Sin Undone

Twenty-seven

Con wasn’t sure what happened. All he knew was that Sin was dying, even as Eidolon and Shade tried to save Ray, their dermoires glowing so brightly Con had to squint. Wraith, Lore, Tayla, and Kynan tore off, presumably after the assassin.

“Use the cuffs,” he yelled at Omira, who hastily looped one of Ray’s wrists with the gold twine. But it was too late. Sin convulsed, gave one last gurgled cry, and then went limp. Con’s vampire senses noted the sudden silence at the cessation of her heartbeat, the lack of vibration as her blood pooled in her veins, and terror obliterated everything but the need to save her life.

Gently, he lay her on the ground, and though he knew her fate was tied to Ray’s, he began CPR. Frantic curses and barked orders came from Shade and Eidolon as they worked on Ray, but even from where Con kneeled on the dirt, he could see that the warg was not coming back. Not with the way his head had been shorn nearly off his shoulders by something that looked like a razor-sharp boomerang.

The collar around Sin’s neck popped off, indicating a total disconnect from Ray, but the damage had been done.

Won’t give up. Will never give up.

“Con, we got it.” Eidolon’s glowing hand came down on Sin’s shoulder as Shade’s splayed on her belly.

Con felt Shade’s power going deep, grabbing at the organs and forcing them to work. “Fuck,” he muttered. “I can make them function, but if I stop…”

“They stop,” Con whispered. Sin’s heart was beating, her lungs were breathing, her liver was filtering. But not on their own. “Maybe I can turn her into a vampire. Maybe I can force her to drink.” Even as he said it, he knew he was grasping at straws. Demons couldn’t be turned, and even if her human half allowed for it, the chance of it working on someone who had died was practically zero.

At Sin’s feet, Lore hit his knees, a sob breaking from deep in his chest. “Sin, damn you.” He tore off his glove and gripped her ankle. “This works only if the death is natural, but since the warg’s death was, and with you guys helping…”

“Maybe,” Shade grunted.

Yeah, Ray’s death wasn’t exactly natural, but Con got what Lore was saying. The warg had been killed by a normal weapon. He hadn’t died of a curse or spell or mystical disease. Sin’s death had come via a mystical connection… to a natural death.

Son of a bitch. There were way too many ifs and variables here.

“Save her.” He gripped her hand so hard that if she could feel it, it would hurt. “Please.”

The “please” wasn’t necessary and he knew it. These guys would give their own lives if it meant saving hers. But Con would beg for anything right now.

Beneath his hand, the signs of life were there—she had a pulse, a heartbeat, and her chest rose and fell, but it was all artificial, forced by her brothers. Lore was panting, sweat running from his temples, teeth gnashed together.

“Come on, come on,” Eidolon muttered.

Lore groaned. “So… close…”

Impulsively, Con leaned over and kissed her. It was cliché and corny and Sleeping Beauty on crack, but he needed her to fight. To feel.

Tenderly, he closed his mouth over hers. Nothing happened, but he wasn’t about to give up. He nudged her lips with his tongue, stroked them gently at first, and then more urgently. Something burned in his eyes… tears? Yes, bloody hell, he was crying like a baby, and soon, the taste of Sin mingled with the salt of his tears.

Refusing to break contact, he pulled her into his arms and rocked her, even as he kissed her. Even as her brothers lit up the old junkyard with the power of their gifts.

And then… he felt it. A stir deep inside. She twitched. Once. Twice. And then she gasped into his mouth, and her black eyes flew wide open.

Ear-shattering whoops came from all around, but Con was silent as he tugged her tighter to his chest. He would never let her go again. Never.

Her arms came around him, and though she didn’t say it, he knew she felt the same way.

Sin felt like she’d gone a couple of rounds with a Gargantua demon. Everything ached, but mostly her ribs and throat.

Throat. Hadn’t Raynor’s ripped wide open?

Groaning, she finally pulled back from Con. Well, she tried to, but he held her so tightly she had to smile. “Con? You’re smothering me.”

“If you were being smothered, you couldn’t speak.” But he loosened his grip enough for her to look up at the wall of people standing around them as Con held her on the ground.

