Ecstasy Unveiled

She stepped into the gate near Lore’s shack. Closing her eyes, she let the dagger guide her hand over the lit maps of the world and Sheoul. When her fingers touched down, she opened her eyes once more.

The lines in the walls shifted, bringing Canada into detailed view. The dagger guided her hand to the north-west, to the Yukon Territory. Once again, the lines rear-ranged, focusing on the remote province. And then her finger came down near the center, and the Harrowgate opened up into a forest—and about three feet of snow.

Mother. Fuck. Did Canada not know it was May?

Idess must know she was being tracked, and she was going to make this as difficult as possible. Furious, Sin tapped the maps until she came out in Sheoul, at the gate near the assassin den. She hurried to her quarters, changed into her cold-weather gear, and hit the Harrowgate at a run. As she tapped the map to get back to Canada, she glanced at her watch.

Dammit! Half an hour wasted. She practically dove out of the Harrowgate, cursing up a storm in every language she knew. Not that she was fluent in any but English. She just knew a lot of cuss words.

Almost instantly, the cold ate her curses as her breath froze in her throat and nose. With every step, her boot broke through the thick crust of ice on top of the snow, slowing her down and pissing her off.

Sin was so going to torture Lore’s location out of this bitch.

Hands shaking, she peeled back her parka sleeve and checked her watch. Time was nearly up. And then, ahead… a lone figure stood in a clearing, wearing nothing but jeans, boots, and a damned tank top. How nice that abductor chick was impervious to the cold, while Sin was about to freeze to death.

“Where is he?” she called out. “Where is my brother?”

Idess blinked. “Brother?” For some reason, she smiled. “No worries. He’s fine.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care.”

In Sin’s hand, the dagger vibrated, hungry for another taste of the female’s blood. But as Sin moved forward, Idess moved back.

“Let Lore go,” Sin growled.

“That’s not possible.”

“Then I’ll kill you.”

“It’s not going to be easy.”

“Nothing worthwhile ever is.” Sin took another step forward. Idess took another back. “Damn you! Lore can’t be held prisoner. He needs… he has needs.”

“Yes,” Idess said flatly. “I’ve discovered that.”

“If you’ve let him suffer—”

“I haven’t.” She glanced down at her watch and smiled. “Looks like our time here is done. If you want your brother returned, you’ll have a name for me next time we meet.”

“A name?”

“The name of the person who hired you and Lore.”

Sin sucked in a harsh breath and nearly choked on the icy air. “Can’t,” she wheezed. Jesus, even if she knew who hired them, to tell would break the assassin code and earn you a fate way worse than death.

Idess shrugged. “Then you won’t see Lore again.” She waggled her fingers and disappeared, leaving Sin half-frozen and furious in the middle of a godforsaken forest.

* * *

Idess had been gone almost twenty hours. Twenty freaking hours. She’d needed only an hour to evade Sin, and scenarios of what might have gone wrong kept tripping through Lore’s head. Worry, helplessness, and hunger gnawed at him, and he’d had to take care of his physical needs with annoying frequency.

For some reason, his releases had been unsatisfying, and tension remained just below the surface of his skin, as if at any moment his skin could split, releasing his inner demon for a devastating rampage. His body had experienced Idess, and it was her touch it craved, which could be a serious fucking problem if his usual methods for rage control began to fail.

So yeah, twenty hours spent worrying, jerking off, and plotting an escape that involved seducing Idess into letting him go. It was the lamest escape plan in the history of lame escape plans. She was two thousand years old. No way was she falling for the old I Love You So You Can Trust Me ploy.

Which wasn’t to say that he wasn’t going to try. He just didn’t have high hopes for it.

He did, however, have high hopes for his other plan. Because when he’d cuffed himself while under the bore worm’s influence, his subconscious had been in self-preservation mode. He’d done a shitty-ass job, and with little else to do during the last twenty hours, he’d managed to work his left wrist out of the cuff, and if he could get Idess close enough, he could snare her.

But she needed to hurry back. In addition to his impending rage-out, his chest had begun to burn. Detharu was summoning him. Worse, the bond’s pulse, which grew stronger and faster as his deadline approached, had just kicked up a notch.

He’d been here for almost two days. Almost two days closer to Sin’s death. Assuming she was still alive, where did she think he was? She had to be worried. At least, as worried as Sin got about anything.

The sound of footsteps shocked his heart into a stuttered beat, and he quickly snapped his wrist back in the cuff, leaving it loosely closed. His gaze glued to the doorway, he held his breath as he waited to see whether Idess or Sin would walk through.

