Sin Undone

Eight

Sin scaled the ladder, her skin feeling singed and sunburned. At the bottom, darkness closed in on her, becoming complete blackness when Con closed the door to the gun safe and the hatch over the hole. She heard his big feet hit the rungs, and then he bumped into her at the base, smelling of a weird combination of smoke, piney soap, and his own natural, dark scent. It was messed up that she noticed, and even more messed up that it stirred her even though they’d just taken the edge off her need.

But then, she’d always been turned on by danger, and they were in it up to their chins.

She heard some scritching noises, and a flashlight lit the darkness.

“Aren’t you the prepared little dhampire. Handy escape route you have here.”

He gestured down the tunnel with the Maglite. “You never know when you’ll need a quick getaway.”

“You make a lot of quick getaways?” She started moving, her feet barely making a whisper on the soft dirt floor.

“Probably no more than you do,” he said dryly.

“Probably.” She was always finagling her way out of tight scrapes. She took an S-curve well ahead of the circle of light behind her, and her handy-dandy demon night vision finally kicked in to help. “Where does it go?”

“Ends near the Harrowgate.” His voice, magnified by the narrow passage, sounded like it was next to her ear, even though he was a few feet behind.

“The gate will be guarded to prevent our escape.”

“No doubt.”

He said nothing more as they scurried like rats to the end of the tunnel, which was cleverly disguised by a large boulder in a tangle of bushes and trees. The sound of rushing water helped mask the noise of their exit as they belly-crawled to the edge of the thicket. They lay in silence for a few moments, feeling out their surroundings, listening for enemies. Sin sensed the Harrowgate to the south, very close.

Once Con was satisfied that they weren’t being watched, he crept out of the foliage and gestured to the stream that snaked through the forest. “The Harrowgate is just around the bend.”

Sin drew a throwing knife from her boot. “Want one?” she whispered.

“Nah. I’m good with my hands,” he said, and her body heated in enthusiastic agreement. “You can do the long-range shit.”

Using the trees and thorny brush as cover, they moved downriver. Near the narrows, where the rapids crashed with increasing violence, the Harrowgate entrance shimmered between two massive oaks. Nearby, partially concealed by shadows and a leafy hedge, was a blond lion-shifter—one of Sin’s own damned assassins.

“Mother. Fuck.” She started toward him, but Con grabbed her arm.

“Let me.”

“Go to hell. He’s mine.”

Con’s lips peeled back in a silent snarl. “Is he the one who wants you to be his mate?”

He’d heard that? “Nah, Marasco already has six females in his pride. He definitely doesn’t need another. Watch my back.” She shrugged out of Con’s grip and sent the throwing knife into the air. Her aim was deadly and perfect… but her assassins were well trained, and Marasco leaped out of the way as the blade zinged past his ear.

Smiling, the squat male wheeled around, drawing his signature weapon, a paralyzing dart, in his right hand and a pistol in his left. He carried the firearm because he hung out with human gangbangers, but few supernatural creatures actually used them. They couldn’t be fired in Sheoul, but more than that, guns were considered human weapons, and most demons despised them.

Also, most demons were no more affected by a bullet than most humans were by bee stings.

Sin was not one of those demons.

“Marasco,” she cooed, with a bat of lashes. “After all we’ve been through, you still want to kill me?”

His broad nose flared, probably seeking the scent of anyone accompanying her. Hopefully Con had gotten downwind. “Nothing personal, love. Though it’s always a pity when succubi die. They’re too rare as it is.”

Laughing, she eased to the right as he eased to the left so they were circling in the thinned-out area between the stream and the Harrowgate. “I’m the rarest of all. One of a kind. Would be a shame to kill me.”

He glanced at the ring on her finger. “I’m sure the trade-off will be worth it.”

“Not for me. I like breathing.” She maintained eye contact, but kept her peripheral vision on his hands. Wisely, he kept them wide apart and always moving, making it difficult to keep track of both at all times. “Who are you working with? I know you aren’t alone, and you haven’t been an assassin long enough to sense my presence.”

“Does it really matter? The entire den wants you dead.”

