Sin Undone

Sin slipped on her underwear. “Con, it’s okay.” “Bull-fucking-shit, it’s okay!” God, he wanted to spill some blood, and it was actually a relief that it wasn’t Sin’s he wanted to spill. “Tell me.” Sin avoided eye contact as she tugged his scrub bottoms up. “Raynor.” “How?” Con asked between clenched teeth. “How did he get you?” With her hatred and fear of slavery, there was no way she’d sign up for a life of ownership for anything less than the threat of death.

But she didn’t fear her own death… so she was protecting someone. “Who did he threaten to kill, Sin? One of your brothers? Tell me. Now.” Misery clouded her eyes as she finally turned to him, and his gut wrenched. “Me? Is it me?” “Sable,” she whispered. “Sable and her child. Maybe you as a bonus. Raynor knows. You should also know that the person who blew up your house and tried to kill me is a born warg named Lycus. I just don’t know why he wanted me dead like that.”

“Valko.” He let out a long, vile string of curses in several languages. “I’d bet my life that Valko put him up to it. He wanted you dead so you couldn’t help find a cure for the disease.” Soul-destroying anger turned his blood to acid and corroded most of what was left of his lucidity. He’d been betrayed by the Warg Council, his family was in danger, and Sin, who had finally, after a hundred years, escaped the bonds of one monster, was now bound to two. The rage mounted, and along with it, the need to feed, and his gaze zeroed in on Sin’s throat.

This had to end, and while he wasn’t sure how to get Sin out of the bond with Ray, he knew exactly how to get her out of the one that tethered her to him. Because he’d lied. There was a way out. His fingers stroked the dagger he’d worked out of her sheath and slipped beneath his leg. Before he fell completely into the black hole of bloodlust, he growled, “Get Eidolon. And Luc.”

She nodded, making the ends of her ponytail swish against the neck tattoo he always wanted to lick. He panted, breathed through the madness that was suffocating him. He couldn’t let her leave without letting her know…

“Sin, I… shit…” He breathed hard, sucked in three massive lungfuls of air, and then stopped breathing when her fingers closed around his. “What is it?” “Those things I said… at the apartment. Didn’t mean them. I had to chase you off… so my clan wouldn’t kill you.” Tears swam in the black depths of her eyes. “Oh, Con,” she whispered. “We can never be together if I’m not bonded to you, can we?” “No,” he gasped. Her throat, her creamy, delectable throat, worked on a hard swallow. “Then… bond with me. Do it. Finish it so it goes both ways.” Jesus. What she was asking, just… Jesus. His own eyes stung at the magnitude of what she’d just said. After all her fighting, she was willing to give herself up to him, to give up the one thing she’d prayed for her entire life: her freedom.

Con would never take that from her. “Yes,” he lied, and wasn’t he getting good at that? “Not now… hungry. Later. You need… to trust me.” He squeezed her hand, hyperaware of her pulse under the pads of his fingers. “Mine…” She said something, but he didn’t know what. A mist of red washed out his vision, and his brain went too fully animal to think. All he knew after that was hunger and hatred. Con was a disaster. No matter what Eidolon did, the dhampire was growing more violent and weaker. Very little blood would stay down, and Eidolon was so desperate that he’d even tried feeding the guy Lore’s blood, hoping the similarity to Sin’s would have some sort of positive effect. Nothing.

Then, in a strange, trancelike moment of clarity, Con had told him about Sin’s new bond with Raynor and then asked him to take and store samples of everything, from blood to saliva to semen. Now Eidolon stood outside the door to Con’s room with Shade, Wraith, Gem, and Kynan, waiting for whatever Luc was doing inside to be done. Con had been tight-lipped about his reasons for the samples and seeing Luc, and Eidolon had to wonder if Con’s mind was starting to go.

Eidolon hoped not. Con swore he’d break the bond-gone-wrong with Sin, and that had better be true. As for the other bond, the one with the werewolf… Eidolon forced his anger to remain on a slow simmer until Wraith and Lore got some useful intel on the guy and the collar he’d used on Sin.

“Hey.” Speak of the demon, Lore rounded a corner, a stack of papers in his gloved hand. “Got some info on this Raynor cocksucker.” Wraith cocked an eyebrow. “Did you use your assassin contacts?” “And the Internet.” Lore grinned. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure the invention of cyberspace was the work of the devil.” Eidolon wouldn’t doubt that. “Where’s Sin?”

“She’s in the day care, helping Serena and Runa with the kids.”