“Can we go someplace else to talk about this? Some place where there aren’t a bunch of dead people staring at us?” Which included ghosts, because several had followed them down here even though they had a tendency to avoid places that reminded them they were dead.

They took the elevator back up, and Lore led her to an empty patient room. Regret and pain fluttered in Idess’s chest as she sank down on the bed. He prowled the room like a panther.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” His words came out as a gruff command, but she didn’t take offense. Anxiety was the driving force behind his tone, and she knew it.

“I don’t know how.”

“There’s nothing you can say that will make me angry or upset with you. You know that, right? Why don’t we just leave. Get out of this place. Go to some nice tropical island and drink rum and Cokes and roll around on the beach? Forget all this. God knows we could use a vacation.”

Tears stung her eyes. “I can’t leave here, Lore. Well, I can, but only to go to Sheoul.” She hugged herself, suddenly chilled. “I’ve been summoned, and if I go top-side, I’ll be taken.”

“Taken?”

“To Heaven.”

He went rigid, and his voice broke. “But you said you were ruined. That we had sex and—”

“I was wrong.” Her lie pounded as loudly as the pulse in her ears. She couldn’t tell him the truth, couldn’t let him mourn. She loved him too much for that.

“The right thing to say is congratulations, isn’t it? I’m supposed to say I’m happy for you, right?” He bowed his head, and his voice faltered. “What kind of a**hole am I that I’m not happy? What kind of selfish prick wants to grab you and beg you not to go?”

“Oh, Lore…” She leaped off the bed and held him so tight the air whooshed from his lungs. “I want to stay with you.”

“Is there… is there a way? I know I shouldn’t ask. I know I should be all noble and shit… but I’m not. I’m a selfish bastard, and… f**k. Just, f**k.”

In an attempt to stay calm, she ran her hands up and down his back, as if doing so grounded her and kept her from breaking into a million pieces. “I could hide out in the hospital for the rest of my life. That’s my only option.”

His big body shuddered. “Part of me would rather have you do that than leave me. But the other part of me can’t let you live like that. You’re too good for me, for that kind of life… God, Idess, when do you have to go?”

“Soon.” There was no point in dragging this out. If she did, it would only get harder and she might actually be tempted to ask Eidolon if she could rent out a room.

His chest heaved and his arms tightened around her. “What can I do to stop you? Or help you? Hell, I don’t know what I want.”

“I know what I want,” she whispered. “Make love to me. One more time.”

“Anything, angel.” Lore swept Idess up and carried her to the bed. Silently but quickly, he locked the door and stripped, first himself, and then her. He was gentle as he stretched out beside her, and his hands shook as he framed her face and kissed her. Tender lips caressed hers, slowly at first, and as the heat between them built, his kisses became more urgent. His hand trailed from her throat to her breast, and she hissed at the heady feel of his callused fingers petting her sensitive flesh with such finesse.

Moaning, she threw one leg over his hip, forcing him to slide between her thighs. His hard arousal rubbed against her sex, drawing a moan from him, too. And when he began to rock into her, sliding his shaft through her slick moisture and stroking her cl*t with every pump of his hips, they both gasped.

“I don’t want this to end,” he murmured against her lips. “Maybe we can do this forever. My brothers can bring us food, and we can just stay here like this.”

Tempting, so very tempting. She twined her hand in his and squeezed. “I need you inside me. Please. Now.”

He pushed up on one arm, the muscles bunching beneath his writhing dermoire. His gaze slammed into hers. “I love you. Never forget that. Never forget… me.”

He loved her. Emotion bubbled up in her throat, leaving her voice completely wrecked. “Never,” she rasped.

In a powerful surge, he entered her. They both cried out, and then he was thrusting, long, slow glides that went deep and then so shallow he nearly came free of her. But it wasn’t enough. She needed more of him inside her. She wanted to feel his emotions. For the first time, feeding was a desire, not a chore.

Swiping her tongue over her canines, she willed them to extend, and they did with a vengeance, punching painfully out of her gums.

“That is so sexy.” As if his body agreed, he pumped faster.

“Yeah?”

He tilted his head to the side, exposing his bronzed neck. “Yeah.”

Tangling her fingers in his hair, she pulled him down. His scent filled her nostrils, and her core went molten. A masculine purr erupted from him, and she knew he’d felt it, too.

