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“Kar?” Luc’s deep voice was a strangely soothing murmur in her ear. “You were moaning in your sleep… Holy f**k, you’re hot.”
“Not hot,” she mumbled. “Cold. Need a blanket.”
She heard him shuffling around, felt a blanket come down over her, and then he was nudging her head up. “Hey. I have some Tylenol. You need to take it.”
Her stomach rolled. And then she coughed… so hard her ribs screamed. “Luc… do I have an infection? From the gunshot?” “You shouldn’t. It healed with your shift.” He frowned as he thumbed up her eyelids. “Your pupils are dilated.” He sank down next to the couch and peeled the blanket away from her chest. “I’m going to take a look at you.”
She felt her shirt being unbuttoned, and despite her misery, she smiled. “Any excuse to get your hands on me.”
“I don’t need an excuse. You’re easy.” “You—” Her eyes flew open, but when she saw the rare smile turning up his lips, she knew he’d been teasing her. Which was weird, because she would not have taken him as the playful kind. “You should smile more often.”
“Can’t.” He grunted as he opened her shirt to expose her chest. “My face might freeze like that.” She laughed, but immediately cried out at the pain that wrenched through her abdomen. “Shit.” Luc jerked his hands away from her. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she croaked. “Hurt to laugh.”
His gaze swept her with the intensity of an X-ray machine, and she suddenly felt like he was seeing all the way through her. “I’m sorry. About everything.” About the baby, was what he meant. “Don’t be.” She swallowed, and grimaced at the sudden soreness. “The sex was great. You were only my second, but it was so… good.” Another swallow, another grimace. “And the baby is the best, most normal thing that’s happened to me in years.”
Luc averted his gaze, so it was impossible to tell what he was thinking as he finished unbuttoning her shirt. He peeled the flaps open to reveal an odd bruise around her navel… and the color drained from his face.
“What?” she whispered. “What is it?”
“SF. Jesus Christ, I think you have the virus.”
Sixteen
Massive bleeder. Pulmonary contusion. Pneumothorax. Voices and strange words pierced Sin’s fog of pain. She thought she heard Con, and maybe Shade. Or Eidolon? A sudden, hot agony electrified her body, and she screamed. And screamed.
Until blackness took her. Waking up took a long time. Between the buzz in her ears and the raw ache in her throat, it seemed as though she was stuck in a state of nothingness for an eternity. Gradually, she became aware that she was sore, thirsty, and on a bed. She blinked, opened her eyes. She was in Rivesta’s master bedroom. Standing around her were her brothers. All of them. And Tayla. And Con.
“What… happened?” Her voice sounded rusty. Beat up. And it became even more so when Con sank onto the bed next to her and took her hand. His fingers slid over her wrist as if checking her pulse, but unlike the times he’d done it in the past, there was more tenderness than professionalism in his touch. “Why are you all here?”
“One of Bantazar’s assassins hit you with an exomangler,” Lore said. “He’s dead.” “A lot dead.” Wraith snorted and high-fived Lore. “Massive deadness.”
Sin could only imagine. And boy, was her imagination entertaining. Bantazar really was a grade-A prick, and his assassins weren’t any better. He was probably still pissed that she hadn’t taken him up on his offer to screw him for the names of assassin masters who were bidding on the big werewolf contract.
She rubbed her chest, where she remembered being hit by something that had felt like a cannonball. Aside from a little tenderness, she’d never have known she’d nearly had a tunnel drilled through her.
But… wait… the tenderness… there was something deeper there, and abruptly, she drew a harsh breath. It was the sensation of losing a lot of assassins. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t know who until she got back to the den or talked to someone who knew.
Right now, it wasn’t important, anyway. Fewer people trying to kill her was a good thing. She put the dead assassins out of her mind and cast her gaze between her brothers. “So you all came?” “It’s what we do,” Eidolon said simply.
Uh-huh. There was a catch. There had to be. “Okay, so you healed me. Thank you. What now?”
Wraith looked up from studying her Gargantua-bone dagger. “How did you escape the infernal fire?”
“Infernal fire?” She frowned, and then that horrible screech she’d heard at Con’s house pierced her memory as if the sound were right there in her ear. “Holy shit, that’s what destroyed Con’s house?” Con cursed. “I should have known. I’ve seen what that shit does.”
“So have I,” Wraith said. “But I’ve never seen anyone escape it.”
“Con’s escape tunnel,” Sin muttered. “The heat couldn’t get to us, and by the time we were out of it —” “We were too far away from the house for the spirits to grab.”
