Sin Undone

Nineteen

Con sprinted to the cabin, his heart pounding at the sight of blood splashed on the snow, the door, and the entryway of the cabin. Luc lay stiffly on the floor, bleeding from an apparent gunshot wound to the chest.

“Hold still, buddy.” Con sank down on his heels and slapped his hand over the bubbling wound. “Eidolon! Shade!” The brothers were still engaged in battle, now mostly defending the varcolac that were trying to flee.

Keeping an eye on the situation outside, because it would suck to get attacked while he was rendering aid, he ripped open Luc’s shirt to expose the bullet hole. Luc moaned as Con performed a rapid exam, gently rolling the heavy-ass warg to check for an exit wound. Sure enough, the bullet had blasted a mangled hole through his shoulder blade.

Finally, the two demons jogged over, leaving Wraith, Sin, and Tayla to clean up. Looked like staff from UG had arrived, too. “What do we have?” E asked.

“GSW to the right upper chest. Through and through. He’s got blood in his airway, and his breaths are rapid and shallow.” Not that any of that mattered, since Shade and Eidolon would be able to get inside Luc and use their gifts to heal him quickly and efficiently.

They both palmed Luc’s arms, the symbols on their right hands glowing intensely. Luc groaned, but his eyes were bright as they locked on Con’s. He mumbled something about a car. “Under… the rug.”

“Hey, man, it’s okay—”

He shook his head. “Let her… out. Name’s… Kar.” The Feast female.

“We got Luc,” Shade said. “Go ahead and handle whomever he’s got stashed under the rug.” Shade frowned down at the warg. “Hell’s fires. You think you know someone…”

Eidolon muttered something about Shade’s BDSM cave, but Con ignored them to roll back the thick, knotted rug. There was nothing there but wood planks.

Sin and Wraith stalked through the door, and behind them was Lore, hauling a medic duffel over his shoulder.

“UG staff is patching up wargs, and all surviving Guardians are tied up,” Wraith said. “But they could probably use some medical attention. Especially the one dipshit with the idiotic Mohawk. He lost a lot of blood.”

“Because you ate him,” Sin said wryly.

Wraith blinked with exaggerated innocence. “Fighting makes me hungry.”

Con’s own mouth watered at the sight of Sin, all fresh from battle, her eyes bright and hair wild. She pointed at the floor. “Oh, secret door!”

“You can see it?”

“You can’t?” Her expression of innocence matched Wraith’s, and yes, those two were definitely related.

Lore punched her in the shoulder. “Stop being an imp.” He moved toward Con and set the bag down on the floor. “Assassins are trained to recognize the spells cast around hidden entryways. Luc’s secret door glows like a neon sign to us, but few others would see it. She’s messing with you.”

“You ruin all my fun.” Sin scowled at her brother as she bent to trace her fingers along what Con assumed was the edge of the hidden door. Then she thumped her fist on a board. Thumped on another. And another. The third time was the charm, and suddenly, the door popped up, a three-by-three square. “And yes, I knew where all the secret doors at Rivesta’s were. I just liked watching you look for them.”

Sin really was an imp. Con peered down the hole, the darkness no match for his vamp vision. He didn’t see anything, but he heard a heartbeat, soft breaths, and he smelled the bitter spice of anxiety.

And sickness.

“Kar?” he shouted down. “My name is Conall. I’m a friend of Luc’s”—he ignored Luc’s snort—“and it’s safe to come up.” There was no answer. He glanced at Sin. “I’m going down.”

“Be careful.”

“You two are just so cute,” Wraith drawled.

Con ignored the demon and dropped into the hole, not bothering with the stairs. He landed in a crouch, fully prepared for the throwing knife that whooshed over the top of his head. He whirled to face the thrower, whose arm was cocked back and prepared to launch another blade. Before she could, he had her in a headlock and pinned, face-first, against the wall.

“Be nice,” he growled into her ear. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She snorted. “What makes you think you could hurt me?”

Her arrogant, wiseass comment reminded him of Sin. “I’d ask who you are, but something tells me you wouldn’t answer and I think I know anyway. I’m going to release you and head back upstairs, where Luc is being treated for a gunshot wound. If you want to see how he’s doing, you’ll come up, and you won’t try to fillet me again.”

She drew a harsh breath. “Is he okay? Who are you?”

He paused at the sound of Luc’s ferocious curses from above. Luc was a terrible patient. “He’ll be fine, I’m sure. He’s got a doctor and medic from Underworld General working on him. I’m his ambulance partner. Now, are you going to play nice?”

She nodded, and he released her, stepping back quickly in case she decided to strike out. If she was anything like Sin, she’d nail him in the balls. Fortunately, she didn’t attack. In fact, she remained against the wall, forehead against the stone, her body trembling.

“Hey. Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” Squaring her shoulders, she swung around, and though she was pale and unsteady, she moved toward the ladder.

“You’re sick.”

“Just woozy from the shift.”

Con got that, was still suffering the effects himself. But he sensed more was at play here, and the sharp tang of illness was in the air. He gestured for her to go first, and he followed.

