“I’ve got nothing,” Eidolon admitted. “Your blood hasn’t revealed any clues. And this disease is like nothing I’ve ever seen. This is a hellfuck of Sheoulic proportions.”
Oh, goodie, she’d caused a hellfuck of a plague. Lore always said that when she did something, she did it well. She’d worn his words like a badge of honor, but she just couldn’t find the pride in what she’d done this time.
“Usually everyone I infect develops something unique… no one dies from the same thing. Have the wargs you’ve seen had different symptoms?”
Eidolon leaned back in his chair. “Everything has been identical to the first victim, from the signs and symptoms, to the way their capillaries dissolved, leading to internal bleeding and ultimately, cardiac arrest. Whatever you did to the first warg has been passed to the wargs he came into contact with, though the mode of transmission is still unknown.”
She frowned. “Conall came into contact with him, so why hasn’t he gotten sick?”
“I’m guessing his vampire half is giving him immunity or resistance.”
“Maybe there’s something in his blood that can help create a vaccine?”
A small smile tipped up one corner of Eidolon’s mouth. “You’re wasting your talents as an assassin. You should be working here.”
That was a joke and a half. “I kill, brother. That’s where my talents lie.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said, in a voice that dripped with moral superiority and judgment.
“You don’t know anything about me or my situation,” she snapped. “So don’t you dare tell me what doesn’t have to be.”
Though his expression didn’t give anything away, he tapped his fingers wildly on his desktop. “You’re overreacting a little—”
“Overreacting? Bite me, asshole. The next time you start a plague that threatens to take out an entire species, you see how you react.” She slammed her palms on his desk. He didn’t even flinch, just kept up that maddening calm. “All I know how to do is fuck and kill, and now I’ve diseased not just one warg, but possibly an entire population. So tell me how I’m supposed to react.”
“Is this true?” The deep, booming voice had both Sin and Eidolon wrenching their heads around to the doorway, where Conall and another, older male stood.
Neither looked happy.
Eidolon glanced at his watch. “Valko. You’re early.”
The red-haired male snarled and stalked into the office, his glare murderous, and Sin had a sinking feeling that he was a warg. “Is this true?” He jabbed a finger at her. “Is she the cause of the disease that is wiping out our people?”
Eidolon turned to her. “Sin, why don’t you come back later?” It wasn’t a request.
Swallowing dryly, she nodded, but when she tried to leave, the warg blocked her. “I don’t think so.”
Eidolon exploded out of his chair, eyes gold, teeth bared. So her brother wasn’t always the cool, collected guy he probably liked to think he was. Good to know.
“Let her go. Now.” His voice was a lethal drawl, and in that moment, she knew she’d seriously underestimated Eidolon. He was as dangerous as any of her brothers—maybe the most dangerous, because with him, you didn’t see the ax until it was at your throat.
There was a torturous silence, which struck Sin as odd, because the tension crackling in the air should have made noise. Eventually… like, when her lungs were about to explode from her held breath, the warg stepped aside. Unfortunately, that meant she had to face Conall now. He’d remained in the hallway, and as she scooted past him, he grabbed her elbow.
Eidolon’s growl followed, but she raised her hand to cut him off. “It’s okay,” she said, but she knew he was going to keep an eye on things.
Conall’s eyes flashed silver daggers. “What have you done?”
“Didn’t you hear? I’ve started a plague that looks like it’ll wipe out the whole sorry lot of you.”
“Why?”
He made it sound as if she’d done it on purpose. Fine. She could play his game. “For fun. Why else?”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, and she could hear the scrape of enamel on enamel. All that grinding was probably terrible for his fangs. “Did you infect me?”
“You’re very indignant for a guy who bet five hundred bucks that he could get in my pants.”
He seized her by the shoulders and shook her. “Answer me!”
She smiled sweetly. “If I had, you’d already be dead. And if you don’t remove your hands, that’s exactly what will happen.”
His expression darkened even more, and she resisted the urge to shiver as he leaned in so his fangs scratched an earlobe. “Pray no one I know dies.”
“I would be careful about threatening me,” she said, jerking out of his grip.
“Why? Because your brothers will come after me?”
“No. Because I will.”