Pleasure Unbound (28 page)

“That’s crazy. You’ve got to tell him. This has to stop. What if next time they kill Eidolon?”

“It’s none of your concern. Like I said, not a word. If you even hint to Wraith that this has happened, I’ll take you out, slayer.”

She slapped her palms on the counter and leaned forward to snarl, “Try it, asshole.”

Shade’s eyes flared gold, reminding her of the man suffering in silence in the other room, reminding her that now wasn’t the time to pick a fight with the demon who had helped him. He seemed to come to the same conclusion, and the gold melted away, to be replaced by the eerie brown-black, which always seemed to shift, as though a shadow lurked behind his eyes.

“You look like Eidolon,” she said quietly. “But you’re so different.”

He grunted. “All Seminus demons are nearly identical to their siblings, but our behavior varies because we’re raised by different species.”

“But . . . Wraith. He’s blond.”

“Bleached.”

“His eyes are blue.”

“That’s because they aren’t his.”

“They aren’t his eyes?”

Shade slung his bag over his shoulder, done with the conversation. “E will be healed by morning. Try to get him to drink fluids, and . . .” He trailed off, averted his eyes before boring those chips of stone back into her. “Stay with him. He usually goes through this alone.”

He slammed out of the apartment, leaving her standing in the kitchen, her heart pounding. Emotion like she hadn’t experienced in years nearly brought her to her knees.

The brothers loved each other fiercely, something she wouldn’t have believed if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes. They protected each other, healed each other, and clearly, they’d die for each other. She doubted anyone but her mother would have died for her, and even then, most of Tayla’s life, her mother had been too stoned to lay her life on the line for anything but the next fix.

What would it be like to have family like that? she wondered as she filled a glass with orange juice she’d found in the fridge.

And then she stopped wondering because that road would only lead to the corner of Self-Pity and Pathetic Idiot.

She slipped into the room with Eidolon, where he appeared to be sleeping peacefully despite the fact that he was still on his hands and knees—the only parts of his body that hadn’t been beaten. Already some of his wounds had started to heal.

Yeah, his wounds were closing, but hers had just opened up.

The sound of a phone ringing woke Eidolon. Before he could rouse himself, the ringing stopped and Gem’s voice ground out over the answering machine. She sounded as if she’d been dragged through a frat party and left to sleep it off on the front lawn.

“E, it’s Gem. I think something happened to Tayla. I don’t know what, but I spent the night in her damned closet. I’m at UG now. I need to talk to you. It’s important. Can you come in? If not, I’ll come to you.”

Why the hell had she spent the night in Tayla’s closet? She hung up, and Eidolon groaned. His mouth was dry and his muscles were stiff from spending the last twelve hours on his hands and knees. Rolling his head, he worked out a kink in his neck and then looked down to see Tayla, curled next to him on the floor, her fingers covering his. At some point during the night, she’d snagged a pillow from his bed, and now her hair fanned out like a Leonine Beast’s mane, begging for his touch.

He’d never seen her sleep before, not peaceful sleep that didn’t involve a hospital bed and pain medication or sedatives. The doctor in him measured the steady rise and fall of her chest; the male in him stirred at the push of her breasts against the T-shirt of his she’d put on.

It looked much better on her than it ever had on him.

He inhaled her scent, so brutally feminine, mixed with a tart note of concern, a sharp thread of fear. He vaguely remembered Shade being there, touching her . . . had his brother threatened or hurt her?

He scanned her body, tipped her face up off the pillow to check for injuries. Sweet relief sighed out of his lungs.

And then he wondered why he’d worried. Tayla could take care of herself, a fact he’d seen with his own eyes. Maybe it was his brother who had borne the damage.

Shit.

Jerking to his feet, he winced at the creak of aching joints. Dried blood cracked on his skin, but beneath it, he’d healed. He made a quick call to Shade to make sure his brother was unharmed, and then he showered. Still naked, he returned to the portal room to gather Tayla in his arms and settle her into his bed.

He’d barely pulled the sheets over her when she opened her eyes.

“Hellboy,” she rasped in a morning voice that sent shockwaves into his groin. “Are you okay? I mean . . .”

