Sin Undone

Con stiffened. “He didn’t—” “No… God, no. He was enraged, insane, but there was nothing sexual.” As Con relaxed, she continued. “Afterward, I needed something, but I didn’t know what.” She clung to Con as if she were drowning. “I was a virgin. I hadn’t felt arousal before. Not like that, anyway. And sex wasn’t something my grandparents ever discussed. All I knew was that, inside, I was on fire. I was cramping and aching, and right away, I was drawn to every man I saw.”


She closed her eyes, hating to go back to the worst time of her life. “I was terrified. I ended up in one of Boston’s Irish slums…” She’d been feverish, in pain. She’d grabbed the hands of several men, begging them for something she didn’t even know how to put into words. She’d been spared the physical transformation Lore had suffered, but no doubt she’d seemed like a crazy person, and one man had struck her hard enough to make her nose bleed. Another had been seduced by the pheromones she’d been putting out, but when he’d tried to take her into an alley, a woman, presumably his wife, had caught them, and Sin had been forced to flee.

She’d finally made it into the seediest part of the slums, which smelled of slaughterhouses and factory smoke, and two young thugs had whisked her behind a corner store and given her what she’d needed.

She’d cried for hours, huddled behind some boxes, confused, afraid, and physically sated but mentally tormented.

“Gods,” Con whispered, and she realized she’d spoken aloud. “That was your introduction to sex?” “Oh, it wasn’t all bad,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Imagine my shock when they climaxed… and I did, too.” A hot tear squeezed from her eye. She was disgusting. A horrible creature who got off no matter who—or what—fucked her or how much they hurt her.

“You can’t fight your nature, Sin. You are what you are.”

“So there’s nothing about yourself that you hate?”

“Yeah,” he ground out. “Yeah, there is. What happened after that? Did you search for your own kind? Or try to?” “I didn’t know what my kind was, and I never got the chance to find out.” She wiggled her toes against his, such a curiously intimate, random thing to do. Mainly because she’d never, not once, remained in bed with a man like this. Was rubbing toes something normal lovers did? “After Lore left for good that morning, I felt dirty and disgusting, not worthy of staying in my grandparents’ house any longer. I wandered around the city, living like a stray dog. You know, sleeping under bridges and doing tricks for scraps of food.”

She hesitated, measuring his reaction, but all he did was rub her back in soothing circles. Relaxing a little, she continued. “One day, a man approached me. He was well dressed, spoke with a European accent, and he said he could take care of me. I was starving and desperate, and I went with him. Turned out he was a demon. A slaver. I never even knew what species he was—he was ter’taceo, so he never looked anything but human.” She resumed skimming her fingers over Con’s ribs, counting them idly. “He was nice at first, got me to trust him. And then he started using me. Once we learned the extent of my gift, and of my need for sex, I became his prize assassin.”

Again, she waited for a reaction, but none came. “He dealt with a lot of demons, and I saved up enough money to pay one of them to do this.” She rubbed her hand over the tattoo on the back of her neck. “It’s enchanted. The demon imbued it with magic to ease my need for sex.”

Con trailed a finger over the pattern, and pleasant tingles followed its path. “I’m sorry it didn’t work.” She frowned. “It did work. You should have seen me before.”

A mild curse came out on a long exhale, and Con’s touch grew more tender. “What happened next?”

“I was with him for thirty years, and then he sold me to someone else after I tried to escape one too many times. My new master was such a douche. He totally got off on locking me up and denying me sex.”

This time, Con’s curse was loud and nasty. “Why?” Her stomach churned at the memories, at the helplessness and humiliation. “Punishment. Fun. I don’t know. He’d wait until I was writhing on the floor, begging for relief.” She laughed bitterly. “Thing was, I didn’t care if relief came in the form of sex or a bullet.”

But what that experience had taught her was that she would never again be at anyone’s mercy when it came to sex. Now that she was free, she would never be owned, especially not by someone who would be the sole provider of the very thing she needed to survive. No one would ever have that much control over her again.

“Where is he?” Frost could have formed on Con’s words. “I’ll tear out his spinal cord and strangle him with it.” “Aw, that’s sweet.” She snuggled up to him, something she’d never done with anyone, but now wasn’t the time to think too hard on that. “But having him offed was the first thing I did when I took over the assassin den.” She’d paid Lycus well for that job.