Raynor snorted. “Only a demon could be proud of that.”

God, this guy was slime. How had Con not killed him before now? Con. Stop it!“What do you want? I’m bored. You’ve got ten seconds to tell me why I’m here.”

“You’re here because I want you to create a virus that affects only the pricolici.”

Not just slime, but delusional. The parking lot vehicle entrance flashed, and an ambulance zipped through, pulling to a stop in the unloading space near the doors to the ER. Sin’s pulse went a little crazy as she peered into the cab to identify the medics. Con wasn’t one of them. Not that she’d expected him to be, but she couldn’t help but look.

Stop. It.

“You do realize,” she said, turning back to the warg, “that the last time I created a virus, it jumped species.”

“It won’t if the pricoliciare contained.”

Sick bastard. “Okay, for shits and giggles, what in the hell makes you think I would ever do that?”

Raynor smiled. “Because you’re going to become my personal assassin.”

“You should see Eidolon for a brain scan or something.” She watched the medics unload some sort of hideous, skeletal demon out of the ambulance. “Because you’re fucked in the head.”

The warg’s voice became an eerily calm drawl. “Did you know that when a born warg hides the fact that her offspring were born human, she is committing a crime punishable by death? She and her offspring are chained to stakes on the eve of a full moon, and once the pack shifts, they are torn apart. And eaten. It’s a painful, gruesome death.”

Sin didn’t allow her expression to change, but inside, she was sweating bullets. “So?”

“So I know Conall’s little family secret. I have a spy inside the pricolicipack you and he visited. And I know all about his granddaughter, Sable.”

Oh, holy shit. “And what do you think you know?”

“I know that at least one of her twin cubs was born human.” He leaned forward. “Because my brother was the father.”

Sin’s throat closed up, but she managed a raspy “What?”

Raynor cast a glance at another vehicle coming in through the parking lot gate. “I was there. I watched The Aegis kill my brother, and I kept an eye on her for months—”

“Why?” Sin interrupted. “What would you have to gain? Or are you just some obsessed, creepy stalker?”

The warg’s gaze drifted, softening his expression. “Do you know what it’s like to be invisible, demon? I was on the Warg Council when it was even more of a joke than it is now. We were allowed to sit in on meetings, but we had no input, no vote, no voice when even the dhampires, who aren’t even full wargs, had more power than we did. I needed every advantage, every bit of ammunition I could get, no matter how insignificant it might have seemed at the time.” His eyes refocused, bitterness burning in them once again. “So I watched Sable, and when she disappeared with Conall for a few days and returned to the village with the infants, I suspected that she’d had one or both of the cubs turned and tattooed. But it wasn’t until Con’s appearance a few days ago, followed by her rapid departure from the village with her family, that I knew for sure. And I willspill the little secret.”

“Bastard.” Sin drew her right hand out of her pocket, preparing to fire up her gift and fry the fucker. “You wouldn’t—”

“Oh, I would. I’ll tell her pack what she’s done, about Conall’s part in it, and I’ll take you there to watch. He might even be put to death with them.”

“Unless I work for you.”

“Exactly. And don’t even think about harming me. My second-in-command is only one of several people I’ve told, and if anything happens to me, she’ll make sure Sable’s secret is made public.” He drew a delicate choke chain from his jacket pocket. A fucking dog collar. “Once you put it on, it would be in your best interests to not allow me to be hurt or killed, because what happens to me, happens to you.”

Enraged, Sin instinctively engaged her power. Heat spread from her shoulder to her fingers, following the track of her glyphs. If she looked, she knew they’d be glowing and writhing as though alive. “You son of a bitch.”

“That,” he said icily, “would only be accurate if I were pricolici.”

She stared at the collar dangling from his fingertips, her heart rate spiking. How could this be happening? After a hundred years of slavery, of belonging to so many different masters, she’d finally found freedom, and now she was faced with slavery once again. Worse, she’d freaked on Con over a bonding issue, something that might have been constricting, but that would have been far preferable to what Raynor was trying to force upon her.

“Well?” he asked. “Will you serve me, or will you let Sable and her son, and perhaps even Con, die?”

Her mind screamed and her body trembled. She had no choice. Not really. Maybe if she agreed, it would buy some time for Con to get his family to safety.

“Yes,” she ground out. “I’ll do it.” He tossed the collar to her, and her fingers shook as she fastened it around her throat. A cloying, strangling sensation washed over her, a feeling of being caged and smothered, and she doubled over and lost the contents of her stomach.

“There, there,” Ray said, as he stroked her back. “You just saved lives. That’s nothing to feel sick over.”

“I’m going to kill you,” she swore. “Someday, I’m going to rip your throat out with my bare hands.”

Ray shrugged. “Until that day, you’re mine. And I plan to use you until you drop.”

Use her. Oh, God, if he touched her like that… she shrank away from him, unable to bear his hands on her for one more second. She didn’t know how she’d manage to have anyone’shands on her now. Not after Con.

His glare was full of righteous indignation. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t touch you with my dick if it were on fire and you were wet for me. I don’t screw demons. But don’t push me, Sin, because I have friends who do.”

Twenty-four

Sharla LastNameDidn’tMatter rubbed her naked body against Con’s, exposing her slender neck. “Take me, Conall.”

He needed to. Badly. His body wasn’t responding to her sexual invitation, but he could force himself to at least take blood from her. The lack of feeding was making him weak, but so far, his stomach had rebelled against everything he’d put in it, from food to the few swallows of blood he’d taken from a human male vagrant last night after he’d kicked Sin out.

The fact that he’d expelled her to save her life didn’t make him feel any better about it.

Sharla’s hands slid up his bare chest and then down, over his tense abs to the waistband of his jeans. She was practiced… as a swan, a human who willingly submitted to the blood and sexual needs of vampires in exchange for the high they got, she knew what was expected of her. But Con didn’t want anything she was so boldly offering.

He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed to get himself inside Revenant, an underground Goth club, not with the dark circles under his eyes and the sunken hollows in his cheeks, classic signs of vampire starvation that usually meant no admittance. Clubs couldn’t afford to have their customers ripped apart by out-of-control feeders. But he supposed the fact that he was a regular had given him a free pass, and it hadn’t taken long for the swans to find him. He’d seen other vampires feed from Sharla, knew she could handle rough.

His fangs extended, and he wondered if she could also handle dangerous.

Tilting her head, Sharla stood on her toes so her throat was only inches from his lips. Her blood thudded through her veins, filling his ears with the sweet music. He only wished Sin was the one playing it.

“I’m ready.” Her voice was husky, needy, and full of futile desperation, and he wondered if he’d taste drugs in her blood.