“What happened?”

“You sort of bit it,” Wraith said. The announcement was delivered with a certain nonchalance, but the tension in his expression said he wasn’t as detached as he’d sounded. Aw, big bad Wraith had been worried about her.

Which meant things had been really dire. A sinking sensation made her gut plummet to her feet. “Lore? Did you…”

“Yeah. But if not for E and Shade, I couldn’t have done it.”

Oh, shit. Lore’s resurrection gift came with one hell of a side effect. He’d spend days in bleeding, writhing misery, which was why he rarely used it.

“Lore, I—”

“Don’t.” He crouched beside Con and her, and gave her a smile that held no regret. “We’ve had so much guilt between us, have felt like we owed each other so much. Time to let that go. I did what I did because I love you. You’d do the same for me. Let’s put the past behind us for good.”

A huge sob escaped her, and Con released her so she could throw herself into Lore’s arms. She held him like she hadn’t since before their transformation, since before they learned they were demons. “I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t think I’ve told you that before.”

“You didn’t need to.” He held her for a moment longer, and then passed her back to Con.

“I feel like a football,” she muttered, as she dabbed at her eyes. But she wouldn’t change a thing. Except the subject, away from so much sap. “So, what happened to Lycus? Where is he?”

Wraith snorted. “Between a Chevette and a Mustang. And on the hood of a Thunderbird. And all over the grille of a—”

“Got it,” she said, holding up her hand. Not much made her queasy, but being brought back from the dead seemed to be wreaking havoc with her stomach.

Wraith gestured to Valko, who now sat chained to an old Ford pickup. “I got him to talk. He admitted to getting Lycus to kill you. Guess the pricolici were going to forgive his crimes and put him on the Warg Council if he did. They were also going to try to buy him out of assassin service from the new master.”

“Which is why getting my ring wasn’t an issue,” she mused. “He wanted it, but probably figured that either way he was getting a good deal. Asshole.” She hoped the punishment Valko was going to “volunteer” for was really painful. “How did you guys manage to get the R-XR here?”

“Arik,” Kynan explained. “Once we had your location, the R-XR tapped into government satellites to determine how many enemies we’d be up against, and since there were a few dozen, they called in a local team to back us up.”

Tayla snapped her stang into its belt sheath and slung her arm around Eidolon’s waist. “I’d have called in the local Aegis cell, too, but The Aegis is still fired up about what happened in Canada with the wargs. Wraith wiped the Guardians, but Command still knows something went down to cause injuries and the one dead Aegi. Didn’t think it would be wise to give them a shot at revenge.”

“Does this mean Arik is in the clear and can get the hell out of my cave?” Shade asked, and Kynan nodded.

“They couldn’t afford his loss anyway.”

Luc parted the crowd and strode up to Con. With a guttural curse, he hauled off and punched him in the shoulder. “That, you asshole, is because you made me kill you and didn’t bother to mention you wouldn’t stay dead.”

Sin punched Con, too. Same place. Maybe vampires bruised easily. “Yeah. Would have been nice to know.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, and then he kissed her, long and hard, and she forgave him. “I promise to make it up to you.”

“Dude.” Luc stepped back, hands up. “You don’t need to make it up to me.”

“So,” Lore said, as he jammed his hands in his jacket pockets. “I hate to be a party pooper, but I’d better head home.”

Oh, damn. Sin hated what he had to deal with now. “I’ll take care of you. Idess doesn’t need to see what you’re going to go through.” Besides, Sin had nursed Lore through recovery before.

“I agree.” Lore looked up at the cloudless night and sighed. “But you know her. She’ll want to be there.”

Of course she would. Sin would go through the poison pits of eastern Sheoul to be able to take care of Con if he were suffering.

“I have a better idea,” Eidolon said. “Come to the hospital. We’ll all take care of you.”

Wraith gave an enthusiastic nod. “E’s liberal with the painkillers.”

“Yup,” Shade agreed.

“We won’t take no for an answer.” That from Eidolon, who was using his no-nonsense doctor voice, which somehow still rang with compassion.

