Still holding Tayla’s phone, Eidolon addressed the demon, a subterranean species that came aboveground around Halloween. “Gather your young, flitta. This is not your concern.”
The flitta, whatever that meant, didn’t seem to hear, instead took a step toward Tayla. Drool dripped from her fangs. “You,” she hissed. “You should die.”
Shade moved up behind her, watched with ill-concealed amusement.
“You killed my hatchlings.”
Tayla frowned at the little demons hopping around beneath her, and the mother roared. “Not them! My nest before this. All of them. In pieces, smashed as they came out of their shells. You slaughtered my babies.”
“It wasn’t me,” Tay said lamely, because it could have been. How many demon nests had she destroyed? Too many to count—or even remember.
“It was an Aegi butcher, same as you.”
One of the babies leaped toward Tay’s arms, but Eidolon caught it in midair, tickled it behind its pointy ear, and handed it to the angry mother.
“Flitta, it wasn’t this Aegi. Gather your brood and go. Bring the flossa back next week and I’ll remove her cast.”
That was when Tay noticed a quiet baby in the corner, one leg wrapped and dragging behind it. Gently, Shade picked it up and tucked it against his chest. Tayla nearly fell over as he began to make soft cooing noises that had all of the youngsters following him out of the room. The mother speared Tayla with a glare of pure murder before sauntering off after Shade and the babies.
“Wow, she was a little worked up.”
Eidolon swept the curtain closed again. “An Aegi murdered her young.”
“Because that species comes out at Halloween and eats—”
“Vegetables.”
“What?”
“Her particular breed. They’re vegetarians. They mainly raid farmers’ fields in the fall because they like gourds.” Still holding her phone in one hand, he dumped his tray of bloodied tools into a nearby container with the other. “Your Aegis buddies slaughtered innocent younglings that would have grown up to do nothing worse than suck the guts out of a few pumpkins.”
Nausea swirled in her stomach. “How did the little one get hurt?”
“Stepped on by an adult. If it weren’t for the hospital, she would have died. Fractured bones are a death sentence for that species.”
Tay seriously wanted to throw up. Things had gone wrong, so wrong. In a matter of days, her world had been flipped upside down. Everything she thought she’d known about demons was wrong. Vegetarian demons? Demons who cured instead of killed? Her simple black-and-white world had gone about a million shades of gray.
“Tayla? Are you okay?”
She blinked out of her gray world and back to the strange, dark one that was Underworld General. A hospital whose very existence should be impossible. A hospital The Aegis wanted to bring down. She couldn’t do it. Right now she was too vulnerable, too unsure of her feelings to commit to the destruction of UG.
“Can I have my phone, please?”
“If you’re thinking of calling for help, you might as well know that you can’t get a signal here.”
“No extended network, huh?” She stood there as he closed the distance between them, his tall, solid body drawing her as if it had its own gravitational pull, and without thinking, she took a step to meet him. He held out the phone, but when she reached for it, his hand captured her wrist.
“Why do you want the phone?”
She swallowed dryly, unsure what to say, not because she couldn’t lie, but because suddenly, she didn’t want to. Not when the gold flecks in his eyes had begun to glitter again. She licked her lips, and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
He pulled her close, suspicion and something darker swirling in his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You keep licking your lips. Are you nervous?”
“They’re just dry.”
The darkness in his gaze intensified as he watched her, and then he dipped his head until their lips nearly touched and she could feel the softest draft of air in the span of distance between them. “I can help with that.”
She moaned and wished he’d just kiss her already. He seemed to be waiting for permission, which was ridiculous. Before, he’d taken what he wanted. Why did he want her assent now?
“Do you want me to help?”
“No,” she said, but she tipped her face up so their lips touched.
His tongue flicked over her lips in a kiss that wasn’t quite a kiss, but was enough to heat her blood. “Are you sure?”
“No.” She opened her lips, nearly panting.
