Sin Undone

“Marcel tried to take her off the streets of Rome a couple of days ago. It was nothing I couldn’t handle, but Idess is human now, and she’s vulnerable.” Sin sagged back down into the rocker. “Fuck. I’m so sorry Lore.” He took her hand, squeezed her fingers, and in that one gentle gesture, there was more love than she’d ever felt from him. Not because it hadn’t been there, but because she could finally see it.

She’d been so blind. So stupid! Sin clutched Lore’s hand like a lifeline. “I’ll fix this. I swear I’ll fix it.” Lore narrowed his eyes at her. “What have you got planned?”

Sweat dampened her temples. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Why do I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me?”

“Because you’re paranoid.” She paused, her brain working overtime to process everything she’d just been told. “Marcel worked with Lycus a lot. Do you think he was involved in Idess’s attack?” “I didn’t see him. But if he was involved…”

“Yeah, I know. I’m out of here.”

He wanted to argue; Sin knew it. But he was still working off the guilt he felt for leaving her so long ago, something she’d been content to let slide for all these years. Shame burned her cheeks, and she swore that after this, she would do whatever it took to finally release him from the obligation he felt for her. She’d been so wrong to let him continue to try to make it up to her, when he’d made up a thousand times over.

Now it was her turn to make it up to him. Sin was greeted at the den by scowls, growls, and curses. Not the vulgar kind; the actual, may-yourbile-sacs-explode-and-poison-you-to-death kind. “I love you guys, too,” she’d called out as she stalked down the dark hallways to the throne room. Once inside, she collapsed against the door, her breathing fast and heavy, her hands shaking like a rookie on her first kill mission.

What the hell? She’d been rock solid for a hundred years, and she’d expected to get back to the den and immediately shift back into the assassin mode that had kept her sane—and alive—for so long.

Not so much. Angry at her own weakness, she called for Sunil and waited, pacing next to the hearth, taking care to avoid the trapdoor in front of the hideous throne Deth had commissioned to be made out of the skeletons of humans and several species of demons.

She couldn’t stop thinking about Con, wondering what she was going to say to him when she saw him. She probably wouldn’t say anything at first. Her primary goal at this point was to get him inside her. Her brain was rapidly turning to a hormone mush, and any arguments she tried to form for getting him to go back to UG were interrupted by images of him naked.

Sunil finally appeared, and he approached warily, moving like a cat caught out in the open. If he had a tail, it would be twitching madly. “Hey, boss.” As always, his voice was a deep rumble, his words precise. She cut to the chase, not wanting to be here for one second longer than necessary. “My assassins wanted me dead.” “Yes,” he said sadly. “People are angry. We need work, and we need it badly.”

“I know,” she said, sinking into the chair. “I’ve been a terrible master.”

His ears twitched the way they did when he was uncomfortable. “Not terrible. Just too nice.” She gave a startled laugh. “That’s something no one has ever said about me.”

“Glad I could be the first.” He cocked his head and studied her. “So why am I here?” “First, I need to know who has been trying to kill me.”

“Everyone,” Sunil said simply.

Sin shifted, winced at the poke of some creature’s finger bone in her butt. “Including you?”

“Yes.” His brown cheeks darkened with a blush of crimson, and his nervousness was now fully explained. She had the right to torture or put down every assassin who had tried to kill her. “You know I like you, Sin, but I have a family to feed.”

“I know. I wouldn’t have respected you if you hadn’t tried.” Oh, the assassin code was interesting, wasn’t it? “So,” Sunil prompted. “Am I here to be tortured? The Peelers have been anticipating your return.” She shuddered. Those unholy, eyeless demons lived for torture. They were also bound to the den, so Sin hadn’t found a way to get rid of them. “I want you to take over as assassin master.” His golden eyes flared, the pupils elongating and then rounding out again. “You can’t be serious.” “Very.”

“But… why?”

“My reasons are my own.”

“There are only two ways to escape the life,” Sunil pointed out.

“I’m aware of that, and I don’t plan on dying.”