“Someone wants you really dead,” Wraith said.
“Okay, so now that you’ve saved my life and pointed out the glaringly obvious, why are you still here?”
They all exchanged glances, which couldn’t be good. Finally, Shade cleared his throat. “Con said you healed a warg.” “Did he also tell you what happened to her?”
“Yeah,” Eidolon said. “But I’m not sure how much difference her survival would have made. The virus has mutated. It’s affecting born wargs now.”
The information drilled a hole in her more efficiently than the exomangler had. She exhaled shakily and tried to keep her voice above a whisper. “So what now?” “We’re going to have to take some drastic measures. We can’t afford to waste more time looking for infected wargs, and it’s getting too dangerous for you. I got the Carceris off your back temporarily, so we’ll bring you into the hospital and find some volunteers to infect and then cure, so I can work with the killed virus.”
“Getting volunteers to be willingly infected with a fatal disease won’t be easy.” Con shifted on the mattress, causing her to roll toward him a little more. The contact comforted her, made her wish he’d stretch out beside her.
“Want me to grab a volunteer?” Wraith asked, and Sin had a feeling his “volunteer” wasn’t going to be a willing one.
Con’s mouth tightened. “I can point you toward a couple of Warg Council members I’d like to ‘volunteer.’ ” “We’re not forcing anyone.” Sin sat up and grimaced. Someone had put her into clothes that weren’t hers. Which made sense, given that everything she owned was at the assassin den. But whose brilliant idea had it been to put her in a hideous, pink, floral T-shirt? With glitter. At least the jeans fit. “I’ve f**ked over enough people with this.”
“How about Luc?” Wraith sprawled in the bedside chair, legs spread, arms splayed wide, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “He’s running on borrowed time as it is.”
Lore swung around to him. “Why’s that?”
“He made me swear to kill him when he lost his humanity. Which pretty much happened when Aegi scum killed his would-be mate.”
“Hey,” Tayla huffed. “Aegi scum present, you know.” Wraith grinned, and Sin got the impression that those two took a lot of pleasure in needling each other. “So let’s say we get our volunteer,” she said, “cure the disease, and a truce is called in the civil war. Will the Warg Council still want my head?”
Con reached for a glass of water sitting on the bedside table, and handed it to her. “I’ll talk to them.”
“And the chances of them backing off?” Shade asked. Con’s expression was grim. “Not good.” He stroked the back of her hand absently, but Sin noticed that her brothers’ eyes zeroed in on the action. Impossible to tell what they were thinking. Well, Wraith was clearly amused, but the others… not so much. “As soon as you find a volunteer and we confirm a cure, I’ll go to them. I have a little clout and some of the members owe me.”
Sin’s eyes stung. He was willing to use up some favors for her? All of these guys were willing to help her? Once again, emotion overwhelmed her, and she vaulted out of bed. “I need a glass of water.”
Never mind that she had one in her hand. She needed to get out of there. She was on emotional overload and short-circuiting was a danger. She took the stairs down two at a time and darted into the kitchen, where she backed into a corner and stood there, panting, wondering what in the hell was going on with her. She didn’t know how long she’d been there when she heard someone coming down the steps. Too light for any of the guys.
Tayla.
“I’m surprised they sent you,” Sin said when Tay entered the kitchen. “I was betting on Lore or Shade.”
“I had to convince those two to stay.” Tay rolled her eyes. “Which was easier than convincing Con not to chase you.”
For some reason, that made Sin all warm and fuzzy.
“Eidolon, of course, wanted to come check your vitals. I think Wraith just wanted to make fun of you.”
Sin snorted. “And you?” Tayla’s hand dropped to her thigh holster, where the hilt of a dagger protruded from its leather housing, and Sin instinctively tensed. But the slayer’s fingers only played with the sleek wooden handle. Still, her gaze was steady, fearless, focused like green laser beams, and the way she was studying Sin was almost adversarial.
“Wraith and I don’t agree on much,” she said slowly, “but we do have a meeting of the minds—feeble as his is—when it comes to protecting the family.”
Okay, Sin knew where this was going. “And you’re afraid I’m going to hurt my brothers. Yeah, yeah, Wraith already gave me the hurt-them-and-you’ll-be-sorry speech, so save your breath.” Tayla’s fingers continued to caress the weapon. “Look, I know you don’t want to talk—” “You don’t know anything,” Sin snapped.
