Sin Undone

Sin Fever? They’d named the fucking disease after her? Bastards.

E flipped excitedly through the folder Lore gave him. “Just when I thought we’d never find a link between the victims. I’ll call the R-XR and let them know. Excellent work, Lore.” Despite the grim subject matter, Sin couldn’t help but be thrilled that her brother, who had, as an assassin, known nothing but killing and loneliness until just weeks ago, was now mated, happy, and working in the hospital—the morgue, where his death-touch couldn’t accidentally kill anyone.

“Wait,” Sin said. “How can you tell the difference between turned and born werewolves?” “Born wargs usually have a birthmark somewhere on their bodies, but we can’t always go by that.” Before Sin could ask why, Eidolon finished. “Outcasts are required to have them removed, and some turned wargs have them artificially applied, so we have to perform genetic testing to determine if they’re born or turned.”

Huh. Who would have thunk it? “So, what was it you wanted with me?”

Eidolon looked up from the paperwork, and the circles under his eyes seemed to have lightened a little. “About that… see, that’s why I called Con to this meeting.”

Bracing his muscular forearms on his knees, Con leaned forward in his chair. When he spoke, his fangs flashed as fiercely as his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Your weekly blood tests for SF have been coming back negative,” Eidolon said. “Until yesterday.” “What? I have the disease?” Con exploded out of his chair, but Eidolon held up his hands in a staycalm motion. “Not exactly. It’s in your blood. Your body isn’t attacking it, nor is it attacking you, and you aren’t producing antibodies. But when we introduced Sin’s blood to the mix in the lab, your white blood cells and hers joined forces to attack the virus.”

Sin’s skin prickled with foreboding. Eidolon was dancing around something. “Skip the buildup and backstory. Bottom line, what do you want from us?”

“I need Con to feed from you,” he said with uncharacteristic awkwardness. “And I need it to happen now.”

I need Con to feed from you. Con cursed softly. “As much as I’d like to help you out, Doc, I can’t do what you’re asking.” Yeah, he’d tasted Sin’s blood before—and it had been damned good—but that was exactly why he couldn’t do it again. He’d been addicted to a female’s blood before, and he would never allow it to happen again.

“I get that she’s not your favorite person—”

“He said he can’t do it,” Lore interrupted. “Let it go.”

Eidolon tapped a pencil on his desk, the dull thud of the eraser on wood punctuating his words. “Unfortunately, there’s no ‘let it go’ option. This might be our only shot at an immediate solution.” “I don’t understand,” Sin said. “What do you mean, a solution?” Eidolon spun one of the papers around to show Sin and Con where he’d scrawled a lengthy column of numbers. “I can’t inject the amount of Sin’s blood required to destroy the virus into Conall without killing him. He needs to ingest it. As a dhampire, he has a double-chambered stomach, the second chamber working the way a vampire’s works—to deliver a victim’s blood almost directly into the vampire’s bloodstream. So if my calculations are correct, a normal feeding will allow him to take in enough blood to start attacking the virus. Once that’s done—”

“I can monitor his blood to learn how the virus is killed and then use my power to try to destroy it myself,” Sin finished.

“Exactly.” Eidolon grinned. “You really should be working here instead of as an assassin.” At some point, Sin had produced a throwing knife and was now flipping it between her fingers, and Con had a feeling the speed directly related to her level of agitation. The sucker was whirling like a helicopter blade. “Bite me.”

Eidolon gestured to Conall. “That’ll be his job.”

“No,” Con said grimly. “It won’t. There has to be another way.”