“I don’t know how you do this to me, Tayla,” he whispered. “But I can’t help myself.” His hand grasped the back of her head and held her for his possession.
Instantly, fire zipped through her veins, lit her up from the inside. She opened to the penetration of his tongue, to the sweep against her teeth, the roof of her mouth. Closing her eyes, she let her body react, to coil tight with desire that was growing addictive. She’d felt nothing for so long, had been in an emotional void, a cold, deep sleep, but with every touch Eidolon changed that. It was as though she were waking up for the first time in a place where everything was new.
Stepping into him, she gripped his shoulders and pulled him closer. A groan rattled his chest, the sound of a male in need making her pulse spike. Shifting, she rocked her aching mound against his thigh, and he hissed, backed up.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “I can smell you. My brothers will, too.” He shoved the phone into her hand and turned away. “You are dangerous, slayer.”
She gaped, because she wasn’t the dangerous one in this situation. He could seduce her with a look, a touch, and she was growing weaker by the minute.
She started to close the phone, but a flashing number caught her eye. Looking more closely at the screen, she saw numbers filtering down. Thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight . . .
“Tayla? What is it?”
-Twenty-two . . .
Jagger had mentioned a countdown, but there was no way she was activating the spell. She closed the phone. Opened it again. The screen continued to flash numbers.
Eighteen.
I’m testing a new explosive that’s odorless, invisible, and can be hidden inside electronic devices like MP3 players.
Cole’s words careened through her brain, and her heart skidded to a halt. “The exit,” she gasped. “Exit. Now!”
She shoved past Eidolon, bile rising in her throat as she frantically searched for the doors Shade had brought her in through.
There. She darted toward them, and when a nurse shifted into a panther and pounced, she swung, sent the panther skidding across the floor. Pain exploded in her head, but it didn’t matter. The door. She had to get to the door.
“Tayla!” Eidolon’s shout chased her.
“Stay back!” She burst through the doors the second they slid open. Outside, she recognized the parking lot, and Eidolon’s BMW.
Searing heat burned her fingers. The phone glowed orange, pulsing like a stove element with its own heartbeat. As hard as she could, she threw it toward the far wall.
A hand closed on her shoulder. Wheeling around, she tackled Eidolon and took him to the ground, her body covering his as the explosion rocked the underground facility and jarred her teeth.
A tire flew past them, blasted through the space where Eidolon had been standing. Fire, stone, and metal rained down, pelting her as she lay on top of him. He hooked his leg over her back and flipped her, shielding her instead. Then, as the storm of debris eased up and the rumble died away, a louder noise rattled her from above, and she looked up into extremely pissed-off golden eyes.
Fourteen
Eidolon paced outside his office, and if Shade said one more time, I told you we should have wasted her, he was going to rip his brother’s head off.
Problem was, Shade was right. If they’d given Tayla to Yuri, the parking lot wouldn’t
be demolished. But Tayla would be dead.
Clenching his fists so hard his knuckles cracked, he wondered why that thought bothered him so much. He’d been ready to kill her himself after the explosion. He and Shade had dragged her to Eidolon’s office, shoved her inside, and then left her there while they cooled off.
“You ready to deal with her?” Shade asked. “Can you deal with her?”
“Don’t start.” Eidolon threw open the office door, more to get away from Shade’s accusations than to finally deal with Tayla.
She looked up from where she sat on his desk, shoulders hunched, feet swinging like a punished child. Her eyes were reddened as though she’d been crying, but he knew she hadn’t. The effort she’d expended to not cry, however, was obvious in the tight set of her mouth and the way she swallowed repeatedly.
He halted just out of arm’s reach and held his fists at his sides to keep from touching her out of anger—or something worse, like comfort. When he spoke, he dug deep to find the impartial, cold Justice Dealer voice he’d used for decades.
“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you for what you’ve done.”
She looked him straight in the eye, every ounce the warrior he knew she was. “I can’t.”
