Ecstasy Unveiled

Five

Lore stood outside Eidolon’s door, unable to shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap. And yet, like a cat with a string dangling before it, he couldn’t resist.

But that didn’t mean he was a total chump. He’d play this to his advantage, would use this opportunity to learn anything he could about Kynan. Usually Lore had weeks to plan a hit, to educate himself about his marks’ jobs, friends, families, vulnerabilities, and habits, but the expiration date on this assignment was bearing down on him too fast for comfort and with extra complications, and the whole thing was about to go sour.

As he raised his fist to knock on the door, a tingling sensation prickled the back of his neck.

“Well, well,” a female voice purred. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“Idess.” He pivoted around. She stood a few feet away, her faded, ripped jeans revealing tantalizing slashes of skin from her slim thighs to her knees, where the denim disappeared into heeled leather boots. Lore entertained an image of lying on the ground with her straddling him, one sexy boot on each side of his chest as she lowered herself onto him, and shit, his hormones were out of control lately.

She cocked her head to the side, and her ponytail swung behind her, the curled tip brushing her hip and only adding to that straddle fantasy. “What are you doing?”

“I think you know.”

Her sly smile made her eyes sparkle. “You want to see how much your brothers know about you trying to kill Kynan.”

“I don’t want to kill him,” he said easily. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Idess tsked. “I wasn’t born yesterday, demon.”

“Angels are born?” Breathing deeply to take in her rich, spicy scent, he took a step closer, testing his boundaries. Her chin came up a fraction of an inch, but she didn’t budge. “So all the pure, holier-than-thou shit is bullshit? You guys are fucked into existence like everyone else? Like us lowly demons?”

That sinful, wicked mouth pursed. “You know what I meant. There’s no need to be crude.”

“There’s always a need to be crude.” He raked his gaze from her head to her toes, lingering on all the sweet spots. Mostly, he was just being obnoxious. Mostly. Her sweet spots really did deserve extra ogling. “Especially when you want to shock the shit out of some prissy little angel.”

“Prissy?” She brought her ponytail over her shoulder and played with it idly, her fingers stroking the gold bands that secured the exotic length at evenly spaced intervals. “Stay away from Kynan, because next time you try to harm him, I’ll spank you. And not in the fun way, either. How’s that for prissy?” Winking, she waggled her fingers at him and poofed out of the hallway.

Man, he hated poofers. You couldn’t ever nail them down. Not that he wouldn’t like to nail her.

And what was that about spanking? Because all spankings were the good kind. If she was going to threaten him, she had a lot to learn.

He knocked on the door, and Eidolon must have been right there, because it swung open. Without so much as a hello, Eidolon turned and stalked down the hall, obviously expecting to be followed. As if a Ph.D. made him God.

Lore went after him, catching up to his brother in the huge living room, where a black and tan mutt lay on the leather couch, valiantly trying to ignore the ferret playing with his tail.

Eidolon rounded on Lore. “What’s up with you and Kynan? And don’t bullshit me. We know you want him dead. I want you to promise to leave him the fuck alone.”

Idess, you little rat. “Look, whatever Cookie told you, it’s a lie. I don’t want anything to do with Kynan—”

Suddenly, his back was kissing the wall and Eidolon’s fist was tangled in his shirt. Gold eyes glowed with fury. “I said, don’t bullshit me,” he snarled. “We know. You need to lay off this obsession with Gem. She’s Kynan’s, and that isn’t going to change, even if he’s dead.”

Lore’s own temper flared, and he dragged in a deep breath, fighting to stay calm. Raging out on his brother wasn’t going to help anything, and really, the fact that E thought this was about Gem was a good thing. “Fine. Okay, I get it. Gem’s taken.” He was over her, and if his brothers believed it, they might leave him alone if he promised to let it go. “Now step off.”

