by Larissa Ione
“Double standards get a bad rap.” An eerie chill whispered across Lore’s skin, but Eidolon didn’t seem to notice as he rummaged through a drawer. “Look, why don’t you give me the skinny on Kynan. If I know what you’re keeping from me, we might be able to piece together what’s up with this Idess chick.”
Eidolon tossed him a set of scrubs. “It’s not that I want to keep anything from you, but it’s Kynan’s story to tell. Not mine.”
Man, Lore hated demons with ethics. He tugged on the oh-so-manly mint-green pants while his brother dumped the bloodied tools into a biohazard bin. He was pulling the shirt over his head when that weird buzz of unease he’d gotten when he first arrived swamped him again.
“Do you feel that, E? It’s like I’m being watched.” Or hunted.
Eidolon’s head whipped around. “Like sandpaper on nerve endings?”
Lore couldn’t have said it better. Shrugging into his jacket, he nodded.
“Everyone’s feeling it. Shade, Wraith, the staff. We’ve all been on edge.”
Which explained the snippy triage nurse and the pissy folks who examined Idess when Lore first brought her in. Then again, so could the fact that they were demons.
Raised voices outside the room snapped Lore’s gaze to the doorway, where Tayla stood, green eyes blazing. “Where is that bitch?”
“Recovery,” Eidolon said, and when Tayla opened her mouth, he held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say, but I had to fix her so we can find out what she’s up to.” He glanced at Lore. “And who she’s actually after. Where’s Ky?”
Shade brushed past Tayla. “He’s in exam three. He lost consciousness for a few minutes, but I did a quick probe inside his head and aside from a mild concussion, he’s fine. You might want to give him a tune-up with a healing wave, though.” He swung around to Lore. “What the fuck were you doing there?”
Okaaay. Lore hadn’t expected a hug or anything, but last time he’d seen Shade, the guy had at least been conversational. Sort of.
“Hello to you, too, bro.”
“Answer the question.”
Already on edge from the malevolent vibe and everything else that had gone down today, Lore shoved to his feet, through with Shade’s bullshit. “None of your fucking business.”
Shadows writhed in Shade’s eyes. “I told you to stay away from Gem.”
Like Lore needed the reminder. The warning had been the very last thing Shade had said to him as Lore left the hospital three weeks ago. Don’t be a stranger, Lore. Oh, and stay the hell away from Gem.
“Last time I checked,” Lore gritted out, “you weren’t my boss.”
Shade’s fists clenched at his sides as he took a menacing step forward, and good goddamn, if the boy wanted to throw down, Lore was more than ready. The weird venomous vibe tangled with his temper, and he met Shade head-on. The first throw was his. Seminus brother-on-brother violence wasn’t covered by the Haven spell.
Eidolon stepped between them, and Tayla flanked him. Too bad. “Shade….” The warning in Eidolon’s voice was gentle but unmistakable. “Back off. This isn’t about Gem.”
“You seriously believe that?” Shade demanded.
“What I think doesn’t matter, but yeah, I do. Lore fought the angel, which may have saved Kynan’s life. So let it go.”
There was a long, tense silence, during which a tiny stab of guilt pricked Lore’s conscience. Lore cleared his throat, more to make noise in his mind than to end the silence. “Ah, hey, can someone finally tell me what’s up with Kynan and the angel thing?”
“It’s none of your fucking business,” Shade said, throwing Lore’s words back at him.
Lore shot Eidolon a glare. “If you’re wondering why I haven’t answered any of your texts, there’s your answer. You’ve all been so welcoming.” Of course, the fact that he’d tried to kill them might have something to do with that.
“I only wanted to run some tests, find out why your gift was mutated,” Eidolon said.
“I thought everything was fucked up because I’m half human, and Seminus and human don’t mix.”
“I’m sure that’s why, but if I can ascertain exactly what went wrong, I might be able to fix it.”
Lore’s heart gave an excited thump. His gift had caused him a lifetime of misery and loneliness, and he’d give his left nut to be rid of the damned thing.
