Then, suddenly, he went airborne. Conall stood next to her, fists clenched, fangs elongated. He had a faint, satisfied smile on his face, and if she hadn’t been in so much pain, she’d have thought it was hot.

Marasco hit a tree with enough force to splinter the trunk, but he landed on all fours and charged again. Sin launched the dagger, which had tasted his blood and would now seek him out, and never miss. It struck his chest dead center. Shock flashed in Marasco’s eyes as he stumbled. He stayed on his feet, still pushing forward, but he’d lost his momentum and, staggering, he lost his hold on his lion form.

Now human, he collapsed, rolling to his side, blood gushing from his chest and his mouth. Dropping his medic bag, Con kneeled next to him. Sin cursed. Con was seriously going to pull some paramedic shit—

He twisted the knife. Marasco moaned through clenched teeth, too well trained and conditioned to react much to any kind of torture.

“Tell me who you’re working with,” Con said coldly, but Sin knew the lion wasn’t giving anything up, for the same reason he wasn’t screaming in agony.

“Go… to… hell.” Marasco’s golden eyes glazed over, and his chest stopped moving, and instantly, something popped painfully in her chest as the assassin bond with him broke.

Con yanked the blade out of the lion-shifter’s body. “We gotta go.”

“We need to double back to the house.” She took the dagger from him and wiped it on the dead shifter’s jeans. “I want to see who he was working with—” She leaped to her feet as the sound of… hoofbeats?… thundered in her ears.

Con cursed. “Now.”

He dragged her by the arm to the Harrowgate. She barely had time to steady herself before he threw her inside the capsule-like room and dove in after her. As the hazy curtain formed to seal them in, an arrow punched through the hardening veil, whispered across Sin’s cheek, and pierced the wall between Australia and New Zealand on the Earth map.

“Who the hell was that?” she yelled, as Con slapped his palm on the glowing map. It burst into a dozen neon-colored lines that were etched into all four of the obsidian walls. “It’s not one of your guys?” He tapped Europe, and the continent grew larger as the others vanished. He kept tapping it out until he pinpointed somewhere in Romania. The door shimmered open, and she turned to grab the arrow—often weapons gave away clues as to their owners’ identities—but it was gone. Son of a bitch. Who the hell used dissolving arrows? She’d never even heard of them.

“None of my assassins shoot disappearing arrows from horseback.” Which could mean that good old King Arthur was from another assassin den. Dammit! She’d known there was a possibility that her guys would get others involved, but the reality… well, she hated to admit it, but their fierce desire to see her dead stung. And now she was truly f**ked.

She stepped out of the Harrowgate and into a dismal, cold, gray day. She thought it might be afternoon, but it was hard to tell, since the sun was hidden behind the thick clouds and fog. “Where are we going?”

“A warg stronghold.” Con swung around. “Test my virus levels.”

She bristled. “A please would be nice.” At his glare, she huffed. “Fine.” She gripped his wrist, charged up her gift, and probed his blood. “You just fed, so levels are really low.” “I’m still going to be careful.” His tone turned wry. “So no unnecessary biting, screwing, or bleeding on anyone.”

“Do you regularly bleed on people?”

He dropped his medic bag next to the Harrowgate. “You’re a ball of laughs, you know that?” He took off along a grassy, worn trail, leaving her to follow. “Hey,” she called to him. “I’m known throughout the assassin community as a funny person.” Con missed a step. “See? That was funny.” Better if he’d fallen on his face, but she’d take what she could get.

He ignored her, kept walking, though they didn’t go far. They were, apparently, near the base of a mountain range and down in a fog-shrouded valley. Sin could make out a walled town where the mists thinned. From what she could see, only one poorly maintained road ran to and from the village. Clearly, no one came here who wasn’t either lost or actively seeking the town.

“What is this place?”

“We’re near Moldavia. The ancestral birthplace of born wargs.” Con’s long strides ate up the ground, one step for her two. “This village is the home of the largest pricolici pack in the world.” “Bespelled?”

“Of course.”

Like many supernatural beings who lived in the human realm, the wargs had enchanted their city with the same type of magic that encased UG’s ambulances. Most humans would either pass by the town without noticing it, or they’d be repelled by a feeling of deep sadness. The few who made it inside probably wouldn’t be there for long.

“So, do only pricolici live here?”