His lack of clothing had registered, and the way she was staring at his erection made him, for the first time, a little self-conscious. “Yeah, I’m good. My species heals rapidly. Get some rest. I know you were up all night.”

He turned away, but then she was there, grabbing his arm to bring him back around. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Her hands slipped frantically along the skin of his back, chest, arms, as though she were looking for damage. “You were pretty messed up. Is that why you have all those little scars?”

“You can see them?”

“In the right light.”

The feel of her hands on his body as she traced the scars was torture, far worse than what the vampires had done. He wanted to pounce on her, but something had changed between them, a subtle, fragile bonding that he was afraid to break by attacking her for sex.

Besides, what she was doing to him wasn’t about sex. It was about her caring enough to make sure he was okay. No one but his brothers had ever truly cared about him. Oh, his Judicia parents and two sisters felt affection for him, but only because it was logical to feel something for someone who’d grown up in the same household. If ever a time came when it would be logical to kill him, they wouldn’t hesitate.

No one outside of his brothers had ever taken care of him as Tayla had last night, as she was doing even now. The newness of the situation left him off-balance, tilting toward her physically and emotionally.

In a move that went completely against his nature, he stepped back. “Thanks for helping me.”

She grinned. “Consider it partial payment on my hospital bill.”

Her smile sent a jolt of lust through him. His groin filled with heat and blood, and the right side of his face throbbed. This was insane. His control was slipping in a downward spiral that was becoming harder and harder to recover from. Shade had transfused him last night, but the s’genesis was rising in him again. It was happening more frequently, so either the transfusions weren’t working, or he needed them more often.

They stared at each other for a moment. Slowly, the smile slid off her face. “Look, ah, Shade said that what happened last night was because of something Wraith did. Is that true?”

“Shade has a big mouth,” he growled.

“So it’s true.”

He sighed. She deserved an answer after what she’d done for him last night. “To keep their existence secret, vampires are allowed a minimal quota of human kills. Going over results in severe punishment.”

She rubbed her eyes and yawned, and he figured Q and A was over, but then she said, “So why are you their whipping boy instead of Wraith?”

“I volunteered.” Shade had, too, but his curse was more than enough to deal with already. “Wraith would never survive the torture.” Not with his mind intact, anyway.

Tayla shook her head. “I still don’t understand why you can’t tell him to stop doing what gets you punished.”

“It’s too late. We kept it from him from the beginning. If he knew he was the cause of my pain . . .” He blew out a breath. Wraith would either go insane, go on a rampage, or both. “That’s one of the reasons he’s working at UG. Shade and I figured it would keep Wraith busy and out of trouble.”

“I’m guessing the plan didn’t work?”

“It did,” he muttered. “You should have seen Wraith before UG started up. And speaking of the hospital, I need to head there for a while.” He urged her back into the bed and pushed her into the mattress. “Get some rest while I’m gone.”

She nodded and closed her eyes, falling instantly asleep. He dressed quickly in jeans and a blue button-down he left untucked and took the nearest Harrowgate to the hospital, where he approached Solice, the on-duty triage nurse.

“Have you seen Gem or Wraith?”

“Haven’t seen Gem.” Solice jerked her thumb down the hall. “But I saw Wraith go that way with Ciska.”

Shit. Ciska, the Sora demon nurse, radiated sex like a contaminated nuclear power plant. Wraith couldn’t resist her if he was in a coma.

Eidolon took off down the hall toward the cafeteria, following the perfume of arousal that ended at the supply closet door, where a muffled giggle and thumping sounds told him as much as the scents did.

He threw open the door, not surprised to find Wraith’s face buried in Ciska’s neck, his hands groping her breasts, her scrub bottoms pooled around her ankles. The fly of his jeans was open, but Eidolon tore his gaze away before he saw more than he wanted to.

Wraith lifted his head to look at Eidolon with golden eyes. Blood dripped from his fangs until Ciska licked it off with her forked tongue.

“I need to talk to you.”

Ciska’s tail whipped up to nudge the front of Eidolon’s pants where he sported a raging hard-on, thanks to the overpowering scent of female arousal. She stroked his shaft through his pants until he cursed and stepped back. With a saucy smile, she swung her tail away and wrapped it around Wraith’s cock.

