Sin Undone (33 page)

Shade stiffened. “We do. If you haven’t figured that out by now—”

“I know.” Her voice was soft, but firm, a copy of Con’s soothing medic voice she’d somehow learned. “But I really can take care of myself.”

“But Idess can’t,” Lore said, and then he winced, closed his eyes as if he just realized what he’d said.

“What? What do you mean, Idess can’t? Dammit, bro, what the hell is going on?”

Lore and Shade exchanged glances, and she wanted to scream. Stomp her feet. Throw a little-girl temper tantrum because they were certainly treating her like she was a delicate tot. “I swear, I’m going to knock your heads together so hard you’ll be hearing tweeting finches for a year. Now tell me!”

Shade’s mouth twitched in a half-smile, and she figured he was picturing her trying to slap down two demons who were twice her size, but Lore didn’t appear so amused. Probably because he knew she could do it.

She shoved to her feet. “Well?”

Lore sighed. “Your assassins went after Idess.”

She felt all the blood drain from her face. “What happened?”

“Marcel tried to take her off the streets of Rome a couple of days ago. It was nothing I couldn’t handle, but Idess is human now, and she’s vulnerable.”

Sin sagged back down into the rocker. “Fuck. I’m so sorry Lore.” He took her hand, squeezed her fingers, and in that one gentle gesture, there was more love than she’d ever felt from him. Not because it hadn’t been there, but because she could finally see it.

She’d been so blind. So stupid! Sin clutched Lore’s hand like a lifeline. “I’ll fix this. I swear I’ll fix it.”

Lore narrowed his eyes at her. “What have you got planned?”

Sweat dampened her temples. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Because you’re paranoid.” She paused, her brain working overtime to process everything she’d just been told. “Marcel worked with Lycus a lot. Do you think he was involved in Idess’s attack?”

“I didn’t see him. But if he was involved…”

“Yeah, I know. I’m out of here.”

He wanted to argue; Sin knew it. But he was still working off the guilt he felt for leaving her so long ago, something she’d been content to let slide for all these years. Shame burned her cheeks, and she swore that after this, she would do whatever it took to finally release him from the obligation he felt for her. She’d been so wrong to let him continue to try to make it up to her, when he’d made up a thousand times over.

Now it was her turn to make it up to him.

Sin was greeted at the den by scowls, growls, and curses. Not the vulgar kind; the actual, may-your-bile-sacs-explode-and-poison-you-to-death kind.

“I love you guys, too,” she’d called out as she stalked down the dark hallways to the throne room. Once inside, she collapsed against the door, her breathing fast and heavy, her hands shaking like a rookie on her first kill mission.

What the hell? She’d been rock solid for a hundred years, and she’d expected to get back to the den and immediately shift back into the assassin mode that had kept her sane—and alive—for so long.

Not so much.

Angry at her own weakness, she called for Sunil and waited, pacing next to the hearth, taking care to avoid the trapdoor in front of the hideous throne Deth had commissioned to be made out of the skeletons of humans and several species of demons.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Con, wondering what she was going to say to him when she saw him. She probably wouldn’t say anything at first. Her primary goal at this point was to get him inside her. Her brain was rapidly turning to a hormone mush, and any arguments she tried to form for getting him to go back to UG were interrupted by images of him naked.

Sunil finally appeared, and he approached warily, moving like a cat caught out in the open. If he had a tail, it would be twitching madly.

“Hey, boss.” As always, his voice was a deep rumble, his words precise.

She cut to the chase, not wanting to be here for one second longer than necessary. “My assassins wanted me dead.”

“Yes,” he said sadly. “People are angry. We need work, and we need it badly.”

“I know,” she said, sinking into the chair. “I’ve been a terrible master.”

His ears twitched the way they did when he was uncomfortable. “Not terrible. Just too nice.”

She gave a startled laugh. “That’s something no one has ever said about me.”

“Glad I could be the first.” He cocked his head and studied her. “So why am I here?”

“First, I need to know who has been trying to kill me.”

“Everyone,” Sunil said simply.

Sin shifted, winced at the poke of some creature’s finger bone in her butt. “Including you?”

