“What’s up?” Wraith said, taking a seat. Mickey chattered indignantly and scrambled onto his T-shirted shoulder, then draped himself around Wraith’s neck like a fur stole.

“I think we’ve found a way to save your life.”

Wraith’s pulse went double-time, but he forced himself to stay level. What E had just said sounded great, but there was still a serious set to his mouth, so something wasn’t all blood and fun here. “Lay it on me.”

“You’re going to have to steal a charm from someone.”

“A charm? Like a dangly little bracelet thing?”

“Not exactly,” Shade said. “This charm is a divine blessing that makes the recipient immune to harm. You’ll have to take it from the owner.”

Wraith narrowed his eyes at Shade. “Something tells me that stealing this charm won’t be as easy as getting up an Orgesu’s skirt.”

“Depends on how you look at it.” Shade shifted on the couch, his leather pants squeaking on the cushions. “I mean, it involves sex.”

“Well, then, things are looking up. So what’s the challenge?”

Shade exchanged glances with Eidolon before saying, “Ah, well… you’ll have to seduce the owner. The charm can only be transferred through sex. Willing sex. Obviously, if she’s charmed, she can’t be forced.”

“Seduction isn’t a problem.” Hell, no. Females came to him willingly. At least, they had until he’d gone through s’genesis and gained the facial markings that flashed warnings to all demon things female. Now he had to resort to trickery to get laid.

If he were like every other mature Seminus demon on the planet, the deception wouldn’t bother him. Thanks for the human DNA, mommy dearest. The human part of him hated being unable to have sex in his true form, hated having to resort to tricks to get a female to lay with him. The demon part of him required it.

“Hold up.” Wraith had been petting Mickey, but now he froze, his hand hovering over the weasel’s spine. “There’s a catch, isn’t there? There’s always a catch.”

E nodded. Stalled. Finally blurted, “She’s human.”

Wraith rocked backward, earning a sharp scold from Mickey. “No.”

“Wraith—”

“I said, no!” He swore, robustly, in several languages. “What kind of f**ked-up charm-release spell requires sex?” Unless… oh, shit. “She’s a virgin, isn’t she? Damn it to Hades, she’s a f**king virgin.” E said nothing, which was confirmation enough. Wraith shoved to his feet. “Not only no, but f**k no. In fact, let me count the ways I can say no.” He started to tick off his fingers, but Shade stood, slowly, as if he was afraid sudden movement would make Wraith bolt.

“Bro. Chill. It’s no big deal. Once it’s done, you’ll be charmed, and the Seminus Council won’t be able to punish you. Even if they could, it’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad? It took E a full day to recover after he popped that hippie chick’s cherry.”

Deflowering humans was forbidden for most species of demons, and E had accidentally taken a woman’s virginity nearly fifty years ago. Guardian angels were serious tattletales, and E had been forced to endure a severe flaying by Seminus Council members.

Wraith’s reluctance to take a virgin had little to do with the punishment, and both his brothers knew it. “I swore I would never screw a human again, let alone a virgin—”

“I know,” E interrupted. “But this is life or death.”

Flashes of the past blinked in his head, the years he’d spent in a cage, held there by his own evil mother. Innocent female humans had been stripped and tossed into his cage after their virginity had been taken—brutally—by the vampires who had brought them to him. Vamps, since they were technically human, weren’t subject to the can’t-deflower-virgins rule. So they’d gotten off on waiting until Wraith was nearly mad with lust, and then they’d raped the females in front of him, tossed them in the cage, and sat back to watch and wait.

Even now, eighty years later, he still broke out in a cold sweat when he thought about it. Going through the s’genesis was supposed to have made him forget. Not care. No such luck.

“Who is this chick? Why is she charmed?” Wraith paced, trying desperately to outrace his nervous energy. “And how did you find her?”

E closed the book he’d been reading. “Long story. But between Gem, Reaver, and Tayla’s Aegis connections, we were able to get a bead on Serena.”

Mickey nuzzled Wraith’s ear, as though trying to comfort him. “I wouldn’t think information like that would be available to Aegis grunts.”

“Tay isn’t exactly a grunt.” E leaned back in his desk chair, looking annoyed.

