Sin Undone

“Your grandparents sound like they were good people.”


“They were.” When she tried hard enough, Sin could still smell her grandma’s homemade cookies. Could remember the hugs, the bedtime stories. The secret laughs her grandparents would sometimes share. They’d loved each other so much. They’d never had a lot of money, but the hard times only brought them closer.

“And then my mom escaped from the hospital. Lore and I were eighteen, two days from our nineteenth birthdays and still living with our grandparents when she broke in and killed them. The only reason she didn’t kill us, too, was that I rolled over just as she was trying to stab me in the heart. The knife went into my shoulder. I screamed, and Lore came from his bedroom to tackle her.”

Con pressed a kiss into her hair, and it was so tender, so intimate, that she sucked in a harsh breath. Con seemed to realize what he’d done, his big body going taut, as if he couldn’t believe his own action. “I’m sorry,” he said roughly, but whether he was sorry about kissing her like that or about her past, she didn’t know.

Either way, it made her uncomfortable. And maybe a little… warm. “’S’okay. No big.” But her bravado was false, and she wondered if he knew that. The truth was that, at the time, she’d been devastated beyond consolation. She’d gone into some sort of shock that lasted for weeks. If not for Lore forcing her to eat, to live, she might have died. “Lore took care of me. We stayed in the house for a little over a year, and then we found out that everything our mom had said about us was true.”

She’d never forget that night. It was a full moon. Foggy. Creepy. Her right arm had started to burn, and she’d watched in horror as red welts boiled up in her skin. Lore had come home from his job at a factory, and he’d stumbled into the house, his face wrenched in pain, his arm burning like hers.

“Some of the memories are fuzzy.” She traced Con’s ribs with her fingers, needing to put her hands to work because she couldn’t reach her dagger, which she liked to flip out of nervous habit. “But some are crystal clear. We developed our dermoires, and a desperate… need. Lore had it the worst. He fought what was happening to him, and he went into this wild rage.” She shuddered, remembering how his skin had turned red, shot through with black, bulging veins. His eyes, glowing crimson fire, had targeted her for death. “I guess purebred Sems go kind of crazy during their first maturation cycle, and they need lots of sex to get through it. Lore… it was different for him.” At least, it was different while he was inside the house. After he left, she could only guess at what he’d done. “He tore the house apart. I think I only survived because I played dead. I left the house after he did, but I got home before him. It was a couple of days, I think. When he came back…” She took a deep, ragged breath.

“Where have you been?”

“I don’t know. Everywhere. Nowhere.” He looked around the kitchen. “I did this?” She nodded.

“Sinead, I’m sorry.” He put his face in his hands. “I… killed and… I did terrible things.” “So did I,” she whispered. Two days spent in Boston’s Irish Slums had left her shaken.

His head came up, and he reached for her. She flinched away from him, not wanting him to touch her filth, but he misunderstood, and his face fell. “I’m so sorry…”

“I—I need to—” She couldn’t finish. She just wanted to climb into bed and pray that when she woke up, this would all have been a nightmare.

She’d gone to bed, and when she got up the next morning, Lore was gone. The note on the table said, “I can’t risk hurting you. I love you.”

“He packed a bag and left. I didn’t see him again for more than three-quarters of a century.” “Seventy-five years? Jesus. What happened to you?” When she didn’t answer, because her throat had clogged up, Con lifted her face to his and brushed his lips over hers, devastating her and making the lump in her throat even bigger. “You can tell me. Please, Sin.”

She had to swallow several times before her voice would work. Finally, she tucked her face against him and said, “I… told you I left the house for a couple of days right after our weird change, right after Lore hurt me.”