Muscles twitched in Eidolon’s jaw, and Lore heard the grind of enamel as he worked his molars together. Finally, with a shove, he released Lore. “I’m dead serious. This isn’t about protecting a friend. This is about saving a brother.”

“Yeah, I know you’re tight with Kynan—”

“No. It’s about saving you.” Eidolon jabbed his finger at Lore’s chest. “You so much as breathe in Kynan’s direction, and your life is going to mean jack shit. Do you understand?”

“I can handle Idess.”

Eidolon’s face was grim. “Just promise me, Lore. Promise me you’ll stay away from Kynan. And while you’re in avoidance mode, add Shade and Wraith to your list.”

“That’s not going to be easy,” Wraith drawled from the entrance, where he, Shade, and Kynan stood, all glaring daggers at him. Perfect. Just perfect.

Shade pushed past Wraith and Kynan. “What the fuck, E? Nice that Idess had to clue us in on your little get-together.”

“Maybe your invitation got lost in the mail,” Lore offered.

Eidolon put himself between Lore and his other brothers. “Calm down. Lore has agreed to stay away from Kynan.”

Wraith pegged Lore with a hard stare. “I don’t believe him.”

“I don’t care what you believe,” Lore shot back. “You guys can go fuck yourselves. I’m out of here.” He fired up his gift and headed toward the hall. He could just brush by Ky—

A fist slammed into his jaw, spinning him into Eidolon.

Idess stood there, looking pretty proud of herself, and he supposed she should be—she had one hell of an uppercut.

Wraith came out of nowhere, making like a linebacker and taking Lore to the carpet. Lore snarled, bucking his brother hard enough to throw him, but Wraith moved like a phantom, somehow avoiding Lore’s deadly accurate spin-kick. Shade drove his boot into Lore’s side, and Lore grunted, but he leaped to his feet and got in his own well-placed kick to Shade’s thigh. Now, he could rush Kynan—

“Stop!” Eidolon’s roar froze everyone except the animals, who scampered out of the room. “Let him leave.”

“He wasn’t trying to leave,” Idess said. “He was gunning for Kynan.” She rubbed her forearm as though it hurt. “He’s still planning to kill him.”

Eidolon’s eyes went from gold to red, and he shoved Wraith and Shade away, fisted Lore’s shirt again, and brought them nose-to-nose, his entire body shaking. “You said you were done with Gem.” There was so much rage in his voice that it was warped, hard to understand. “Why are you doing this? Answer me, damn you!”

“Because I don’t have a choice,” Lore shouted. “He’s an assignment.”

A flicker of uncertainty crossed Eidolon’s face, and Lore used the moment to slam him into the wall and rush Kynan. He needed to be done with this, once and for all. If his brothers killed him afterward, who cared? Hell, bring it on. At least he’d die knowing Sin would be safe.

And free.

A fierce sting at the base of his skull made him stumble, and Idess’s grip on his biceps brought him to a full stop.

“Take another step and I release the bore worm,” she said, and ice froze the marrow in his bones. Being eaten alive from the inside was not on his list of fun ways to die.

She pressed the length of her body against his left side, gluing herself to him so she could feel even the smallest twitch, the tiniest warning that he might fight back. Smart cookie.

Her fingers gouged his arm. “I can’t allow Lore to harm Kynan. So either one of you kill him, or I will.”

Shade, Wraith, and Kynan raised their hands to volunteer. How special. Brotherly love ran like syrup in the room.

Lore weighed his options. He could kill Idess… but once she was dead, he doubted he’d make it through the advancing wall of demon brothers to get to Kynan.

And if he failed to kill her, he had a bore worm attached to his spine. If she sent it into his body, one of the side-effects of being eaten alive was that it would render him susceptible to commands, and she could make Lore do anything she wanted, from clucking like a chicken, to stepping in front of a bus.

The upside was that she’d be reluctant to use it. As long as the creature was inside its host, the summoner suffered nearly debilitating pain. Bore worms were temporary measures, at best.

