Wraith could have used his Seminus gift to fill the guy’s head with happy, pleasant visions, but this dude was scum. The things he’d done slapped at Wraith’s brain in rapid-fire succession. Sure, Wraith was no angel—though he’d screwed a false one or ten—but with the exception of Aegis Guardians, he didn’t harm human women or children.
This guy… well, Wraith wished he hadn’t blown this month’s kill quota on the Sumatran poacher. Still, tormenting the gangster could be fun. Swallowing the human’s alcohol-laced blood with relish, Wraith used his mind power to feed the guy gruesome images of what Wraith would do to him if he ever found out that he’d committed a violent crime again. For the most part he couldn’t care less if a human lived or died, but this guy got off on preying on the weak and the old.
There was no sport in that.
Power surged through Wraith, power and adrenaline and flashes of heat lightning under his skin. His dermoire, a history of his Seminus demon paternity, pulsed from the tips of the fingers on his right hand to his shoulder and neck, and all the way to the right side of his face, where the swirling black glyphs marked him as a post-s’genesis Seminus. Humans thought it was a tattoo—some thought it was cool; the rest were appalled.
Humans were so freaking uptight.
His prey’s pulse picked up as his heart tried to compensate for the blood loss. Wraith took two more strong pulls, disengaged his fangs, and hesitated before licking the puncture holes to seal the wound. He’d never minded drinking from his victims, but he hated licking them, tasting sweat, dirt, perfume, and worse, their individual essence. Cursing silently, he swiped the holes with his tongue and tried not to shudder, but the shakes wracked his body anyway.
“You should kill him.”
The male voice, deep and calm, startled him. No one snuck up on Wraith. Ever.
He released the gangbanger, letting the guy hit the pavement with a thud. In a fluid, easy movement, he faced the newcomer, but too late he saw a flash and a blur, felt the sting of a dart in his throat.
“Shit!” Wraith ripped the dart from his neck and threw it to the ground, even as he charged the guy who had shot him with it. He was going to gut the bastard.
Wraith grabbed for the male’s shirt, some sort of burlap tunic, but his fingers only brushed the collar. The guy was unnaturally fast—unnaturally fast for a human. This male was demonkind, species unknown.
The male didn’t make a sound as he whispered through the night, moving toward a sewer grate.
Awkwardly, because his left side had begun to weaken, Wraith drew a throwing star from his weapons harness. He hurled it, catching the newcomer in the back.
The male’s ear-shattering, high-pitched scream rent the night as he fell. Wraith slowed, a sudden sense of dread weighing him down, turning his limbs sluggish and uncoordinated.
He stumbled, attempted to catch himself on the side of a building, but his muscles had turned to water. His vision grew dim, his mouth went dry, and with every breath it felt as if he was taking flames into his lungs.
He tried to reach his cell phone, but his arm wouldn’t work. And then his mind wouldn’t work, and all went black.
Throbbing pain in Wraith’s head woke him, and a serious case of cotton-mouth made him gag. He smelled sickness. Blood. Antiseptic
Shit, what had he done last night? He’d been clean for months… well, he hadn’t fed on a junkie just for the sake of getting high, anyway. He’d eaten his share of humans and demons who had drugs in their systems, but that hadn’t been why Wraith had chosen them as food. At least, that’s what he’d told himself.
In any case, he hadn’t woken up with a drug or alcohol hangover in months, but this… this was one mother of a hangover.
He peeled open his eyes, the pain convincing him his eyelids were coated on the inside with sandpaper. They watered, and he had to blink several times before he could focus. Through blurry vision he saw chains hanging in loops from a dark ceiling. Low, muted voices blended with the sound of beeping hospital equipment and ringing in his ears. He was at Underworld General.
He should be relieved, comforted to be safe. Instead, his gut wrenched. Clearly, he’d screwed up again, and his brothers were going to chew his ass but good.
Speak of the demons, he thought, as Eidolon and Shade entered the room. Wraith tried to lift his head, but the room spun in a nauseating swirl of dark colors.
“Hey, bro,” Shade said as he grasped Wraith’s wrist. A warm, pulsing sensation shot up Wraith’s arm. Shade was doing his body probe thing, checking his vitals and whatever other crap needed to be checked. Maybe he could do something about the spins.
“What’s up?” he croaked. “You boys are wearing your grim faces.” Which meant he’d fucked up even more royally than he’d thought.
Eidolon didn’t smile, not even the fake, doctorish, it’s-going-to-be-okay smile. “What happened the other night?”
“Other night?”
“You’ve been out for two weeks,” E said. “What happened?”
Wraith levered up so fast his head threatened to fall off. “Oh, no. Fuck, no. E, did I kill someone?”