by Larissa Ione
“No doubt you are.”
He smirked, amused by her presumption. “I have no need to be. Females fall at my feet.” Sin hadn’t exactly fallen at his feet—no, she’d tried to kick his ass when they first met. But she’d eventually caved. Of course, as a succubus, she could very well cave to every male who crossed her path. And why that thought made him suddenly grumpy he had no idea.
“The day I fall at your feet,” she drawled, “is the day I give up pizza.”
“Pizza?”
“Mmm, love it. All kinds. Thin crust, pan crust, the works, just cheese… yum.” She rubbed her flat belly, and Con had to clench his fist to keep from reaching over and joining the action. “Stomach’s rumbling. Need pizza.”
“Tell you what. You explain to me why you started the epidemic, and I’ll bring you a pizza when I come back from the Council meeting.” He also made a mental note to call Luc with an update about SF. Con had promised the warg that he’d keep him up on the latest news.
She hesitated, then shrugged. “It was a hit gone wrong. I was supposed to waste this werewolf, so I channeled my gift into him. It usually kills quickly, but I was interrupted by Idess.”
“Lore’s mate? Why would she interrupt?” Con remembered the first time he’d seen the gorgeous angel who gave off a glow of pure goodness, even though rumor had it that she was human now. Idess had been brought in to the hospital by Lore after a battle in which they’d tried to kill each other.
Now they were mated, happy, and practically inseparable.
Sin waved her hand. “Long story. But basically, she was all angel-fied at the time, and she was protecting the guy.” She cast a sideways glance at him. “It was that first victim you brought into the hospital. Remember when I was waiting around the ER?”
Hell, yeah, he remembered. He’d brought Chase in, and Sin had been hovering. He’d left the dying werewolf in a trauma room and paused outside the door to write up the paperwork. Sin had been there.
She cleared her throat. “Hey, how is the warg?”
Con looked up, startled to see the incredibly hot female standing in front of him. “Dying. Why?”
“No reason.” She rubbed her arms, which were covered by her denim jacket sleeves. “What’s wrong with him? Was he in an accident? Is he sick with something?”
“You’re kind of nosy.”
She shrugged. “Just a concerned citizen.”
He watched her for a moment, letting his enhanced vampire and warg senses reach out to detect her species. Her high temperature and low heart rate indicated demon blood, but she smelled slightly human. So demon and human, but what kind of demon? Whatever she was, she bled like everyone else. The scent came to him on a raft of air, making his mouth water and his fangs drop. As a paramedic, he’d trained himself to ignore the tantalizing scent and sight—Doc E frowned on his medics attacking patients for food—but for some reason, he was reacting to this sexy creature. “You should get your leg looked at.”
Frowning, she looked down at the spot of blood that had seeped through her jeans. “It’s no big—”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. Hunger had hijacked his body, and if he didn’t get the hell away from the little temptress, he’d soon be feeling the effects of the Haven spell when he jumped on her. Quickly, he handed the clipboard to a nurse and headed toward the parking lot.
“So,” he said, “you tried to kill that warg with your gift, and he survived long enough to infect others.”
Sin tucked her knees up against her and wrapped her dermoire-marked arm around them, giving him a tantalizing view of her tight, round ass. Not that he was looking. “Yep.”
“Why not slit their throats or shoot them? Why go the disease route?”
“Why not?”
Back to the nonanswers. Impossible female. “Do you want the pizza, or not?”
“What, pizzas are rationed now and only you can get one? I’m outta here.” She yanked the catheter out of her hand and leaped off the bed with sinuous grace and the lightest thump of boots on the floor. “I have stuff to do, people to kill, and I can get my own pizza.” Blood seeped from her hand, and though Con was sated, his mouth still watered.
“Come here.” His voice was low and rough, and Sin swung around, her furious glare burning a hole right through him.
“Screw you.”
“Been there, done that,” he growled. “Now, come here.”
She shot him the bird and started toward the door. “I don’t respond well to orders.”
