by Larissa Ione
Emboldened, he moved closer, teasing her with the sight of his cock. “You like this, don’t you?” Her eyes flew up to his. “Tell me what you want me to do.” When her mouth worked but nothing came out, he smiled and stopped stroking. “What’s the matter? You embarrassed?”
Anger sparked in those amazing rum-colored depths, and along with it, the light of battle. Freaking hot.
“Stroke.” The command might have been more effective if there hadn’t been a slight quaver in her voice, but he did as she’d ordered. Slowly.
“How’s that?”
“Faster.”
Suppressing a groan, he increased the speed, but not by much.
“I said, faster. And… and do that twisty thing you do when your hand is at the top.”
He would have laughed at the cute fierceness in her voice, if he wasn’t too busy holding back his orgasm. Perspiration beaded on his forehead as he clenched his teeth and panted through the growing pressure.
“Stop,” she said, and damn her, he barely had the control to obey. “Slide your hand down. To your… your balls.” Splotches of pink colored her cheeks. She was powerful and sexy, yet the word “balls” made her blush.
Lore loved that.
He let his palm ride slowly down his shaft. By the time he reached his sac, his cock was aching. “Now what?”
“Rub them,” she said breathlessly. “Pretend I—a female was doing it.”
Closing his eyes, he cursed, because it was so easy to pretend it was her warm palm cupping him, rolling his balls gently between her fingers as she’d done before. She made him play for a minute, and just as he was about to beg her to let him do more, she said, “Now. Make yourself come.” Her voice lowered dangerously. Seductively. “On me.”
Surprise shot through him and the climax came on its heels, her words sparking a chain reaction that went nuclear. He barely had time to fall forward to brace himself on his right arm, keeping it well out of the range of her touch as he pumped his seed onto her hard, flat abs. His vision went completely offline as pleasure short-circuited a couple of his senses, including his hearing, because he heard Idess talking but had no idea what she was saying. He just wanted her to keep saying it, because her voice was an aphrodisiac, and his orgasm went on and on…
Finally, as his trembling arm threatened to collapse under his weight, it ended. His head swam and his breath felt like fire in his throat. He opened his eyes and met Idess’s.
“I’m so jealous,” she whispered, and he blinked.
“Of what?”
Her head fell back on the pillow, and she stared up at the ceiling with the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. “You’re so alive, Lore. There’s fire in you. A will to live, when all I want is to be done with this life.”
An unfamiliar emotion clogged Lore’s throat, cutting off his breath. A will to live? He couldn’t care less about his own life. What he did care about was Sin, and making sure she never had to be owned again. Until that happened, he had to hang on. She was one of the reasons he’d hoped his brothers didn’t turn out to be total shits, and that she’d get to know them. She needed someone to take care of her. Someone better than Lore.
“Don’t be jealous of me,” he croaked. “There is nothing about me you should envy. I’m a terrible person.”
A smile trembled on her lips. “Your choices are terrible, but a terrible person wouldn’t love your sister the way you do.”
He didn’t buy that, not by a long shot. But strangely, Idess was right about one thing. He was alive—at least, now he was. For the first time since going through the transition that had turned him into a cold killer, he felt a spark. The banter with Idess energized him. Their battles challenged him. The sex excited him. Sure, none of that had happened under ideal conditions, but he had to wonder what things would be like between them if they weren’t going head to head over Kynan.
And if she wasn’t chained up.
He stifled an insane laugh, because all of that was a dream, and he’d never been a dreamer. Besides, once Kynan was dead, Lore figured his brothers—or Idess—would make sure he never dreamed again.
Who in their right mind built a medical facility for demons? It was a question Rariel had asked since the day he’d heard about Underworld General, and as he searched for the Harrowgate’s UGH symbol, he found he was actually curious about it.
UGH. He had to chuckle at the utter lack of forethought someone had displayed when he’d named the hospital. Moron.
