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A boot nudged his hip, and he shifted his head on the ceremonial pallet to look up at his childhood buddy, a wiry male whose hair was covered by a blue do-rag. “Hey.” Well, at least his voice still worked.
Aed grinned. “How’s it feel to be on your second life?”
Wincing at the stiffness in his muscles, Con sat up. “Feels like I wasted the first one.”
“Better make up for it with this one, ayech?” Aed’s accent was a blend of Scottish, Danish, and something else that made half of what he said sound like gibberish to Con, who, unlike his old friend, had spent enough time with humans in the modern world to cultivate an accent that didn’t sound like it came straight out of Beowulf.
“Yeah.” Con tested his new limbs, stretching as he sat on the wood and deer hide pallet, but he felt much the same as he had before he’d gone to the night. “Luc. The warg who brought me…” “He was given safe passage. He’s away.” Good. Man, that damned warg had not wanted to do as Con asked. Con had been forced to remind him that Luc owed him after the avalanche save, not to mention that Con had been there to help at the cabin, saving not only Luc but Kar and the baby, as well. Still, Luc hadn’t gone easily into it. His last words had been I hate you for this, you motherfucker.
Con winced at a sharp hunger pang in his stomach. “And you were given the honor of seeing to my birth.” A vampire birth. And one that was required to take place on dhampire ground. If Con hadn’t been brought back here before nightfall, his life would have ended for good. No second chances. Which was what had happened to his daughter centuries ago.
With a grunt of assent, Aed crouched, drew a blade across his wrist, and the effect on Con was instantaneous. His fangs punched down, his mouth watered, and a low, famished growl rose up in his chest.
The blood of a dhampire was required for this part of the ritual, was crucial in imparting an extra layer of protection, something that would separate him from regular vampires—an immunity to holy water and the ability to walk in the sun, which apparently hearkened back to the oldest vampire legends. Con would still be susceptible to the other usual vampire threats—fire, decapitation, wooden stakes, but… yeah, who wasn’t?
Con gripped his friend’s arm and brought his wrist to his mouth. It was good, but nothing tasted better than Sin.
Damn. What was she thinking right now? He wished he’d been able to tell her about the dhampire’s second chance, but all he could do was try to tell Sin, in those last seconds of lucidity, that he would be back. That she was his, but this time, there would be no bonds of blood or magic or chain-link collars.
Now, no longer dhampire, Con would be banished forever from dhampire lands, sent into the night like his brothers before him, like his cousin Aisling, who he was supposed to have replaced on the Dhampire Council.
He no longer had to serve the dhampires, and he felt as if some huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He palmed his chest, where his heart no longer beat, and smiled. Son of a bitch, this was what he’d wanted all along. Why he’d been so reckless with his life. Oh, he’d wanted to have fun, do everything he could do, but fear had never been in play.
Because deep down, he knew that death was only temporary. If he died, he could come back, and then he’d be free of dhampire life forever.
Excellent.
He would now be governed by the Vampire Council, his story that he was turned by a vampire, sire unknown. Even the vampires didn’t know about the dhampire’s second chance.
“That’s enough, there, boy.” Aed gripped Con’s hair and tugged him off his wrist. He licked his own wound to seal it, and then helped Con up. “What now?” “Now,” Con said grimly, “I go to kill a werewolf and claim my woman.”
Sin felt like hell and didn’t look a whole lot better.
She hadn’t wanted to leave the hospital, and God, how crazy was it that not long ago she’d done everything she could to avoid the place, and now all she wanted to do was stay? Her family was there. And it was all she had left of Con. Funny how losing him had made her realize that, bond or no, she was linked to him. He’d owned her heart, and now that he was gone, it sat like a useless lump in her empty chest cavity, a stray organ with no reason to beat.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was always revenge. She didn’t know how long it would take, but she would make Raynor pay for her pain. The thought made her bare her teeth in some twisted, grim resemblance of a smile as she hoofed it along the inky streets on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. His summons had come in the form of radiating pain from the collar while she’d been in Eidolon’s office, where she’d spent the night. She’d never been alone; her brothers had made sure that one of them had always been with her.
It was Eidolon who had been there when the summons came, and he’d been furious, but as he’d walked her to the Harrowgate, his hands behind his back and his face pinched in concentration, she’d seen a spark of wickedness in his eyes that would have chilled her to the bone if she’d thought his mind was working against her.
“Let us know your location,” he’d said. “Take your time getting there, and get Raynor to lay out his genocidal plans.”