Idess. Strangely, he was as relieved to see her as he was suddenly afraid for Sin, and how fucked up was that?

Then she smiled, and his mouth dried up. That was a very wicked smile.

“So,” she said. “The Seminus female? Seems she’s your sister.”

Control was at a premium right now, and it took every last drop of it to keep from lunging at Idess and demanding answers. “I’m aware of that. If you did anything to her—”

“I said I wouldn’t.” She waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “I got her to follow me to the Canadian wilderness. I’ll have to keep avoiding her… tonight I’m thinking I’ll start in China, and then maybe bounce around a little. Do you think she’d like to see the Great Wall?”

Relieved that Sin was okay, Lore relaxed and put on a nonchalant smile. “Sin likes to travel.”

“Good. So do I.” She held up her hand, and bless her little angel heart, she had a bag of fast food. The scent of burgers and fries made his mouth water.

The sight of a long, creamy expanse of stomach between Idess’s bunched-up tank top and low-slung jeans did, too. His stomach growled and his cock hardened as his body played tug-o-war with its two hungers.

“You hungry?”

“You can’t even imagine.”

Regret swirled in her eyes. “I really am sorry, Lore. I’m not practiced at holding anyone captive.”

“Yeah, your rookie is definitely shining through,” he said gruffly. He didn’t know how to deal with a captor who was actually nice. If she’d beaten him or taunted him or even just said nothing at all, he’d be right in the zone. But Idess left him in a state of what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now, when he normally knew exactly what to do in any situation.

She also left him in a state of arousal, and he definitely knew what to do in that situation.

He had to get her naked. And chained up. And if the signals she’d given off during and after her feeding were any indication, she wouldn’t mind. No, she’d been hot for him—that much had been certain.

She sank down next to him, and her hand came up to cup his cheek. The gesture was so tender, so intimate, that once more, he wasn’t sure how to react. His head felt like a damned Ping Pong ball.

“I’m sorry I was gone so long. Believe it or not, I’m trying to find a way out of this.”

“Ah… keys?” he suggested. “That would get me out of this.”

One corner of her mouth cocked up in a flirty little half-smile. “Nice try.”

“So that’s a no?”

“That’s a no.”

He glanced at the bag. “Could I get something to eat then?”

“I wasn’t sure what you like, so I got a Coke, burgers, fries, tots, and a chicken sandwich.” She gave him a puppy-dog-did-I-do-good look that made something inside him melt when nothing should be melting for this woman. His dick twitched, and okay, not everything was melting.

“At this point, I’d eat a fucking cactus,” he muttered, and her shoulders slumped a little. And he actually felt bad about making her feel bad.

Welcome to Stockholm Syndrome.

She handed him the bag and waited as he wolfed down the chicken sandwich and fries. When his stomach stopped rebelling so loudly, he slowed down. “So. Tell me about yourself.”

She blinked. “Me? There’s nothing to tell.”

“You’re two thousand years old, and you’re saying you have absolutely nothing to talk about?” He downed half the soda. “Tell me something about how you were born. Were your parents human?”

For a long time she sat there, long enough for him to eat one of the two burgers. One delicate hand came up to worry her ponytail as she spoke. “I was born of an angel… I was switched out with my mortal parents’ true infant daughter. They were slaves in a wealthy Roman household.”

“So you grew up thinking you were human?”

“Yes.”

He had, too, but deep down, he’d always felt different, and in the 20/20 hindsight, he could see the neon signs. Like the one where his mother screamed, “You’re the spawn of the devil!” And, “I should never have let that demon plant his seed in my womb.” Sure, all the doctors in the sanitarium said his mother was insane, but her “delusions” never changed, and the friends who had been with her the night they’d “summoned Satan” had confirmed everything his mother said. They hadn’t believed the dark-haired stranger with the tattoos on one arm was Satan himself, but they were sure he was either some sort of demon, or a con artist.

They were right on both counts.

“Was there ever anything that made you stand out?” he asked, mainly to get out of the past. “Did you feel different from everyone else?”

“Not all.” She twisted one of the gold bands in her hair the way she’d twisted her palm around his cock. “I felt perfectly at home until my nineteenth birthday.”

“So you lived a normal life? Married? Kids?”

“Not even close.”

He wasn’t a historian, but he’d thought that back in those days, when lifespans were short and girls married young, Idess would have been a rarity. It was probably rude to ask, but it was also rude to chain someone to a bed, so fuck it.

“Why not?”