The floor beneath Wraith fell away. Groaning, he dropped to his knees in front of Serena’s hotel room door. He kept one hand braced on it for support, but that didn’t help the fact that he could barely suck air into his lungs, his fangs pulsed, and his dick was so hard it might break
Breathe, motherfucker. Breathe.
Pain rocketed from his throbbing balls into his groin, and he doubled over, waited for the agony to pass. This was the dark side of his ability to get inside someone’s head and make them think anything he wanted them to. The Seminus gift was intended to be used on females in order to make them receptive to sex, and it worked… but he was supposed to actually be in the same room with them so he could get out of their heads and into their bodies to make the imagined sex a reality.
But he’d fallen victim to his own gift, something that had never happened before. He’d been so into the dream sex he’d planted in Serena’s mind that he’d not only finished it in her dream, but he’d revealed his vampire self. And asking her if she’d fangjerk him? He couldn’t come like that any more than he could with a handjob.
Has to be the poison. Making him sick. Weak.
He ached. He throbbed. He was jonesing so hard for sex that he was a danger to both himself and any female who might be unlucky enough to walk down the hall. At this point, he had two choices: He could hunt down a female or he could stumble back to his room and inject himself with the libido-relieving drug Eidolon had developed to keep Wraith level while he was on this mission. Eidolon had tested the drug on himself, and though it hadn’t worked on him, he’d been certain that in Wraith’s weakened condition it should suffice.
It had to. Eidolon had suspected that in order to seduce Serena, Wraith would have to get both her and himself worked up multiple times, and it would look suspicious if he kept having to excuse himself to find a female to screw.
Wraith had figured he’d have Serena in bed before debilitating pain became an issue, but he’d seriously under-estimated her willingness to hang on to her virginity.
And the charm.
And her life.
Head spinning, he lurched to his feet and somehow made it to his room at the end of the hall. Once inside, he dug through his backpack to the nylon med kit E had stuffed full of a variety of pill bottles and pre-filled syringes full of medications to help relieve the pain and nausea he experienced as the poison ate away at his organs—and his life.
He found the bottle of the libido drug, drew two ccs with a shaking hand, and jabbed himself in the thigh. Almost instantly, the maddening desire to find a female melted away, though he really could go a round with one. The images of being inside Serena kept playing through his mind in agonizingly slow motion, every detail as real as if it had been a true memory. He could smell her, taste her, feel her.
He’d never, ever wanted to bed a human before. Not like this. They’d been forced on him, and he’d nearly taken one—Kynan’s wife, no less—during a fit of bloodlust, but he’d never actually allowed himself to be attracted to one. How could he, after what he’d been forced to endure… after what he’d been forced to do to them. There were too many memories gnawing away at him, too many nightmares lurking in his sleep.
He tossed the syringe into the trash and stumbled to the bathroom for a glass of water. When he looked into the mirror and saw his reflection, he dropped the glass, shattering it on the counter.
His personal symbol, the hourglass, had changed. Oh, it was still an hourglass, still inverted. But more of the sand had drained to the bottom, marking time he didn’t have.
Eight
“He’s crashing!” Gem moved away from her patient’s head, where she’d been securing a Sora male’s breathing tube, and quickly crunched a set of compressions into his broad chest. “Page Shade,” she snapped, and Chu-Hua, a Guai nurse who resembled a wild boar on two legs, dove for the intercom.
“It’s not working!”
“Shit! Then get him.”
-Chu-Hua lumbered off, and Gem cursed under her breath. Things were breaking all over the hospital, always at critical moments—Murphy’s Law in action. Wraith had better get into that human’s pants, and fast.
“I’ve got a pulse.” Shawn, a vampire physician assistant, didn’t bother to hide the relief in his voice. This Sora was a victim of an Aegis slayer’s stang, and no one wanted to see a demon die at the hands of the enemy.
“We need to get him into surgery. That hole in his gut needs to be plugged.” Gem hit the intercom button, remembering too late that it didn’t work. “Anyone know if the OR is ready?”