Lore stood there, emotion playing across his face, probably just like hers. He’d allowed their brothers in before she had, but he’d been alone for so long that, clearly, he still hadn’t gotten used to the way they rallied together as fiercely as they fought.

“Okay,” he said roughly.

Kynan shouted at the R-XR guys to wrap it up, and gestured to Tayla and the Guardian vampire, who joined in the gathering of wargs.

“You guys go ahead,” Sin said. “Con and I will be at the hospital later.”

“You sure?” Shade asked, and Con nodded.

Sin could tell the guys wanted to argue, but they left with Eidolon’s sisters, leaving her alone with Con. Relatively alone, anyway. Kynan, Tayla, and the military dudes still milled around the junkyard, but they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to them.

Con opened his mouth to say something, but Sin spoke first. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have fought you when you wanted to bond with me at the apartment. I should have done it. I should have—”

Con put his finger to her lips. “Shh. You spent most of your life belonging to someone, and belonging to me was the last thing you needed.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Still, it was stupid. I should have trusted you then. But, Con, you didn’t need to kill yourself. And how did you become a vampire?”

“I can’t say.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

His gaze glinted with diamond shards in the light of the moon, holding hers with its intensity. “Can’t.”

Sin’s first instinct should have been to get angry, but he’d asked her to trust him, and she’d have to trust that if he could tell her, he would. In any case, the important thing was that he was here, not dead. Well, sort of not dead.

“So… no more blood addiction?”

“Nope.”

“Do you still have to do the thing with your clan?”

“Nope.”

“But do you still need to feed? Like a normal vampire?” Say yes.

“Yep.”

Her heart gave a happy thump. “Do you need to feed soon?”

His fangs flashed. “Oh, yeah.” The way he said it made her shivery. Melty. Total putty.

“Then maybe we should go?”

“Good idea.” He caught her, hauled her against him. “I love you, Sin. I don’t ever want to lose you again.”

“You won’t,” she whispered. “Because I love you, too. And that’s something I never thought would happen.”

“Then let’s go, and I’ll show you exactly how much I love you.”

Since Sin didn’t have a home, and Con’s had been destroyed—and because there was no way in hell he was going to take her back to the London flat—Con had checked them into a five-star Manhattan hotel. He booked the room for the night, but after six hours of indulgence—in bed, the shower, the sofa, the floor—they headed to the hospital to check on Lore.

As Sin had predicted, he was in misery. He looked like he’d been tortured for days, but thanks to meds, Shade’s gift, and Idess’s bedside vigil, Sin said Lore didn’t look half as bad as usual.

Which was fucking scary, given that Con had seen roadkill in better shape.

Sin and Con didn’t hang around; no doubt Lore didn’t need gawkers. They slipped out of Lore’s room and headed for the Harrowgate. He planned to take her to an early breakfast, and then they were going to stay at Shade and Runa’s house. It was a temporary arrangement until he and Sin could find a place to live, but Shade and Runa were generous enough to let them shack up as long as they wanted. Besides, Luc and Kar were staying there, too, so the place was already in use.

Horror Hotel, as Wraith called Shade’s house. “Vampires, demons, and werewolves check in… and then they make out, and—”

Serena had dragged him away, whispering something in his ear that had made him let out an erotic growl, and then they were gone.

As Con and Sin approached the Harrowgate, it flashed and a tank of a blood-bay stallion leaped out, scattering staff and patients. Atop the horse sat a massive male in hard leather armor. His hair was short, reddish brown, and his eyes were as black as Sin’s.

“What the hell are you doing?” Eidolon shouted, but the big male swiveled his head and focused his gaze on Sin with such intensity that Con stiffened.

“Why is he looking at you like that?”

“I… ah…” She slid him a timid glance. “I sort of slept with him once.”

Con took a deep breath and tried to rein in his desire to rip out the horse guy’s throat. “Where’d you find him? EviLove.com?”

“Hey, that’s not funny. I know people who use the demon dating service.”

The entire hospital seemed to go still, watching and waiting, and what the hell was up with Sin and guys on horses anyway? “Well, who is he?”

“War.”

Con stared at her. “War. Just… War. What kind of name is that?” Nope, not jealous at all of muscle-bound handsome guy.

