Sin Undone

He wanted to take her to the ground, drive into her in a mating that would be as wild as the mountains in the background. He’d mark her with his scent, his come, his teeth… Holy hell, he needed to stop thinking about his fangs in her throat. He searched his memory, trying to remember if this was the way it had been with Eleanor, the only female he’d ever drunk to addiction. He recalled obsession with her blood, hunger that hurt, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the insane need for sex.

Slowly, Sin’s smile faded, and she spat in the dirt. “I don’t think that guard has brushed his teeth in a year.” He had the strangest impulse to put his mouth on hers, to kiss her until she burned and tasted only Con. Clearly, they were too close to the warg village, and he was still feeling the effects of the inhabitants’ animal natures. “Why are they like that anyway?” she asked. “I thought wargs were a little more… civilized.” He glanced back at the village, where the gate had opened again, and the sentry was standing just outside, watching them through the thinning mist. “Born wargs really are wolves in human clothing. It’s why they live apart from humans. You’ll never find a pricolici living in a city with them. They also are fully aware of what they do while in animal form, and they generally won’t kill humans because they’re smart enough not to want to expose themselves to the human race. It’s one of the reasons they want to exterminate turned wargs. The varcolac are a risk.”

“Well, they didn’t seem to have any trouble with killing me.”

“You aren’t human.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” she muttered.

He couldn’t help it—he reached out and tucked a tendril of her unruly hair behind her ear. “You don’t accept what you are, do you?” “I don’t know what I am,” she said, stepping out of his reach. He let his hand fall back to his side. “How can you be as old as you are and not know?” Con knew very well what he was, and he’d long ago accepted it, even if he wasn’t always thrilled about it. She shrugged. “I thought I did know. Before, we were just half-breed mongrels with no idea what kind of demon we really were. We had no expectations. Then Lore and I found our brothers. Now we know our demon, but not what it means. We know what Seminus demons are, but it doesn’t do any good because the rules don’t apply to us.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way. But then, he’d grown up keenly aware of what he was: a dhampire from a shrinking line of royalty, who had arrogantly expected to take over the clan one day—until the wake-up call that said, no, the world didn’t revolve around him. He might not like the role he was born to play, but at least he’d known about it his entire life.

“You can make your own rules.”

“Oh,” she said silkily, “I do make my own rules. And I never break them.”

“Like what? What is one of your rules?” He was starting to think one had something to do with driving dhampires crazy. “No one will ever own me again.” She raised her chin in that stubborn set he was beginning to admire. Especially because it bared the slender column of her throat and forced her to arch her back the way it did when he was driving between her legs. “I will never belong to anyone—I will die before I allow that to happen.”

He remembered how she’d freaked out when Shade said that she belonged to them, and he wondered how encompassing her self-imposed rule was. “What are we talking about, Sin? You don’t want anyone to own you… or your heart?”

She laughed bitterly, and entered the Harrowgate. “I don’t have a heart for anyone to take.” Con slung his jump bag over his shoulder and followed Sin into the cavelike enclosure of the Harrowgate. I don’t have a heart for anyone to take. Bullshit. Granted, she didn’t seem to give a crap about anyone but herself, and maybe Lore, but Con had once witnessed the way she’d wrapped her body around Shade and Runa’s child to protect the boy from an evil fallen angel. She’d used herself as a shield, and concern for the baby had darkened her expression when she’d seen the blood on his skin—blood that turned out to be hers.

Sin the Hardass definitely had a heart. And something inside him was itching to goad her into seeing how wrong she was. But why was proving he was right so damned important? Because she tests you. Because she’s untamed, unpredictable, and you’ll accept any challenge if it seems impossible. Yeah, okay, that was why. He was easily bored, always on the lookout for ways to keep from going out of his ever-loving mind. It didn’t always pan out. His quest for excitement had nearly gotten him killed a few times, had taken him down some dark paths, and in a roundabout way, it had gotten him in the situation he was currently in.