She dragged her tongue along his jugular, once, twice, three times, because she would never tire of tasting him and she wanted this to last. Wanted to remember everything about him. His taste, his scent, even the way he breathed.

“Jesus, Idess. I could come from that.”

“Mmm.” She licked him again, smiling at the way he sucked a breath between his teeth. “Can’t have that.” Mouth watering, she sank her fangs into him.

Her mouth filled with his silky, dark essence, and her body filled with power. The weird sensation she’d felt before, the one that felt as if someone was drawing his dermoire pattern on her skin with a pen, started up again. And every emotion he had punched into her… love, joy, despair. But mostly lust, and her body answered.

Between her legs, an erotic storm gathered, building like thunderheads in the spring. Lore’s body seemed to have a mind of its own as long as her teeth were in him, as if he felt her need and could only respond to it. Relieve it.

“Ah, yes… Idess… I… can’t… stop…”

As if she wanted him to! She wanted more. Harder. Faster. She wanted to be sore and aching, so that every step she took on the Other Side would remind her of him.

Bond with me.

He’d mentioned wanting to do that before they’d gone to battle with Rami.

Bond with me.

Oh, she wanted that. But when the Memitim Council destroyed her, he’d know when he felt the bond break.

“Bond with me!”

With a start, she realized he was speaking out loud. His words weren’t in her head. Lightning from the strengthening tempest ripped through her, turning her blood to fuel and setting her body on fire. She was drunk with Lore’s very essence, and his command to bond became a compulsion she couldn’t fight.

“Your blood,” he panted. “Give it to me.”

Disengaging her fangs, she sealed the wound with her tongue. High on the overload of physical and emotional sensation, she bit into her wrist and pressed it to his mouth. Greedily, he latched on as he tightened the knot of his right hand and her left.

Burning, pulsing energy washed over her. The sharp blast of her orgasm shattered her. And her soul crashed into his, twisting and spinning until there was only ecstasy.

When it was over, he collapsed on top of her, though he braced his upper body on his elbows to keep from completely crushing her.

For a long time, they just lay there, panting and sweating. She barely had the strength to lift her wrist to her mouth to seal the punctures she’d made. Tingles ran up her other arm. Frowning, she rolled her head to the side.

“Lore?”

“Mmm?”

“My arm.”

He lifted his head from where he’d buried his face in the crook of her shoulder. “Shit,” he breathed. “We really did it. My dermoire is setting into your skin.”

“How did you know what to do?”

“Dunno.” His fingers trailed over the shadowy pattern that pulsed just beneath her skin, and she sucked air. Wow. Erogenous zone. Big-time. “Instinct, I guess. It just… took over.” He went taut, and she felt his fear right in her heart. “We shouldn’t have done it. What if your angel buddies see it? Being bonded to a demon has to be some sort of disqualifier for the job.”

No, breaking her vow of chastity with a demon had already done that. “It’s fine.” She smiled reassuringly, because the doubt in his eyes said he wasn’t buying it. “But I should go.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Just a little longer.”

She touched his face, committing every angle, every curve, every pore to memory. “It’s time.”
* * *

More than three dozen spirits waited for Idess at the emergency room doors. They rushed her, but she did her best to ignore them as she walked hand in hand with Lore, who had been silent since they left the room. His eyes were swollen with unshed tears, and his jaw was tight, as though he was afraid to open his mouth, lest sobs fall out.

She knew exactly how he felt, and not just because of the bond.

Her steps were leaden as they walked through the parking lot, the herd of ghosts on their tail. When they reached the far wall, he finally spoke.

“What’s going to happen?”

“I need the gate to open.”

He nodded and shouted at the medic who had accompanied them to Shade’s cave. “Yo! Con! I need you to open the vehicle entrance.”

The medic climbed into the ambulance, and he must have hit a switch, because the wall shimmered and disappeared as it had before. Outside, the column of light waited. And beyond it, on a different level, was a bluish, less-focused glow. It was the one waiting for the human souls. They stood there, confused… apparently unable to see the light from inside the lot.

“Come with me.” She led them to the gate, careful not to get too close to her own light. Not yet. “Go now.” All but one of them filed out the door and straight into the glow, which swallowed them up in little flashes.