“That was easy,” Shade said, as he moved to the opposite end of the desk, caging her in. “Let’s take her outside—”
“No.” She pushed her tangled mop of hair back from her face. “Not yet. There’s something you need to know. One of your staff, I think . . . Yuri?”
Eidolon’s heart missed a beat. “What about Yuri?”
“He’s dead.” Tayla closed her eyes and took a deep, rattling breath. “I tagged your pager with sort of a psychic GPS.” She looked at him, the dark circles under her eyes blending with the soot smears on her cheeks. “You must have given the pager to Yuri—”
“Hell’s blades,” Shade breathed. “The Aegis got him. What did they do to him?”
When she didn’t answer, Eidolon’s Justice Dealer cool disintegrated, and he grasped her by her collar and yanked her to her feet. His right temple throbbed, letting him know just how close to violence he was. He knew, though, that any roughness he aimed at Tayla wouldn’t be to kill her. No, he’d shred her clothes with his bare hands and take her hard, show her what he was, what she was, and that she was his.
Dammit. Grinding his molars, he brought the conversation back to less pleasant violence.
“You tortured him, didn’t you?” Gods, he could hear her heartbeat pounding, fragmenting the silence in the room, shattering his thoughts.
“Not me. He was already dead when I . . . he didn’t give anything up. He didn’t tell them anything they didn’t already know about the hospital. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”
To Tayla’s credit, she’d seemed genuinely upset that she’d brought an explosive device into the hospital, upset that her colleagues had tortured Yuri to death. It should have been Eidolon they’d captured. If the s’genesis hadn’t been acting up when it had, he’d never have given the on-call pager to Yuri after Luc’s surgery. And, oh, shit.
Eidolon released Tayla and turned to his brother. “Yuri gave Gem a ride home. See if you can locate her.”
If glares were death rays, Tayla would have been seared to ash by the look Shade gave her as he stalked toward the door. He reached for the handle and paused. “What are we going to do with her now? Hand her over to the Male-concieo or do her ourselves?”
Eidolon moved to his brother and lowered his voice. “I still need to talk to her.” When Shade would have protested, Eidolon cut him off. “She saved my life.”
“And you saved hers. You’re even. Kill her.”
Planting his open palm against the door jamb hard enough to make Shade jump, Eidolon leaned in so close he heard his brother’s heartbeat. “Do not argue with me about this.”
“I don’t like what’s happening to you, E. A year ago you’d have done the right thing.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m finally turning into a Seminus demon and doing the selfish thing. Seems to be working for you and Wraith.”
Shade snarled a vile curse and charged out the door, slamming it loudly behind him. Eidolon let out his own snarl of frustration. Low blows weren’t his style, but lately they were falling out of his mouth when the last thing he needed right now was to be fighting with his brothers. Shade, especially.
Eidolon’s own anger flared bright and hot as he rounded on the cause of the tension between them. “You came here to lead your Aegis colleagues to my hospital.”
“Yes.”
The betrayal streaked through him, and he had no idea why. They were enemies. He’d expected something like this. But for some reason, the knowledge that she’d wanted to destroy what he’d worked so hard for tore at him.
“I don’t need to ask why. That you hate us is obvious—”
“I don’t hate you,” she said hoarsely. Her gaze cut to him, full of misery, slicing him like a scalpel. “God help me, I don’t hate you.”
Shock made him take a step back. “You’re lying.”
“No. If I hated you, I’d have let that bomb go off in the hospital instead of the parking lot.”
He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. “You were saving your own skin.”
“I suppose I’d think the same thing.” She studied the floor. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Yes,” he said, angry again. “The Aegis didn’t destroy my hospital, but it did take out a few staff members. Do you realize, little killer, that your own colleagues set you up to die as well?”