He was up in a flash, the tube of blood dangling from his arm, and he had her backed against the wall. “Then what do you respond to, little demon? Because right now, I’ve got a mind to turn you over my knee and spank the spoiled hell out of you and see how you respond to that.” Her gasp of outrage was a bright spot in his otherwise shitty day. “Oh, yeah,” he purred, as he wedged his thigh between hers. “You do respond to me. You responded very well to what I spilled inside you.”
When she’d told him she couldn’t climax until her partner came first, he’d been surprised. And then he’d made her come. Hard. He could still hear the sound of her panting breaths, could still feel her tight inner muscles clamped around him—
She struck out, but before her fist could knock loose a few of his teeth, she hissed and grabbed her head with both hands as the pain from the antiviolence enchantment that protected the hospital kicked in. She and her siblings were immune, but only if they fought with each other.
“Forgot about the Haven spell, huh?”
“I hate you,” she rasped, and why that made him smile, he had no idea.
More gently than she deserved, he peeled her bleeding hand away from her head and swiped his tongue over the needle puncture. God, she tasted decadent, with a bite like fine brandy, and he couldn’t help but let his tongue linger on her skin. She went taut, slowly releasing her head with her other hand.
Beneath his fingers, the pulse in her wrist pounded, matching his beat for crazy beat. The air between them crackled with sudden heat, and his hips surged as he pressed his palm to her delicate throat, wanting to absorb the sensation of her lifeblood flowing under both his hands.
Ah… damn. Power swamped him as though he’d completed a circuit. She was life. She was death. She was the most dangerous female he’d ever met, and if he was smart, he’d run like hell.
Licking her lips, Sin took a deep, shuddering breath that ended with “Release me.”
Right now, that was the last thing he wanted to do, but he’d made his point. She might hate him, but she wanted him. Head a little fuzzy and still feeling the buzz of her blood inside his veins, he stepped back, but she surprised him when she caught his wrist.
Her dermoire lit up, and heat spread through his arm. “Just checking your virus levels,” she said, her voice thick with the same lust that coursed through him like syrup. “You really should have drank more.”
He fixed his gaze on her throat and was only half serious when he murmured, “Still can.”
Her eyes glinted with mischief as she eased closer and pressed the length of her body against him. All her soft parts fit perfectly with his hard ones, but then he’d known that. “Go for it,” she said, exposing her throat and calling his bluff.
She knew damned good and well that he couldn’t risk taking more blood from her, especially given how he’d lost control earlier. And he wasn’t about to take from her throat. Too intimate, too much contact, and way too much Sin for him.
Funny. Too much sin. That had never been a concern before. He’d spent the majority of his life committing all of the sins and inventing new ones.
But this little succubus was killing his people, had made him a carrier of the disease, and her brothers were hyperprotective sons of demons who would have his balls on a spit if he fanged and banged her right here, right now.
You did her in a fucking closet.
Yeah, and talk about a mistake. One he wouldn’t mind repeating. Sure, he despised her, but that wou
ld keep things interesting in the sack, wouldn’t it?
Images of her clawing his back, biting his neck, fighting him even as she spread her legs for him flooded his brain. A sixth sense told him she’d give as good as she got, would have no trouble keeping up with him even during the worst of the moon fever, when violent matings could kill.
Back off… back off… He took in a ragged breath, desperate to keep control, because although the full moon was two weeks away, Sin’s blood had forced a high tide in his veins, and every primal urge was starting to rage.
Besides, there wasn’t a breed of succubi out there that didn’t steal something. Whether it was your seed, your soul, your life force, or your heart, they sucked something out of you and rarely gave back.
Sin definitely did not strike him as the giving kind.
The door flew open with a bang. Still hopped up with feral instincts, Con pivoted, fangs bared, to face the threat.
Wraith strode inside, his loose gait deceptively relaxed. Deceptive, because his bright gaze was predatory; he was fully aware of what he’d walked in on, and Con knew the cagey bastard well enough to know he’d file away the information and use it when it was to his advantage.