“Mostly. Varcolac can come and go, but they can’t live in a pricolici town unless they’re mated to a pack member.” Sin and Con approached the main gate, an arched entrance in the wall, and Sin was not surprised to see a tall, broad-shouldered male standing just outside it, his stance casual, almost lethargic, but his shrewd eyes missed nothing. This would be a scout, a pack member assigned to alert others to an intruder. Though he wouldn’t stop Sin and Con, she knew he’d broadcast their arrival the moment they were out of sight—if he hadn’t already.

Before they reached the gate, Con halted. “Have you ever been inside a pricolici village?” “No. Why?”

He glanced down what appeared to be the main street, which was mostly deserted. But Sin sensed activity all around, and she didn’t believe for a moment that the streets weren’t being watched. “Do you have any of the same limitations as male Sems? If you sense arousal in someone, are you compelled to relieve it?”

“No, thank God.” That had been an interesting revelation about her purebred brothers. Before they’d taken mates, they’d been slaves to sexual desire on a scale that made her issues seem minuscule. Like her, they needed sex to survive, but they’d also been forced to satisfy a female’s lust whenever they felt it, which meant that in public places like pubs, they could be trapped for days.

“Good. Then stay close and don’t make eye contact with anyone unless I’ve introduced you to them. No one, got it?”

“I can take care of myself.” “No doubt about that. But I don’t think even you can fight off a pack of horny males, or females who would see you as a threat. And since they’ll be able to sense the demon in you, you’ll be fair game.”

“I said—”

“Yeah, you said. But I’ve seen wargs rip others apart with their bare hands. You upset the pack, we’re both dead.”

So, Con turned out to be right. The scent of sex entered Sin’s lungs like an aphrodisiac, warming her from the inside, while the feel of it in the air shimmered over her skin. She felt drugged, loose, completely dreamy. The tendrils of mist swirling around their feet as they walked up the center of the medieval-like town only added to the surreal texture of the world they’d entered.

“Con?” She brushed up against him, intentionally, and groaned at the feel of his hard body against hers. “Maybe I should wait outside the wall.” She’d been inside brothels, harems, and orgies and never had she encountered anything so raw, so intense. It was as if the village itself seethed with primal instincts and hungers that were never sated.

Con must have felt it, too—the evidence made an impressive bulge in the front of his jeans. “You’ll be vulnerable out there,” he muttered. “We’ll hurry.” He took her hand and led her along the main thoroughfares, where a few people kept to the sidewalks and glass shop fronts revealed people inside the pubs, stores, and eateries. Oddly, Sin realized they’d been passed by only a couple of vehicles. Even odder, every now and then she caught sight of couples screwing in alleys and side streets. Some were clothed, some na**d, some in various states of undress. And…

“Is this a g*y village?”

“No.”

“Then why is most of the action male on male?”

“Pricolici are horny,” he said roughly, as he dragged her past a couple who seemed to be doing their best to prove Con’s point. “Especially during their teen-human-equivalent years, which extend into around their fiftieth year. You know how male dogs will hump anything?”

Right now she’d hump anything… She gulped. “Yeah.” “It’s pretty much the same with young, unmated male wargs. The females are less insane with lust at that age, so the males burn off their excess testosterone with fights and sex. Usually both at the same time.”

“Which explains why a lot of them are bloody.”

“Winner does the loser.”

Speaking of which, she watched in morbid fascination as two young males beat the crap out of each other, until one knocked the other to the ground and mounted him. The loser immediately stopped fighting, and the sudden expression of pleasure on his face, as well as his stiff cock, said this wasn’t a rape situation at all.

“Are there any rules here?”

He tugged her to get her moving again. “Can’t f**k, fight, or walk na**d on main roads or in places like restaurants, where humans might accidentally go if they find their way into the town.” The human in her appreciated the need for rules, but the sex demon in her wanted to get down and dirty, right in the middle of the town square, just to cause a little trouble and shake things up. She shuddered at the thought, felt a wet rush between her legs, and started toward the fountain. As if Con knew what she was up to, he let out a low, erotic growl, squeezed her hand, and dragged her from the square.

They ducked down a side street—and ran into three fighting males. Fascinated and wondering how that was going to end, Sin stopped, digging in her heels when Con tried to force her away. She didn’t get a chance to see how the males were going to settle the battle and sex, because Con grabbed her by the waist and hauled her out of there. She’d have fought him, but… yeah, it just felt too good to have his arms around her.