Oh, bloody hell. How many females had Con fed from and slept with in the last month? His mind raced as he counted and eliminated those who weren’t werewolves. Only one had been a warg… a turnedwarg. And ironically, a female who he’d avoided sleeping with for years because he cared about her, and she deserved better than a one-off with him.
Shit. “Hold on, Doc.” Con dug his cell from his pocket, dialed, and Yasashiku, a member of the Warg Council, answered on the second ring.
“Con. You’re missing the meeting. Valko’s about to have a freaking puppy. Where are you?”
“I’m at work. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Moving toward a corner, he lowered his voice. “Have you heard from Nashiki lately?”
Yasashiku’s silence made Con suddenly, achingly, aware of the pounding sound of his heartbeat in his ears. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?” Don’t say it. Don’t. Fucking. Say it.
“She caught the virus,” Yas said, his faint Japanese accent thickening with emotion. “She died last night.”
Con didn’t even reply. Numbly, he closed the phone. He’d done his share of killing in his thousand years of life, some of it justified, some not. But there was something truly obscene about killing someone with pleasure. Especially because, years ago, he’d saved Nashiki’s life after she’d been attacked by a pride of lion-shifters, and though he didn’t normally keep in contact with his patients, she’d been special, bubbly and bright, one of the few people he’d met in his life who never let anything get them down.
So he’d saved her… only to kill her.
Sure, there was no proof that hehad given the virus to the gorgeous, honey-skinned warg, who hadn’t deserved how he’d screwed her while fantasizing about Sin, let alone how he’d given her a disease that had turned her organs to mush. No proof at all, but the timing was right, given the time frame from onset to death.
Crimson washed over his vision as both nausea that he’d killed an innocent female and anger that the person ultimately responsible was right there in the room with him collided. This had to end, and at this point, the risks of repeated feedings from Sin were the least of his concerns.
Especially since all of the risk would be Sin’s.
“Con?” Wraith’s deep voice was a mere buzz among the other noise in Con’s head. “Dude. You okay? You look like you’re about to take a header.”
“Then I’d better feed.” Conall’s voice was cold as he swung around to Sin. “And it looks like you’re lunch.”
Two
This was such bullshit.
Sin got that this might be the answer to the epidemic, but Con didn’t have to look at her like she was a juicy steak. He could at least try to be as repulsed as she was.
“Sit.” Con’s voice had deepened to a compelling, husky rasp that nearly had her complying with his demand like a well-trained dog.
“We’re going to do it here?”
He cocked a sandy eyebrow. “You’d rather do it in a patient room? Or maybe a supply closet would be more to your liking?”
Oh, the bastard. They were notgoing to a patient room, where a bed would make it way too easy to do more than the blood thing, and the supply closet remark was a jab at the first—and last—place they’d been together.
She sank down into a chair. “Fine. Get it over with.”
“How sweet,” Wraith said. “You sound like an old married couple.”
She flipped him off as Con turned to her brothers. “Could we get some privacy?”
“No.” Sin jabbed a finger at Eidolon. “You. Stay.” Mainly, she was being a bitch, but also, the little flutter in her belly at the thought of being alone again with Con was a dangerous sign that she shouldn’tbe alone with him.
Lore stepped forward. “I’ll stay.”
“It’s okay, bro,” she said. The last thing she needed was Lore’s hovering. He’d been doing it for thirty years, and he seemed to be having a hard time breaking the habit. “This will be strictly a clinical procedure. Eidolon can oversee it.” Clinical?That was a joke and a half, because she knew having Con’s fangs slide into her flesh would be pleasurable no matter how much she wanted to deny it.
For a long moment, Sin was sure Lore would argue. Fists clenched, he stood there glowering, his dermoirewrithing angrily. Like hers, it was a faded imitation of their purebred brothers’ markings, but it still behaved the same way, appearing to move during periods of high emotion. He finally nodded and, after shooting Con a look of scathing brotherly warning, took off.
She made a shooing motion at Wraith. “You, too. Scram.”
“Smurfy.” Wraith took off, whistling the theme to The Smurfsas he went.
“We don’t need Eidolon,” Con said. “I’ve been doing this for a thousand years. I know when to stop.”
Sin wasn’t worried about being drained, but she wasn’t about to admit that her real fear was that without a chaperone, she’d end up doing a lot more than playing Happy Meal. Fortunately, she didn’t have to say anything, because Eidolon got that stern expression on his face, closed the door, and propped a shoulder against it, long legs crossed casually at the ankles. He wasn’t about to budge, and Con must have come to the same conclusion because he muttered something under his breath and sank to his knees beside her.
With him kneeling, they were at eye level, and she gulped dryly when he locked gazes with her.
“Give me your wrist,” he said, and when she hesitated, his cold smile was at odds with the heat roaring off his body. “You’d prefer the throat? Or groin? Sure, it’d go faster that way, but I didn’t think you’d want that much intimacy.” His eyes sparked with amusement, mocking her.
She thrust her left arm at him. “Damn skippy, I don’t.”
He took her wrist gingerly, as if the mere thought of touching her disgusted him. And maybe it did on some level. But she’d never met a vampire who didn’t admit to getting at least a little revved while feeding.
A whisper of pain came with the penetration of his fangs, followed by sparks of pleasure so intense she had to bite back a moan.
“Sin,” Eidolon said softly, “you’ll need to monitor the virus levels in his blood now and then. You should get a baseline now.”
Yes, a baseline. Anything to wrench her attention away from how good it felt to have Con’s lips on her, his teeth in her. Concentrating, she fired up her gift until the dermoireon her arm began to glow, and then she gripped Con’s shoulder. Beneath her fingers, his muscles bunched as though in protest, but her succubus senses picked up signs of increased arousaclass="underline" the sound of his heart rate jacking up, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the rise in the temperature of his skin.
Her own body answered with a rush of liquid heat, but she clenched her teeth and concentrated on reading his blood. Her power entered him in a focused beam and threaded through his veins and arteries. When she used her gift to create a disease, her victims didn’t feel a thing, but she’d never probed around like this before.
“You okay?” she asked, and when Con’s shimmering eyes flashed up at her, she regretted asking. Who cared if he was okay? She was the one getting sucked on. The one who was starting to see spots.