“Smurfette,” Wraith drawled, his eyes focused on Con. “E needs you in the ER. Warg came in, circling the drain.”
Sin scowled. “Circling the drain?”
“Dying,” Con gritted out. “He’s dying.”
Wraith nodded. “Time to see if you can save lives instead of just taking them.”
Three
Karlene Lucio wasn’t sure what would come first: freezing to death or bleeding to death. There was another possibility as well, but she refused to consider the idea that she was going to be decapitated by Aegis hunters.
Some of the very same Aegis hunters she’d been working with for years.
Pain streaked through her right shoulder where the bullet had entered, and snow stung her face as she stumbled through the dense forest, leaving a trail of blood a blind man could follow. Damned Canadian wilderness. Who lived here?
The person you need to find, that’s who.
Shivering despite the layers of clothing she wore, she stumbled over a fallen branch and did a face-plant in the crusted ice. A crack rang out, and wood exploded in shards an inch from her cheek. A muffled scream escaped from her as she rolled and came up behind a thick log. Her hand shook as she dug in her parka pocket for her pistol—not that she could hit the broad side of a Gargantua demon with her left hand.
Empty. Her gun was gone.
Frantically, she looked around her, dug through the snow, tearing her nails and fingertips, leaving bloody smears in the pristine snow. She didn’t even hear the second shot that put a slug through her upper arm and lodged in her side. She felt it, though, like a hot poker striking her with the force of a semi truck, and she flew backward, slamming into a tree trunk hard enough to knock the air from her lungs. As she lay on the ground, dazed, fire gathered in her veins, spreading through her body, and she almost welcomed it. Anything to not feel cold anymore.
The snow and the trees began to blur together. Something crunched next to her: footsteps. Weakly, she looked up at Wade, the male Guardian standing before her, the barrel of his pistol aimed at her forehead.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” he said gruffly. His eyes were sad but resolved. She’d expect nothing else from a Guardian who was forced to destroy someone who had deceived and betrayed The Aegis for years. Didn’t matter that they’d fought side by side, had worked toward a common goal—to rid the earth of evil.
She was now considered one of the evil… and a traitor, to boot. The Aegis’s new, more lenient stance on underworld creatures was even more of a joke than a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.
She could beg for her life, but it wouldn’t do any good. And in truth, she’d never begged for anything, and she wasn’t about to start now. Besides, maybe this was for the best.
“Close your eyes,” he said.
“Go to hell.” Her death might be for the best, but that didn’t mean she was going to make it easy on her killer. Wade was going to have to look into her eyes as he ended her life.
This time, she heard the shot. But she didn’t feel it. Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering the trees, the snow, her face. Wade crumpled to the ground, the top of his skull missing. And standing where Wade’s body had been was the very werewolf she’d come all the way into the middle of nowhere to see.
And though her vision was fading, she could tell that he didn’t look happy to see her.
* * *
Son of a bitch.
Luc looked down at the female Guardian whose pale blue eyes had gone glassy, and he knew she was about to lose consciousness. Sure enough, as he plugged the butt of his rifle into the snow, she twitched like a dying beetle, face pale from blood loss and cold, and she was bleeding a hot river into the snow.
Karlene.
Jesus. The last time he’d seen her had been in Egypt, where they’d met. And screwed. And then parted without a word, and Luc had never expected to see her again.
So what the hell was she doing here? And why were her fellow Aegi trying to kill her? Did they know her secret?
Right now, it didn’t matter. She was bleeding to death, the freak late-spring blizzard was getting worse, and there was, no doubt, another Aegi out here somewhere. The demon hunters rarely worked alone.
Cursing, he slung the rifle over his shoulder, gathered Karlene in his arms, and forged his way back to his cabin. She was bleeding badly, but he couldn’t risk being followed by a Guardian and he had to take the long way back—a path that took him along a stream bed that would hide his tracks if the blizzard didn’t.