No, Tayla was definitely more than a grunt. She headed up the New York City cell of slayers, and since taking command, the demon body count had gone down, and so had demon-on-human violence. A fragile truce had been declared between the New York cell and peaceful demons, which left the slayers more time to concentrate on taking out the harmful species. In addition, the friendly demons were more willing to give up intel. The symbiotic relationship had worked well so far, but with the unrest in the demon underworld lately, Guardian-demon relations were once again on shaky ground.

Wraith rubbed his palm over his face. “I don’t like this. I need to think about it.”

“You don’t have time,” E said. “And there’s something else you need to know.” He trailed his finger along the gold-embossed spine of the book in front of him. “She was bitten by a Mara before she was charmed. After you take her, the disease will progress rapidly, and she’ll die.”

Wraith paused mid-step. “What?” He looked at Shade. Then E. Then Shade again. “This is such bullshit. I’m not doing this.”

“You have to—”

“No!”

E stood, knocking his chair into the wall and startling Mange to his feet. “Then you doom the hospital.”

“What the f**k are you talking about?”

Eidolon planted his fists on the desk and leaned forward, nailing Wraith to the wall with the intensity of his gaze. “We built it with our blood, sweat, and tears.”

Literally. When the foundation had been laid, each of them had given up one of the elements in order to make the hospital strong, enchanted, and undetectable to humans. Wraith had given his blood. E, tears. Shade, sweat.

“Yeah, and?”

Shade scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t believe we didn’t see this coming.”

“See what?” Wraith snapped, at the end of his patience.

“Our life forces are bound to the hospital,” E said softly. “You’re dying.…”

Ah, f**k. Wraith exhaled slowly. “So the hospital is dying. That’s why strange shit is happening there.”

“Yeah.”

Nausea rolled through him. “Is that also why it’s running half-staffed?”

E shook his head. “Whatever is shaking up the underworld is shaking up the staff. They aren’t showing up for shifts. Quitting. They’re terrified. Things are a mess. And, oddly enough, it all coincides with the charmed human’s appearance on the scene.”

“Dammit,” Wraith breathed. He might not give a crap about much, but the hospital had given him a purpose in life, at a time when he’d been directionless and self-destructive. Not that he wasn’t those things now, but he’d mellowed a lot. He was probably still alive only because of his brothers and the hospital.

More important, it meant the world to E and Shade. More than anything except their mates and Shade’s offspring. Wraith might not give a shit about his own life, but he couldn’t let the hospital die just because he didn’t want to bang and kill a human.

He was really a piss-poor excuse for a demon.

It was time to let that particular childhood trauma go. If he didn’t, his mother would win. She’d wanted him dead from the moment he was born, thanks to the horror his father had inflicted on her. Not that Wraith could blame her—she’d been a human on the verge of turning into a vampire when his father had raped her, then kept her just this side of alive with the same gift Shade possessed. For nine months he’d kept her in a horrible stasis, raping and abusing her until she gave birth.

Not surprisingly, she’d gone insane. His father had taken off after he was born, as all unmated Seminus demons did—although usually they abandoned the female immediately after sex and conception.

His mother had completed her transformation into a vampire, becoming vicious as well as insane, and had taken out her anger on Wraith. He’d fought to live, and though he’d done some incredibly stupid things to get himself killed as an adult, something deep inside always kept fighting.

So f**k it. He was going to live. He was going to find the charmed human, take what he needed, and rock on.

And once he was nicely charmed and invincible, he was going to start taking out vampires in a way he’d wanted to do since he’d broken free of his cage. Starting with the Vamp Council.

Oh, yeah. Let the good times roll.

Wraith’s plan to find and seduce the human woman hit a roadblock right away

The fancy shmancy New Haven mansion where she lived was warded against demons.

For hours, Wraith was forced to lurk in the woods that hugged the expansive and well-tended grounds, but when a middle-aged man came out, loaded his Mercedes with luggage, and climbed behind the wheel, Wraith struck.

He tore across the paved drive and slipped into the back seat.

“What the—” The man’s breath cut off as Wraith’s arm went around his neck. The guy flailed, landing a blow on Wraith’s chin before Wraith wrenched his head between his palms. A second later, Wraith was using his Seminus gift to get inside the dude’s mind and do a little probing.

The man, Valeriu, possessed some impressive mental blocks that hindered Wraith, but not for long. Soon, he learned that Serena had left for Egypt the night before, and that she was supposed to collect some sort of key from a man named Josh in… shit, an hour.