Eidolon breathed a sigh of relief. He’d expected Lore and Wraith, but Shade was iffy. He wouldn’t want to leave Runa and the kids.

“Wraith is leaving Serena and Stewie with Runa, and Kynan will stay in the cave, too.”

Good. Nothing was getting past Ky. Eidolon checked his watch. Gem was on shift at the hospital, so no worries there, and Idess was all but living at UG because of the overload of souls needing guidance out of the hospital and into the light. It was also the safest place for her now that she was basically human, and the assassins after Sin had taken a new tack to get her by using family.

Con’s last wounds sealed up, and they were out of there. They met Eidolon’s brothers at the Harrowgate just as E’s cell rang. Gem.

He flipped open the phone. “Quickly.”

“The disease is affecting born wargs now,” Gem said.

Eidolon’s chest constricted, and he could barely speak. “What happened?”

“It’s Bastien.” There was a rare hitch in her voice. “It seems to be moving even faster than the original strain. E… he’s not going to make it.”

Holy hell. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The call-waiting beep sounded as he entered the Harrowgate, and he switched over.

“It’s Arik. We have trouble.”

“Thank you, master of the obvious. My hospital is overrun by victims of the warg conflict. I have to go—”

“It’s not that. SF… it’s affecting born wargs now.”

Eidolon slapped his hand on a glowing patch in the black stone that amounted to a Hold button for the Harrowgate door, which, if closed, would cut off the phone’s signal. “Fuck me, I know.”

“Not in this lifetime.” Arik took a deep breath. “Our specialists are freaking out. Born wargs share a lot of genetic code with wolf-shifters. Wolf-shifters share a lot of genetic material with leopard and other shifters. And as you know, all shifters are related in some way to anything that can shift.”

Iced adrenaline trickled into Eidolon’s system. “You think SF is going to jump species.”

“Yes. And once that happens, there’s nothing to stop it from jumping to humans.”

Or to any other creature on the planet.

Including Sems.

Someone had run over Kar with a truck while she was asleep. That had to be what had happened, because she’d woken up on Luc’s couch feeling like, well, she’d been run over by a truck.

She’d followed him upstairs and ignored his stomping around while she showered and dressed in a pair of his sweats and a green flannel shirt, both of which swallowed her whole. He’d thrust a bowl of stew at her, stared until she ate it—and then watched, wide-eyed, as she promptly threw it all up.

The morning-sickness thing was weird—she’d had a couple of bouts of nausea around the time she found out she was pregnant, but she’d been fine since. She would have chalked it all up to nerves, except that now she was so miserable that death was starting to look good.

“Kar?” Luc’s deep voice was a strangely soothing murmur in her ear. “You were moaning in your sleep… Holy fuck, you’re hot.”

“Not hot,” she mumbled. “Cold. Need a blanket.”

She heard him shuffling around, felt a blanket come down over her, and then he was nudging her head up. “Hey. I have some Tylenol. You need to take it.”

Her stomach rolled. And then she coughed… so hard her ribs screamed. “Luc… do I have an infection? From the gunshot?”

“You shouldn’t. It healed with your shift.” He frowned as he thumbed up her eyelids. “Your pupils are dilated.” He sank down next to the couch and peeled the blanket away from her chest. “I’m going to take a look at you.”

She felt her shirt being unbuttoned, and despite her misery, she smiled. “Any excuse to get your hands on me.”

“I don’t need an excuse. You’re easy.”

“You—” Her eyes flew open, but when she saw the rare smile turning up his lips, she knew he’d been teasing her. Which was weird, because she would not have taken him as the playful kind. “You should smile more often.”

“Can’t.” He grunted as he opened her shirt to expose her chest. “My face might freeze like that.”

She laughed, but immediately cried out at the pain that wrenched through her abdomen.

“Shit.” Luc jerked his hands away from her. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” she croaked. “Hurt to laugh.”

His gaze swept her with the intensity of an X-ray machine, and she suddenly felt like he was seeing all the way through her. “I’m sorry. About everything.”

About the baby, was what he meant. “Don’t be.” She swallowed, and grimaced at the sudden soreness. “The sex was great. You were only my second, but it was so… good.” Another swallow, another grimace. “And the baby is the best, most normal thing that’s happened to me in years.”

Luc averted his gaze, so it was impossible to tell what he was thinking as he finished unbuttoning her shirt. He peeled the flaps open to reveal an odd bruise around her navel… and the color drained from his face.

“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”

“SF. Jesus Christ, I think you have the virus.”

Sixteen

Massive bleeder. Pulmonary contusion. Pneumothorax.

Voices and strange words pierced Sin’s fog of pain. She thought she heard Con, and maybe Shade. Or Eidolon? A sudden, hot agony electrified her body, and she screamed. And screamed.

Until blackness took her.

Waking up took a long time. Between the buzz in her ears and the raw ache in her throat, it seemed as though she was stuck in a state of nothingness for an eternity. Gradually, she became aware that she was sore, thirsty, and on a bed. She blinked, opened her eyes. She was in Rivesta’s master bedroom. Standing around her were her brothers. All of them. And Tayla. And Con.

“What… happened?” Her voice sounded rusty. Beat up. And it became even more so when Con sank onto the bed next to her and took her hand. His fingers slid over her wrist as if checking her pulse, but unlike the times he’d done it in the past, there was more tenderness than professionalism in his touch. “Why are you all here?”

“One of Bantazar’s assassins hit you with an exomangler,” Lore said. “He’s dead.”

“A lot dead.” Wraith snorted and high-fived Lore. “Massive deadness.”

Sin could only imagine. And boy, was her imagination entertaining. Bantazar really was a grade-A prick, and his assassins weren’t any better. He was probably still pissed that she hadn’t taken him up on his offer to screw him for the names of assassin masters who were bidding on the big werewolf contract.

She rubbed her chest, where she remembered being hit by something that had felt like a cannonball. Aside from a little tenderness, she’d never have known she’d nearly had a tunnel drilled through her.

But… wait… the tenderness… there was something deeper there, and abruptly, she drew a harsh breath. It was the sensation of losing a lot of assassins. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t know who until she got back to the den or talked to someone who knew.

Right now, it wasn’t important, anyway. Fewer people trying to kill her was a good thing.

She put the dead assassins out of her mind and cast her gaze between her brothers. “So you all came?”

“It’s what we do,” Eidolon said simply.

Uh-huh. There was a catch. There had to be. “Okay, so you healed me. Thank you. What now?”

Wraith looked up from studying her Gargantua-bone dagger. “How did you escape the infernal fire?”

“Infernal fire?” She frowned, and then that horrible screech she’d heard at Con’s house pierced her memory as if the sound were right there in her ear. “Holy shit, that’s what destroyed Con’s house?”

Con cursed. “I should have known. I’ve seen what that shit does.”

“So have I,” Wraith said. “But I’ve never seen anyone escape it.”

“Con’s escape tunnel,” Sin muttered. “The heat couldn’t get to us, and by the time we were out of it—”