Finally, wet, frozen, and exhausted, he reached his cabin. Inside, the fire blazed and the scent of rabbit stew permeated the air. In his arms, the female groaned. The sound was reedy, weak, and he had to hurry.
Carefully, he laid her down near the hearth, and then he peeled back the bearskin rug near the south corner of the living room. Knots and natural wood grain concealed the hatch he’d had installed and concealed by a sorceress, but with one well-placed strike with the side of his fist over one particular knot the door popped open. Instantly, a blast of icy air blew his chin-length black hair away from his face and dried out his eyes. He’d have to get a fire going down there or Kar would freeze to death before she had a chance to bleed out.
Gently, he picked her up and carried her down the steep steps. The room beneath was dark, stealing light only from the slats in the floor above. He lay her on the straw pallet, lit a fire in the hearth that had been cleverly vented through the fireplace above, and ran back up the stairs.
After grabbing his jump bag and a couple of blankets, he kneeled beside her and gloved up. Her lightly freckled face was pale, her short cap of strawberry blond hair matted to her skull, and she no longer looked like the tough-bitch Guardian who had gone toe-to-toe with him during battle-lust-induced werewolf sex. She looked vulnerable and fragile, and right now, he was her only hope of survival.
Working rapidly and with precision, he went through the standard ABCs—airway, breathing, circulation—ritual and was not thrilled with the results. Her pulse was rapid and thready, her breathing labored, and, damn, he wished he was a doctor instead of a paramedic.
He grabbed a pair of shears to cut away her parka, the sweater beneath it, and the thermal and silk shirts under that. The girl had definitely been prepared for the cold. Too bad she hadn’t been prepared for the two bullets that had torn apart her shoulder and arm.
The flesh was mangled, and bone thrust through the hamburger-like mess. Black streaks spread like evil vines from the wounds, through her shoulder and chest, lengthening and branching off as he watched.
Silver bullets. So the Aegis definitely knew what she was—a born warg. He’d seen her crescent moon birthmark on the sole of her foot when they’d been naked. If not for that, Luc would have left her to die in the snow. He was
n’t taking any chances, so lucky for her he’d just gotten a call on his sat-phone from Con, who’d given him the latest SF update. Only turned wargs were affected. Wasn’t that just fortuitous as all hell for the bastard borns.
The wounds were bad. Kar needed to go to UG, but the nearest Harrowgate was two miles away, and in the blizzard it would take him hours to get there—if he could get there. He had a snowmobile, but it wouldn’t do much good in this weather, and the noise would attract any nearby Aegi.
And they were still two weeks from the full moon, which meant there was no hope for Kar to shift and heal her wounds.
If he didn’t get her real medical attention, these wounds would kill her.
He could buy her time, though. The silver bullets had to come out. The poison was spreading through her body, had already reached her abdomen, and at this rate, she’d be dead within the hour.
“Kar?” He spoke in a low, soothing tone as he rummaged through the medical kit for his forceps. “This is going to hurt.” She didn’t reply, and he hoped she was too out of it to feel what he was about to do.
Drawing a bracing breath, he dug around in the deepest hole—the bullet had gone through her arm and entered between her fourth and fifth ribs. He eased the slug from her body and tossed it into the trash. Those Aegis bastards.
He’d despised them for more than ninety years, since the day one had nearly killed him as he shifted out of his werewolf form. But his hatred had hit a new level three years ago.
Ula.
Dammit. He didn’t have time to dwell on the female he’d wanted to take as a mate. She was dead, and her death at the hands of the Aegis slayers took up too much time in his nightmares anyway.
The second bullet was harder to remove. He was forced to make an incision to widen the wound, and though Kar didn’t wake, she moaned. The silver slug was lodged in her humerus, and all around it, the bone had blackened with poison.
Cursing, he worked the bullet out with the forceps, and as it pulled free, Kar screamed in agony. Her body jackknifed, and he had to use his weight to hold her down.