When he emerged, Luc was sitting with his back braced against the wall, an IV attached to his arm, and Lore, Shade, and Wraith had gone. Con must have had a questioning look on his face, because Sin said, “They’re dumping the slayers in the nearest town. Wraith is going to scramble their memories so they don’t remember what happened.”

Eidolon looked up from mopping blood off Luc’s chest. “You’ll need to contact the Warg Council to have them collect the dead. We can’t leave them here for humans to find. Not in these numbers.”

Wargs were one of the few paranormal species that didn’t disintegrate when they died in the human realm, which usually wasn’t a problem because autopsies revealed nothing strange. But an investigation into a battle of this size wouldn’t be good no matter how much damage control The Aegis applied.

Luc shifted his worried gaze to the female, whose sunken eyes and flushed skin were even more noticeable in the daylight. For as long as Con had known Luc, the warg had been a loner, and with the exception of one pricolici female, he’d never latched onto his bedmates. They were lays, and that was it.

But the way he was watching Kar, with hunger, a trace of affection, and a glint of shame, definitely made her more than a bedmate.

She moved to Luc, and though it was obvious that she wanted to touch him, she didn’t. “Are you okay?” She swiveled around to Eidolon. “Is he?”

“He’ll be fine,” Eidolon said. “Sore, and we should get him to UG sooner than later, but yeah.”

Luc dropped his head back against the wall as though exhausted, but Con sensed coiled tension in him. “Doc. You have to do something for Kar. She’s sick.”

“Sick?” Eidolon shoved to his feet. “With what?”

“I think it’s the virus.”

All heads swiveled toward Kar, and Con’s gut twisted. “Must be early stages.”

“Which means there’s hope.” Eidolon’s voice gentled, but never lost the no-nonsense doctor edge. “Kar, do you mind if I take a look at you?”

She studied him warily. “You’re a demon.”

“I’ll try to keep my forked tongue and cloven hooves out of sight,” Eidolon said.

“Kar.” Luc’s voice was as soft and gentle as Con had ever heard it. “He’s a doctor. The best person in the universe to handle anything you’ve got.”

Doubt and suspicion warred in her expression, and then she gave a slow nod at Eidolon. “You should know that I’m pregnant.”

Gods, it just kept getting worse. Sin closed her eyes, her shoulders sagging, and Con had the oddest urge to draw her into his arms. Though maybe it wasn’t so odd anymore. He was much, much more deeply involved with her than he should be.

Eidolon guided Kar to the couch, retrieved a stethoscope and thermometer from the medical bag Lore brought, and began an exam. When he lifted her shirt and saw the faintest shadow of a bruise around her navel, he frowned. “This must be very early. When would you have been in contact with an infected warg?”

“Two weeks ago. My partner and I chased a demon into a sewer and were attacked by a sick warg. He clawed me, but when I didn’t have any symptoms later, I figured he didn’t have the disease.”

Eidolon shook his head. “The timing isn’t right. This acts fast. You’d be dead by now if he was the one who infected you.”

Kar shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t go on any Aegis hunts after that, and then I’ve been locked up with Luc, so unless he has it, there’s no way I got it from anyone else.”

“Maybe the fact that you’re a Feast warg is making the difference.” He gestured to Sin. “Can you get inside and take a look?”

She nodded, sank to her knees beside Kar. “This shouldn’t hurt.” Gently, she gripped Kar’s wrist, and her dermoire lit up. She closed her eyes, and for a good two minutes, she did nothing but scowl and shake her head. Then, suddenly, her eyes flew open and she sucked in a startled breath. “Oh, oh, man. E, Kar doesn’t have the virus. The baby does.”

“What?” Luc tried to absorb was Sin was saying, but he’d been in the medical field long enough to know that an unborn baby contracting a virus while the mother didn’t was nearly impossible. “How?”

Eidolon repositioned himself to insert the tympanic thermometer into Kar’s ear. “Sin, you’re sure the virus is present only in the fetus?”

“I’ll check again.” Sin concentrated, her dermoire glowing fiercely. Her glyphs might be faded replicas of her purebred brothers’, but they lit up just as brightly. “Yeah. Those little strands are running through the baby and floating around in the baby water.”

“Amniotic fluid,” Eidolon said. “How is the virus not moving through the placenta and umbilical cord?”

She shook her head, bit her lip, and the glyphs on her arm began to writhe. “What’s the placenta? A pancake-shaped thing?” At Eidolon’s nod, she frowned. “They’re… getting attacked. By… I’m not sure what the things are. They’re all in Kar’s bloodstream but not the baby’s.”

“Antibodies,” Eidolon breathed. “Holy shit, Kar is producing antibodies!”

Kar scowled. “I don’t understand. What’s happening?”

Eidolon’s voice went deep, but with an undercurrent of excitement that gave Luc hope. “Up until now, no one who has contracted the virus has produced antibodies to it. But you… you’re the exact opposite of a regular warg. It might be different if you had the virus, but since your baby does, your body is fighting it off. Is the father a warg?”

“It’s mine,” Luc said. Con’s surprise was tangible, a burst of static in the air, but wisely, the dhampire kept any smart-ass comments to himself.