“Yes.” His brown cheeks darkened with a blush of crimson, and his nervousness was now fully explained. She had the right to torture or put down every assassin who had tried to kill her. “You know I like you, Sin, but I have a family to feed.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have respected you if you hadn’t tried.” Oh, the assassin code was interesting, wasn’t it?

“So,” Sunil prompted. “Am I here to be tortured? The Peelers have been anticipating your return.”

She shuddered. Those unholy, eyeless demons lived for torture. They were also bound to the den, so Sin hadn’t found a way to get rid of them. “I want you to take over as assassin master.”

His golden eyes flared, the pupils elongating and then rounding out again. “You can’t be serious.”

“Very.”

“But… why?”

“My reasons are my own.”

“There are only two ways to escape the life,” Sunil pointed out.

“I’m aware of that, and I don’t plan on dying.”

Sunil started to reach inside the tattered wool trench coat he’d worn since World War II, but dropped his hands at his side. “I can’t use a weapon against you.”

“I know.” Idess had been the exception to the slave-can’t-harm-master-in-the-den rule. She’d been human when Deth bonded her, and humans weren’t meant to carry the assassin-bond. “But you can shift, and as long as I allow it, it should be fine.”

He hesitated, which was one of the very reasons she’d chosen him for this. Accepting the job meant he’d be stuck, the same way she had been. He’d have to move his family to the den in order to be with them, and he’d have to assign them bodyguards any time they left. But it was better than belonging to someone cruel, who would use your family against you, like Deth had.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll send for Tavin. He’s the only other person I’d approve of.” The blond Sem was new to the den, but his contract was huge—he was an all-purpose, anything-goes slave until he went through s’genesis and was freed from the contract. But he was very young, so he had a good seventy years to go until he went through the final maturation process.

“Agreed. He’d be a good master.” Sunil grinned. “But I think I’d be a better one.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Sunil bowed his head. “It has been an honor to serve you.”

“The mushy stuff is embarrassing. Let’s get it over with.”

Closing his eyes, Sunil stepped back. A sudden stillness came over the dank air in the chamber, and then a massive vibration shook the big male. A moment later, he was gone, and there was a six-hundred-pound tiger in front of her. He bumped his head up against her hand, bucking her palm until she scratched behind his ears.

“You shithead,” she murmured.

She could have sworn he smiled as he rubbed his cheek against her and then took her hand in his mouth as tenderly as he might carry a fragile egg. He used his sharp teeth to tug the ring as far up her finger as it would go, to the very tip.

Then he bit down.

The crunch of bone echoed through the chamber, or maybe it just echoed in Sin’s skull. She clenched her teeth to keep from screaming. Fiery agony shot up her arm, and when Sunil let go, she fell back, clutching her bloody hand… which was now minus the first joint of her left ring finger.

“Put pressure on it,” Sunil said, his voice raspy from his shift back to his human form.

“I am,” she gasped. Fuck, it hurt.

He held up her severed digit. “Do you want it back?”

Sin sagged against the stone wall to keep from falling over. “Keep it… for snack time or something,” she gritted out.

Sunil grinned. “Couldn’t your brother reattach it?”

“Probably, but I don’t have time for that. It’s just a finger. No biggie.”

“Thank you,” he purred. “And, Sin, if you or Lore ever need any of my services, for you… half price.”

Despite her pain, she laughed. “You are a true mercenary. Take care, Sunil.” She paused at the door. “Also, fair warning: If I find out that someone from this den was in on the attack on Lore’s mate, I’ll kill them, so be prepared to look for a replacement.”

Sin hurried down the den’s halls, her thoughts racing. She had to get to Con, but first, she had a warg to grill. The walls were a blur, the people she passed not worth saying good-bye to. She’d liked some of her colleagues while she’d worked with them, but the dynamic had changed when she’d taken over, and for the most part, they’d treated her as the enemy.

When she passed by one of the two sleeping quarters, she slowed, sensing that the one person she wanted to see was inside. She shoved her aching hand in her pocket and stepped into the room.

“Lycus.”

He spun away from his open chest of weapons, his movement so smooth she wouldn’t have known she’d startled him if she didn’t know him so well. “You’re back. I didn’t know.”

