Sin Undone

Nine

This was not good. Sin might as well be a female warg in heat, and few males would back down from that.

Baring his fangs in warning, Con wrapped his palm around the back of Sin’s neck. Unlike Dante’s hold on Sable, this wasn’t a domination thing; it was a sign to the advancing males that she was his, and they’d have to go through him to get her.

His. No, she definitely wasn’t his and would never be. Even if he weren’t destined for an isolated life with his clan, he couldn’t see himself tied to her—at least, not in a nonerotic way. And yet, he was vibrating with a startling, possessive fury, and he was still drowning in hunger so intense he could hardly see straight.

A couple of the younger males hesitated, but the more aggressive, dominant males continued to stalk them, the gleam of lust—and bloodlust—glowing in their eyes. The air was thick, drenched with violent anticipation, and Con’s skin tightened, preparing for an unwelcome shift into his beast form.

“Back slowly toward the gate,” Con said, his voice slurred by both need and the fact that his fangs had filled his mouth. “Don’t draw a weapon. And for all that’s unholy, button your shirt.”

Damn, he’d been afraid of this. Sin was a magnet for trouble. How had she managed to survive this long?

One of the youngsters lunged. Con knocked him back with a powerful blow to the jaw. Yelping, the kid wheeled back into the crowd. The display instilled a little respect into the others, and the distance between Con and Sin and the mob increased.

They had almost arrived at the wall when Sin’s harsh whisper cut through the fog. “The gate is closed.”

Son of a—Con risked a glance over his shoulder at the sentry, whose hungry gaze was fixed on Sin. “I freaking hate pack mentality,” he muttered.

“I have an idea.” Sin broke away from him before he could stop her. A couple of males started to give chase, their instinctive prey drives activating at the sight of their target darting away. Con leaped in front of them with a bloodcurdling snarl that brought them up short. He’d kill them, and they knew it.

He angled his body so he could keep an eye on the horny males while checking out what Sin was doing, and he damned near swallowed his tongue.

The way the sentry was swallowing Sin’s.

The guy had her pinned against the wall, his hips grinding into her as his hands clawed at her top. A wild, primitive rage spewed like molten lava through Con’s veins. Seeing any female being savaged angered him, but he could still feel Sin’s blood rushing through him, could still feel her as part of him, and the word “mine” was a faint buzz in his head.

But did he want her, or did he want her blood? Both were dangerous desires, and he needed to get over himself real damned fast.

Suddenly, the sentry jerked away. Sin kept a grip on his wrist, her expression calm, cool… but her eyes flashed black fire. She said something, and he doubled over, losing his breakfast on the cobblestones. Though his movements were jerky, he withdrew an iron key from his pocket, jammed it into a panel on the wall, and the thick wood-and-iron gate clattered open, its hinges creaking in protest.

The pack of males rushed the gate, blocking the exit, but out of nowhere, a furious roar cut through the fog.

“Let them go!”

Con let out a curse, looked up to see Valko standing on the wall walk. The Warg Council leader pointed at the group of males, and they tucked tail and slunk away like scolded curs. Con might be grateful to Valko for the save, but he didn’t need the guy asking questions about why he was there. Fortunately, Valko merely gave Con a slow, meaningful nod, one that made it clear that Con owed him, and then he took off, heading toward the north wall tower.

Quickly, Con grabbed Sin’s hand and got them the hell out of town, and they kept going until they reached the Harrowgate.

“Who was the dude on the wall?” she asked when they’d stopped.

“Head of the Warg Council. That was his town. His pack.” Con still didn’t like the timing of Valko’s appearance on the wall, even though it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Valko would have been alerted to the arrival of visitors. “So what did you do to the guard?”

“I gave him Khileshi cockfire.” An impish grin lit her expression. Gods, she was gorgeous when she smiled like that. “Told him his dick would shrivel up and burn off if he didn’t open the gate.”

“I thought you can’t cure a disease once you give it.”

“I can’t.” Her eyes glinted with mischief that matched her smile as she made a show of studying her fingernails. “He’ll be making an emergency trip to UG.”

It was his turn to grin. “Nice.”

He drank in the sight of her standing proudly on the hill, her gaze feral, fierce, her raven hair catching the wind and swirling around her face and shoulders. As a sex demon, she hadn’t been bred to fight, but there was something inside her that was a warrior. Maybe her human ancestry gave her that edge, or maybe it was her hard life, but something called to his own warrior blood and consumed him from the inside out.

He wanted to take her to the ground, drive into her in a mating that would be as wild as the mountains in the background. He’d mark her with his scent, his come, his teeth…

Holy hell, he needed to stop thinking about his fangs in her throat. He searched his memory, trying to remember if this was the way it had been with Eleanor, the only female he’d ever drunk to addiction. He recalled obsession with her blood, hunger that hurt, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the insane need for sex.

Slowly, Sin’s smile faded, and she spat in the dirt. “I don’t think that guard has brushed his teeth in a year.”

He had the strangest impulse to put his mouth on hers, to kiss her until she burned and tasted only Con.

Clearly, they were too close to the warg village, and he was still feeling the effects of the inhabitants’ animal natures.

“Why are they like that anyway?” she asked. “I thought wargs were a little more… civilized.”

He glanced back at the village, where the gate had opened again, and the sentry was standing just outside, watching them through the thinning mist. “Born wargs really are wolves in human clothing. It’s why they live apart from humans. You’ll never find a pricolici living in a city with them. They also are fully aware of what they do while in animal form, and they generally won’t kill humans because they’re smart enough not to want to expose themselves to the human race. It’s one of the reasons they want to exterminate turned wargs. The varcolac are a risk.”