But a lifetime of disappointment had also taught him to be skeptical, so he brought himself down with a bitter laugh. “And then I’ll be grateful, and we’ll bond and be one big, happy family?”
“You have a lot of other options, then?” Eidolon drawled.
“I manage fine on my own.”
Eidolon cocked an eyebrow at the bloody pile of clothes on the floor. “Obviously.”
Sarcastic ass. Then again, Eidolon might have a tweaked sense of humor, but at least he had one. As far as Lore could tell, Shade barely knew what a smile was, and Wraith hadn’t been a bundle of laughs, either.
None of it mattered, though, because even if Lore hadn’t promised his sister he’d stay away from them, they wouldn’t ever forgive him for killing Kynan.
Assuming he could. The fact that Kynan had demonslayer bodyguards watching out for him was a complication he didn’t need. Lore could handle it—he’d trounced Buffies before. But once he got past them, he had a much bigger issue to deal with if only angels could waste Kynan.
Suffocating under the crush of so many hostile glares, Lore moved toward the door. “I’m outta here.”
“In a hurry to kill someone?” Shade asked.
The question hit a little too close to home, but Lore rolled with it, happy to needle Shade. “Yep.”
Eidolon crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You’re not going to wait for our injured angel to wake up? It isn’t like whoever you have to kill is going to get any more alive. Kill him later. Maybe while you’re waiting, he’ll get struck by lightning or something. Save you some work.” Yep, Eidolon was a comedian.
“Let him go,” Shade said. “Obviously, he has work to do.”
Shade’s false niceness made Lore want to stay out of spite. “What do you guys plan to do with Idess?”
“As soon as she’s awake, we’ll get some answers out of her.” Eidolon leveled Lore a cold look, made all the more chilling by the fact that there was no emotion in it. “One way or another.”
Lore hoofed it toward UGH’s Harrowgate, away from his brothers, and away from Kynan. But he wasn’t heading home. Not yet.
Casting a covert glance over his shoulder to make sure his nosy siblings weren’t watching, he slipped past the triage desk and down a hall, knowing exactly where he was going. He’d interrogated staff and memorized the hospital blueprints when he’d plotted out the hits on Shade and Eidolon. The recovery rooms, three suites outfitted with various types of baths, chairs, and heated and chilled beds, were at the end of the wing, just past the seawater pool that was big enough for a killer whale to do laps in.
He found Idess in the first recovery room.
Everything but her head had been immersed in a vat of what was probably water infused with magical herbs. A spicy, medicinal fragrance permeated the air and made him want to sneeze as he closed the door behind him and moved toward her. The water bubbled around Idess, and steam swirled over the surface, but none of that hid the fact that she was naked. Shadows thrown by the dim light accented full breasts and slim hips, but left details tantalizingly to the imagination.
Lore had always had a great imagination.
Someone had taken the gold rings out of her hair, and now her chestnut mane fanned out across an inflatable pillow and the tiled floor behind her head, and he had the strangest urge to touch it and see if it was as silky as it looked.
Instead, he went down on his heels at the edge of the pool and studied her profile, so feminine and peaceful, as if she were lounging in a Jacuzzi instead of recovering from an injury that would have killed anyone else. Her long, sable lashes cast shadows
across the delicate ivory skin beneath her eyes, and her cheeks had pinked up, maybe from the heat of the water—or a sexy dream.
“Don’t suppose you can hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered, but didn’t open.
“What’s your deal?” he asked quietly. “You after Kynan, or me?” This time, her eyes opened and fixed on him. There was no recognition there, no sign that she even knew where she was.
“Rami?” There was hope and desperation in her voice, both of which made a person vulnerable. Exploitable.
He could use that. “Yes,” he said, running with the exploitation thing. “It’s Rami.”
Her lush lips curved into a smile that punched him right in the gut. That was a mouth any man would kill to taste—or to have taste him.
“You’ve come for me?”
He couldn’t help it; he let his gaze slide down the long, lean length of her. Freaking gorgeous. “Yeah,” he rasped. “I’ve come for you.” I’d come with you.
“Good,” she sighed. “Take me to heaven.”