He lunged, and the silver tip of a dart glinted in the dappled sunlight. She hit the ground and rolled, slid her Gargantua-bone dagger from its sheath at her waist, and popped to her feet. The crack of gunfire deafened her as the whisper of a bullet brushed her shoulder. She slashed out with the dagger, knocking the pistol to the ground. Marasco snarled, and suddenly, a four-hundred-pound lion was coming at her. She blocked with one arm and buried the dagger in his side with the other, but she went down beneath the beast. Her spine cracked hard on a rock and his giant-ass paws pinned her shoulders.

Then, suddenly, he went airborne. Conall stood next to her, fists clenched, fangs elongated. He had a faint, satisfied smile on his face, and if she hadn’t been in so much pain, she’d have thought it was hot.

Marasco hit a tree with enough force to splinter the trunk, but he landed on all fours and charged again. Sin launched the dagger, which had tasted his blood and would now seek him out, and never miss. It struck his chest dead center. Shock flashed in Marasco’s eyes as he stumbled. He stayed on his feet, still pushing forward, but he’d lost his momentum and, staggering, he lost his hold on his lion form.

Now human, he collapsed, rolling to his side, blood gushing from his chest and his mouth. Dropping his medic bag, Con kneeled next to him. Sin cursed. Con was seriously going to pull some paramedic shit—

He twisted the knife. Marasco moaned through clenched teeth, too well trained and conditioned to react much to any kind of torture.

“Tell me who you’re working with,” Con said coldly, but Sin knew the lion wasn’t giving anything up, for the same reason he wasn’t screaming in agony.

“Go… to… hell.” Marasco’s golden eyes glazed over, and his chest stopped moving, and instantly, something popped painfully in her chest as the assassin bond with him broke.

Con yanked the blade out of the lion-shifter’s body. “We gotta go.”

“We need to double back to the house.” She took the dagger from him and wiped it on the dead shifter’s jeans. “I want to see who he was working with—”

She leaped to her feet as the sound of… hoofbeats?… thundered in her ears.

Con cursed. “Now.”

He dragged her by the arm to the Harrowgate. She barely had time to steady herself before he threw her inside the capsule-like room and dove in after her. As the hazy curtain formed to seal them in, an arrow punched through the hardening veil, whispered across Sin’s cheek, and pierced the wall between Australia and New Zealand on the Earth map.

“Who the hell was that?” she yelled, as Con slapped his palm on the glowing map. It burst into a dozen neon-colored lines that were etched into all four of the obsidian walls.

“It’s not one of your guys?” He tapped Europe, and the continent grew larger as the others vanished. He kept tapping it out until he pinpointed somewhere in Romania. The door shimmered open, and she turned to grab the arrow—often weapons gave away clues as to their owners’ identities—but it was gone. Son of a bitch. Who the hell used dissolving arrows? She’d never even heard of them.

“None of my assassins shoot disappearing arrows from horseback.” Which could mean that good old King Arthur was from another assassin den. Dammit! She’d known there was a possibility that her guys would get others involved, but the reality… well, she hated to admit it, but their fierce desire to see her dead stung. And now she was truly fucked.

She stepped out of the Harrowgate and into a dismal, cold, gray day. She thought it might be afternoon, but it was hard to tell, since the sun was hidden behind the thick clouds and fog. “Where are we going?”

“A warg stronghold.” Con swung around. “Test my virus levels.”

She bristled. “A please would be nice.” At his glare, she huffed. “Fine.” She gripped his wrist, charged up her gift, and probed his blood. “You just fed, so levels are really low.”

“I’m still going to be careful.” His tone turned wry. “So no unnecessary biting, screwing, or bleeding on anyone.”

“Do you regularly bleed on people?”

He dropped his medic bag next to the Harrowgate. “You’re a ball of laughs, you know that?” He took off along a grassy, worn trail, leaving her to follow.

“Hey,” she called to him. “I’m known throughout the assassin community as a funny person.” Con missed a step. “See? That was funny.” Better if he’d fallen on his face, but she’d take what she could get.