This would be the sixth time he’d been there, though the first five times he hadn’t even stepped out of the Harrowgate. He’d simply opened it up, let Roag out or in, and continued. Apparently, the curse Roag’s brother had saddled him with had left the shriveled demon not only invisible to most, but without the ability to manipulate objects like the Harrowgate or doors, which made travel difficult.
Poor guy. Being betrayed by a sibling was the worst pain one could experience, and Rariel knew that first-hand.
He cast a sympathetic glance at Roag, who appeared to Rariel as a transparent specter, not nearly as solid as spirits were. And, unlike spirits, Roag’s only communication with Rariel came telepathically.
“Are you ready?” Rariel asked.
Yes.
Rariel tapped the hospital glyph with anticipation. This time, he was going to deliver his traveler and hang out. Observe. Plot.
The gate opened, and he stepped out. The emergency room was bustling, but he doubted anyone else could see that.
Most of the people milling around were ghosts, and as Roag entered the hospital, those spirits went mad. Some fled, some cowered, some stood in place and wailed until Rariel wanted to clap his hands over his ears.
Rariel’s invisible friend terrified the ghosts, and even the living beings in the emergency room became suddenly agitated.
A female vamp wearing scrubs approached him. “Do you need help?”
“No,” Rariel said, as Roag literally ripped into one of the screaming ghosts. That was the fun thing about spirits. You could tear them apart, causing unimaginable pain, and yet, they didn’t die. “I’m just here to watch.”
“Suit yourself, creep.” The vampire walked away, and he settled in beneath the Waiting Area sign. Distantly, he heard pitched, angry voices, and in another direction, something screamed. The spirits were still freaking out, wailing and beating the walls.
Nearby, between one plastic-covered couch and a sturdy stone table, two females gathered three infants closer to them. The pretty female with brown hair and striking champagne eyes let out a wolflike growl. The harder-looking female with red hair caressed the hilt of a blade in her hip scabbard, her green warrior’s eyes alert.
The moment Roag spotted them, fury blasted off him in a concussion wave that affected everyone in the emergency department. Staff and patients missed steps, dropped equipment, hugged themselves as though cold.
Roag moved toward the little group, murder in his eyes. Ah, yes… the females were Sem mates, and the triplets were Sem cubs. This was the family of the very brothers Roag wanted destroyed. And interestingly, one of the infants seemed to see him. Roag smiled… at least, the twist of his lips looked like a smile. He shifted form into a big Sem with shoulder-length, dark hair.
The little one reached out his hand toward Roag. Roag circled the family, and the baby watched, squirming in its mother’s arms as it tried to reach for Roag.
“Rade, take it easy,” the female said, hefting the baby tighter against her.
Roag shot Rariel a grin, and Rariel’s stomach twisted. He might be evil, a sick fuck in his own right, but torturing any species’ young was not something he enjoyed.
But as Roag’s thoughts melded with his, he relaxed. He wouldn’t have to torture. Just kill.
Eleven
“Kynan, please. Stay at the hospital with me. You’re safe here.”
Kynan Morgan had a hard time denying his wife anything, but he had been a soldier in the Army and for The Aegis for most of his life, and it wasn’t
in his nature to hide from the enemy.
How often, though, was the enemy your best friends’ brother?
He wrapped his arms around Gem, the soft rasp of her purple scrubs against his leather jacket a comforting sound. He loved holding her, couldn’t believe that there had been a time when he’d foolishly wanted nothing to do with her.
“I’ll be fine,” he murmured into her hair. “I was battling demons even before I became all untouchable and immortal.” And before he learned he had an angel in his family tree.
“I don’t care.” She gave a petulant shake of the head and stepped back, hands on hips. “You never had a trained killer after you before.”
“I’ll be surrounded by Guardians, Gem. Tayla will be with me the whole time you’re on shift. Your sister would never let anything happen to me.”
Gem tugged on one violet-streaked braid. “I know. But what if—”
“Shh.” He pressed two fingers to her lips. “I promise I’ll be okay. I have an angel watching over me, too.”
She grasped his hand. “They should all be watching over you. It’s stupid that they can’t.”
