“You’re not a freak. And I doubt you have anything to worry about with them.” He held up his hands when she opened her mouth to argue. “But don’t spaz. I promised.”

“Spaz?” She huffed. “I’m going for a walk. Have a nice shower.”

She stalked away, her blue-black hair slapping against the small of her back. With one last noise of disgust, she slammed out of the house. She was overreacting. A lot. But she had a tendency to fly off the handle first and think later, and she used her long walks as a way to work off the initial burn of whatever had set her off.

Lore just shook his head and stepped into the shower. His sister was the most closed-off person he’d ever met, but then, with her past, he could understand that. He just wished he’d been able to help her long before she came back into his life. Like, maybe before he’d abandoned her to decades of abuse. Yeah, that would have been good.

He washed, but no matter how hard he scrubbed, his past wouldn’t come clean. Too much had happened, too many people had died, and too many mistakes had been made. A shower wasn’t going to send it all down the drain.

Still, he savored the feel of hot water and soap suds sluicing down his body, washing away the blood and dirt the Slogthu nurse missed when he’d sponged Lore down. At least the wounds were healed. The lacerations had been closed internally with dissolving stitches, and though Eidolon had barely used his healing gift, it had been enough to seal the outer layer of skin and leave only the thinnest of shiny white scars. It had also knitted his ribs back together, and his shoulder felt good as new.

All in all, Lore was back in top form and ready to take out Kynan. With any luck, there wouldn’t be some crazy-hot female who smelled like sugar and spice around to get in his way this time.

Idess’s interference had been unfortunate, annoying, and… arousing. And how f**ked up was that? She’d tried to snuff him, yet some twisted part of him found that to be one hell of a turn-on. Enough of one that she became the image in his mind as he fisted his c*ck and began to stroke. Usually his sessions were a matter of keeping his rage at bay, but for the first time in a long time, he was in need of a release for himself, not for his rage. Even AprilMayJune, like all the females before her, had been about the rage, and ultimately, she’d been nothing more than a means to an end.

But Idess… she was different, and in this hot fantasy, she was the sexy female on her knees in front of him. He could picture her gazing up at him, her eyes drowsy, lips swollen, the little hoop earring at the top of her right ear glinting in the light. He bit back a moan as he pumped his palm up and down his shaft, imagined it was Idess’s wet mouth doing the work. Fuck, yeah, she was good… so freaking good he couldn’t hold on, and when he came it was the best damned orgasm he’d had in decades.

When his legs stopped shaking, he finished with the shower, slung a towel around his hips, and went to his bedroom. He dressed in sweat shorts and a tee, and made a mental note to go shopping soon—he was down to his last leather jacket.

He padded barefoot into the living room, where the morning sun was just peeking through the window. Sin had come back, was sitting on the couch watching the Today Show, the bottle of moonshine and her glass balanced on the cushion next to her. Overhead, the ceiling fan spun in lazy circles that did nothing to ease the spring humidity.

Sin didn’t seem to notice the sticky breeze as she idly flipped one of her blades into the air and caught it with nimble fingers. She could hit a target in the eye from ten yards with those throwing knives. Not that she needed to kill that way; her dermoire gift was similar to his but more controlled, and she used it often.

She continued to toss the knife as he took a seat in the leather recliner at the end of the coffee table. “So, did you kick his ass?” Her words were slightly slurred. “The guy you got into the fight with?”

“It wasn’t a guy.”

“Well, I know you weren’t out tomcatting, so what happened?”

“Hey,” he said, offended. “I can tomcat. Did it just the other night.”

She snatched the knife out of the air and tossed it again. “Uh-huh.”

“Seriously.”

“You kill her?”

“A little.” He kicked his feet onto the coffee table. “But it wasn’t my fault. She was a mantis. Tried to eat me.”

Sin barked out a laugh. “Only you, bro. Only you.” She turned back to the TV and flipped off a guest talking about love and marriage. “So? The chick who kicked your ass hard enough to land you in the hospital?”

“She was defending my target,” Lore said carefully, because although the assignment was good news, he didn’t want Sin to know that her life could end if he failed.

“Freelance job?”

“No.”

She turned to him so fast he heard her neck crack. The blade in the air came down and embedded in the arm of the couch. “Are you serious? Lore? Are you f**king with me?” She hit the mute button on the remote, cutting off Ann Curry.

