Pleasure Unbound (39 page)

Breathing hard even though she’d just been standing there, Tay turned back to Lori and Wraith—and gasped. Wraith’s fangs were buried in Lori’s neck, and she’d gone limp. One of his arms was wrapped around her waist, and the other had dropped between them, his hand working her jeans zipper.

“Uh, was that supposed to happen?”

Eidolon twisted around and cursed. “Wraith. Shit.” He eased his forearm off Ky’s throat and looked him square in the eye. “I’m going to let you up. Don’t make me regret not killing you.”

“You’ve got to trust him, Kynan,” Tayla said.

Aggression permeated the air, and strangely, Tay could feel it on her skin, as though the battle-rage the two males were throwing had raised the temperature . . . not enough to register on a thermometer, but enough to jack up her body a little. It was sort of . . . arousing. She couldn’t wait to get Eidolon somewhere private so she could discover more neat perks of the bonding.

Kynan’s only response to Eidolon was a low growl and a nearly imperceptible nod, but it was enough. Eidolon pushed up from the ground, and after making sure Ky wasn’t going to leap on him, he inched toward his brother. “Release the human.”

Wraith’s gaze shifted to Eidolon, his eyes fierce and golden, his nostrils flaring. As Eidolon drew closer, Wraith pulled back, bringing Lori with him, a feral animal protecting its prey from approaching scavengers.

“Wraith,” Eidolon said softly, “easy. Release the human female.”

That did it. Wraith’s eyes shot wide, his teeth disengaged, and he stumbled backward. Eidolon caught Lori as she sagged to the ground.

Panting, his pupils dilating and contracting wildly, Wraith collapsed against a gate. When Kynan rushed forward, Eidolon handed Lori off to him and went to Wraith. Footsteps and screeches still rang out in the night, so Tayla kept watch while the drama she didn’t understand played out between the four humans and demons.

Kynan settled Lori against a tree, more gently than Tay would have expected, given the circumstances. He said something to her, but Tayla moved away, not wanting to intrude. Besides, she was dying to know what the thing with Wraith was all about.

“It’s okay, bro,” Eidolon was saying. “It’s okay. You didn’t hurt her.”

Didn’t hurt her? Something was seriously off here. Wraith had been perfectly willing to kill Tayla, yet he hadn’t wanted to hurt Lori?

Wraith shivered, rocking back and forth, his expression a combination of shell-shock and horror.

A chuffing sound brought her around, gold-plated dagger in hand. Kynan came to his feet, stang at the ready. Just like old times, they moved in sync toward the noise, and when she saw the demon trotting down the footpath, she sighed with relief. Kynan assumed an attack position.

“No!” She grabbed his arm. “Let it go.”

“What?” Kynan stared at her as if she’d gone mad. “Jesus, there’s nothing left of your humanity, is there?”

“Actually, I think I’m more human than ever,” she said, because ironically, mating with a demon, becoming a demon . . . those things had allowed her to finally feel something other than blind hatred. “That demon won’t hurt anyone. It’s not violent. It’s even a vegetarian. They’re like, happy Halloween demons or some crap.”

“Even if you’re right, it’s evil—”

God, she’d sounded like that to Eidolon, hadn’t she? “We need to talk. There are a lot of things you should know.”

Though Kynan’s fingers tightened around his weapon, he didn’t make a move. The demon slipped away. They turned back to Lori . . . who was gone.

“Dammit!” Agony screamed from every one of Kynan’s pores, and Tayla fought the urge to console him. Words meant nothing right now, not when his wife had betrayed him in so many ways. Not when the words came from a demon.

Kynan took off at a dead run, heading into the zoo once more. She let him go, and silently wished him luck.

Eidolon was still confused as hell about what had gone on with Wraith and the human female. His gut told him that Wraith wasn’t involved in the black market operation, but shit, the human had been sure of it.

“Come on, bro,” Eidolon said, as he helped Wraith to his feet. “I’m taking you home.”

Wraith swayed on wobbly legs. “No,” he croaked. “I need—”

“Don’t,” Eidolon said fiercely, grasping Wraith’s elbow and swinging him around so they were nose to nose. “Don’t you fucking do it. You come home with me, got it? We need to talk about what happened, and if you’re stoned out of your skull, we won’t get very far. I want to know how involved you are with the Ghouls.”

Wraith hissed. “I’m not.”

