“Shit.” He took her hand and forced her to jog through the streets, using the main thoroughfares as much as possible. Crazily, the faster they moved, the hotter she got. It was as if each step ramped her up even more, and by the time they reached the town square, she’d unbuttoned her top and was so ready for Con’s hands to be on her. Unable to wait another second, she jerked him to a stop. The potent scents of desire and danger rolled off him, swirled inside her, and she swayed, reaching out to brace herself against him.

“Sin… no. Don’t touch me.” His eyes were wild, glinting with shards of lust. “I’m going to… lose control. I’ll take you right here.”

Panting, her body tingling with awareness, she ran her palms up his stomach, skimming his pecs until she reached his broad shoulders. “I wouldn’t mind—”

A rough sound erupted from his throat, and lightning fast, he snared her wrists and held them away from him and against her own chest. “I will not cheapen you.” She laughed, but the sound was hoarse. “Cheapen? Seriously? With the things I’ve done, I can’t get any cheaper.” Surprise flickered in his eyes, and she realized she’d revealed a hell of a lot more about herself than she had intended. More than she ever had, to anyone. She ran her foot up his calf, as much as a distraction as because she was on the verge of jumping him. “And for Hell’s sake, you did me in a freaking supply closet on a bet. How is this different?”

A shadow crossed his face, almost as though the reminder brought him shame, and no doubt it did; at the time, he’d implied that he’d lowered his standards to service her needs. He shifted away from her foot. “You’re bitter, little demon. Your past must have a hell of a choke hold on you.”

“Fuck you,” she said, but even to her own ears it sounded more like an offer than a kiss-off. “You don’t know anything.”

Clenching his teeth, he set her away from him. “I know that I’ll never take you in public, even in a place where public sex is normal and accepted.”

She raised her chin. “Maybe it’s normal for me.”

“I don’t doubt that it is.” The tone of his voice was na**d, utterly lacking in the kind of judgment that should have accompanied what he’d said. “But I do doubt that you want it to be.” Damn him. Damn him for somehow looking into her soul and reading her like a damned book. Her eyes stung as she spun around and headed for the town gate.

“Sin.” She ignored him. “Sin!” This time, his sharp tone penetrated, along with a raising of her hackles, and she stopped. All around her, young males were watching, their eyes gleaming with hunger. Where had they come from? And why were they looking at her like that when they could be f**king each other?

“Con?” she asked quietly. “What’s going on?”

“They’ve sensed your arousal,” he murmured. “And your anger. They intend to have you.”

Nine

This was not good. Sin might as well be a female warg in heat, and few males would back down from that. Baring his fangs in warning, Con wrapped his palm around the back of Sin’s neck. Unlike Dante’s hold on Sable, this wasn’t a domination thing; it was a sign to the advancing males that she was his, and they’d have to go through him to get her.

His. No, she definitely wasn’t his and would never be. Even if he weren’t destined for an isolated life with his clan, he couldn’t see himself tied to her—at least, not in a nonerotic way. And yet, he was vibrating with a startling, possessive fury, and he was still drowning in hunger so intense he could hardly see straight.

A couple of the younger males hesitated, but the more aggressive, dominant males continued to stalk them, the gleam of lust—and bloodlust—glowing in their eyes. The air was thick, drenched with violent anticipation, and Con’s skin tightened, preparing for an unwelcome shift into his beast form.

“Back slowly toward the gate,” Con said, his voice slurred by both need and the fact that his fangs had filled his mouth. “Don’t draw a weapon. And for all that’s unholy, button your shirt.” Damn, he’d been afraid of this. Sin was a magnet for trouble. How had she managed to survive this long? One of the youngsters lunged. Con knocked him back with a powerful blow to the jaw. Yelping, the kid wheeled back into the crowd. The display instilled a little respect into the others, and the distance between Con and Sin and the mob increased.

They had almost arrived at the wall when Sin’s harsh whisper cut through the fog. “The gate is closed.”

Son of a—Con risked a glance over his shoulder at the sentry, whose hungry gaze was fixed on Sin. “I freaking hate pack mentality,” he muttered. “I have an idea.” Sin broke away from him before he could stop her. A couple of males started to give chase, their instinctive prey drives activating at the sight of their target darting away. Con leaped in front of them with a bloodcurdling snarl that brought them up short. He’d kill them, and they knew it.

He angled his body so he could keep an eye on the horny males while checking out what Sin was doing, and he damned near swallowed his tongue.