“Yeah, you know, the original War. Second Horseman of the Apocalypse?”

Con nearly swallowed his fucking tongue. Everyone else in the ER scrambled backward. Even Eidolon backed up a step as the guy swung down from the horse. Christ, standing, the guy was damned near seven feet tall.

“Sin,” he said in an impossibly deep voice. He approached her, bent to kiss her cheek, and Con bristled.

“Big horse,” Con ground out. “Compensating much?”

The guy straightened, shot Con an amused smile—the fucker had some seriously white teeth—and turned back to Sin. “I need the object my brother gave you.”

“That tool with the dissolving arrows was your brother?” Sin dug the gold piece out of her pocket. “Is this it? This coin?”

“Yes.” He took it, and Eidolon sucked in a strangled breath as he put two and two together.

“A Seal. Gods, that’s a Seal.”

Con felt the blood drain from his face. “A broken Seal.” White horse. Bow. Holy shit. “Conquest. Your brother is Conquest.”

“His real name is Reseph,” War said, “but he’s also known as Pestilence in some interpretations of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Eidolon’s voice was stunned, toneless. “She of mixed blood who should not exist, carries with her the power to spread plague and pestilence. When battle breaks, conquest is seal’d. Isagreth 3:17, Daemonica.”

War shifted, and his leather armor squeaked loudly in the otherwise silent ER. “It’s what was engraved on the back of this Seal.”

Slowly, Sin pulled her right arm out of her jacket and raised her sleeve to reveal the circular glyph that had split open so badly at Rivesta’s cabin. The scar that ran through it was an exact replica of the broken edge of the Seal. “I’m the reason it broke,” Sin rasped.

“Yes. You are what we call an agimortus, a catalyst of sorts. Your actions put into motion an event that caused my brother’s Seal to break.”

“Wait,” Con said. “So why was he trying to kill her? He was there when my house blew up… He tried to shoot her.”

“We were all trying to kill her,” War said. “No offense to you, Sin, but we wanted to prevent the Seal from breaking. Contrary to a lot of religious interpretations, we’re neither good nor evil until the Seals break.”

“And then?”

“And then it’s time to bow before whatever God you believe in.”

Sin’s dainty eyebrows slammed down in a frown. “Why did Pest save me from assassins in Montana if he was trying to kill me?”

“By then, the Seal had already broken. At this point, your life or death isn’t important, but he did want you to have the coin.”

“Why?”

War rubbed his thumb over the writing on the Seal. “A message to me,” he said quietly.

“So, are you still planning to kill me?” Sin asked, her arm tensing under Con’s palm.

“There’s no point.” He rolled one big shoulder in a shrug, and his mouth turned up in a smile that probably made females fall all over him. “Besides, it would be a shame to kill you.”

Another growl formed in Con’s chest, but Sin squeezed his hand, reminding him that she was there with Con, and she wasn’t going anywhere. Not even for muscle-bound legend guy. Asshole. “What was the final straw that broke it?” Con asked, much more nicely than he’d have liked. And that note of awe in his voice… seriously? Humiliating.

War slipped the coin into his horse’s saddlebag. “It triggered when the disease jumped species and the two warg factions began to battle each other.” He glanced at Eidolon. “Yes, we’ve kept up on everything that’s happened.”

“What can we do?” Eidolon asked.

“Pray.” War mounted the horse. “And prepare your staff for mass casualties. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. If they get better.” With a jerk of the reins, he and the stallion disappeared into the Harrowgate.

Everyone stood there for a moment, frozen and silent. When the ambulance-bay doors slid open and Blaspheme and Vladlena rolled a patient in on a stretcher, everyone finally leaped into action. Everyone but Con, who stared at Sin.

“There’s never a dull moment with you, is there?”

She frowned. “Are you regretting—”

“No!” He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “No. Never. Now, let’s go feed you, and then I’m going to make sure that War asshole”—freaking Horseman—“never enters your mind again.”

Grinning, Sin linked arms with him. “War who?”

Yeah, War who. As Con led Sin toward the Harrowgate, he had a feeling they’d not seen the last of him.