He ignored her, kept walking, though they didn’t go far. They were, apparently, near the base of a mountain range and down in a fog-shrouded valley. Sin could make out a walled town where the mists thinned. From what she could see, only one poorly maintained road ran to and from the village. Clearly, no one came here who wasn’t either lost or actively seeking the town.

“What is this place?”

“We’re near Moldavia. The ancestral birthplace of born wargs.” Con’s long strides ate up the ground, one step for her two. “This village is the home of the largest pricolici pack in the world.”

“Bespelled?”

“Of course.”

Like many supernatural beings who lived in the human realm, the wargs had enchanted their city with the same type of magic that encased UG’s ambulances. Most humans would either pass by the town without noticing it, or they’d be repelled by a feeling of deep sadness. The few who made it inside probably wouldn’t be there for long.

“So, do only pricolici live here?”

“Mostly. Varcolac can come and go, but they can’t live in a pricolici town unless they’re mated to a pack member.”

Sin and Con approached the main gate, an arched entrance in the wall, and Sin was not surprised to see a tall, broad-shouldered male standing just outside it, his stance casual, almost lethargic, but his shrewd eyes missed nothing. This would be a scout, a pack member assigned to alert others to an intruder. Though he wouldn’t stop Sin and Con, she knew he’d broadcast their arrival the moment they were out of sight—if he hadn’t already.

Before they reached the gate, Con halted. “Have you ever been inside a pricolici village?”

“No. Why?”

He glanced down what appeared to be the main street, which was mostly deserted. But Sin sensed activity all around, and she didn’t believe for a moment that the streets weren’t being watched. “Do you have any of the same limitations as male Sems? If you sense arousal in someone, are you compelled to relieve it?”

“No, thank God.” That had been an interesting revelation about her purebred brothers. Before they’d taken mates, they’d been slaves to sexual desire on a scale that made her issues seem minuscule. Like her, they needed sex to survive, but they’d also been forced to satisfy a female’s lust whenever they felt it, which meant that in public places like pubs, they could be trapped for days.

“Good. Then stay close and don’t make eye contact with anyone unless I’ve introduced you to them. No one, got it?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“No doubt about that. But I don’t think even you can fight off a pack of horny males, or females who would see you as a threat. And since they’ll be able to sense the demon in you, you’ll be fair game.”

“I said—”

“Yeah, you said. But I’ve seen wargs rip others apart with their bare hands. You upset the pack, we’re both dead.”

So, Con turned out to be right.

The scent of sex entered Sin’s lungs like an aphrodisiac, warming her from the inside, while the feel of it in the air shimmered over her skin. She felt drugged, loose, completely dreamy. The tendrils of mist swirling around their feet as they walked up the center of the medieval-like town only added to the surreal texture of the world they’d entered.

“Con?” She brushed up against him, intentionally, and groaned at the feel of his hard body against hers. “Maybe I should wait outside the wall.” She’d been inside brothels, harems, and orgies and never had she encountered anything so raw, so intense. It was as if the village itself seethed with primal instincts and hungers that were never sated.

Con must have felt it, too—the evidence made an impressive bulge in the front of his jeans. “You’ll be vulnerable out there,” he muttered. “We’ll hurry.”

He took her hand and led her along the main thoroughfares, where a few people kept to the sidewalks and glass shop fronts revealed people inside the pubs, stores, and eateries. Oddly, Sin realized they’d been passed by only a couple of vehicles. Even odder, every now and then she caught sight of couples screwing in alleys and side streets. Some were clothed, some naked, some in various states of undress. And…

“Is this a gay village?”

“No.”

“Then why is most of the action male on male?”

“Pricolici are horny,” he said roughly, as he dragged her past a couple who seemed to be doing their best to prove Con’s point. “Especially during their teen-human-equivalent years, which extend into around their fiftieth year. You know how male dogs will hump anything?”

Right now she’d hump anything… She gulped. “Yeah.”

“It’s pretty much the same with young, unmated male wargs. The females are less insane with lust at that age, so the males burn off their excess testosterone with fights and sex. Usually both at the same time.”

