Kingdom: Animalia
Class: Demon
Family: Sexual demon
Genus: Terrestrial
Species: Incubus
Breed: Seminus
Prologue
“The wargs must die.”
Sin paced back and forth in the master chamber of her assassin den, her mind working overtime to process Bantazar’s words. The Assassin Guild’s messenger stood near the cold fire pit, outstretched hand holding a parchment scroll. Sin snatched it from the Neethul male, who must stand seven feet tall even without the platform Goth boots he wore. With them, he was at least two-and-a-half feet taller than she was. Still, the Guild’s lackey didn’t intimidate her. She’d killed much larger demons than him.
“Eight of them?” Sin asked. “Eight werewolves at once?”
He nodded, his shoulder-length, snowy hair catching on his pointed ears. The Neethul were—externally, anyway—a beautiful race, elven in appearance. “An entire pack.”
Which included a two-year-old cub. She cast a covert glance at the male standing in the corner, saturated in shadow and silence. Lycus, her only warg assassin, might as well have been a stone statue. The news that the contract would end the lives of several of his own people didn’t faze him at all. Not that she’d expected it to. He was a professional. Cold, efficient, and ruthless.
Biting back a curse, Sin stopped pacing. She couldn’t afford to show nerves or reluctance. The Guild was watching her closely for signs of weakness, would seize any excuse to crush her and take her assassins for themselves. She had to be more ruthless than ever right now, especially since she’d already declined to bid on nearly a dozen contracts, and she’d only been an assassin master for three weeks.
She scanned the details scrawled on the parchment in Sheoulic. “Who else has this job been presented to?”
“You know I can’t tell you that.” Bantazar’s ruby lips peeled back in a lecherous smile. “But if you use some of your succubus talents on me, I might let some names slip in a moment of passion.”
Sad as it was, she was actually tempted to screw the bastard if it would get her the information she needed. She had to offer on this job, but she needed to ensure she overbid and wouldn’t win the contract. Knowing who else was bidding would give her an edge.
“I’d tell you to go to hell, Bantazar, but no doubt you own a large chunk of it.” The Neethul were wealthy slave traders whose holdings included massive sections of Sheoul, and as a minor assassin master, Bantazar was definitely on the same path.
“Deth would have taken me up on the offer,” he purred.
“I wouldn’t brag about that.” She studied the ring on her left index finger that used to belong to her dead boss. “Deth would have screwed a spiny hellrat if he could catch one.”
Bantazar laughed as he moved toward her, sinuous as a serpent. “Your assassin slaves grow restless, half-breed. Are your human morals interfering with your ability to manage them?”
She snorted. “I have no morals.” Maybe she’d started out with them, back before she found out she was a demon, but all the things she’d done in her life, both forced and of her own free will, had chipped away at her heart and soul, and there wasn’t a lot left.
At least, there hadn’t been until she’d started a plague that was killing werewolves all over the globe. Something about that action had scraped her emotions raw, exposing a nugget of regret that sat inside her like a pebble in a shoe.
And now there’d been a mysterious increase in the number of hits put out on werewolves—wargs, as they liked to be called—and she was having a hard time bidding on contracts that would set her assassins against them.
She was already killing them by the dozens, without ever having touched them.
Absently, she rubbed her right arm, her palm registering the difference in temperature between her bare skin and the sharp lines of the tattoo that had appeared when she was twenty. The dermoire, a paternal history of her demon heritage, had come with a raging libido and the ability to infect anyone she touched with a disease that killed within minutes. As sucky as that was, her twin brother, Lore, had gotten off much worse. She could at least control her “gift.” He couldn’t touch anyone but his siblings and mate without snuffing them.
“Well?” Bantazar cracked his knuckles, an annoying sound that echoed off the chamber’s smooth stone walls. “Will you bid, or will you let your slaves mutiny?”
Thanks to the bond that connected her to her assassin slaves through the assassin-master ring, they couldn’t raise a hand against her—not so long as she remained in the den or at assassin Guild headquarters, or in a place protected from violence, like Underworld General. But they couldattack her anywhere else in Sheoul or aboveground, in the human realm—which was why assassin masters rarely left their dens.
For the millionth time since she had accepted the position of assassin master, she cursed her situation. She hadn’t wanted it, but she would never let her brother know that she’d taken it to prevent his angelic mate from being forced into the job Idess had won by killing Detharu. Idess would have lost her soul over this job, and since Sin figured she’d already lost hers…
Yeah. No big deal.
Snagging a double-ended penknife from the hip pocket of her leather pants, she scrawled an absurdly high monetary figure on the parchment. She signed, and then flipped the pen over and sliced her thumb with the sharp blade. A drop of blood splashed onto the page, and instantly, red, pulsing veins sprouted from the fluid and wove their way through the document. Within seconds, the parchment had gone from a crisp, stiff square of dried skin to a pliable, warm scrap of flesh that would become a binding contract if the individual behind it accepted her bid.
Disgusted, Sin handed the thing back to the Neethul, her stomach churning as he sauntered to the exit.
“That was hard for you,” Lycus said, after the huge door slammed shut. From behind her, his hands came down on her shoulders, his fingers kneading, but his touch made her tense up only more. “Take me up on my offer. Mate with me. We’ll rule the den together.”
“Are you deaf, or just really stupid?” Not once since taking this job had she committed violence against one of her underlings, but she really was tempted to turn around and introduce her knee to his balls. “How many times do I have to say no?”
His lips brushed the top of her right ear. “I can say no, as well.”
She stiffened. “Blackmail, Lycus?” He was one of her few, precious bedmates now; since becoming master of the den, most of her assassins, the ones who had shared her bed for years, had become wary or afraid of her. Although it was within her rights to force them to service her, she would never do so. Lycus allowed her full use of his body, but it wasn’t because he knew that she’d die without sex.