Fang cried out as the most blinding shaft of agony imaginable ripped through his entire body. It felt as if he were being torn in two. He couldn’t breathe or move. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re absorbing the demon’s powers.”

“Huh?”

Thorn nodded. “Yeah. And not just the powers. Your soul is merging with the dead demon’s essence. All that he was is now intruding onto what you are. Demons are immortal without souls. When they die as it were, their life force jumps to the one who destroyed their body and it will try to take you over from now on.”

“So what are you saying? I need an exorcism?”

“No. There’s no body for him to return to. You’re stuck with him. Mazel tov!” Thorn said in an exaggerated voice of happiness. He sobered as his body returned to normal, except for his eyes. They were red with slitted yellow pupils that reminded Fang of a snake’s. “And it’s why we try real hard not to kill one. Not a pretty reality.”

Fang felt his vision changing. It became sharper. Clearer. The scent of blood permeated his head and he could hear it running not just in his veins, but Thorn’s.

“What’s happening to me?”

Thorn grabbed him by the shoulder and smiled cruelly. “That is the taste of evil flowing thick through your veins. Seductive and inviting, it will entice you from now on. And now you know why I’m a less than happy camper most days. There’s the battle I fight every second of every minute of my life. As I said, it now sucks to be you.”

Before Fang could stop himself, he vomited on the sidewalk. Gah, the indignity of that. Not to mention the pain of it as his insides felt alive-like they were writhing.

Thorn didn’t flinch in the least as he stepped back to give him space. “Don’t worry. Your guts aren’t coming out even though it feels like it. Your stomach will settle down eventually. However, that need you have for blood and death that is mounting inside you will never go away.”

Grimacing, Fang wrapped his arms around his stomach and leaned back against the wall to catch his breath. He tilted his head to look at Thorn. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think in your current frail condition that you could kill him. I figured three whacks with the sword and you’d either be dead or he’d be banished… let me go back to the part where this particular demon had taken out some of my best in the past. I should have evaluated your abilities a little more accurately. My bad.”

“I hate you, Thorn.”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “All creatures do and I really don’t care. By the way, your girlfriend is on her way back here to you. Try not to eat her even though the bloodlust is going to be hard to resist. You’ll most likely regret it if you do.” Then he was gone.

Fang slid down the wall, trying to get his stomach and nerves to settle. But it was hard. He still felt like he was being torn inside out.

Gods, what am I going to do?

Aimee appeared by his side a few minutes later as he leaned back with his head against the wall and his eyes closed.

“Fang?” Her hand was cool as she touched his forehead. “You’re burning up.”

His only response was to hold her hand against his cheek as the soft lavender scent of her wrist soothed him. But Thorn had been right, he could smell the blood in her veins and he wanted to rip her wrist open to taste it.

“Can you take me home?” he breathed, afraid to try his own powers right now.

“Absolutely.” She helped him to stand and it was only then that he realized the demon had disintegrated. There was nothing left except a vague black outline. Would that happen to him too if he died now?

Damn you, Thorn, for not telling me everything.

Aimee flashed them back to Fang’s bed and then helped him to lie down. “I’m going to get Carson.”

He grabbed her hand and held her by his side. “Don’t. There’s nothing he can do.”

“But, Fang-”

“Aimee, trust me. I just need to rest alone for a little bit, okay?”

He could see the debate in her eyes as he tightened his grip on her hand.

After a few seconds, she nodded. “You need me at all…”

“I will call you. I promise.”

She patted his hand before she removed it. “All right. Rest well.”

Fang didn’t relax until she was out of the room. Only then did he lay back and give in to the conflicting emotions that lacerated him. He wanted to kill something.

Anything.

But he knew he couldn’t.

The only thing was, he didn’t know how long he’d be able to hold the demon in him at bay. By the feel of it, he was going to turn Slayer. True Slayer.

And that, in their world, carried a death sentence.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Fang lay in his bed as a wolf, his mind trapped by the demon powers that were warring inside him as they converted his body even more. He was only vaguely aware of the sounds of the outside world.

He now saw things in infrared while he slept. Every tiny insect in his room. Every creature that walked past his room in the hallway. He was aware of everything on a level he’d never imagined, but unable to respond. He was like an outside viewer who couldn’t break through the glass case no matter how hard he struck it.

“Fang?”

Vane. He’d know that deep baritone anywhere. But in Fang’s mind Vane was nothing more than a reddish outline standing beside his bed. There was a woman with him. One who smelled sweet and all human. She stood so close to Vane that she appeared tucked in there.

Fang tried to reach out to his brother, but couldn’t. It was almost like he was back in the Nether Realm where only voices could reach him. Only now he couldn’t understand the words his brother was saying to him. They were jumbled and malformed as he and the woman said things.

Hanging his head, Fang sighed wearily.

“Aw, what’s wrong, little wolfie? Can’t you get up?”

Fang went ramrod stiff as he heard the raspy voice of a demon. “Alastor.” He didn’t know how he knew the creature’s name, yet he did.

His body went straight into the demeanor of a lethal predator. Fang lowered his head and watched the demon closely with his peripheral, ready to strike him down with deadly precision when the time came.

Small and wiry, the demon was ugly and gray-skinned. Worse, he stank of sulphur and blood. His hook nose and bald head made him look like a gargoyle. In the darkness of his dream, something silver flashed.

Fang reacted on instinct. He caught the demon’s hand to see a dagger held there. Laughing at the audacity, or more to the point the stupidity, he wrapped his other hand around the demon’s throat and lifted him from his feet.

The moment he did, he saw Alastor’s thoughts in his mind. Heard his own mother telling the demon to kidnap Vane’s mate and bring her to his mother’s pack so that Bride couldn’t complete the mating ritual with Vane. It was a pact his mother had made with the demon to capture all of their mates to prevent them from having even a small chance of happiness.

Or more to the point, to keep them from procreating and spreading their animal natures that his mother despised so much.

Raw fury exploded inside him.

“You rotten bastard,” he snarled as his demon’s bloodlust ripped through him and the demon inside him roared to life. It wanted him to rip the demon’s head off with his bare hands and feast on his entrails. Never had he experienced anything like this.

“I was just doing as I was told.” The whine in the demon’s voice was like a chair scraping across a floor. It made the hair on the back of his neck rise and did nothing to curb his blood fever.

Before Fang even realized what he was doing, he sank his teeth into the demon’s throat so that he could taste his blood.

Stop!

The sound of his conscience succeeded in reaching him. Choking on the thick liquid that tasted like warm metal, he forced himself to step back. Alastor slid to the ground, holding his neck as he pathetically begged for his life.