“But you’re here now, and you’re in our lives. So what happens when the plague is over and you don’t need to come to the hospital anymore?” Wraith stepped closer, using his size in an attempt to intimidate her. “Will you disappear?”

She wrenched her neck to look up at him, but no way was she backing down. “That’s the plan.”

A low growl rumbled in his chest. “I couldn’t give a hellrat’s ass, but my brothers? Different story. Lore worries about you. E has accepted you into the family, and he’s not going to let you go. Shade… he lost a sister he loved, and now he needs you to help him heal. He probably doesn’t see that, but even as dense as I am sometimes, I see it. So guess what, little sister? Get used to having me around because I’m going to be your shadow until I’m sure you won’t hurt our family.”

Sin practically shook with rage. “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” she spat. “And I’m not your ‘little’ sister. I’m older than you are, dickhead.”

“Duh, the years you spent as a clueless human don’t count. Everyone knows that.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Just remember what I said. Don’t try to run away, because there is no place on Earth or in Sheoul where I can’t find you.” His voice was a rumbling, deadly murmur. “And trust me, you don’t want me on your heels.” He did a crisp about-face on the ball of his foot and took off down the hall, leaving her spitting mad and tempted to go after him, though she had no idea what she’d do if she caught up to him.

“Sin!” Eidolon gestured to her from the double swinging doors to the ER. “I need you. Now.”

Sin mentally flipped off Wraith and hurried after Eidolon, who didn’t even wait to see if she was following. He crossed to a room near the parking lot doors and flung back the heavy curtain.

There, lying in a bed, was a tawny-haired male, a teenager, maybe, his skin ashen in the few places where it wasn’t mottled by black bruises, blood leaking from his nose, eyes, and ears. Machines breathed for him, pumped fluids into his veins, monitored his vital signs. A young, humanoid nurse—a shifter of some sort, according to the star-shaped mark behind her ear—checked his status, her face pinched with concern.

Sin wanted to throw up. “Was he in an accident?”

“That’s what this disease does.” Eidolon lifted the patient’s chart from a hook at the end of the bed. “It’s a VHF, a viral hemorrhagic fever. It causes multisystem failure, including the vascular system. Organs break down, and veins basically dissolve. The patient bleeds from all orifices—”

“ Stop.” Horrified, Sin stumbled back a step, bumping into a cabinet behind her. God, what had she done?

Eidolon gestured to the nurse. “Vladlena, can we get a minute?”

“Of course, Doctor.”

Once she was gone, Eidolon gripped Sin’s shoulders. “Sin,” Eidolon said, his tone much kinder than she deserved. “I need your help. I need you to channel your gift into him and see if you can force the virus into compliance.”

“I’ve already tried with that other warg a few days ago. It didn’t work, and he wasn’t nearly as bad off as this guy.”

“I know. And this might not work either. But you’ve had a chance to see how the virus in Con’s blood was killed. If you can cause a similar reaction inside this warg, he might have a chance.”

“Dammit,” she breathed. “Okay. Yeah.” She curled her hands into fists in an effort to keep from trembling. It had been decades since anything had affected her so strongly, and she wasn’t sure how to deal with it other than by burying her emotions down deep, the way she’d always done.

Bucking up, she gently gripped the warg’s blackened, swollen hand. “Why so bruised?”

“He’s bleeding subdermally as his capillaries rupture.”

Dear God. She closed her eyes, digging for every ounce of stone-cold detachment she had. She’d been a killer for years, had been to hell and back—literally—and she’d seen much, much worse than this.

She just hadn’t caused it.

“Why can’t he drink my blood like Con did?” She opened her eyes and shifted her gaze to Eidolon, the walls, the floor, because anything was better than staring at the dying kid. “I mean, I know wargs normally don’t drink blood, but wouldn’t that provide some sort of defense?”

“It worked on Con because he’s part vampire, and the blood he took from you went nearly immediately into his bloodstream. For anyone else, the blood goes into their stomach and is digested or regurgitated.”

Ick. “Can you inject my blood into them?”

“Even if your human blood type were the same as the victim’s, you’re part demon. Injecting your blood directly into a werewolf would kill him.”

Numbly, she nodded. Forced herself to look down at the boy, because he deserved that, at least. Slowly, so slowly, her mental walls finally slammed into place, blocking off the horror, the sorrow, the guilt. Oh, it would all come out again, painfully so, but right now, she needed to put up the shields that would allow her to handle this.

Concentrating, she opened herself up to her ability, and heat ripped down her arm from her shoulder to her fingertips, following the curves and lines of her dermoire. It glowed as her gift channeled into the werewolf.

The disease rolled over her, a dirty sludge of information that made her arm and mind heavy. In her head, the visuals swirled—she could see the twisted, squiggly virus strings wrapped around blood cells, squeezing the life out of them. The shape of the virus strands were different than the ones in Con, but she visualized the way Con’s virus had been destroyed, and then she blasted the warg with power. Stinging gooseflesh prickled from her shoulder to her fingertips, as she imagined reversing the disease, taking it back to its beginning stages.

Nothing happened.

She concentrated harder. Sweat beaded on her brow.

Still nothing.

Breathing deeply, she unleashed the full force of her power, until it felt as though her arm were wrapped in electric fencing. Inside her skull, a hive of angry bees buzzed. Distantly, she heard Eidolon calling her name. Her eyes stung as sweat dripped into them.

Feedback streamed up her dermoireand into her head… Something was happening. The werewolf’s blood cells vibrated, and all around them, the virus strands broke apart. First, it was just a few, but suddenly, they were exploding like popcorn. Tiny bits of the virus rushed through the vessels.

Encouraged, Sin probed the male’s network of veins and arteries, and everywhere, the enemy was being destroyed. Yes!This had been so easy, such a great fix, and as her mind’s eye played the scene in high-def, she smiled.

The virus shreds ran thick through his bloodstream… so thick that they began to pile up, clinging the walls of the arteries… clogging at the narrows.

Oh, shit. Sin dialed back her power and shifted the visuals to the area around his heart. Suddenly, beeping alarms and a flurry of activity surrounded her. She caught a glimpse of the warg’s heart squeezing, then stopping, the veins and arteries around it flattening as they became clogged.

Someone tore her away, and she stood there, dazed and in disbelief, as Eidolon and half a dozen staff members worked to save the warg. Idess, Lore’s mate and an ex-angel who had been given the task of escorting human souls out of the hospital, entered the room, which was a very, very bad sign. Turned werewolves had human souls, so if Idess was there…

Sickened and shaking, Sin didn’t know how long she watched, but when Eidolon cursed violently and called the time of death, she walked out of the room like a zombie, unsure where she was going or what she was doing. All she knew was that her right arm itched, a warning sign that she was about to bleed.

“Sin! Stop!” Eidolon stepped in front of her, and when he raised his hand, she braced herself for a punishing blow. But instead of striking her, he gripped her shoulders, forcing her to stop. “It wasn’t your fault. He was going to die anyway.”