Ecstasy Unveiled (22 page)

“Ah. So you lowered yourself to service me out of the goodness of your heart. How nice. Then yes, thank you for performing this distasteful deed. I will forever be in your debt.”

He laughed. “I didn’t say I didn’t get anything out of it.”

Asshole. “You got an orgasm and blood. I’d say you got more than I did.”

“You got that right.” He winked, and suspicion bloomed. She had a sudden feeling he’d gotten even more than a moment of pleasure and sustenance. “This remains between us, right?”

“As long as you don’t piss me off,” she said as she tugged on her pants. “You gonna piss me off?”

He gave her a wolfish grin. “Every chance I get.” With that, he was gone, and once again, she was alone with her thoughts, and crazily, she felt more alone than ever.

Conall found Luc at the open rear of their rig, sitting on the step and chowing down on a very rare roast beef sandwich. So rare that blood dripped to the pavement. Con was tempted to look around for the cow it had come from, because surely it had to be close.

“Did Shade catch up with you?” Luc asked.

Shit. Did the Sem know Con had hooked up with his sister already? “No. Why?”

“Another warg was brought in on Medic Two’s last run.”

Medic Two was Shade’s ambulance with his partner, a False Angel named Blaspheme. “Same as the other two?”

“Yep. Shade wants all warg medics to stand down from calls to all warg emergencies.”

Conall swore. He hoped these cases were isolated, but he’d better inform the Warg Council as soon as possible. As a member of the Council, the lone representative for dhampires and the only councilmember employed by UG, he was duty-bound to alert them to potential trouble. Not that they’d pay heed to anything he said. In warg hierarchy, dhampires barely rated above turned wargs, and that was only because there were so few dhampires that they were no threat in any way to born wargs.

“So? What happened with Sin?” Luc cocked an eyebrow, and then the other when Conall pulled Sin’s thong from his pocket and twirled it on one finger. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You nailed her.”

For some reason, the way Luc spoke so casually, as if Sin was some swan Conall had picked up at a vampire bar, grated on him. Probably because he respected the Sem brothers, and he couldn’t quite dismiss their sister as a cheap suck-and-fuck, even though that was how he’d treated her.

“Yeah,” he ground out, “I nailed her.”

“Where?” Luc always wanted the dirty details.

“Stockroom.” He held out his hand. “Pay up.”

Luc snorted and reached for his wallet. “I really got taken on this one, didn’t I?” He handed over four hundreds and five twenties.

“Yeah, well, you can have the last laugh once the Sem brothers catch up with me.” Con ran his thumb over the bills. “Seems she’s their sister.”

“Dude.” Luc stretched out the word and then whistled, low and long. “Nice knowing you.”

Con could take care of himself, wasn’t too worried despite what he’d said to Sin about keeping his balls, but he did like this job and didn’t want to lose it. At least, not until he got bored with it. And he would. He always did. In a thousand years he hadn’t not gotten bored with anything.

Or anyone.

“So,” Luc said, “will it at least have been worth it? Being gutted by Shade, I mean. Was she good?”

His body heated as though remembering. And wanting again.

“Of course I was.”

Fuck. Con spun around to find Sin standing there, hands on hips and fury in her expression. Like a kid caught stealing candy, he whipped the money behind his back.

She looked at him as if he was an idiot and grabbed his arm, bringing it around.

“It’s not what you think,” he said lamely, because it was exactly what she thought.

“Really? So that big asshole behind you didn’t bet you five hundred bucks that you couldn’t fuck me?”

“Ah…”

“That’s what I thought. You dick. How stupid do you think I am? Your name really fits you, Con.” She snatched the money from him, took two hundreds and three twenties, and thrust the remaining two hundred and forty dollars back into his hand. Then, smiling broadly, she punched him in the shoulder. “Next time you make a bet like that, don’t cheat me out of my half. I owe you a ten.”

She winked and left him, jaw-dropped and gaping, as she sauntered away.

Luc made a strangled sound. “Did that just happen? She wasn’t mad because you made the bet—she was mad because you didn’t give her half the money?”

“Yeah.” Con grinned. “Yeah, it did. I think I may be in love.”

“Man, don’t even joke about that. Females like her are a piss-bucket full of trouble.”