“Well, they didn’t seem to have any trouble with killing me.”

“You aren’t human.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” she muttered.

He couldn’t help it—he reached out and tucked a tendril of her unruly hair behind her ear. “You don’t accept what you are, do you?”

“I don’t know what I am,” she said, stepping out of his reach.

He let his hand fall back to his side. “How can you be as old as you are and not know?” Con knew very well what he was, and he’d long ago accepted it, even if he wasn’t always thrilled about it.

She shrugged. “I thought I did know. Before, we were just half-breed mongrels with no idea what kind of demon we really were. We had no expectations. Then Lore and I found our brothers. Now we know our demon, but not what it means. We know what Seminus demons are, but it doesn’t do any good because the rules don’t apply to us.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way. But then, he’d grown up keenly aware of what he was: a dhampire from a shrinking line of royalty, who had arrogantly expected to take over the clan one day—until the wake-up call that said, no, the world didn’t revolve around him. He might not like the role he was born to play, but at least he’d known about it his entire life.

“You can make your own rules.”

“Oh,” she said silkily, “I do make my own rules. And I never break them.”

“Like what? What is one of your rules?” He was starting to think one had something to do with driving dhampires crazy.

“No one will ever own me again.” She raised her chin in that stubborn set he was beginning to admire. Especially because it bared the slender column of her throat and forced her to arch her back the way it did when he was driving between her legs. “I will never belong to anyone—I will die before I allow that to happen.”

He remembered how she’d freaked out when Shade said that she belonged to them, and he wondered how encompassing her self-imposed rule was. “What are we talking about, Sin? You don’t want anyone to own you… or your heart?”

She laughed bitterly, and entered the Harrowgate. “I don’t have a heart for anyone to take.”

Con slung his jump bag over his shoulder and followed Sin into the cavelike enclosure of the Harrowgate.

I don’t have a heart for anyone to take.

Bullshit. Granted, she didn’t seem to give a crap about anyone but herself, and maybe Lore, but Con had once witnessed the way she’d wrapped her body around Shade and Runa’s child to protect the boy from an evil fallen angel. She’d used herself as a shield, and concern for the baby had darkened her expression when she’d seen the blood on his skin—blood that turned out to be hers.

Sin the Hardass definitely had a heart. And something inside him was itching to goad her into seeing how wrong she was. But why was proving he was right so damned important?

Because she tests you. Because she’s untamed, unpredictable, and you’ll accept any challenge if it seems impossible.

Yeah, okay, that was why. He was easily bored, always on the lookout for ways to keep from going out of his ever-loving mind.

It didn’t always pan out. His quest for excitement had nearly gotten him killed a few times, had taken him down some dark paths, and in a roundabout way, it had gotten him in the situation he was currently in.

He’d become a paramedic in part because Eidolon had forced his hand, but there was also an allure to doing something he’d never done. He’d been partnered with Luc, who was as eager to risk his neck as Con was, and who had instigated the bet that had gotten Con into Sin’s pants. Gods, life took some strange, bumpy turns.

Con palmed the map of North America, and Sin crowded close. He could smell the damned male warg on her, and his muscles twitched with the need to hightail it back to town to kill him.

“Where to now?” she asked, as he tapped out the map.

“Montana. The northern Rockies,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. “It was one of the places Lore indicated on his outbreak chart.”

“Well.” She gave him a fierce poke in the shoulder. “Aren’t you a grumpalufagus?”

The door shimmered open, and cool air that smelled of pine trees flooded the small space. He practically leaped out into the twilight-drenched forest, needing to get away from her. “You nearly got us killed,” he said, knowing it wasn’t fair to blame her, but the image of her kissing that bastard wouldn’t go away.

“I also got the gate opened,” she pointed out, and he clenched his fists. “We could have gotten out of the town even without your Council leader buddy.”

“It was reckless and stupid, and you won’t do it again.”

“Won’t?” She jammed her fists on her hips. “Won’t? You have no say in anything I do.”

His jaw tightened. “When it comes to wargs, you will listen to me. I know them. I know how they react, I know how they fight, and I know how they lust—”

“Oh, for the love of God, put a butt plug in the male tough-guy crap. I know what I’m doing. I’m damned good at killing and fucking, and I’ll use either of those weapons—”

Blinded by fury, he gripped her by the arms, hauled her up against him, and took her mouth. There was nothing gentle about the kiss at all. It was about wiping the other male out of the picture. It was about dominance and all that male tough-guy crap. It was about making sure that all his intimacies with her were about anger or pure lust, because he couldn’t afford to soften.

Not that she’d allow that to happen. She squealed in outrage and stomped on his foot. Pounded against his chest.

Then she bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. When the blood hit her tongue, she jerked, but the sharp pleasure-pain drove him harder, and he thrust his tongue against hers, stroking, licking, forcing her to taste him.

And then she wasn’t fighting anymore. She didn’t need to. The razor edge of a blade was biting into his groin, and he froze as solidly as an ice sculpture.

“Kiss me again without my permission,” she whispered against his lips, “and I’ll geld you and sell your balls to a Ruthanian specialty meats shop. Understood?”

“You won’t do that,” he whispered back. “You’d miss them too much.”

Sin snorted and made the blade disappear into her pocket as she stepped back. “Men are always overestimating the worth of their genitals.”

That fast, his anger was gone, and he threw back his head and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “We have work to do.”