He thought so, too. Reaver had explained the situation back when Serena had been keeper of the amulet, Heofon, and even then Kynan had to call bullshit on the whole can’t-interfere-with-human-will crap. At least his Primori status—whatever that was—had gotten around the no-interference rule a little.
He understood Gem’s worry, though—the chain around his neck held the key to unimaginable destruction, and thanks to the events of last month, it wasn’t as secret as it should be. It made him a target, and he couldn’t help but wonder who could have known that Lore was the only non-angel who could kill him. Only a handful of people had been present at Kynan’s resurrection and gifting of the necklace and immortality charm, and there was no way the Sem brothers would have talked, any more than the Guardians would have. Probably. Not everyone in The Aegis was happy about the fact that Tay and Ky were still Guardians, and they were both still dealing with the fallout.
Gem’s green eyes became liquid as she kissed his knuckles. “Just be careful.”
“Always.” He had a baby on the way, one who would be born charmed—the first ever to receive the immortality gift in that manner—and he would make damned sure he was around to raise it. And to make more. Gem wanted a big family, and so did he.
But in order to have his big family, he had to deal with the threat to it.
Lore.
His gut knotted. He owed the Sem brothers big-time. They’d given him a job, a wife, a life. But he’d take out the brother they hadn’t even gotten a chance to know in a heartbeat. Though he hadn’t told Tayla, he had every member of the Sigil using their resources to scour the planet for the demon.
Eidolon had better pray that he found Lore before Kynan did.
“She’s definitely our sister, Shade.”
Eidolon stared at the DNA report as he spoke into the phone. This was crazy. Unreal. He’d had the test run twice to ensure accuracy and to confirm that no one had tampered with the report, even though in his heart he’d known since yesterday.
Sin sat on the bed in one of the patient rooms, feet swinging while she waited for him. Through the window to the room, she looked small and innocent as she stared at the anatomy posters on the wall. She’d come back as she’d said she would, though Eidolon had no doubt she wouldn’t stay once she got the autopsy report on the warg she’d killed. She had no new helpful information on Lore, except that she’d had a tense confrontation with Idess, and Eidolon was starting to worry.
Making matters worse, he’d had to suspend four staff members for fighting, three for dereliction of duty, a patient had died today when a nurse had accidentally injected a lethal dose of medicine, and now the family of the dead Mamu was threatening bodily harm against all staff members. To top it all off, tension still pulsed between him and his brothers, particularly Shade.
All this time, he’d taken pride in the hospital he and his brothers had built from the ground up, and yeah, UG was an amazing accomplishment. But now its heart—its denizens—were sick, and he couldn’t help but feel that it was his fault, that he’d neglected them somehow. And by suspending workers, he was treating individual symptoms instead of the underlying illness, but at this point, slapping on a bandage was his only option.
“E,” Shade said, his voice drowned out by the sound of the ambulance engine, “this is freaky. Hope dear old dad doesn’t have any more surprises in store for us. Half-goats, dog-boys…”
“I know.” Eidolon glanced at Tayla, who had just joined him. “Look, I gotta go. Runa’s waiting for you. Wraith will be here any second with an exorcist.”
He hoped that getting rid of the ghosts would end the problems plaguing the hospital’s staff, but even if it did, this was an example of his failure to consider all potential problems that might affect his workers. He should have been practicing preventive medicine instead of waiting until an emergency cropped up.
He should have seen this coming a long time ago, though he had to wonder why it was happening now.
“Good. I’ll be there in five.” Shade paused. “I’m bringing in another warg.”
Eidolon’s stomach slid to his feet. “Diseased?”
“Looks like. Same symptoms as the first two.”
The first two. Who were dead. Apparently, the one Sin had diseased had transmitted his mysterious ailment to another, who had come in just hours after the first warg. If Shade’s patient was sick with the same symptoms, they could be looking at a possible outbreak. Eidolon hadn’t told Sin about the second warg, but a few minutes ago he’d taken more blood from her to analyze.