The rhythmic thump of his heartbeat in his ears filled the silence. “I’m dead serious.”

She squealed. His sister never squealed. “Oh, my God! I thought you’d say no. This is your hundredth, Lore. We’re almost free!” She splashed liquor into a shot glass with a shaky hand.

“Yup.”

“Okaaaay.” She put down her glass. “You don’t seem very excited.”

Shit. “I am. We’ve wanted this for decades, right?” Felt like centuries, though, since the day he’d agreed to a hundred kills in exchange for both his and Sin’s freedom.

“It’s the deadline, isn’t it?”

He blinked. “How do you know?”

“It was a guess, because I have one, too. A job. With an impossibly short deadline.”

Dread curdled the contents of Lore’s stomach. They’d never had to complete an assignment in under two weeks before. “What happens if you don’t make your deadline?”

Sin’s gaze skipped away, and she retrieved her knife.

“Sin?” Lore’s voice cracked. For the first time in a very long time, he was afraid. Not for himself, but for Sin, who had been through more than her fair share of misery in her life.

“He’ll sell me,” she said between clenched teeth. “He’ll hack off my arm so I can’t use it to kill, and sell me to the Neethuls.”

Oh, Jesus. Neethuls were an incredibly cruel race who bred, trained, and traded slaves… particularly sex slaves. Before being sold to Detharu, Sin had suffered as a slave who had to do anything her master wanted, from selling drugs to killing enemies, but the Neethuls would make what she’d gone through seem like a day at the beach.

“That won’t happen,” he swore. “I’ll help you take out your target. Who is it?”

“You have your own mark to deal with.” She tested the edge of her blade with her thumb. “What happens if you miss your deadline?”

“Nothing.”

Her gaze turned steely, silver shards against a black backdrop. “Bullshit. Tell me.”

“If I miss the deadline, Deth gets to double my time of service,” he lied.

She regarded him warily, as though trying to decide if he was telling the truth or not. She had a tendency to question everything, especially if it came from Lore, and he wondered if she’d ever fully trust him again.

“You won’t miss your deadline,” she said finally. “You never do. So what happened while you were trying to take out your mark? It’s not like you to get caught out like that.”

Outside the open window, the high-pitched warble of a bird sounded like laughter, which was fitting. “I got cocky.”

“Now that I believe,” she said wryly. “So who is it? Your mark?”

It was a question no assassin asked another—the risk of someone homing in on your kill and stealing it from under you was too great—but Lore and Sin had always shared deets. “Remember I told you about that human a**hole I brought back to life? It’s him. Should have left him dead, I guess.”

Sin’s grip on her knife tightened. “Ah… isn’t that guy friends with…” She trailed off, because she refused to say it. Our brothers.

“Yeah. It’s okay. I’ll handle it so they never find out it was me.” Doubt set her jaw in a stubborn line, so he steered the conversation away from Kynan and the potential trouble Lore was in. “What about you? Who’s your mark?”

Sin stretched out on the couch and tucked an arm behind her head. Dark circles under her half-lidded eyes revealed her exhaustion. “Some werewolf. Loner. Should be a quick in and out.”

Sounded like an easy enough hit for Sin, but still, the second Kynan was dead, Lore was going to help Sin with the werewolf, or warg, as they liked to be called. No way was she going to be sold to the Neethul.

A faint buzzing noise snagged his attention, and he heaved himself out of the chair to grab his cell phone from the scrub pants’ pocket. Figured it would be Eidolon. Again. Sighing, he opened up the message… and promptly stopped breathing.

Come to my apartment. Now. We need to discuss Kynan.

Five

Lore stood outside Eidolon’s door, unable to shake the feeling that he was walking into a trap. And yet, like a cat with a string dangling before it, he couldn’t resist.

But that didn’t mean he was a total chump. He’d play this to his advantage, would use this opportunity to learn anything he could about Kynan. Usually Lore had weeks to plan a hit, to educate himself about his marks’ jobs, friends, families, vulnerabilities, and habits, but the expiration date on this assignment was bearing down on him too fast for comfort and with extra complications, and the whole thing was about to go sour.

As he raised his fist to knock on the door, a tingling sensation prickled the back of his neck.

“Well, well,” a female voice purred. “Fancy seeing you here.”