“Since you both turn at different times of the month, I’m going to guess that conception didn’t take place during a breeding heat?” Eidolon asked. Kar blushed, turning her already fevered skin even redder, and she nodded. “Okay, then, this is starting to make sense. I know nothing about Feast wargs, but obviously, they can give birth to babies who are born wargs, even if the father is turned, and even out of heat. The virus must have entered your blood and passed to the baby, but in the meantime, your body produced antibodies, which killed the virus in you—”

“But not the baby,” she finished. “Can you cure it? Can you save the baby?”

Luc didn’t like the dismal expression on Eidolon’s face. “Doc?”

“I don’t know. Sin, how advanced does the disease seem?”

She shook her head. “Not very. It’s weird. The virus is reproducing, but it’s being killed, too.” She swallowed. “But it’s reproducing faster than it’s dying. Eventually, the baby is going to, ah… be in trouble.”

It was going to die.

Luc might as well have been stabbed in the gut. He’d only just learned about the baby, but although doubt sang through him about his abilities to be a good father, he had no doubts that he didn’t want it to die.

“Please,” Kar whispered. “Can you do something?”

Sin and Eidolon exchanged glances, and Luc’s stomach clenched. “What? What’s going on?”

“Sin has successfully cured one warg whose disease wasn’t advanced.”

“There’s a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence,” Luc growled, his worry adding a rough edge to his voice.

“But,” Sin said, “I’ve killed others I tried to cure. I could kill the baby, and maybe even Kar.”

Luc shook his head. “Then no. You’re not doing it.”

Kar shoved to her feet and moved away from Sin and Eidolon as though needing distance from the bad news. But when she spoke, her voice was steady as she faced off with Eidolon. “What other options are there?”

“We can wait for a cure.” Eidolon tucked the stethoscope and thermometer back inside the bag. “But it could come too late. We aren’t even close. We have a better shot at a vaccine, but that won’t help the baby. Sin really is your only hope.”

Luc tugged the IV catheter out of his hand and stood. “And if we don’t agree to this?”

“The baby will die. But Kar will probably be safe.”

Luc cursed. He looked over at Kar, whose expression was remote, not giving anything away, but she was rubbing her belly, probably not consciously, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. She wanted to go for it.

“Can we get a minute?” he asked, and everyone but Kar drifted to the other side of the room. He drew her toward the fireplace. “How are you doing?”

“I’m scared.” She looked down at her stockinged feet. She was wearing his wool socks, which were twice as big as her feet, and they looked adorable on her. Adorable? Shit, he hadn’t even known that word was in his vocabulary.

He took her hand, and though it felt awkward, it also felt… good. “You don’t have to do it, Kar.”

“Yes, I do.” She inhaled deeply, blew the breath out for a long time, as though gathering the courage to speak. “I hadn’t planned to tell you about the baby. At least, that’s what I told myself. But I didn’t have a choice. Not really.” She paused, let a few heartbeats pass, enough that Luc got antsy before she swallowed audibly and continued. “I was faced with a pregnancy I didn’t know how to deal with, because of what I am. I’m out of a job, The Aegis is hunting me, and if my father knew… he might see the baby as a monster. I could have gone to my mother, but she doesn’t know what I am, and I don’t know what she’d do if she found out. And how could I take care of the baby on the nights I shift? I know regular werewolf mothers don’t shift for a few years after giving birth, but I’m a different breed. God, I’m babbling. I know I am.” She tried to back away from him, but he gripped her hand tighter, forcing her to stay.

“Finish,” he said quietly.

She sighed. “It’s just… I knew I couldn’t do it alone. My only choice was to find you… or let The Aegis find me. Better for them to kill me before I give birth than to kill me and do God knows what with the baby.”

The very idea chilled him to the bone. That she’d been so desperate as to even think of allowing those demon-slaying scumbags to kill her… Jesus. “I won’t let them touch you,” he swore. “I will keep you safe no matter what.”

“I know. Maybe it’s hormones, maybe it’s some sort of warg connection… but whatever it is, I know that about you. And I don’t want to lose our baby.”

He traced a finger over the lush curves of her lips. “I’m glad you told me.” Holy hell, he couldn’t believe he’d just said that. “I can’t promise you a white picket fence and flowers and poetry,” he said gruffly. “All I have to offer you is…” He made an encompassing gesture around the cabin. “This. Some weapons and rabbit furs and me. But nothing will get past me to you or our kid.” Nothing. For the first time since becoming a werewolf, he’d lay down his life for someone else.

Gently, he tugged Kar into his arms, suddenly liking how she felt there. “And if anything ever happens to me, you still won’t be alone. Those people standing over there listening to every word we’re saying? They will make sure you’re safe and cared for. I promise.” Damn, he was shocked to discover that he meant what he’d just said. At some point, even as he watched his humanity fade away, he’d learned to trust the people who ran Underworld General.

“Thank you.”

“God, Kar, I should be thanking you. It’s been a long time since I had something to live for. So you’d better make it through this.”

“I will.”

Before he broke down and looked like an idiot Con would make fun of for the rest of his life, Luc stepped away and gestured to the group of eavesdroppers. “Let’s do it.”