True. But females like that were also the kind that made life a challenge, and it had been a long time since Con had last been challenged.

Eidolon lost Lore twice on the operating table. And the most fucked-up thing about it was that both instances could have been prevented.

Someone or some thing had turned off the respirator, and then later, the lights at a crucial moment. These weren’t equipment failures. Eidolon had seen the respirator switch flip to the off position with his own eyes. Wraith needed to get a new exorcist and fast.

He put the finishing touches on Lore’s healing and told a nurse to have him taken to a recovery room. He’d be fine, but only because Eidolon had arrived when he had. Two minutes later, and Lore would have bled out right there in the emergency department.

After stripping off his bloodied gloves and gown, he stepped into the hall and was immediately enveloped by a crushing sense of hatred. The force of the animosity was so powerful that he staggered, and then he drew a sharp breath when he saw Shade leaning against the wall, expression as black and threatening as a storm cloud.

“Did he make it?”

“Don’t sound so excited.” Eidolon forced his watery legs to take him toward the waiting room.

“You’d better hope you made the right decision.”

Eidolon swung around. He inhaled deeply, seeking composure, but the hate swirling in the air like a toxin filled his lungs and spread through his body. The poison affected him at the cellular level, tapping into his inner demon and bringing his temper to the surface.

“I know you aren’t implying that I should have let Lore die. Because I’ve had it with this discussion, Shade. I’m done. He’s our brother, and we don’t let our brothers die.”

“You’re done? Yeah, okay. Me, too. You’ve made your choice, and so have I. So I guess there’s nothing left to say.” His voice degenerated into a rasp, and his eyes glistened. “Ever.”

Shade’s words, as sharp as a scalpel blade, sliced Eidolon in the heart, and his anger drained out of the laceration.

Gods, this had truly happened. Something had broken them. Crushing pain radiated outward from the center of Eidolon’s chest with almost the same intensity as when a brother died, severing the connection that allowed all purebred Seminus brothers to sense each other’s health and location. He was too stunned, too freaked out to speak. Even when Shade spun around and stalked off, Eidolon couldn’t drum up words as the canyon between them widened.

And as Shade disappeared around a corner, E swore he heard the cackle of laughter.

Idess slipped out of the shadows cast by a gargoyle statue in one of UG’s double-wide halls. Shade had just strode away, and Eidolon had gone in the opposite direction after slamming his fist into the wall. Neither one of them had seen her in the dark corner, where she’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. Her spying hadn’t been intentional; she’d been restless waiting for news about Lore, and she’d tried to burn off her nervous energy by pacing the halls.

She was glad she had. It looked as if Shade had become a true danger to Lore, and that was a development she’d have to keep an eye on.

There was another danger lurking nearby, as well. A hooded figure had watched the two brothers argue, and though he’d stood right next to them, they hadn’t noticed. But then, they wouldn’t, if they weren’t capable of seeing ghosts. Except that if the hooded creature was a ghost, he was the most unusual one Idess had ever come across. His form had been transparent rather than solid, appearing to her the way ghosts appeared to humans.

The evil in him was off the scale, his sinister vibe so malignant that she could feel it as prickles on her skin, and the closer he’d gotten to Shade and Eidolon, the redder their eyes got and the more vicious they’d been to each other.

After the brothers separated, the creature swiveled his head around to nail her with a bone-chilling stare. But there was no itch between her shoulder blades, and it occurred to her that she’d never experienced the demon-warning sensation in the hospital.

Or with Lore—the mansion incident could have been caused by other demons. Or with Sin. Or their brothers. And what did that mean?

Who are you?

“My name is Idess,” she said, still a little shaky over the failure of her evil sensor.

The thing smiled, a hideous baring of teeth that stretched shiny, scarred lips. Help me.

She’d assist the human spirits however she could, but this thing… she shuddered. “I cannot.”

Please. I was burned alive and cursed by my own family. I need only a small favor. There is something that can ease my suffering. Can you take me from this hospital?

Idess closed her eyes. This creature was evil, but he’d been hurt. By family. Her gut wrenched at that. Maybe what he was wasn’t his fault. In any case, getting him away from the hospital could only be a good thing.

“Where do you want to go?”

A peaceful park.

