And what the hell was taking Eidolon so long? She’d come in for the autopsy stuff, and he’d made her wait for—she glanced at her watch—a freaking hour. She practically had the entire volume of Medical Parasitology memorized, and… eww.

She didn’t have time for this. She had a plan, and she needed to put it into action.

Deth still felt Lore’s life force, which meant Idess hadn’t been lying. Lore was alive. So instead of trying to injure the angel with the Gargantua dagger, she was going to mark her with an assassin’s secret weapon. A tracer grenade, once detonated, contaminated everything within twenty yards with a substance that left an easily followed trail. There were limitations and catches that made them unstable, dangerous, and often unreliable in untrained hands, but Sin was an expert, and nothing had ever gone wrong with one of her grenades. No, the greatest challenge was locating the ingredients and assembling the thing.

After she finished, she’d have to cool her heels until the devil’s hour, which was easier said than done. Unlike Lore, Sin had never been patient. Her brother would make a good sniper, could wait for days to get the one perfect, surgical shot; Sin would rather charge into a situation with all guns blazing, mow everyone down, and let God and Satan sort out the souls.

Tired of waiting, she hopped off the bed. She’d hunt Eidolon down if she had to. The door opened before she reached it, and a Seminus wearing a black paramedic uniform walked in. With his dark hair, stern expression, and broad shoulders, he looked like a cross between Eidolon and Lore.

“You must be another brother,” she muttered.

“Shade.”

“Great. Nice to meet you. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to go.”

He seemed a little taken aback, but his expression closed off as he blocked the door. “Eidolon will be here in a minute. He went to grab the report you’re waiting for.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “I’ve been waiting for an hour already.”

“He’s had some emergencies to deal with, but he’s going to get it now. Really.”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.

He stared back.

“Well?” she snapped. “You gonna stand there all day? Don’t you have somewhere you have to be?”

“I just got off duty.” He dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. “I figured we should meet.”

Sin gestured to the door. “’Kay. We’ve met. Buh-bye.” Shade looked completely at a loss. “Why aren’t you gone yet?”

“Why are you being like this?”

God, what was it with these guys? “Because I just want to be left alone, okay? Is that so difficult to understand?”

He cocked a brow. “No, actually. But maybe if you got to know us—”

“I don’t want to!” She shoved him out of the way and swung open the door, needing to get away from the crushing pressure of sudden family. “Just stay away from me. I’ve lived over a hundred years without you, and I certainly don’t need you now.”

She didn’t need anyone. She’d learned a long time ago that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself. Not even Lore. He’d left her when she’d needed him the most, and though she understood why he’d done it and she knew he was trying to make it up to her, some part of her just couldn’t fully lower her defensive shields and let him back in all the way.

Trust, as her old master used to say, was evil and insidious. And he’d know. He’d taken her off the streets when she was vulnerable, made her trust him, and then he’d forced her to do… things. He’d taken advantage of her ability to kill and her need for sex, and he’d used them until her soul had shriveled.

Even before he’d come along, trust had made her believe that her mother would love her. She hadn’t. It had made Sin think her grandparents would always be there for her. They’d died. It had made her believe Lore would take care of her. He’d abandoned her.

No one would abandon her ever again.

Except, that really wasn’t true anymore, was it? She’d come close to letting Lore back in, closer than she’d thought possible. And now he was gone. Sure, it wasn’t logical to blame him this time, any more than she should blame her grandparents for dying. But logic had never been her strong suit.

She stalked away from Shade, heart pounding and hoping he wouldn’t chase her down. Problem was, she didn’t know where she was going. She’d come via the Harrowgate, but she didn’t remember the way and when she was freaked, her senses dulled. She couldn’t sense the gate at all.

An exit loomed ahead, double sliding doors. Quickly, she slipped through them and found herself in an underground parking lot that didn’t appear to have a way out. Didn’t that just figure. After wandering around for a few minutes, she gave up, but there was no way she was going back inside the hospital. Not yet. She just needed a few minutes of peace and quiet, with no annoying brothers watching her every move.