The way the sentry was swallowing Sin’s. The guy had her pinned against the wall, his h*ps grinding into her as his hands clawed at her top. A wild, primitive rage spewed like molten lava through Con’s veins. Seeing any female being savaged angered him, but he could still feel Sin’s blood rushing through him, could still feel her as part of him, and the word “mine” was a faint buzz in his head.

But did he want her, or did he want her blood? Both were dangerous desires, and he needed to get over himself real damned fast. Suddenly, the sentry jerked away. Sin kept a grip on his wrist, her expression calm, cool… but her eyes flashed black fire. She said something, and he doubled over, losing his breakfast on the cobblestones. Though his movements were jerky, he withdrew an iron key from his pocket, jammed it into a panel on the wall, and the thick wood-and-iron gate clattered open, its hinges creaking in protest.

The pack of males rushed the gate, blocking the exit, but out of nowhere, a furious roar cut through the fog.

“Let them go!” Con let out a curse, looked up to see Valko standing on the wall walk. The Warg Council leader pointed at the group of males, and they tucked tail and slunk away like scolded curs. Con might be grateful to Valko for the save, but he didn’t need the guy asking questions about why he was there. Fortunately, Valko merely gave Con a slow, meaningful nod, one that made it clear that Con owed him, and then he took off, heading toward the north wall tower.

Quickly, Con grabbed Sin’s hand and got them the hell out of town, and they kept going until they reached the Harrowgate.

“Who was the dude on the wall?” she asked when they’d stopped. “Head of the Warg Council. That was his town. His pack.” Con still didn’t like the timing of Valko’s appearance on the wall, even though it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Valko would have been alerted to the arrival of visitors. “So what did you do to the guard?”

“I gave him Khileshi cockfire.” An impish grin lit her expression. Gods, she was gorgeous when she smiled like that. “Told him his dick would shrivel up and burn off if he didn’t open the gate.” “I thought you can’t cure a disease once you give it.”

“I can’t.” Her eyes glinted with mischief that matched her smile as she made a show of studying her fingernails. “He’ll be making an emergency trip to UG.”

It was his turn to grin. “Nice.” He drank in the sight of her standing proudly on the hill, her gaze feral, fierce, her raven hair catching the wind and swirling around her face and shoulders. As a sex demon, she hadn’t been bred to fight, but there was something inside her that was a warrior. Maybe her human ancestry gave her that edge, or maybe it was her hard life, but something called to his own warrior blood and consumed him from the inside out.

He wanted to take her to the ground, drive into her in a mating that would be as wild as the mountains in the background. He’d mark her with his scent, his come, his teeth… Holy hell, he needed to stop thinking about his fangs in her throat. He searched his memory, trying to remember if this was the way it had been with Eleanor, the only female he’d ever drunk to addiction. He recalled obsession with her blood, hunger that hurt, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the insane need for sex.

Slowly, Sin’s smile faded, and she spat in the dirt. “I don’t think that guard has brushed his teeth in a year.”

He had the strangest impulse to put his mouth on hers, to kiss her until she burned and tasted only Con.

Clearly, they were too close to the warg village, and he was still feeling the effects of the inhabitants’ animal natures.

“Why are they like that anyway?” she asked. “I thought wargs were a little more… civilized.” He glanced back at the village, where the gate had opened again, and the sentry was standing just outside, watching them through the thinning mist. “Born wargs really are wolves in human clothing. It’s why they live apart from humans. You’ll never find a pricolici living in a city with them. They also are fully aware of what they do while in animal form, and they generally won’t kill humans because they’re smart enough not to want to expose themselves to the human race. It’s one of the reasons they want to exterminate turned wargs. The varcolac are a risk.”

“Well, they didn’t seem to have any trouble with killing me.”

“You aren’t human.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” she muttered.

He couldn’t help it—he reached out and tucked a tendril of her unruly hair behind her ear. “You don’t accept what you are, do you?”

“I don’t know what I am,” she said, stepping out of his reach.

He let his hand fall back to his side. “How can you be as old as you are and not know?” Con knew very well what he was, and he’d long ago accepted it, even if he wasn’t always thrilled about it. She shrugged. “I thought I did know. Before, we were just half-breed mongrels with no idea what kind of demon we really were. We had no expectations. Then Lore and I found our brothers. Now we know our demon, but not what it means. We know what Seminus demons are, but it doesn’t do any good because the rules don’t apply to us.”