“Tayla?”
Frowning, she looked over her shoulder. “Kynan. Did you find—”
“Janet’s body was gone.” The three Guardians with him lagged behind as Ky moved toward her, his eyes on the junkie, his hand hovering over his stang holster on his chest. “Demon?”
She gasped. “What? What did you say to me?”
“Is that a demon? Tayla? Are you okay? Do you want me to finish it off?”
Oh, right. He wasn’t talking about her. Finish it off. She was an it. Because demons were its. So really, in a way, he was talking about her.
She turned back to the man in her clutches. His face had gone bloodless and pasty, his breaths rapid and shallow thanks to the pressure on his clavicle and trachea. Oh, God, what had she been about to do? He was human, not a demon.
You are half-demon.
“No!” she shouted, but she wasn’t sure if she was talking to the voice in her head or to Kynan. Still, she released the junkie, watching numbly as he slid to the ground. “No. He’s human. Scum, but human.”
The guy crawled off, muttering, “You’re crazy. Fucking certifiable.”
Kynan approached, cautiously, as though she might bite. “Why don’t you stay at HQ for a few days? Janet’s death has hit us all hard, and I think we need to be together.”
“You mean I shouldn’t be alone.”
“We’re all here for you, Tayla.” The warmth in his smile was meant to comfort, but it didn’t make her feel any better. If anything, it only emphasized how disconnected she felt right now.
Disconnected to what made her human.
“I—I have to go.” She brushed past him, turning a deaf ear when he called out to her.
“No hunting, Tayla. Not alone, and not until we clear you for duty.”
She fled. Fled her fellow Guardians, fled the warehouse where she’d been born. But the one thing she couldn’t get away from were Eidolon’s words.
You are half-demon.
Eleven
The transfusion worked. As the last of the second unit of blood drained into Eidolon’s body, the terrible lust eased, the maddening itch just beneath the surface of his skin died away.
Gods, he’d been strung out by the time he arrived at UG, his mind taking him back to being inside Tayla and then firing him up with new scenarios, all involving the slayer. He must have been writhing in the car seat, because twice Gem offered to ease him, her proposal nothing more than a physician’s obligation to relieve suffering, though the scent she gave off spoke of her state of arousal. He knew his body was giving off fuck-me pheromones in copious quantities, a fact that had been confirmed the moment he walked through the ER doors. Every female he’d passed had been drawn to him, some touching themselves without seeming to realize it. He’d been tempted, so tempted to take them all . . . individually, at once, he didn’t care.
Though he knew in his mind, he’d be thrusting into Tayla. Sex with her was pure adrenaline. Untamed. Raw. The kind of sex the demon in him had always wanted, but his logical, civilized brain had never allowed him to have. Entering her had been exquisite, a freefall of sensation that demolished coherent thought and left him with the ability to do nothing but feel when in the past, sex had been more about satisfying his body’s demands while his mind remained detached. He hadn’t known his mind could join in the sex act like that, so wholly.
It was amazing. Shattering. Terrifying.
He’d used a freaking knife on her.
He’d damned near gone back to her apartment.
Instead, he’d grabbed Yuri, made him promise not to allow Eidolon to give in to his needs. Not while the glyph was trying to break through on his face. Though he had no proof to back it up, he suspected that sex during s’genesis pangs would hurry the change along, if not complete it altogether.
So Yuri sat across from him in the lab, arms crossed, one foot propped up on a technician’s stool. “You got it together? Because I have better things to do than babysit you.”
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”
Yuri stood and adjusted the stethoscope around his neck. “You should probably take time off work until all of this is under control.”
“Until the transformation is complete, you mean.”
“You gotta admit, it’s making you twitchy and unpredictable, and you’ve never been either. You’re acting like Wraith. Well, Shade, anyway.”
Eidolon removed the catheter from his arm and stanched the blood with a cotton ball. “This isn’t about my duty schedule, and you aren’t concerned about my performance. It’s about Tayla.”
“Tayla? You two so buddy-buddy that she’s not just the Aegi whore anymore?”
“Let it go, Yuri. Now.”
Yuri barked out a laugh, a high-pitched hyena yip. “See what the s’genesis is doing to you, Sem? It’s turning you into a *.”