The last two days’ events had taken a toll on her, and although she could use a quart of Lore’s homemade rotgut and a week-long nap, she figured the best she was going to get right now was a few minutes of hiding herself away. Exhausted, she sank down onto the pavement next to a black ambulance.

She wasn’t there for more than thirty seconds when she heard footsteps. Groaning, she buried her head in her hands.

“Fuck off, Shade—”

“Not Shade. Conall.”

Startled, she snapped her head up, and no, the guy standing there was definitely not her brother. It was the extremely hot vampire paramedic she’d seen wheel in the warg she’d killed. The one with the funky silver eyes and sandy blond hair. Mr. Personality.

“You okay?” he asked gruffly.

“Ah… yeah.”

“Then why are you skulking around my ambulance?”

“I wasn’t skulking. I was resting.”

“In a parking lot.” He gave her a dry look. “On the ground.”

She shoved to her feet. “Do all medical personnel take classes on how to be obnoxious? Because I thought maybe it was a brother thing, but I’m starting to think it’s a medical thing.”

“You’ve got one hell of a chip on your shoulder, don’t you?” The vampire opened the back of the ambulance and tossed a nylon bag inside.

Sin frowned. “You don’t even know me.”

“And let me guess,” he said, sounding utterly bored. “That’s the way you like it.”

“What, are you psychic or something?”

He laughed, a deep, melodious sound that rang through her. “I’m over a thousand years old. I’ve seen it all. You, sweetcheeks, are nothing new.” At what must have been an outraged expression on her face, he laughed again. “Come on. Surely you can’t think you are the only female out there who’s had a rough life, had her heart walked on, been kept in a dungeon for three centuries, blah, blah, pick your trauma, and are now stomping around with all this pent-up anger you spill like acid on everyone who tries to get to know you.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “How close am I?”

Sin’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. She finally snapped it shut to avoid looking like a fish gasping on the bank of a river.

“That’s what I thought.” He made a shooing gesture with his hand. “Now, run along and go be caustic with someone who cares. Oh, wait, no one cares, do they? Because you won’t let them—”

She struck out, wanting to break that perfect nose. He caught her wrist when her knuckles were half an inch from his face. He didn’t blink, and the only part of his body that had moved—like lightning—had been his arm. Baring his fangs, he bent over her so their noses nearly touched. “Do not ever strike me. You have no idea what I am capable of.”

“Ditto, dickwad.” She should fire up her gift and give him some horrible vampire disease. Vamps might be dead, but that meant they succumbed even more quickly. She wasn’t sure how that worked, but it did. Except… his hand was warm. His body was warm. He wasn’t a vampire. At least, he wasn’t a dead vampire.

“Go away.” He released her with a shove. “I have better things to do than spar with a little girl in need of a good spanking.”

Oh, she’d show him who was going to get spanked. As he turned away, dismissing her with nothing more than a curt shake of his head, she swept her leg out, catching him in the knees, and as he lost his balance, she spun, striking him in the back with her other foot. He went down, but she didn’t even have time to smile at her victory, because he was up in a flash, and suddenly she was pinned to the side of the ambulance. Conall’s face was a mask of cold fury, his eyes glazed over with frost. “With those markings, I’m guessing you’re here on some business related to the Sem brothers, so that’s why I’m not going to drain you right here, right now. But f**k with me again, and I’m going to get my first taste of Seminus blood.” His forearm was across her throat, his other hand trapping her arm against her side, and his six-foot-six body was holding her so she couldn’t move.

But she couldn’t help but notice the long, lush lashes that framed his feral, intelligent eyes. And the harsh, masculine slope of his jaw. Then there was the promise of raw sex that oozed from every pore, a promise she had no doubt he could deliver on.

Something in her gut began to throb, moving lower the longer she stared at him. Shit. Her hormones were acting up, right on schedule. If she didn’t get a daily dose of sex, she became extremely ill. It was possible, even, that she could die. She’d just never gone long enough to know whether that was actually the case.

This morning she’d been either too distracted or in too much of a hurry to climb into bed with one of the assassins she bunked with, and she was paying for that now, as her raging hormones were quite happy to let her know. But one thing she’d learned over the years was that her hormones didn’t just affect her. They were also good for attracting males… and getting herself out of bad situations with them.