As his brothers and Kynan closed in on him like rabid wolves, the first stirrings of apprehension that he might not make it out of this scrape alive rippled through him. He didn’t fear death; he feared dying before he could make sure Sin was safe.

The very real possibility that he was going to die right now brought a veil of lava-red cascading down over his vision. He breathed deeply, willing it to recede as he glared at his brothers. “Back the hell off—”

Idess spun him into the wall so he was eating plaster, her pelvis hugging his ass—in a great fit, he couldn’t help but notice, even through his growing anger. Her plump breasts rubbed on his back, and he popped an erection as the sexual side-effect of his rage took hold.

“It’s a little late for backing off,” she murmured against his ear, and his blood thickened with both fury and desire. “The only reason I haven’t killed you yet is that I want to know who wants Kynan dead. Plus, I thought I’d allow your brothers that honor.”

“Aren’t you the vicious one,” he growled. “That’s hot.” I’m going to kill these guys and then fuck you hard. The thought blasted into his brain, pumped in on the rage that was poisoning his system. He panted, desperate to come down from this, because he was only one insult, or one prick of pain away from no-return.

And then he could guarantee that males were going to die. The female…

Idess jammed her knee into a pressure point in his thigh and tripped his land mine. Lore exploded out of her grip, knocking her into Shade. They both went down. Kynan. Kill the human first—

Idess leaped to her feet, spitting commands in the universal demon language, Sheoulic.

Lore checked up hard as pain shot from his brain stem to his tailbone. His lungs vapor-locked and his muscles cemented in place. He was a dead man now.

His last semicoherent thought as his brain function shut down like a computer’s blue screen of death was that he should have negotiated with Detharu for ninety-nine kills instead of a hundred.

Idess doubled over as the full body migraine struck, squeezing her brain, her spinal fluid, and even the marrow in her bones. She hated using bore worms, but she liked to win, and she’d take the tradeoff any day.

Wincing, eyes slitted against the light that stabbed her nerve endings, she lifted her head—and gasped. Lore was standing there, surrounded by his baffled brothers, gaze vacant thanks to the worm’s influence. That was to be expected. What was unexpected—and a whole lot of trouble—was the fact that he was surrounded by a faint azure glow.

In the span of time it took for an angel to flap her wings, he’d become a Primori, important to the very fabric of the world. Which meant she couldn’t kill him. And worse, her arm burned anew as a circular symbol set into her wrist…

Impossible. No, no, no! Nausea swirled in her stomach, but from the agony wrenching her brain and bones or from the growing fear that the heraldi forming in her skin was bad news, she didn’t know.

But as the mark embedded firmly into her arm above the other two to form a triangle of circles, she couldn’t deny the new link that stretched like an invisible string from her to the new charge.

Lore was not just Primori; he was her Primori.

Oh, this was a sick joke.

His symbol began to throb harder, a screaming warning that Lore was in danger. She looked in time to see Kynan draw a pistol from his chest holster, murderous intent turning the blue in his eyes to glacial arctic ice. Weakly, because the bore worm was sapping her energy, she grasped Lore’s wrist and flashed him to her house.

She had to restrain him, and fast, before the worm caused permanent damage to him, and before her own pain became so overwhelming that she lost control over the creature.

Quickly, she led Lore to the bedroom and ordered him to strip off his gloves and jacket—and his leather chest harness that was loaded with weapons… and the wrist housing… and the ankle holster with the pistol, and the other ankle sheath with the blade… and the throwing stars in his pants pockets…

She eyed one weapon in particular as it fell to the floor, an exquisite, rare Gargantua-bone dagger. Those priceless beauties were practically indestructible, and once wetted with the blood of an intended victim, the dagger would virtually guide the wielder’s hand to unerringly accurate strikes against that victim. Wow—Lore was one well-equipped assassin.

