She shivered with nearly uncontrollable desire as he put her down half a block away from the fighting trio, though for just a second he hesitated, his fingers digging into her hips, his panting breaths matching hers.
“Why are you affected so strongly by all of this?” She gripped his wrists, holding him there, wishing he’d come closer. “You’re… old.” He laughed, a deep, clear note that rang through her in a pleasant wave. “I’m young by dhampire standards.” He sobered as he gazed at her, then took a deep breath and pulled away. “I’m not normally affected like this. It’s you. You’re putting off some hellacious f**k-me vibes.”
“Not enough, apparently,” she muttered. He either ignored her or didn’t hear her, but he took her hand again and led her down a couple more cobblestone streets until they reached the outskirts of town and the narrowest road yet, which ran alongside the town wall.
Once again, she slowed as a distant, odd sound caught her attention. “What’s that? Sounds like a dogfight. Big one.” Con nodded, but kept walking. “When aggression sparks in a large group of wargs, they shift, no matter what time of day or month, so they can battle in beast form.”
She whistled, low and long. “You wolfy people have turned fighting into an art form. Living with you must be loads of fun.” For some reason, he tensed. “We ‘wolfy people’ can be very gentle with our families.” True enough. From what Sin had seen, Runa was a perfect example.
At the end of the street was a cul-de-sac with four small, thatch-roofed houses, each separated by several yards of land and thick copses of trees. As they approached, a muscular male wearing nothing but jeans exited one of the houses, his gaze fixed on Con. Beside her, the scent of aggression wafted off Con.
“What’s going on?” she asked under her breath.
Con didn’t answer right away, and as they got closer, the dark-haired male bowed his head, though with obvious reluctance.
“He’s an alpha,” Con finally replied. “But I’m older, stronger, and more alpha. We determined that a few years ago.” So… Con had beaten the crap out of the guy. That must have been interesting. “Did you make wild, passionate love to him after you proved victorious?” She was only partly teasing, was imagining the fight, the sex, and again, a primal response rose up, and God, her bones were going to melt if she didn’t get Con between her legs. Soon.
One corner of Con’s lush, gorgeous mouth turned up. “I passed on that.” The male didn’t lift his head until Con stopped in front of him. “Dante. Good to see you.”
Dante gave a curt nod. “Sable is inside.” He shifted his gaze to Sin, his expression dark. Dangerous. “Who is the female? She is not warg.”
“She’s a colleague.” Dante’s lip lifted in a silent snarl. Clearly, he didn’t want her anywhere near his family, but Con didn’t give him a chance to protest. Still holding her hand, he entered the house, where the scent of roast venison made Sin’s mouth water, and once the door closed, her lust eased so abruptly she sagged against Con. He caught her, held her steady until she could stand on her own again.
“You okay?”
She nodded, grateful for the temporary reprieve.
Children’s laughter came from somewhere in the house, and a tall, red-haired female wearing green sweats and a sweatshirt came around the corner, grinning when she saw Con. “Father!” She hurried to him, but dropped to her knees at his feet. He lifted her into a huge hug. “Father?” Sin asked, and he shrugged.
“Technically, I’m Sable’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, but we’ll pretend there aren’t so many greats in there.” “What brings you here?” Sable gave Sin a warm smile before hugging Con again, giving his neck a little nuzzle and kiss, much the way pups greeted older canines. For some reason, the display of affection put an odd lump in Sin’s throat. “Would you like to stay for supper?”
“I’m here for only a minute,” he said. “No time to even sit.”
Frowning, Sable stepped back. “What is it?”
“You’ve heard of SF.”
“Of course.” She waved her hand dismissively. “We have guards at the gate to prevent foreign wargs who might be infected from entering.”
“You need to take your family somewhere else. Somewhere isolated.”
“But why, if—”
Con gripped Sable’s shoulders and forced her to look into his deadly serious eyes. “Because soon it’s going to become known that only turned wargs are susceptible, and security at your gate will no longer be needed.”
For a moment, confusion swirled in Sable’s eyes, surely matching Sin’s own, and then the blood in Sable’s already pale face drained, making her freckles stand out like a dalmation’s spots. “Oh, gods.”
“It’ll only be a matter of time before a warg civil war breaks out,” he said grimly. “Get your family to safety.”
