He gave her a wolfish grin. “Every chance I get.” With that, he was gone, and once again, she was alone with her thoughts, and crazily, she felt more alone than ever.
Conall found Luc at the open rear of their rig, sitting on the step and chowing down on a very rare roast beef sandwich. So rare that blood dripped to the pavement. Con was tempted to look around for the cow it had come from, because surely it had to be close.
“Did Shade catch up with you?” Luc asked.
Shit. Did the Sem know Con had hooked up with his sister already? “No. Why?”
“Another warg was brought in on Medic Two’s last run.”
Medic Two was Shade’s ambulance with his partner, a False Angel named Blaspheme. “Same as the other two?”
“Yep. Shade wants all warg medics to stand down from calls to all warg emergencies.”
Conall swore. He hoped these cases were isolated, but he’d better inform the Warg Council as soon as possible. As a member of the Council, the lone representative for dhampires and the only councilmember employed by UG, he was duty-bound to alert them to potential trouble. Not that they’d pay heed to anything he said. In warg hierarchy, dhampires barely rated above turned wargs, and that was only because there were so few dhampires that they were no threat in any way to born wargs.
“So? What happened with Sin?” Luc cocked an eyebrow, and then the other when Conall pulled Sin’s thong from his pocket and twirled it on one finger. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “You nailed her.”
For some reason, the way Luc spoke so casually, as if Sin was some swan Conall had picked up at a vampire bar, grated on him. Probably because he respected the Sem brothers, and he couldn’t quite dismiss their sister as a cheap suck-and-fuck, even though that was how he’d treated her.
“Yeah,” he ground out, “I nailed her.”
“Where?” Luc always wanted the dirty details.
“Stockroom.” He held out his hand. “Pay up.”
Luc snorted and reached for his wallet. “I really got taken on this one, didn’t I?” He handed over four hundreds and five twenties.
“Yeah, well, you can have the last laugh once the Sem brothers catch up with me.” Con ran his thumb over the bills. “Seems she’s their sister.”
“Dude.” Luc stretched out the word and then whistled, low and long. “Nice knowing you.”
Con could take care of himself, wasn’t too worried despite what he’d said to Sin about keeping his balls, but he did like this job and didn’t want to lose it. At least, not until he got bored with it. And he would. He always did. In a thousand years he hadn’t not gotten bored with anything.
Or anyone.
“So,” Luc said, “will it at least have been worth it? Being gutted by Shade, I mean. Was she good?”
His body heated as though remembering. And wanting again.
“Of course I was.”
Fuck. Con spun around to find Sin standing there, hands on hips and fury in her expression. Like a kid caught stealing candy, he whipped the money behind his back.
She looked at him as if he was an idiot and grabbed his arm, bringing it around.
“It’s not what you think,” he said lamely, because it was exactly what she thought.
“Really? So that big asshole behind you didn’t bet you five hundred bucks that you couldn’t fuck me?”
“Ah…”
“That’s what I thought. You dick. How stupid do you think I am? Your name really fits you, Con.” She snatched the money from him, took two hundreds and three twenties, and thrust the remaining two hundred and forty dollars back into his hand. Then, smiling broadly, she punched him in the shoulder. “Next time you make a bet like that, don’t cheat me out of my half. I owe you a ten.”
She winked and left him, jaw-dropped and gaping, as she sauntered away.
Luc made a strangled sound. “Did that just happen? She wasn’t mad because you made the bet—she was mad because you didn’t give her half the money?”
“Yeah.” Con grinned. “Yeah, it did. I think I may be in love.”
“Man, don’t even joke about that. Females like her are a piss-bucket full of trouble.”
True. But females like that were also the kind that made life a challenge, and it had been a long time since Con had last been challenged.
Fifteen
Eidolon lost Lore twice on the operating table. And the most fucked-up thing about it was that both instances could have been prevented.
Someone or some thing had turned off the respirator, and then later, the lights at a crucial moment. These weren’t equipment failures. Eidolon had seen the respirator switch flip to the off position with his own eyes. Wraith needed to get a new exorcist and fast.