“Clearly.”

His toothy smile nearly made her shudder. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

She cocked her head and studied him, his handsome, hard face, his dark, soulless eyes. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“I don’t know.” He rolled one powerful shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I’ve made it clear that I want you. If you’re dead, I can’t have you.”

“You can’t have control of the den, you mean.” He shrugged again, but she didn’t expect him to deny it. They both knew the deal. “I’m curious, Lycus… where’s Marcel?”

Something flashed in Lycus’s eyes, but it was gone before she could read it, and in an instant, his expression was neutral again. “Don’t you know?”

“I know he was responsible for an attack on Lore’s mate.”

“Then I assume Marcel is dead?” He narrowed his eyes. “You suspect me of knowing about the attack.”

“You’re a rocket scientist, aren’t you?” She started moving, a slow circle around him that he tracked with his gaze. “What would you say if I’ve decided to hand over control of the den?”

This time, his grin was genuine. He moved to her, slid his hand around the back of her neck, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. “I’d say you won’t regret it, baby.”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket and flashed her ringless finger at him. “I won’t.”

Lycus’s eyes shot wide open, his expression filling with rage, his hand tightening on her neck. “You bitch!”

Twisting, she wrenched away from him, settled in a defensive stance, his chest of weapons behind her. “Don’t do it, Lycus. You know the penalty for injuring another assassin in the den.” Not that she was an assassin any longer, but she was entitled to safe passage until she was inside a Harrowgate.

“I’ll kill you, Sin. I will have your head within the week.”

Smiling, she eased backward, next to the chest. Keeping an eye on him, she reached inside, removed a clay bottle. “Infernal fire, huh? For some reason, I’m not surprised to see this.”

“So?” he snarled.

“You know it’s forbidden to use this in the human realm.”

“Which is why I don’t use it there.”

“Oh, I think you did. The question is, why. Why would you want me dead in a way that would mean you couldn’t get my ring?”

He took the bottle from her, and she could practically feel the hatred rolling off him, scorching her skin. “You little succubus whore. You should have taken me up on my offer to become my mate. Now you’re dead. And I think, just for fun, that I’ll have your body stuffed and preserved, and the things I’ll do to you…” His voice lowered to a creepy, shiver-inducing whisper. “You’ll be my blow-up doll, baby. Forever.”

She hit him. Decked him. And then she got the hell out of there. She wouldn’t belong to anyone in life… or death.

Con’s boots felt like they were full of lead as he trudged across the rocky grounds of the dhampire sanctuary in northern Scotland. The evening breeze brought with it the scent of the ocean, the bite of salt air, and the stench of angry wargs.

Thatch-roofed cottages dotted the mossy countryside, but it was the larger, wooden motte and bailey structure that Con was heading toward. At the base of the grassy hill, where fog had settled like soup in a bowl, heavy trestle tables and chairs were visible in the mist like mountain peaks poking out of a cloud deck. No matter what the weather, dhampires preferred to be outside, whether they were conducting business meetings or celebrating a holiday.

Now, the members of the Dhampire Council were gathered in the area, as were several Warg Council members, including Valko and Raynor. As Con drew closer, the familiar sensation of his skin tightening grew stronger.

“Conall.” Valko’s deep voice cracked like a whip, and everyone turned to Con. “Where the fuck have you been? Did you know there’s a war going on? The damned varcolac attacked us.”

Raynor swung to Valko. “Because someone leaked the fact that only we are affected by the virus! You knew what would happen, and now you’re using the attacks as an excuse to exterminate us.”

Valko scoffed. “It wasn’t the pricolici who leaked the information. But we will finish this war. Your curs are already on the run after the battle in Canada—”

“No,” Con interrupted. “The Aegis and human military will finish it. The virus has mutated, and it’s affecting the pricolici now.”

Every drop of color drained from Valko’s face. “What? Are you sure?”

“Very.”

Valko’s legs seemed to give out, and he sank onto a bench. “Have you found a cure? A vaccine? Where is Sin?”

Hearing Sin’s name come from the warg scum cranked up Con’s temper. “Why do you care? You wanted her dead.”