“I don’t understand…” “Just do it.” He’d shoved her into the Harrowgate, leaving her cursing and nearly in tears—again. Not because of Eidolon, but because everything seemed to remind her of Con. The Harrowgate, because she’d been in it with him. The hospital, because he’d worked there. Scrubs, because those were what he’d died in.
Oh, God. Desperate to not lose him, she’d asked him to complete the bond with her. Instead, he’d killed himself, and she didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to know why. He hadn’t wanted to take her freedom away. She’d been so damned insistent that no one would ever own her again, would never be the sole provider of the one thing she needed to survive, and he’d taken it to heart. He’d made the ultimate sacrifice in order to honor what she’d said.
And she’d never gotten the chance to tell him that the reason she’d wanted the bond wasn’t because there was no other choice. It was because she loved him.
She. Loved. Him. It was something she’d never thought could happen, and she’d realized it too late. If she could go back in time, to his apartment, she’d change everything. She’d be his, he’d be hers, and he wouldn’t be dead. It was possible, even, that a stronger bond with Con would have prevented Raynor from having any hold on her.
She was such a fool! Fueled by hatred and regret, she stopped in front of the chain-link gate of the junkyard her collar had led her to. Raynor was inside, no doubt about it. After looking around to make sure no one was watching, she dug the new cell phone Shade had given her out of her backpack and dialed Eidolon. “I’m here. Some sort of auto yard outside Pittsburgh, near the Gerunti Harrowgate.” Sin had no idea why some of the gates were named after demons, but then, she didn’t care. Would be nice to find a Seminus gate, though.
“Good. Be careful.” Eidolon hung up before she could say anything else. She pushed open the creaky gate and moved between the junked autos. Movement surrounded her, people watching from shadowed recesses and concealed perches. No doubt they were varcolac, patrolling for enemies like junkyard dogs.
She found Raynor near the trunk of a trashed Corvette. Smoke from a cigarette wafted up from his hand, and he smiled as he took a drag. Hatred rolled over her with such intensity that it stung her skin.
“I’m here, a**hole,” she snapped.
He blew out a stream of smoke. “Took you long enough.”
“What do you want? And why are we in a damned junkyard?”
“Because I own it.”
She glanced around, took in the rusted piece-of-shit cars, skittering rats, and rotting tires. “You should be so proud.” He slapped her so hard her teeth rattled and her eyes stung, but she refused to react except to say saucily, “You must have heard how I like foreplay.” Except she didn’t. Until Con. Oh, God. Her knees nearly buckled, and she had to lock them in order to stay upright.
“I hope you like it a lot, because with your mouth, you’ll be getting it nonstop.”
“Goody,” she said dryly. “Because I so love a man who needs to prove his masculinity by beating on women. Do you hit children and kick cats, too?”
He laughed. “You’re no woman. You’re a half-breed abomination who’s lucky enough to have not been caught by a Purifier yet.” Purifiers were demons—of any species—who hunted half-breeds for fun or money or just a twisted sense of responsibility. In the demon world, anything mixed with human blood deserved to die. And she had encountered Purifiers before. She’d just killed them before they killed her.
“So, is that why I’m here? So you can use this half-breed freak as a punching bag?” “I’m going to take you to the warg village you visited with Conall. You’re going to infect a few pricolici with something that will spread to others.” Her cheek throbbed from his blow, and she tested a tooth with her tongue. “Are you completely stupid? We went over this before. The last time I did that, the virus mutated. What makes you think this will be any different? You could end up killing your own people.”
Raynor took a drag on his cig, and Sin suddenly wondered if turned wargs got lung cancer. She kind of hoped so. “And I told you: not if the pricolici are contained. The warg version of Dragaica has just started.” At what must have been a what-the-hell-is-that look on her face, he rolled his eyes. “Romanian midsummer festival,” he said, as if she should know all about Romanian holidays. “Very important to born wargs. In the town you visited with Con, the largest pricolici gathering of the year will take place, and now that immunizations against SF have begun, there is even more reason to celebrate. Nearly every pricolici in the world will be there.” Raynor paused to take another drag, and Sin felt bile rise up in her throat, scouring it raw with disgust and hatred. “We’ll bar the gate, they’ll get sick, and they will die within the confines of their own walls. The beauty of this is that even though all pricolici won’t be destroyed, the race will be weakened, scattered to the winds, and the varcolac will finally become the dominant warg species.”