“Why should I believe you?

“Because I said so.”

Eidolon fisted Wraith’s T-shirt and yanked him nose to nose. “And you’d never lie, would you?” Eidolon had lost count of the number of times Wraith had lied about going over his monthly limit of human kills, and Eidolon had the scars to prove it. Still, doing something as heinous as what the Ghouls had done wasn’t in Wraith’s makeup, not after how he’d suffered. Though Wraith had no problem with killing, he did it quickly and efficiently.

A growl rumbled from deep in Wraith’s chest. Tayla eased closer, probably intending to pummel Wraith if he so much as twitched.

“What are you going to do, bro? Spank me for fibbing? I don’t think so. The big-brother card ain’t playing today.” He jerked out of Eidolon’s grip. “Happy fucking honeymoon.” He stalked away.

“Lay off the junkies, Wraith,” Eidolon warned, and Wraith flipped him the bird before disappearing into the darkness.

Eidolon looked skyward and counted to ten, ignoring everything around him until Tayla’s hand on his arm brought him back down to earth.

“What was all that about?”

He pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in a firm embrace. He squeezed his eyes closed and let himself feel the opposing sensations of her hard body and her soft touch as he stroked her hair.

“Wraith’s messed up, in case you hadn’t noticed,” he said. “He hates himself, and he does whatever it takes to forget. Remember how he was at the hospital?”

“Hard to forget.” She ran her hands up his back, and he felt the tension inside him ease a little. “What was going on with him and Lori? Why didn’t he want to touch her? And why did he freak after he bit her?”

“Wraith never feeds from human females.”

“Why not?”

Eidolon pressed his lips to her forehead and wished they could stay like this forever, could enjoy their new bond without having to deal with whether or not Wraith had betrayed his entire race. “Because he can’t control his urges. Feeding on females leads to sex, and he’d rather die than have sex with a human.”

“So . . . why did Lori act like they’ve slept together?”

“His mind power. If he wanted her to believe it, she would.” Someone wanted her to believe it, anyway.

“Like he did to me in your living room,” she murmured, and yeah, he still wanted to kick his brother’s ass over that. “Do you think he’s involved with the organ thing?”

“I don’t think so. But the alternative is nearly as bad.” Someone with a grudge against Wraith could cause an underworld of trouble.

The sound of a throat clearing brought them apart, but Eidolon kept her hand in his as Shade and Gem stalked toward them.

Shade frowned, looking extremely put out. “Man, I missed all the good stuff, didn’t I?” His gaze settled on Eidolon’s bond glyph on his neck and then slid to Tayla’s arm, deeply etched with Eidolon’s dermoire. “I’ll be damned. Cool.”

“Congrats, you guys.” Gem’s grin lit her up, made Tayla draw a sharp breath.

“You look so much like Mom,” Tayla said, smiling at her sister. “Are your parents safe? Where have you guys been?”

“They’re fine. I sent them home with Luc and then found Shade out looking for you two.” Gem glanced around. “Where’s Wraith? Kynan?”

Tayla and Eidolon exchanged glances during the long, tense silence that fell between the four of them. The grin slid off Gem’s face, and Shade went taut.

Eidolon scrubbed a hand over his face, relishing the burn of his palm over his tired flesh. “We have a problem. An Aegi claims Wraith is involved with the Ghouls.”

“He’s not,” Shade said fiercely.

“I know.” And Eidolon meant it. “But someone is trying pretty damned hard to make it look like he is. Looks like they’re tricking local Guardians into thinking Aegis leaders are in on it, too.”

“Hell’s fucking bells.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Well, he was thinking a lot more than that, mainly because Tayla was standing next to him, her hand squeezing his, and all he wanted was to be alone with her. They could deal with Wraith later.

Right now, his entire world was Tayla, and he wanted to make sure she knew it.

Gem shot through the zoo at a dead run. Tayla, Eidolon, and Shade were making one last sweep of the park to make sure all loose demons had been ushered away and the dangerous ones destroyed, as well as to capture any remaining Guardians.

Gem couldn’t care less about dangerous demons and rogue Guardians.

When Tay told her what happened with Lori and Kynan, Gem hadn’t waited around. All she could think about was finding Ky, and as she moved swiftly through the zoo in the direction he’d gone, she prayed he was okay. That his bitch of a wife hadn’t injured him. That Jagger hadn’t done worse.