Well, that didn’t sound too bad. “We need to go through the parking lot.” She led the demon ghost-thing outside the ER, gripped his shoulder, which, under her touch, was solid. He told her where to go, and she materialized with him in a residential neighborhood.

“This isn’t a park—”

The creature laughed gleefully and darted away, disappearing into a copse of trees behind several houses.

Hoping she hadn’t made a huge error in judgment, she returned to the parking lot and slipped back into the waiting room, where she’d spent most of the three hours Lore had been in surgery. The first hour had been the worst—staff had repaired her shoulder, but her arm, his heraldi, had been constantly on fire, twice with such intensity that she’d cried out and fallen to her knees.

Now she sank into a chair near Sin and sat in tense silence. After much fidgeting, Sin kicked her feet up on a chair and leaned back. “If Lore dies, I’ll kill you.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice that I tried to save his life.”

“If you hadn’t kidnapped him in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to.”

“Did it escape your notice that I was the one chained up when you arrived?”

Grinning, Sin folded her hands over her abs. “He got one over on you, didn’t he? Must have pissed you the hell off.”

It had. Up until the point where he’d given her the most intense orgasm of her life. “Of course not. I let him restrain me.”

“Right.” Sin raked her gaze over Idess. “You so look like you’re into bondage.”

“How else do you explain his trying to keep you from killing me?”

Sin narrowed her eyes. “Cut the shit. What was going on? I know you’re protecting Kynan, so why not just kill Lore?”

“That’s a good question.” Eidolon strode into the room, and Sin leaped to her feet. Idess fought the urge to do the same, even though she knew Lore was out of danger. “He’s going to be fine, Sin.” He sounded better than he had when he was with Shade, but he looked worse. From his wildly grooved hair that spoke of a lot of fingers raking through it, to the dark circles under his eyes and his rumpled clothes, he was a mess. “And you,” he said to Idess. “What’s going on?”

There was no point in lying. Lore knew the truth, and maybe if she got on Sin and Eidolon’s good sides—assuming Sin had a good side—she’d get some help. Earn some trust.

“I have to protect him,” she said, meeting Eidolon’s gaze levelly. “He’s Primori like Kynan.”

“I don’t understand this Primori thing,” Sin said. “But right now, I don’t care. I need to see him.” She started past Eidolon, but he caught her by the arm, and Idess wondered if Sin’s Seminus power killed as the nurse had said Lore’s did.

“Out of the question. He’s recovering and needs rest.”

“Fuck you.” Sin jerked out of his grip. “I’m going to see him.”

“Sin.” Eidolon’s voice cracked like thunder in the small room. “You can’t.”

Idess’s heart stuttered. “This isn’t about his recovery, is it?”

“What’s she talking about?” Sin demanded.

“They’re going to keep him here,” Idess said, speaking to Sin but not taking her gaze off Eidolon. “Restrained. And you can’t see him because he’s afraid you’ll set him free. Isn’t that right, doctor?”

Sin settled into a fighting stance, fists clenched, body leaning aggressively forward. “You bastard.”

“I don’t have a choice, Sin.” Eidolon rubbed his eyes with one hand, working his fingers and thumb so hard Idess expected to see blood. “We’ll work something out. Just give me a day to talk to him. Think this through. We’ll come up with a plan that works for all of us.”

Idess stood. “Let’s give him twenty-four hours.” She squeezed Sin’s shoulder and hoped she’d get the message. Humor him.

“Fine,” Sin growled. “But at the end of the day, you had better set him free.” She wrenched away from Idess and slammed out of the room, leaving Idess alone with Eidolon, who stared at the door.

“This is a fucking nightmare,” he muttered.

“You feel like you’ve betrayed your brothers.”

He swung around to her. “I haven’t betrayed anyone.”

“That’s not how Shade sees it.” Out of nowhere, Idess pictured Rami and wondered if he knew what she’d done. Did he understand, or was he as furious as Shade?

“What do you know about that?”

“I overheard you arguing in the hall.”

Eidolon’s vile curse accompanied a violent adjustment of the stethoscope around his neck. “Shade doesn’t get it. No one has to die.”

“But you’ve still lost a brother.” Emotion made her voice rough, and she recognized that same misery in the demon doctor’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I know what it’s like to fight to keep a brother, and then lose him anyway.”