When he lifted his shirt to remove a ceramic blade taped to his ribs, she sucked in a harsh breath at the sight of his muscular abs and hard-cut chest. Yes, very well-equipped. He was massive, a mountain of power she wanted to touch, if only to see if she’d feel the shock of it through her fingertips.

She scowled, eyes locked on the odd, handprint-shaped mark over his heart. An assassin bond?

Speaking of bonds, Lore’s heraldi had settled down, but another one had started to tingle. The werewolf’s. The buzz was mild, which meant the threat was real but not immediate, and it could even pass. Still, this was truly unbelievable. Even at her busiest, when she’d been in charge of a dozen Primori, she’d rarely responded to more than one incident a month. Now she’d had three Primori in trouble in a matter of hours.

Not good. “Get on the bed,” she told Lore. “Back against the headboard.”

He obeyed like a good little zombie, though she swore she heard the faintest rumble of a growl. Amazing. Few could maintain any kind of awareness while under the spell of a bore worm.

A particularly sharp burst of worm-hurt stabbed her brain and, wincing, she flashed to the garage, where she’d dropped the Bracken Cuffs she’d stolen from Eidolon when she left the demon hospital. What handy devices. Everyone should have a set.

The sting of the warg’s heraldi intensified. Hurry, hurry…

Urgency kicked her into high gear as she dug through the neat stacks of her brother’s belongings until she found what she was looking for; a twenty-foot length of finely wrought but strong chain. Gathering it and the Bracken Cuffs, she hurried back to Lore and ordered him to snap his own wrists into the cuffs while she looped the chain over the top of her canopy bed and attached the ends to each cuff. The result left him sitting with his arms stretched up and out, with little give in the chain to allow him leverage. He was strong, no doubt, but he was no match for the bed she’d had specially made to buffer her nightmares.

“Estalila enalt.”

The bore worm spell broke, and instantly, her body migraine disappeared, but so did her strength. She’d need to feed very soon. Lore’s snarl followed her as she grabbed the Gargantua-bone dagger, touched her warg’s heraldi, and materialized in the wooded backyard of a tiny mobile home.

Praying she wasn’t too late, she burst through the open back door. She found Chase Barnstead in the living room, naked and doubled over, arms wrapped tightly around his abdomen. A woman wearing only underwear and a bra was clutching his shoulder, almost as if she were concerned, trying to help him… but the markings on her right arm were writhing fiercely.

Those were Seminus markings. A Sem mate? So many coincidences, and none of them good. Whatever she was doing to Chase was killing him, and the damage had already been done. The warg’s brand on Idess’s arm was fading, and a sickly gray light pulsed around him, marking him as one who was fated to die. Her healing powers wouldn’t help him. His death was locked into the web of life now.

Fury and the need for vengeance roared to all-consuming life inside Idess. She launched herself, nailing the female in the chest—dead center in the middle of a handprint-shaped scar—with a roundhouse kick.

The female flew backward into a duct-taped recliner, smashing a beer bottle, but to Idess the kick felt sloppy, with not nearly enough power behind it. The black-haired harlot should have gone right through the wall.

That’s what I get for not feeding. And all these fights were only draining her faster. She rushed the other female, preparing to drive the Gargantua-bone dagger right into her heart. “I’m going to laugh when the griminions come for your soul.”

Idess raised the blade… and a hot poker of pain shot through her arm. Lore. In danger. How? She staggered, dropping the dagger. The raven-haired devil tore a bloody shard of bottle glass out of her thigh and, with a snarl, she came at Idess, a whirlwind of arms and legs.

Off-balance from pain and surprise, Idess fell back under the rain of blows, dodging and blocking and unable to land a blow of her own. Knuckles smashed into Idess’s mouth, splitting her lip. Her head snapped back on her spine and ow, she was going to feel that one for a month.

Idess dropped and rolled away from the other female, who had somehow gotten hold of the dagger. The Sem struck out, and Idess hissed at the bite of metal in the flesh of her left biceps. Now that her blood had wetted the blade, the dagger would not miss if swung at Idess again.

