“Can I give the job to you?”
“Seriously?” Sin’s dark eyes flared, and then narrowed. “Why don’t you want it? It’s a great gig.”
“I’m sort of human now.” She scanned all the dead bodies, the death and destruction. “And running an assassin organization isn’t exactly my dream job.”
Shrugging, Sin held out her hand. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Lore laughed and flipped the ring into the air at her. “That was easy.”
“I told you this was all I know,” she said, and a flicker of sadness crossed Lore’s face. “So I might as well be the boss.” She slipped the ring onto her index finger. “Hey, I know everything about everyone’s contracts!” Grinning, she looked at Idess. “Yours is fulfilled.”
“But he ordered me to kill Lore, and I didn’t do it.”
“Since I’m the new owner of the contract, I say that Deth’s demise counts toward the kill he ordered you to make.”
Happiness leaped through Idess, and she crushed Sin in a hug. Sin went stiff as a board, but she gave Idess an awkward pat on the back before shoving away and putting a few feet of distance between them, clearly uncomfortable with affection.
“Well, what now?” Idess asked Lore.
“Now,” he said, with a lustful stare, “we head home.”
His hunger slammed into her through the mate bond, intensifying her own until she was burning up on the inside. “My place or yours?” she breathed.
“Whatever’s closest,” he said roughly, and she was definitely on board with that suggestion.
Sin rolled her eyes. “Get outta here already.”
Lore grinned. “Couldn’t keep me here. If I never have to see this shithole again… well, you get the picture.” He sobered then, as if maybe what he’d said wasn’t true. With a jerky movement, he slipped his hand under his jacket and withdrew his Gargantua-bone dagger. “Sin, this is yours now.”
“But I gave that to you.”
“And no gift has ever meant more,” Lore said quietly. “But I don’t need it anymore. You do.”
“But—”
“Tell you what,” he said, cutting her off. “You can give it back to me once you’re free of this life.”
The fierce glint in Sin’s eyes said she’d never be free of it, something Lore had to have noticed, but his expression didn’t waver. He held the weapon out, and after a moment, Sin took it.
“Thank you.” Sin cleared her throat of the emotional hitch in it, and suddenly, she was the carefree, breezy assassin again. “You’re the best brother ever.”
“Speaking of brothers,” he said, in a very big-brother tone, “you need to see Eidolon right away.”
“So do I,” Idess said. “Now that I’m back, I can play full-time ghost exterminator after all.”
Lore laughed. “He wants me to play with his dead patients.”
“Are you going to?” Sin asked, and there was an underlying concern in her voice that Idess didn’t understand.
“Sin—”
“It’s okay.” She offered a shaky smile. “I want you to work there. Get to know them.” She slid the dagger into her belt with a firm shove. “Now, I have a business to run. See ya.”
Idess wrapped her arm around Lore’s waist, and melted into him when he tugged her close. “Will she be all right?”
“Yeah,” he breathed as Sin left the room. “She’s a survivor.”
Idess couldn’t help but wonder if that was truly enough. She’d been a survivor for two thousand years, but all that meant was that she’d existed. Now, as she hugged Lore to her, she knew that she was living.
Twenty-seven
Sin tapped on Eidolon’s office door, even though it was open. Scowling, he looked up from a stack of paperwork, but his severe expression softened when he saw her.
“Sin. Come in.”
She hesitated. All the trouble she’d caused, piled on top of the fact that Eidolon was one of the most intimidating males she’d ever met, made her a little insecure, when she’d never been that way. Ever.
He was just so… different. Lore, Shade, and Wraith radiated danger with varying degrees of humor and moodiness. She’d been around danger all her life and could deal with it. Was comfortable with it. But with Eidolon it was impossible to tell where his thoughts were, and it seemed like the calmer he got, the angrier he was. Plus, he had a logical, intelligent side she couldn’t relate to at all.
Nope, chaos and street-smarts were what guided her.
He said nothing when she didn’t enter right away, merely sat there with that shuttered expression and eyes that revealed nothing. Finally, she walked over to his desk.
“Have you learned anything?”
“About why you’re a… what is it called… Smurfette? Or about the plague?”
“Plague,” she said softly. She didn’t give a crap about the reasons behind her existence. She was alive, and that was all that mattered.