A ragged sob shook her. The tears she’d been holding back fell. “I was a sacrifice. For the greater good—”
“For the greater good?” Eidolon saw red. Blood red. He closed the distance between them in a single stride and seized her shoulders, fought the urge to shake her until her teeth rattled. “Do you honestly believe that?”
She looked up at him, the pain in her gaze turning her eyes into a murky mire. “I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because if I wasn’t a great sacrifice, then I was nothing to them.” She blinked, and a tear ran down her blotchy cheek. “They’re all I have. If I’m disposable . . .”
Ah, damn. The anger leaked out of him as if he’d been shot full of holes. He was a freaking emotional sieve. Before he could think better of it, he pulled her against him, held her while she sobbed into his chest.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. He was supposed to snarl and strike and draw blood for what she’d done. Cuddling her, pressing his lips to the top of her head, rubbing her finely muscled back . . . yeah, bad fucking idea.
It certainly wasn’t supposed to feel this good. Nothing felt this good, not anything that happened while fully clothed, anyway.
Her hard body, soft in the right places, tucked against his in a perfect fit, and the way he stood between her legs as she sat on the edge of the desk made him remember that they could fit together even better. His cock stirred at the thought, and gods, he needed to get his head on straight.
“Yuri,” she said, her voice trembling as violently as her hands on his shoulders, “was he a doctor?”
“Yeah. A good one.” A shudder wracked her body, and even though he shouldn’t, he felt the need to alleviate her guilt a little. “He was also a hyena shapeshifter and a cruel asshole.”
“Still, what they did to him . . .”
He’d probably deserved. Eidolon didn’t voice that, though. He’d lost a talented surgeon, and replacing him wouldn’t be easy.
A noise outside his office drew his attention away from Tayla, and what he saw through the window made him curse.
“I really hope that guy isn’t a doctor,” she said, drawing back to watch Wraith, swaying like a sapling in the wind, in the outer office. He stumbled forward a few steps, and then fell back against the wall.
“Fucking perfect,” Eidolon muttered. “Stay here.”
He threw open the door and crossed to Wraith in four strides.
/>
“Hey, bro.”
Eidolon seized his brother by the throat and lifted him off the ground. “You idiot. Secor des unez!”
Wraith laughed, flashing fangs. “Oooh, the language of Justice. Big E is pissed.”
“I told you to lay off the humans.”
“Yeah, and I’m pretty fucking sick of the reruns, man.”
With a roar, Eidolon heaved Wraith across the room. His brother hit the floor and rolled into the wall. Before he could sit up, Eidolon was on top of him, slamming his head into the carpet.
“E!” Shade’s hands closed on his shoulders. “Eidolon. Let him up.”
“He’s high.”
“Yeah, I know. I brought Narcan.”
“Screw that,” Wraith slurred. “I ate that junkie fair and square.”
Still straddling his brother, Eidolon ground his molars until they hurt. “Did you kill him? Is the junkie dead?”
“Dunno.”
Shade knelt, scrubbed a hand over his face. “Any witnesses?”
“Don’t give a shit.”
“Wraith—”
“Give it a rest already.” Wraith used his tongue to caress one of his fangs as though tasting the blood that had flowed over it when he ate the human junkie. “The Vamp Council won’t touch me, and you know it.”
No, they wouldn’t. As a Seminus demon with vampiric tendencies, he fell into a gray area between both species, and the Councils had nearly gone to war over the laws he should be required to obey. Punishment for various offenses was an especially sticky and sensitive matter, and both Councils had finally, with Shade and Eidolon’s help, agreed to a compromise. Wraith didn’t know about the agreement, and if Eidolon had his way, he never would.
“Arrogant asshole,” Shade muttered, as he pinned one of Wraith’s arms and then tugged the cap off the syringe with his teeth.
Wraith hissed and struggled. Eidolon roughly slammed his knees onto his brother’s shoulders to hold him in place while Shade shot him up with the Narcan, one of the few human medications that worked as intended in demons.