Wraith threw back his head and groaned. “Bro, either give me a minute or join us.”

It wouldn’t be the first time he shared a female with one or both brothers, but for some reason, all he could think about was Tayla. Which wasn’t good. “Hurry up.”

He slammed the door and stood in the hall, his sex heavy, aching. Images of Tayla, her body pliant yet strong beneath his, flashed in his head until he was ready to howl in frustration—frustration that wasn’t entirely physical. The fact that he couldn’t bring her to climax gnawed at everything that made him an incubus.

Muttering under his breath, he told the triage nurse to page Gem, and then he settled himself in his office with an IV of his blood set at full bore. Gem arrived ten minutes later. She looked as if she’d just rolled out of bed two minutes ago, her bloodshot eyes framed by dark circles.

“Where’s Tayla?”

Eidolon felt a possessive rumble rattle his chest at her tone. “I told you she’s mine. I won’t let you hurt her.”

“She might already be hurt. I went to her apartment—”

“She’s at my place. She’s safe.”

“Oh, thank heaven.”

“Heaven had nothing to do with it,” he said wryly. “And why are you so relieved?”

“The bastards called,” Gem said, closing the door.

“And?”

“They won’t wait any longer. They said they need me right away.”

“What changed?”

“The person they were using can’t do the procedures. Apparently, whoever it was was injured in an explosion.”

Eidolon’s stomach bottomed out. The organ-harvesting operation could be based anywhere in the world—or underworld—and the individual performing the surgical work could live and work anywhere as well. But Eidolon didn’t believe in coincidences.

“The hospital explosion.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. How many were injured?”

“Three killed. Seven injured. Two seriously.” He shoved his hands through his hair, ignoring the tug of the IV line. “Of the seven, four are well enough to work.”

“So that means one of the three is the cutter.”

Rage bubbled up in Eidolon at the thought that one of his trusted staff could have been involved in something so heinous. Traitorous.

Something pricked his memory. Derc, the male he’d treated a few days ago. He’d been aggressive, rude . . . until panic set in when Eidolon asked him about his surgical incision. At the time, it had seemed odd, but now, knowing that someone inside the hospital had been involved . . .

And something Nancy had said bothered him, as well. She’d fingered The Aegis, but what if she’d said something else? She’d been whispering. Her voice had gurgled, been mushy.

The three injured staff members . . . Reaver, Seknet, Paige.

Oh, damn.

“It’s Paige.”

“The human nurse?”

He nodded. “Nancy said something to me before she died. Aegis. But it could have been Paige. Or Paige’s . . . something. And Paige was present when a patient of mine went into a death panic. He must have recognized her.”

“This might mean The Aegis isn’t involved. They wouldn’t blow up the person they need to perform the surgeries, right?” Gem’s voice went as cold as he’d ever heard it, her eyes went black, and for the first time, he saw the demon in her human-shaped wrapper. “I want my parents back. We need to talk to Paige.”

“She’s in a coma.” He pinned Gem with a hard stare. “But I’ll make sure I’m here the moment she comes out of it.”

Tayla might have blown up the hospital, but now, it seemed, she’d done him a favor.

Tayla woke to the delicious smell of something spicy and Italian. Assuming that a dangerous demon wouldn’t have broken into the apartment to cook, she showered in Eidolon’s luxurious bathroom—white marble with a shower stall the size of her apartment’s bedroom—and when she got out, a plush robe lay on the bed.

Smiling at his thoughtfulness, she donned it and padded to the kitchen, where he was stirring some sort of cream sauce on the stove.

“Hey,” she said. “You look good for a guy who nearly died last night.”

“Is that what Shade told you?”

“Actually, he said you weren’t easy to kill.”

He poured some spiral noodles into a colander. “I’m not.” He shot her a wink. “But don’t think I’ll tell you how to do it.”

That stung. It shouldn’t. She understood—she wouldn’t tell someone trained to kill her how to go about doing it. But it still hurt.

She climbed onto a bar stool and sat at the island as he scooped pasta and sauce onto two plates. It smelled awesome and looked even better. “You keep surprising me,” she murmured, as he slid the plate in front of her.