She flung herself backward, out of the range of the other female’s reach. This was a lost battle. Chase was as good as dead, anyway.

In fact… he was gone. While she’d been fighting with this assassin, he’d fled.

Slapping a palm over the cut made by the Gargantua dagger, Idess flashed out of there, sickened by her failure to save Chase, and by the knowledge that his death had just cost her several more centuries on earth.

The tension inside Eidolon’s apartment could have been measured by a barometer, even several minutes after Idess had disappeared with Lore. What the hell had she done with him?

Kynan finally headed for the front door. “I’m going to Aegis HQ. There’s got to be a way to neutralize Lore’s ability.” He paused before he got too far, and when he spoke, there was resolve in his voice, but not unkindness. “I know he’s your brother. But I’ll do what I have to do to protect myself. Gem’s pregnant, and I won’t leave her alone or my child fatherless.”

Eidolon’s breath caught at the unexpected news, and Shade let out a juicy curse.

“That’s not going to happen,” Wraith swore.

Kynan inclined his head and swept out of the apartment, leaving E alone with Shade and Wraith, both of whom radiated anger in sharp bursts Eidolon could feel like tiny whips against his skin.

“Well?” Shade prompted, and if he expected an apology for cutting him and Wraith out of the talk with Lore, he’d be waiting a long time. Eidolon had done what he needed to do to keep his family intact. “You want to explain why Idess had to tell us about your little meeting?”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to find her,” E said. “Before she kills Lore.”

“Fuck that,” Shade growled. “I say we let her.”

“He’s our brother, Shade.”

“So is Ky,” Shade pointed out. “He’s not blood or even the right damned species, but he gave his life to save us, our families, and this entire fucking planet. We don’t know shit about Lore except that he tried to kill us.”

Eidolon stared, unable to believe what his brother had just said. “I agree with you about Kynan, but seriously? You don’t care if Lore dies?”

“Better him than Ky,” Wraith ground out.

“We’ll handle this.” Eidolon’s gaze flicked back and forth between Wraith and Shade. “We’ve got to give him a chance.”

Shade made a sound of disgust. “Like you did with Roag? Over and over?”

Gods, he was so sick of the Roag conversation. Yeah, Eidolon had fucked up. But he could only beg for forgiveness so many times. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

“Let it go?” Shade asked incredulously. “I lost Skulk because you kept giving Roag chances. Kept saying, ‘He’s our brother.’ Well, fuck that, E. If we’d taken care of him when we should have, Skulk wouldn’t be dead.”

Skulk had been Shade’s Umber demon sister, and they’d been close. So close that she’d worked as a paramedic at UG just so Shade could keep an eye on her. Eidolon missed her, and every day his heart squeezed with guilt at his unintentional role in her death.

“And you wouldn’t have a mate and kids if not for Roag.” It was the wrong thing to say, and Eidolon knew it. Knew it even as Shade’s fist slammed into his jaw.

Eidolon’s head rocked back and pain shot through his face, sparking his own anger. He returned fire with the power of his entire body behind the cross-punch. A crack rang out as Shade’s nose sprayed blood. Crimson swallowed the black in Shade’s eyes, no doubt matching E’s, and it was on.

They came together with the force of two bulls. Distantly, Eidolon heard furniture breaking and pictures coming off the walls, and then the crash of the television.

They went to the floor, pummeling the unholy hell out of each other in a no-holds-barred, who-can-hurt-who-the-most fight, something E and Shade had never done.

This was what Wraith and Shade did.

A particularly hard hammer-fist to the side of the head made Eidolon see stars and hear bells. Snarling, he jammed his knee up and into Shade’s gut. Shade slammed Eidolon’s skull into the floor, putting Eidolon’s fury onto a whole new tier of pissed.