She gave him a shaky nod. “Just a minute.” She darted out the door, leaving Sin and Con alone in the entryway.
“I don’t understand what just happened,” Sin said, still staring after the shaken female. “Why would the news about turned wargs be bad? Isn’t your… daughter… a dhampire?” “Not even close.” A child squealed somewhere in the house, and Con smiled fondly. “Back when our numbers were far greater, female dhampires often mated with wargs. Eight hundred years ago, my only daughter did so. Her offspring followed suit, mostly breeding out the dhampire blood. Sable is pricolici, and her mate is as well.”
“Now I’m even more confused—”
“One of her cubs is varcolac.”
Oh, shit. “How did that happen?” She waited for a response. And waited. “Con?” “It’s not important,” he said flatly, the dismissal just blatant enough to piss Sin off.
“If it’s not important, then it shouldn’t be a problem for you to tell me, right?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And it’s not like we have anything better to do.”
“It’s a very dangerous secret, Sin. Something that could destroy my family.” Her anger veered sharply to hurt, which made her ping right back to anger, because dammit, he shouldn’t be able to affect her like that. “Ah. So you think I would use the information to harm them. Nice. Must have been hell to stick your dick into someone so repugnant.”
Angry, guttural words fell from his lips. Good. He deserved to be as irked as she was. As the curses died down, he trained his laserlike gaze on her, his expression tight, shadowed with unmistakable warning. “When a born warg gives birth to a human baby, they are usually put down before they can utter a cry. But Sable couldn’t do that. She bit the infant and had the mark of a born warg tattooed onto him.”
“So I’m guessing she could get into a lot of trouble if the child is discovered?”
“Under warg law both she and the child could be executed.”
Sin grimaced, though she wasn’t surprised. After a hundred years in the demon world, very little surprised her anymore. But now she understood his reluctance to spill the secret. “If both parents are born wargs, how did the kid pop out human?”
Con hesitated, his eyes hooded and unreadable. Finally, he blew out a breath and answered gruffly. “Sable came into season while she was on a private sabbatical. She mated with a turned warg, but they were interrupted by The Aegis. He was killed. Just hours after that, Dante found her, took her during what remained of the heat, and when it was over, they were bonded. She came to me when it was time for the birth and confessed that she thought the cubs might be the dead male’s. She gave birth to fraternal twins—one warg and one human. She nipped the human, had him tattooed, and returned to the pack. Not even Dante knows the truth.”
Jesus. That was one hell of a secret. “So they need to get the kid to a place where he can’t catch the disease once the town opens up and turned wargs are free to come and go.”
“Exactly.”
Sin pondered what he said, and then blurted, “Where is your daughter? You know, your daughter daughter.”
A sad smile touched his sensual lips. “She died in childbirth. I didn’t know her well—I’d left the clan by the time she was born—but I felt her die.” She didn’t have time to utter an awkward condolence because the door burst open and Dante stalked through, his big hand wrapped around the back of Sable’s neck. Her green eyes were red-rimmed, her face streaked with tears. “Is what my mate said true? Was Roman born a… human?” He said “human” like he might say “filthy maggot.”
Con glanced at Sable, who nodded. “Yes,” he said, his eyes as cold as his voice. “And if you hurt the child or Sable, I’ll hang you by your entrails and make you suffer for a month before you die.” Trembling with emotion so powerful that Sin could smell it like bitter smoke, the male warg released Sable and closed his eyes. When he opened them, crystal tears glistened on his lashes. “I would have killed the infant if I’d known back then,” he said, and Sable’s pained cry brought a cringe from him and a hiss from Con. “But I’m not that male anymore. The cub is mine, and I will defend him with my life.”
With a sob, Sable flew into Dante’s arms, and he held her tight, his tears joining hers. Guarded respect softened the hard line of Con’s jaw. “You’ll take Roman somewhere safe?” “We’ll leave within the hour.”
Sin stood aside while arrangements were made and good-byes were said, and even though they had to leave the peace of the home, Sin was more than happy to get out. She could deal with lust much more easily than she could deal with strong emotion.
“Come on.” Con closed the door behind them. “I want to get out of here before—” “Too late,” she breathed. High-octane lust, even more intense than before, flooded her body, making her mind fuzzy and her sex ache.