“Which explains why a lot of them are bloody.”

“Winner does the loser.”

Speaking of which, she watched in morbid fascination as two young males beat the crap out of each other, until one knocked the other to the ground and mounted him. The loser immediately stopped fighting, and the sudden expression of pleasure on his face, as well as his stiff cock, said this wasn’t a rape situation at all.

“Are there any rules here?”

He tugged her to get her moving again. “Can’t fuck, fight, or walk naked on main roads or in places like restaurants, where humans might accidentally go if they find their way into the town.”

The human in her appreciated the need for rules, but the sex demon in her wanted to get down and dirty, right in the middle of the town square, just to cause a little trouble and shake things up. She shuddered at the thought, felt a wet rush between her legs, and started toward the fountain. As if Con knew what she was up to, he let out a low, erotic growl, squeezed her hand, and dragged her from the square.

They ducked down a side street—and ran into three fighting males. Fascinated and wondering how that was going to end, Sin stopped, digging in her heels when Con tried to force her away. She didn’t get a chance to see how the males were going to settle the battle and sex, because Con grabbed her by the waist and hauled her out of there. She’d have fought him, but… yeah, it just felt too good to have his arms around her.

She shivered with nearly uncontrollable desire as he put her down half a block away from the fighting trio, though for just a second he hesitated, his fingers digging into her hips, his panting breaths matching hers.

“Why are you affected so strongly by all of this?” She gripped his wrists, holding him there, wishing he’d come closer. “You’re… old.”

He laughed, a deep, clear note that rang through her in a pleasant wave. “I’m young by dhampire standards.” He sobered as he gazed at her, then took a deep breath and pulled away. “I’m not normally affected like this. It’s you. You’re putting off some hellacious fuck-me vibes.”

“Not enough, apparently,” she muttered.

He either ignored her or didn’t hear her, but he took her hand again and led her down a couple more cobblestone streets until they reached the outskirts of town and the narrowest road yet, which ran alongside the town wall.

Once again, she slowed as a distant, odd sound caught her attention. “What’s that? Sounds like a dogfight. Big one.”

Con nodded, but kept walking. “When aggression sparks in a large group of wargs, they shift, no matter what time of day or month, so they can battle in beast form.”

She whistled, low and long. “You wolfy people have turned fighting into an art form. Living with you must be loads of fun.”

For some reason, he tensed. “We ‘wolfy people’ can be very gentle with our families.”

True enough. From what Sin had seen, Runa was a perfect example.

At the end of the street was a cul-de-sac with four small, thatch-roofed houses, each separated by several yards of land and thick copses of trees. As they approached, a muscular male wearing nothing but jeans exited one of the houses, his gaze fixed on Con. Beside her, the scent of aggression wafted off Con.

“What’s going on?” she asked under her breath.

Con didn’t answer right away, and as they got closer, the dark-haired male bowed his head, though with obvious reluctance.

“He’s an alpha,” Con finally replied. “But I’m older, stronger, and more alpha. We determined that a few years ago.”

So… Con had beaten the crap out of the guy. That must have been interesting. “Did you make wild, passionate love to him after you proved victorious?” She was only partly teasing, was imagining the fight, the sex, and again, a primal response rose up, and God, her bones were going to melt if she didn’t get Con between her legs. Soon.

One corner of Con’s lush, gorgeous mouth turned up. “I passed on that.” The male didn’t lift his head until Con stopped in front of him. “Dante. Good to see you.”

Dante gave a curt nod. “Sable is inside.” He shifted his gaze to Sin, his expression dark. Dangerous. “Who is the female? She is not warg.”

“She’s a colleague.”

Dante’s lip lifted in a silent snarl. Clearly, he didn’t want her anywhere near his family, but Con didn’t give him a chance to protest. Still holding her hand, he entered the house, where the scent of roast venison made Sin’s mouth water, and once the door closed, her lust eased so abruptly she sagged against Con. He caught her, held her steady until she could stand on her own again.

“You okay?”

She nodded, grateful for the temporary reprieve.