“Stop it!” Tayla tore them apart, shoving Shade so hard he wheeled backward and tumbled over the back of the couch. Then she rounded on Wraith, who was propped against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest and ankles locked casually together.

“Thanks for the help, jerk. You couldn’t have stopped this before I had to?”

“Stop it?” Wraith cocked his thumb toward the kitchen. “Hell, I was about to go make popcorn to go with the Jerry Springer.”

Shade came around the couch, ready to go at it again. Once more, Tayla put herself between them, crouching in a defensive position, and E had to bite back a smile at her fierceness.

He was so going to make love to her the second he got his brothers out the door. Right now, though, he wasn’t going to let her fight his battles. Gently, he squeezed her shoulder and pulled her back. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“No, Eidolon, it’s not. It’s far from okay.” Blood ran in multiple streams from Shade’s nose and a nasty gash in his brow, and his bared teeth were streaked with crimson. Powering up his gift, Eidolon reached out to heal him, but Shade reared back. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Shade had never been so pissed that he wouldn’t let Eidolon tend to his wounds.

“Shade, listen to me—”

Eidolon’s beeper went off. He ignored it, though he knew his plan to get Tayla naked would have to be put on hold. “We can’t let Lore die,” he finished.

Wraith pushed away from the wall. “We can’t let Kynan die either.”

“This isn’t an either-or,” Eidolon said, suddenly weary despite the adrenaline that was still rushing through his system. “No one dies. We’ll talk sense into Lore, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll contain him.”

Shade’s eyes flashed violently. “Do what you have to do. But know that if it comes down to a choice, I choose Kynan.”

“But if—”

Shade cut him off with a snarl. “You really don’t want to go there.”

With that, Shade stalked out of the apartment. Wraith shot E a don’t-say-a-word look and followed their brother out.

Releasing a frustrated breath, Eidolon dabbed blood off his split lip with the back of his hand,

Tay wrapped herself around him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he lied, even though she’d sense the truth through their mate-bond. And the truth was that when he’d told Lore that his staff had been on edge lately, that wasn’t the half of it. Everyone at UG was at each others’ throats, which had led to critical errors and slipshod patient care.

“You can’t lie to me, Hellboy,” Tay said.

“I know,” he sighed. “I’ve just never seen Shade so worked up. I seriously think he would let this tear us all apart.”

“That won’t happen. You guys have survived worse than this. Shade’s angry now, but the very thing he’s angry about, your loyalty to your brothers and family, is why he loves you. Give him a chance to cool off.”

Tayla was young—compared to Eidolon—but she’d been around the block, and she understood people. And demons… in part because she was half Soulshredder, and she could see scars most couldn’t.

But in this case, Eidolon had his doubts about Tayla’s prediction. Where Roag had failed to tear them apart, Lore just might succeed.

The rage was like drowning in an ocean of boiling blood. It wrapped around Lore and squeezed so that every breath was an agonizing struggle.

He’d come to chained to a bed in a frilly bedroom, his head pounding and still engaged in fight mode. He didn’t know where he was, who had taken him, and he burned with the need to kill.

Every second he fought against the chains made him angrier, and that, combined with the jackhammer in the brain and a lack of a recent release, was putting him on a tightrope where the slightest nudge would plunge him right into Noreturnsville Avenue’s hard pavement.

No net in sight.

Adrenaline surged through him as if a dam had burst. He yanked on the restraints. No good. He yanked harder, until he felt the pop of his elbow and shoulder sockets. Pain exploded in a flash of light behind his eyes.

His groin throbbed, and fuck, if he could just reach his cock, he could end this before it went too far…

A warm trickle ran down his wrist. Blood. The feel, sight, the smell… it triggered his need to slaughter as if someone had flipped a switch and turned on his inner Jason Voorhees.

He roared as the only thread keeping his sanity in check snapped.

At least he was restrained, so he couldn’t run rampant. Couldn’t kill innocents.

No, this rage would kill him.