Impregnate her.
He lunged. Landed on her, held her shoulders with the claws on the tips of his wings, while his hands grasped her hips to bring her closer to his barbed penis. She brought her knee up, nailed him between the legs so hard he roared. Rolling, she caught him behind the knees with her foot, and he went down.
He snagged her calf, but she wriggled out of his grasp and darted to her weapons bag.
“Esraladoth en sludslo.” The words came out of his mouth, but he had no idea what he’d said.
She whirled, a boleadora in her fist. “If that means kick my ass, then fucker, you’re in luck.” She hurled it at him. He felt it wrap around his throat, and the world went black.
Tayla watched the Soulshredder go down, her heart beating so hard her ribs hurt. Terror like she hadn’t felt since the day her mom died threatened to turn her into a useless blob of jelly, and she had to fight like hell to stay on her feet. The thing twitched and went still.
The events of the last few moments played back in her head like a horror movie, but no matter how much she paused the video, she couldn’t find an explanation for what had just happened. Where was Eidolon? One moment he’d been kissing her hip; the next he’d been sprouting membrane-thin, veined wings from his back. Had the Soulshredder killed him and taken his form? If the Soulshredder had taken someone else from her, she swore she’d make what Jagger and Lori did to Yuri appear tame.
Hand shaking, she drew a dagger from her weapons bag and nearly dropped it. Twice. If this was the best she could do, beheading the thing would be messy. Not that she cared. Oh, no. She was going to work the beast over, make it suffer until she discovered what it had done to Eidolon.
She swung around.
It was gone. In its place, Eidolon was there, the boleadora around his neck.
Oh, shit.
Still clutching the knife, she pulled a set of manacles from the bag and hurried to him. In the gray, cloud-choked light filtering through the window, he looked the same, except for the huge, swirling tattoo on the right side of his face.
And when she’d first seen him in the bed, his eyes had been red.
Cautiously, she shackled his ankles and wrists, and removed the weighted rope from around his throat.
Sitting on her heels, she stared at him, wondering what to do now. Besides get dressed, anyway. She couldn’t leave him here, tied up, indefinitely, but neither could she turn him loose and risk his spontaneously shifting into something horrible again. Of course, that was assuming the creature on the floor was him at all.
Maybe one of his brothers could help.
Quickly, she threw on some jeans and a plain black T-shirt from the bag of clothes she’d brought with her, and then she hunted down his cell phone and dialed Shade. When he didn’t answer, she found the hospital’s number in the phone’s directory. A female answered and identified herself as the nurse in charge at Underworld General.
“I need to speak to Shade.”
“He is unavailable.”
“Then get Wraith. It’s an emergency.”
“Do you require medical assistance?”
“I require Shade.”
“Ma’am,” came the irritated voice that sounded as if it was being sifted through fangs, “Shade is busy—”
“You can get him on the line, so do it. Now.” Actually, she had no idea if they could get him, but she was done being nice.
There was a pause, a click, several rings, and then a grumpy, deep voice.
“Shade.”
“Yeah, look. It’s Tayla. Eidolon . . . he’s in trouble.”
“Again? This wasn’t Wraith’s doing. He’s been level. So what the fuck did you do to E?” A vicious snarly sound vibrated through the phone. “If you hurt him—”
“I didn’t, asshole. Something’s wrong. He went crazy. He’s got this big tattoo on his face, and his eyes were red—”
“Ah, shit.” Curses flew over the airwaves, and she hoped the underworld equivalent of some FCC wasn’t listening in. “Where are you?”
“His apartment.”
“Stay there.”
“Well, duh. Where else would I—”
The line went dead. Demons were so rude.
She didn’t want to go back to the bedroom. What if Eidolon had morphed into a Soulshredder again? What if he hadn’t, but was awake and wondering why she’d beaten and bound him? What if he’d known exactly what he was doing when he turned into the thing that terrified her most in the entire world?
Nervous energy zinged through her like an electric current as she paced in the kitchen, jonesing for an orange. She finished off the last of the orange juice, and as she drained the glass, someone pounded on the front door.
“It’s Shade. Open up.”