Children’s laughter came from somewhere in the house, and a tall, red-haired female wearing green sweats and a sweatshirt came around the corner, grinning when she saw Con.

“Father!” She hurried to him, but dropped to her knees at his feet. He lifted her into a huge hug.

“Father?” Sin asked, and he shrugged.

“Technically, I’m Sable’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, but we’ll pretend there aren’t so many greats in there.”

“What brings you here?” Sable gave Sin a warm smile before hugging Con again, giving his neck a little nuzzle and kiss, much the way pups greeted older canines. For some reason, the display of affection put an odd lump in Sin’s throat. “Would you like to stay for supper?”

“I’m here for only a minute,” he said. “No time to even sit.”

Frowning, Sable stepped back. “What is it?”

“You’ve heard of SF.”

“Of course.” She waved her hand dismissively. “We have guards at the gate to prevent foreign wargs who might be infected from entering.”

“You need to take your family somewhere else. Somewhere isolated.”

“But why, if—”

Con gripped Sable’s shoulders and forced her to look into his deadly serious eyes. “Because soon it’s going to become known that only turned wargs are susceptible, and security at your gate will no longer be needed.”

For a moment, confusion swirled in Sable’s eyes, surely matching Sin’s own, and then the blood in Sable’s already pale face drained, making her freckles stand out like a dalmation’s spots. “Oh, gods.”

“It’ll only be a matter of time before a warg civil war breaks out,” he said grimly. “Get your family to safety.”

She gave him a shaky nod. “Just a minute.” She darted out the door, leaving Sin and Con alone in the entryway.

“I don’t understand what just happened,” Sin said, still staring after the shaken female. “Why would the news about turned wargs be bad? Isn’t your… daughter… a dhampire?”

“Not even close.” A child squealed somewhere in the house, and Con smiled fondly. “Back when our numbers were far greater, female dhampires often mated with wargs. Eight hundred years ago, my only daughter did so. Her offspring followed suit, mostly breeding out the dhampire blood. Sable is pricolici, and her mate is as well.”

“Now I’m even more confused—”

“One of her cubs is varcolac.”

Oh, shit. “How did that happen?” She waited for a response. And waited. “Con?”

“It’s not important,” he said flatly, the dismissal just blatant enough to piss Sin off.

“If it’s not important, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to tell me, right?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And it’s not like we have anything better to do.”

“It’s a very dangerous secret, Sin. Something that could destroy my family.”

Her anger veered sharply to hurt, which made her ping right back to anger, because dammit, he shouldn’t be able to affect her like that. “Ah. So you think I would use the information to harm them. Nice. Must have been hell to stick your dick into someone so repugnant.”

Angry, guttural words fell from his lips. Good. He deserved to be as irked as she was. As the curses died down, he trained his laserlike gaze on her, his expression tight, shadowed with unmistakable warning. “When a born warg gives birth to a human baby, they are usually put down before they can utter a cry. But Sable couldn’t do that. She bit the infant and had the mark of a born warg tattooed onto him.”

“So I’m guessing she could get into a lot of trouble if the child is discovered?”

“Under warg law both she and the child could be executed.”

Sin grimaced, though she wasn’t surprised. After a hundred years in the demon world, very little surprised her anymore. But now she understood his reluctance to spill the secret. “If both parents are born wargs, how did the kid pop out human?”

Con hesitated, his eyes hooded and unreadable. Finally, he blew out a breath and answered gruffly. “Sable came into season while she was on a private sabbatical. She mated with a turned warg, but they were interrupted by The Aegis. He was killed. Just hours after that, Dante found her, took her during what remained of the heat, and when it was over, they were bonded. She came to me when it was time for the birth and confessed that she thought the cubs might be the dead male’s. She gave birth to fraternal twins—one warg and one human. She nipped the human, had him tattooed, and returned to the pack. Not even Dante knows the truth.”

Jesus. That was one hell of a secret. “So they need to get the kid to a place where he can’t catch the disease once the town opens up and turned wargs are free to come and go.”

“Exactly.”

Sin pondered what he said, and then blurted, “Where is your daughter? You know, your daughter daughter.”