“Tell Runa to go to my office,” Shade said. “I don’t want her and the boys anywhere near this patient.”
“You got it,” E said, but Shade had already hung up.
Eidolon snapped his phone shut, called the triage desk with the message for Runa, and then stared at the DNA report again. “This is so fucked up.”
Tayla stole a peek at the report. “What’s fucked up? The Smurfette?”
“The what?”
“Smurfette.” Tayla rolled her eyes. “You’ve never watched cartoons, have you?”
Wraith came around the corner, his leather duster flapping around his boots. He shot Tay a look drenched with sympathy. “E’s way too starched to watch cartoons. That’s so not happening to Stewie. He’s already digging The Simpsons.”
“He’s three weeks old!” Tayla gaped at Wraith in out-rage.
“Almost four.”
Tayla huffed. “Good God. I can’t believe you are raising a child. Isn’t there some sort of demon equivalent of Child Protective Services?”
“Hey.” Wraith crossed his arms over his chest. “I have as much right to screw up a kid as anyone else. So what’s going on, anyway?”
Eidolon really had no idea, since he’d never seen The Simpsons, and Stewie, Wraith’s son, had been named after some hell child on another cartoon Eidolon hadn’t seen. Fortunately, the kid also had a proper demon name, but Wraith and his mate, Serena, seemed to think he needed time to grow into Talon, so for now, Stewie it was. In any case, this conversation was either way over Eidolon’s head, or way beneath him. He was going to go with the latter.
Tayla cursed under her breath. “I was just explaining to Eidolon that Sin is a Smurfette.”
Wraith swung his big body around to study Sin with blue eyes that were very different from Shade’s, E’s, and Lore’s. Sin’s, too. “Nah. Smurfette is way hotter.”
“What the fuck is a Smurfette?” Eidolon was seriously getting annoyed now.
“There’s this cartoon called The Smurfs,” Tayla explained, slowly, as though Eidolon were the child here. “They’re these little blue people, and they’re all male. But one day a female shows up. She shouldn’t exist, but she does.”
Eidolon considered that for a second. “How did she get there?”
“An evil wizard named Gargamel
made her,” Tayla said. “In a lab or something.”
“So you’re suggesting that an evil wizard made Sin?”
“Of course not, silly. I’m just saying she’s a Smurfette. A lone female amongst males.”
Eidolon frowned. “Did the Smurfette mate with the males?”
“Dude.” Wraith grimaced. “It’s a cartoon.”
“Then why are we talking about this?” Eidolon asked, and Wraith and Tayla exchanged looks that said he was a hopeless case. “Wraith, did you find an exorcist?”
Wraith shoved his blond hair back from his face. “Yup. He’s a weird one. Left him in the emergency department to get a feel for things.”
“Good. I’ll have him start work right away. If there’s anything he needs, I want you to get it for him.” As the hospital’s procurer of nontraditional supplies unique to demon medicine, dealing with an exorcist’s needs fell within Wraith’s job description.
“No problem.” Wraith jerked his chin at Sin. “Did she find Lore?”
Sudden tension took root at the mention of Lore’s name. “No.”
“Hope he’s not dead,” Wraith said, startling Eidolon. His brother stuck his hand in a coat pocket, probably feeling up a weapon. “If he needs killing, we should do the honors.”
Okay, yeah. That was more like it. “Wraith—”
“What?” The challenge in Wraith’s voice was what made Eidolon back down. Not that he was afraid of going toe-to-toe with his brother, but that was exactly what Wraith wanted, and Eidolon wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. There had been too much fighting between them lately.
“Nothing. Just make sure Kynan has a lot of backup. If one assassin has been sent after him, there could be more.”
“Kynan hasn’t been left without a Guardian since all this began,” Tayla said. “In fact, it’s my turn to stay with him. I need to go.”
“Be careful.”
“It’s no fun if I do that.” She kissed him and took off, and Eidolon took a much-needed moment to admire her swinging retreat.
Wraith stared after Tayla, but for different reasons. “What does The Aegis think of all this?”