His dick jerked, all, Sure, we’ll take you up on that offer, and Lore had to admit, if circumstances were different—meaning, she hadn’t tried to kill him—he’d be all over that. “First, why don’t you tell me what your mission is?”
She frowned. “Did I fail?”
“Fail to kill Kynan?”
“Kill?” She shifted, and a lock of hair slipped into the water, spreading like blood over her chest. “Protect.”
Acid bubbled up in Lore’s throat. She was Kynan’s protector?
“Take me, brother,” she said, and whoa, that cooled his jets. “Take me to Heaven so I can get my wings.”
Lore rocked backward, remembering what she’d told him at the mansion.
Who sent you?
God.
Oh, Jesus, she was really talking about Heaven. The Heaven. Not a fallen angel. An angel.
Not that it mattered. She was a threat to him if she was truly protecting Kynan.
Numbly, he peeled off his glove. The hospital was safe-guarded by the Haven spell, but he was willing to risk a skull-splitting headache if it meant saving his sister’s life. He’d suffered worse, for sure.
He reached for Idess. All he needed to do was to brush a knuckle over her cheek… a lover’s caress that would send her to Heaven, just as she’d asked. She closed her eyes, as if anticipating his touch, and his hand began to shake.
What the hell? He was an assassin. A cold-blooded killer. And she was dangerous, someone who not only stood between him and his goal, but who had tried to whack him.
But right now, she didn’t look dangerous. She looked sweet and angelic. Fragile. Helpless.
Lore might be a killer, but he had standards, and he’d never, ever taken the coward’s way out. He gave every one of his victims the courtesy of a wide-awake, face-to-face assassination. Murdering a female while she recovered from injuries was low, even for him.
The door opened. Lore leaped to his feet to face Wraith, who stood there, blond hair falling around a severe jawline and fangs bared in a silent snarl. “What are you doing?”
“Just thought I’d check on her. Why are you here?”
Wraith’s gaze dropped to Lore’s exposed hand, and when he looked back up, the glint of awareness in his blue eyes told Lore his brother knew exactly what had been about to happen. “Your revenge will have to wait.”
Lore exhaled, a futile attempt to release some tension. “Why?”
“Because,” Wraith said, his voice thick with anger, “I’m going to get into her head. I want to know who wants Kynan dead. And then I’m going to make them wish they’d never been born.”
Four
“I need your help. Please, Idess.” Clutching his forearm, Rami doubled over at the Nile River edge. Idess kneeled beside him.
“What’s wrong?” But even as she spoke, she knew. Two of his four heraldi were glowing angrily. Two? That was beyond rare—so much so that she’d never heard of it happening. When a single Primori was in trouble, the pain was excruciating. She couldn’t imagine having two in danger at the same time. “What can I do?”
“Help… the Viking.”
“Of course.” She feathered her finger over a heraldi on Rami’s arm, and instantly, she was transported to some sort of battle.
The stench of death was as thick as the fog around her. The ground was soaked with blood, strewn with body parts and bowels. The victims… oh, sweet Lord, the victims… women. Children. This wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter. And in the center of it all, hacking up a dying man with an ax, was Rami’s Primori, a Viking whose evil aura wrapped around him like a shroud, nearly snuffing the blue glow that gave away his Primori status. Though humans could be as evil as any underworld creature, this one made her wing marks itch and sent chills slithering up her spine. Demon blood flowed through this Primori’s veins.
A woman in tattered rags was crawling toward the Viking, murder burning in her eyes and a dagger clutched tightly in her fist. She was the threat to the Primori. Should the woman kill him, whatever fate he was supposed to bring about in the world, be it good or evil, would not happen.
Should she kill him, Rami would have a black mark on his record, would be forced to make amends by remaining earthbound even longer.
Which meant he could stay with Idess. Maybe even long enough that they could Ascend together.
The thought flickered through Idess as excitement, followed immediately by shame. She wanted Rami to earn his wings and find eternal happiness in Heaven. But once he was gone, Idess would be left on Earth, lonely and miserable without the brother she’d relied on for centuries.