A sad smile touched his sensual lips. “She died in childbirth. I didn’t know her well—I’d left the clan by the time she was born—but I felt her die.”

She didn’t have time to utter an awkward condolence because the door burst open and Dante stalked through, his big hand wrapped around the back of Sable’s neck. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, her face streaked with tears. “Is what my mate said true? Was Roman born a… human?” He said “human” like he might say “filthy maggot.”

Con glanced at Sable, who nodded. “Yes,” he said, his eyes as cold as his voice. “And if you hurt the child or Sable, I’ll hang you by your entrails and make you suffer for a month before you die.”

Trembling with emotion so powerful that Sin could smell it like bitter smoke, the male warg released Sable and closed his eyes. When he opened them, crystal tears glistened on his lashes. “I would have killed the infant if I’d known back then,” he said, and Sable’s pained cry brought a cringe from him and a hiss from Con. “But I’m not that male anymore. The cub is mine, and I will defend him with my life.”

With a sob, Sable flew into Dante’s arms, and he held her tight, his tears joining hers.

Guarded respect softened the hard line of Con’s jaw. “You’ll take Roman somewhere safe?”

“We’ll leave within the hour.”

Sin stood aside while arrangements were made and good-byes were said, and even though they had to leave the peace of the home, Sin was more than happy to get out. She could deal with lust much more easily than she could deal with strong emotion.

“Come on.” Con closed the door behind them. “I want to get out of here before—”

“Too late,” she breathed. High-octane lust, even more intense than before, flooded her body, making her mind fuzzy and her sex ache.

“Shit.” He took her hand and forced her to jog through the streets, using the main thoroughfares as much as possible.

Crazily, the faster they moved, the hotter she got. It was as if each step ramped her up even more, and by the time they reached the town square, she’d unbuttoned her top and was so ready for Con’s hands to be on her. Unable to wait another second, she jerked him to a stop. The potent scents of desire and danger rolled off him, swirled inside her, and she swayed, reaching out to brace herself against him.

“Sin… no. Don’t touch me.” His eyes were wild, glinting with shards of lust. “I’m going to… lose control. I’ll take you right here.”

Panting, her body tingling with awareness, she ran her palms up his stomach, skimming his pecs until she reached his broad shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind—”

A rough sound erupted from his throat, and lightning fast, he snared her wrists and held them away from him and against her own chest. “I will not cheapen you.”

She laughed, but the sound was hoarse. “Cheapen? Seriously? With the things I’ve done, I can’t get any cheaper.” Surprise flickered in his eyes, and she realized she’d revealed a hell of a lot more about herself than she had intended. More than she ever had, to anyone. She ran her foot up his calf, as much as a distraction as because she was on the verge of jumping him. “And for Hell’s sake, you did me in a freaking supply closet on a bet. How is this different?”

A shadow crossed his face, almost as though the reminder brought him shame, and no doubt it did; at the time, he’d implied that he’d lowered his standards to service her needs. He shifted away from her foot. “You’re bitter, little demon. Your past must have a hell of a choke hold on you.”

“Fuck you,” she said, but even to her own ears it sounded more like an offer than a kiss-off. “You don’t know anything.”

Clenching his teeth, he set her away from him. “I know that I’ll never take you in public, even in a place where public sex is normal and accepted.”

She raised her chin. “Maybe it’s normal for me.”

“I don’t doubt that it is.” The tone of his voice was naked, utterly lacking in the kind of judgment that should have accompanied what he’d said. “But I do doubt that you want it to be.”

Damn him. Damn him for somehow looking into her soul and reading her like a damned book. Her eyes stung as she spun around and headed for the town gate.

“Sin.” She ignored him. “Sin!”

This time, his sharp tone penetrated, along with a raising of her hackles, and she stopped. All around her, young males were watching, their eyes gleaming with hunger. Where had they come from? And why were they looking at her like that when they could be fucking each other?

“Con?” she asked quietly. “What’s going on?”

“They’ve sensed your arousal,” he murmured. “And your anger. They intend to have you.”