stages.
Nothing happened.
She concentrated harder. Sweat beaded on her brow.
Still nothing.
Breathing deeply, she unleashed the full force of her power, until it felt as though her arm were wrapped in electric fencing. Inside her skull, a hive of angry bees buzzed. Distantly, she heard Eidolon calling her name. Her eyes stung as sweat dripped into them.
Feedback streamed up her dermoire and into her head… Something was happening. The werewolf’s blood cells vibrated, and all around them, the virus strands broke apart. First, it was just a few, but suddenly, they were exploding like popcorn. Tiny bits of the virus rushed through the vessels.
Encouraged, Sin probed the male’s network of veins and arteries, and everywhere, the enemy was being destroyed. Yes! This had been so easy, such a great fix, and as her mind’s eye played the scene in high-def, she smiled.
The virus shreds ran thick through his bloodstream… so thick that they began to pile up, clinging the walls of the arteries… clogging at the narrows.
Oh, shit. Sin dialed back her power and shifted the visuals to the area around his heart. Suddenly, beeping alarms and a flurry of activity surrounded her. She caught a glimpse of the warg’s heart squeezing, then stopping, the veins and arteries around it flattening as they became clogged.
Someone tore her away, and she stood there, dazed and in disbelief, as Eidolon and half a dozen staff members worked to save the warg. Idess, Lore’s mate and an ex-angel who had been given the task of escorting human souls out of the hospital, entered the room, which was a very, very bad sign. Turned werewolves had human souls, so if Idess was there…
Sickened and shaking, Sin didn’t know how long she watched, but when Eidolon cursed violently and called the time of death, she walked out of the room like a zombie, unsure where she was going or what she was doing. All she knew was that her right arm itched, a warning sign that she was about to bleed.
“Sin! Stop!” Eidolon stepped in front of her, and when he raised his hand, she braced herself for a punishing blow. But instead of striking her, he gripped her shoulders, forcing her to stop. “It wasn’t your fault. He was going to die anyway.”
She didn’t point out that it was still her fault.
“Can you tell me what went wrong?”
“Yeah,” she said as she twisted out of his grip. “My psychotic mother fucked a demon, and here I am.” She laughed bitterly. “She always said she was a screwup. I guess I inherited that, huh? I mean, she couldn’t even abort us after eating a demon herb grown solely for killing off mistakes. Leave it to me to not get dying right.”
“Hey.” Eidolon reached for her again, but when she stepped back, he dropped his hand. Still, there was compassion in his eyes, compassion she didn’t want or need. “What happened to you as a child, what’s happening now… I’m sorry. I’ve been hard on you—”
“Whatever.” She cut him off, way too uncomfortable with the mushy-mushy, and impatient to find privacy so that when her guilt erupted no one would witness her pain or try to make it stop. “Let’s just figure out a way to end this.”
Her brother was intuitive enough to know she needed to change the subject, and he rolled with it as if he’d never tried to get all apologetic. “Tell me what happened in there with the warg.”
“There was too much of the virus in his system,” she said. “When it died, it clogged up his veins.”
Eidolon appeared to consider that. “Do you think that if you got to someone before so much of the virus was in the blood you could kill it without the same thing happening?”
“Maybe. But how will that help you? There’s no way I can cure every infected warg that way.”
“No, but we might be able to use the dead virus to create a vaccine or a cure by studying how the young virus was actually killed with your power.”
She frowned. “Can’t you use the virus from the werewolf who just…” Died.
Fortunately, Eidolon spared her from having to say it. “I’ll get samples, absolutely. The problem is that as the disease progresses in a patient, the virus degrades. By the time the patient dies, there isn’t a lot of structure left to study or use. None of the patients have developed antibodies, either. The R-XR has gotten some samples from newly infected wargs, but the problem is that the R-XR can’t kill the virus even in the lab. Nothing kills it. It has to age and die on its own. This is not a human virus, Sin. It’s a demon virus, which means human research and procedures are failing us. Hugely. It doesn’t behave like any huma
n or animal virus I’ve ever seen. We might as well be working with a disease from outer space.”
The intercom squawked, and she nearly jumped out of her skin as Eidolon was called to the triage desk.
He gestured for Sin to follow him around the corner. “I’ll take care of this. Wait in the…” He trailed off, and she followed his gaze to where a nurse, a patchy-furred slogthu, was eyeing two males wearing the black jumpsuit uniform of the Carceris—underworld jailers who weren’t known for their gentle methods. One, a vampire with waist-length chestnut hair, moved to meet her brother. The other, humanoid and species unknown, looked around with curiosity.
And, as if the emergency department wasn’t crowded enough, Con stepped out of the Harrowgate.
“Eidolon.” The vamp held out his hand, and Eidolon clasped it with a firm shake.
“Seth. How can I help you?”
Seth’s ice-blue eyes shifted to Sin, sending a prickle of foreboding up her spine. “Is that your sister? Sin?”
Eidolon stiffened. “Why?”
The other demon stepped forward, overly large lips peeled back to reveal sharp teeth and a forked tongue. “Because,” he said, “we’re here for her. She’s under arrest.”
We’re here for her.
Someone on the Council had changed their mind. Son of a bitch. First, Con had been ambushed by Bran, and now this. He couldn’t catch a freaking break. Sin wouldn’t, either.
Con had been inside a Carceris prison, and it wasn’t Disneyland. The enchanted cells neutralized all species’ special powers and their unique requirements, so that vampires didn’t need blood, incubi didn’t need sex, Cruenti didn’t need to kill. But they also left the demons powerless, unable to defend themselves from whatever punishments the jailers dished out.
If Sin were taken, she could be kept like that for years. The demon justice system operated on the premise that all were guilty until proven innocent, so dragging heels meant years, even decades, of torture behind bars.
Con knew from experience.
He eased casually toward Sin, who stared at the Carceris officers, one a vamp, the other a wither drake, in disbelief. Eidolon put himself between the vampire and his sister, his expression glacial.