Sin Undone (5 page)

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 would 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.”

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 wasn’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.

“Almost done,” he grunted, as he pinned her and waited for her to settle. It took a minute, but she quieted and stilled, mercifully losing consciousness again.

Luc worked quickly to finish, but it took forever to get the wounds stitched and dressed. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. She’d lost a lot of blood, was probably bleeding internally, and if he didn’t get her to UG fast, she was going to die.

Kynan Morgan couldn’t believe he was doing this. No human in his right mind would knowingly walk into the building that housed the Warg Council. Especially not if you were a member of The Aegis.