Sin Undone

“Hello… Con?” Sin waved a hand in front of his face.

“Ah, hey. Sorry.” He gestured to the stove. “I made breakfast.” If powdered eggs and dehydrated hash browns could be considered food. Wordlessly, she slipped past him, and he caught the fresh scent of lavender soap from her shower, and underneath the floral notes was the earthy tang of their lovemaking. His blood stirred and heated, but he kept his baser instincts leashed as Sin scooped up the eggs and potatoes onto a plate and scarfed every bite. When he shoveled more onto her plate, she didn’t argue.

“Have you thought about who’s after you?” She looked up at him, one dark eyebrow cocked. “Um… assassins?” Her fingers slid absently over her breastbone, and he tracked the motion with greedy eyes. “Speaking of which, I lost another one this morning.”

“Should I offer my condolences?”

She snorted. “Hardly.”

He propped one hip on the counter and folded his arms over his chest. “Well, here’s the thing. I get that they want your ring, but that doesn’t explain the horse guy who tried to kill you and then save you. It also doesn’t explain my house.”

“I know,” she muttered. “Someone who wants my job wouldn’t blow up a house with me in it. It would make finding the ring nearly impossible.” So someone wanted her dead, and not for the ring. But why? Unless…

“Valko,” he snarled.

“The pricolici leader?”

He nodded. “With you dead, he might hope that no cure would come for the turneds.” Rage filled him, made all the more potent by the fact that he had no proof of his suspicion, and by the fact that he could do nothing about it at the moment.

Sin was a hell of a lot more level than he was, shrugging as she finished eating, giving him time to cool off. He watched as she washed her dishes, taking an extraordinarily long time. She was stalling.

Finally, after she’d put away her plate and fork, cleaned the sink, and wiped the counter, she swung around. “Thank you.”

He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “It was just breakfast.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She looked down at her boots. They were scuffed, beat to hell. Con had never worn a pair of shoes long enough for them to look like that. “I’ve been an ass to you, but somehow you’ve put up with it. You’ve helped me when you’d have been well within your rights to kill me for what I’ve done to the wargs. So… um… thank you.”

Coyote. Her admission cracked his heart right open. He should throw rocks at her, should be thinking only of ways to make her raise her defenses again, but instead, he was thinking about wrapping her in his arms and never letting her go.

You’ll let her go. When her coffin is lowered into the ground. Fuck.

Rocks. He had to throw rocks. Maybe pebbles.

“Sin—”

She held up a hand. “Whatever. I’m done talking about it. We should go.” She brushed past him, and the moment they touched, it was like an electric jolt went through him. His brain short-circuited, and without thinking, he tugged her against him and tried to ignore the sound that his vampire senses picked up: the thud whoosh of her heartbeat. They definitely needed to go. They had to contact Eidolon, too, who would probably be going crazy about now. But Con’s body was tweaking out, his fangs were thrusting downward, and if he could get a taste of her first… He leaned in, slowly— “Yo.” Sin slapped her hands on his chest. “Ah… do you need to feed?”

The vein in her throat pounded, and her pulse became a roar in his ears.

“Con?”

A wash of red colored his vision, the color of merlot. Or blood.

“Con!” She slapped him hard enough to rock his head back and clear it enough to think. “What’s going on? I can sense your hunger, but it’s weird.”

“Damn.” Stepping away from her, he scrubbed his hand over his face and wondered how the hell he was going to explain this.

“Hey. Straight up, what’s going on with you?” She deserved to know the truth. He’d asked too much of her, and it was time to give back, even if he had to spill another of the many dhampire secrets that kept his race shrouded in mystery and, to outsiders, very grounded and stable. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“You know how I said that dhampires don’t mate with each other?” His voice was gravelly, as though every word was being dragged from between his lips. “It’s because males become addicted to blood. If we feed from one host more than a few times, it takes root.”