When she reached the old tiger habitat, she came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the Aegis leader standing there, shoulders sagging, head bowed. His pain rolled off him in seismic waves, vibrating through her at regular intervals, nine-point-oh-my-God on the anguish scale.

“Kynan?”

He didn’t appear to have heard her, but she knew he had, and she approached carefully.

“She’s gone,” he said, when she eased up next to him. “I can’t find her. Even if I could . . .”

She didn’t think. She simply wrapped her arms around him. The contact made something break inside him, and his legs gave out, dropping them both to their knees. And then he was sobbing and she was holding him, and even though she knew he hated her for what she was, she didn’t care.

For now, the man she loved was in her arms, and somehow, she couldn’t feel guilty for being glad.

They met up at UG.

Shade had finished mopping up with E and Tayla, had then sent them ahead to the hospital so his brother could get patched up from his encounter with the slayers who’d tried to kill him. Shade had remained behind to find Wraith and Gem.

Wraith had gone MIA, but he’d found Tayla’s sister standing near an old fountain, watching as the man she’d called Kynan walked away. She’d seemed upset, but Shade had no idea why, and really, he didn’t care. Touchy-feely-mushy crap made him uncomfortable.

They traveled through Harrowgates to the hospital, where E and Tayla were tangled together on the couch in the staff lounge. Talk about touchy-feely-mushy crap. They practically glowed with some sort of after-bond bliss, and her new dermoire stood out starkly on the creamy skin of her left arm. Eidolon, dressed in scrubs, sported his own new marking; mated, post-s’genesis males lost the face tats but gained a linked circle around the throat. He had no idea when they’d completed the mating ritual, but it had obviously happened at the zoo—what, somewhere between the apes and the hippos, between fighting demons and slayers?—but Shade was glad. He still wasn’t sure he trusted the Aegi, but she’d saved E from a fate he’d been dreading, had given Shade his brother back.

And speaking of brothers . . .

“Has Wraith shown up?” Shade asked, grabbing a Coke from the fridge.

E shook his head. “He was pretty messed up. I’ve been ringing his cell, but . . .”

“Yeah.” Wraith had probably sucked some junkie dry and gone to ground. If Shade focused, he’d be able to feel his younger brother’s energy, but Wraith would feel it, too, and he’d dig in deeper. “I hope he’s okay.”

The very idea that some sonofabitch might be impersonating Wraith left him wanting to take someone apart. Too bad they hadn’t found any Guardians who were still breathing. Shade wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

He’d never been a patient sort.

“Hey,” Tayla said, extracting herself from E’s embrace. “I guess I need to do that integration thing, huh?”

Her attempt to steer the conversation away from the black hole that was their brother couldn’t have been more obvious, but E grinned. “How about now?”

“Hold on.” Shade moved to the couch. “Can I have your hand?”

E tensed, probably some sort of instinct the bonding had released, but Shade couldn’t be sure. Mated Seminus demons were so rare that he’d never met one and had no idea how they were supposed to react when their mates were near other incubi. Considering how horny incubi were, a protective instinct probably wasn’t a bad idea. Then again, the bonding made it impossible for either one of them to willingly have sex with anyone else.

Tayla reached out, and he took her palm in his. Warmth washed over him as he probed her body, moved through her bloodstream to her womb. This was his specialty, the ability to manipulate a female’s reproductive organs—he could trigger ovulation in order to ensure conception, though he was not yet fertile. His heart rate spiked as he probed, his instincts firing up because even though she was E’s mate, she was female, and she was ovulating. But she hadn’t quickened with his brother’s seed.

“Well?” E asked, his voice husky with emotion.

“Sorry. No little Es in there.”

Tayla pulled her hand away, and he winced at the sudden loss of sensation. “Was there supposed to be?”

“Would it be a bad thing?” Eidolon asked quietly, and Shade shrank back, noticed Gem did the same thing. This situation was way too intimate for either of them.

“No,” she said, smiling with such radiance that Shade felt himself drawn to her, for the first time seeing what E had seen all along. “I just, well, what kind of lifespan am I looking at? How long do we have to make a family?”

“Soulshredders live for somewhere around two thousand years. Being a half-breed, you’ll probably live a fraction of that, a few hundred, maybe?”

“Good,” she said, sliding Gem a glance. “I have a lot of family time to make up for.”