The woman crept through the blood and gore, revenge and pain etched in her face as she eased up behind the Viking and raised her knife…
Stop her. The compulsion to do her job lashed at Idess, but so did the knowledge that if she saved the Primori’s life, he’d slaughter the woman, probably after raping and torturing her. A tremor rattled Idess’s very soul. The half of her that was her mother’s daughter demanded mercy for this woman even though Idess’s duty required her to do what was right for the world, not an individual.
But she’d seen the horrors men inflicted on women. The evidence lay strewn all around her.
Idess closed her eyes.
And did nothing.
The woman sank the blade deep into the Viking’s back. His roar of fury and pain carried through the veil of fog, silencing the sounds of battle in the distance. The woman stabbed again, striking the Viking in his neck, and he crumpled to his knees. Idess didn’t wait around to see more. She flashed to her brother, who was standing outside an Asian temple near the body of a male whose head lay several feet away. Nearby, the female Primori sat propped against a tree, stunned, but alive.
Rami turned to Idess, panting, clutching his forearm. “Thank you, God,” he whispered. “You are uninjured. When I felt my Primori die I worried that you had been hurt—”
“I’m sorry,” she rasped. “I… failed.”
“You tried. That is all I can ask.” Rami slipped his arms around her and held her close. “I’m so proud of you, sister. You’ve come to my aid how many times now? You are a credit to all Memitim, and I know our Lord will reward you well.”
Guilt settled over her like a two-ton shroud, and her knees buckled under the weight of the enormous, loath-some mistake she’d made. She’d betrayed her brother. Her race. Her God…
Idess sat up with a scream. Her lungs burned with the force of her panting breaths, and her pulse hammered in her veins. She hated that dream. That nightmare. She couldn’t believe that even after twelve hundred years it still had the power to reduce her to a quivering mess.
Couldn’t believe that even now the searing, twisting guilt was gripping her in a vise of sorrow once again. Especially since she’d long ago convinced herself that Rami would forgive her once she explained what she’d done. He’d always been a forgiving soul, gentle and caring. More important, he’d ope
rated on the same wavelength as she did. He’d understood her like no one else, and he’d been reluctant to leave her alone when he Ascended. So reluctant that he’d avoided stepping into the beacon of light for months, even at the risk of incurring the Memitim Council’s wrath.
That had been five hundred years ago, and still, the pangs of betrayal coursed through her. Clutching her stomach with one hand and rubbing her eyes with the other, she willed herself out of the past. The present was better. Much, much better. Humans had coffee now. And gelato. She could use a gallon of both…
Mouth watering, she opened her eyes, wincing at the sandpaper texture of the inside of her eyelids, and at the reddish light that filled her vision. Where was she? Squinting, she made out the hospital-equipment-lined gray walls, which were splashed with what appeared to be protective spells written in blood. Skulls and creepy things in jars sat in perfect rows on high shelves. She looked down at herself, at the thin cotton hospital gown covering her bandaged body.
She was a patient at Underworld General. This had to be the infamous demon hospital. How had she gotten here?
Something blew by her in a blur. Startled, she rolled her head to the side. Two ghosts hovered near the far wall, as clear to her as solid beings.
He’s back. Back! Hurry! The male’s voice was tinny, high-pitched, and dripping with panic.
The female launched into an attack against the wall, a flurry of fists against the long crack that ran horizontally from one corner to the other. Idess watched covertly, because as soon as they realized she could see and hear them, they’d mob her, either with pleas to help them cross over or with messages to deliver to surviving loved ones.
Hurrrrrrry! The crack widened into a deep fissure beneath their fists. The terror emanating from the ghosts was a low-level buzz of electricity over Idess’s skin. What could frighten the dead like that? And even more mysterious was the fact that they were humans. How had they gotten here? Were they trapped because the light couldn’t penetrate a demon-built facility?
Shuddering at that thought, she tried to swing her legs off the bed… and was jerked short. She’d been chained down. Fools. Restraints couldn’t hold her. With a snarl, she drew on two of her innate Memitim powers; super strength and speed.