There wasn’t enough room in the aisle between the bench seat and the stretcher to let her up even if he wanted to. “I’m going to start the engine and get us out of here. Stay down.”

She didn’t argue, miracle of miracles, and he eased himself off of her, backing slowly on his hands and knees toward the opening between the box section of the rig and the cab. He paused at the tiny doorway and listened, allowing his superior hearing to search out anything out of the ordinary. All he picked up were the normal sounds of a city. Tires on asphalt, honking horns, humans chatting as they funneled in and out of subway stations. There was nothing that might indicate the number of assailants outside the ambulance.

He peered into the cab and saw a male demon just outside the driver’s window. Shit. He eased back. “Nightlash at the front.”

“Sparkly pink ring in his nose?”

Con did a double take. “Yeah. Real manly.”

“It’s Zeph.” She eased to her hands and knees. “The one out back will be a Ramreel named Trag. They’re partners. Never work alone.”

“Your assassins?”

She snared her pants and jammed her legs into them. “Bastards.”

“So that’s a yes.” Con blew out a breath. “I thought you didn’t recognize the voice.”

“Trag is an expert at disguising it. But the good news is that I know how they work.” She’d produced a throwing knife, and she held it loosely in her fingers, ready to throw. “They probably don’t know about the Haven spell, but they don’t plan to come inside to kill me anyway. If you don’t shove me outside, they’ll bust open the doors and use ranged weapons to kill me.”

“Guns?”

“Doubtful. More likely they’ll use poison darts or fireballs.”

“You have fifteen seconds,” the male near the rear doors called out, and Sin leaped nimbly to her feet.

“I’ll go out through the side door. I can slip around the front and take Zeph by surprise if you can throw open the back door—”

“I have a better idea.” Con stood. “Which one is the most dangerous? The strongest?”

“Trag,” she replied, and disappointment sliced through him. Con had fought Ramreels before, but a Nightlash assassin would be something new. “Why?”

“I’ll take him.” He glanced up at the roof hatch that Shade had installed precisely for situations like this. The demon thought of everything. Though Con was going to suggest an installation of external ambulance weapons when this was over. “You get the other one.”

“Wait—”

Too late. He slid the hatch open and quietly lifted himself through it. Slowly, he eased onto his stomach and inched toward the rear of the rig. Behind him, silent as a whisper, Sin came up, all grace and flexible muscle. Below, Trag banged on the door.

“Time’s up.”

Con went over the edge, landing on the Ramreel and taking him down hard. The demon’s horns made a satisfying crack on the pavement. Nice. Distantly, he heard Zeph’s pained grunt, but then Con took a fist to the face, and pain brought his attention fully back to his opponent.

“You can’t defeat me, paramedic,” Trag spat. “I’m a trained assassin.”

“Wrong.” Con jammed his knee into Trag’s gut. “As a paramedic, I know exactlyhow to kill you.” A lifetime of fighting had taught him a lot, but learning how the body worked had made him that much more lethal.

On that energizing thought, Con thrust his fist into the Ramreel’s thick neck, crushing his larynx. Trag made an agonized bleating sound, which Con cut off with a double-tap to his broad snout. The demon rocked backward, but he recovered in a flash, doubling over and using his massive, curled horns to ram Con into the rig’s back door.

Fuck, that hurt.

Con ducked, barely avoiding being impaled by Trag’s dagger. With a deft spin, he wrenched the demon’s arm behind his back and flipped him. Trag went down, and Con delivered another devastating blow to his throat, one that blew right through the male’s carotid artery, killing him instantly. The body would disintegrate, as did most demons when they died outside of Sheoul or a demon-built structure in the human realm, and Con didn’t wait around to watch.

He sprinted to the front of the rig, where Sin was mashed against the driver’s-side door by the Nightlash. He held a knife to her throat, but she had her hand on the demon’s shoulder, her dermoireglowing fiercely, and before Con could dispatch the bastard, he fell to the ground, his skin ashen and rashed, eyes sunken in.

Whatever disease Sin had pumped into the demon had brought him down hard. And grotesquely.

The reminder of what she was and what she had done slapped him in the face, bringing his brain back to the place it needed to be while dealing with her: professional distance.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She kicked the dead demon in the ribs and winced, clutching her thigh.

Con swore. “Let me check your leg—”

“It’s fine.” She wheeled away and stalked to the rear of the rig, where the Ramreel’s body was already nothing but a greasy stain on the asphalt. “Son of a bitch,” she breathed, and Con swore he heard a trace of regret. “He was a damned good assassin.”

“Not so good with the hand-to-hand.”

“It was his main weakness.” The morning breeze blew her hair into her face, and Con barely resisted the urge to brush it back. “He relied on his aim and didn’t focus enough on physical combat.”

“And what’s your weakness?”

She shoved her dagger into her boot. “I don’t have one.”

“If you believe that, then delusion isyour weakness.”

“Aren’t you a smarty-pants,” she said crisply. “Fine. My weakness is that I’m a succubus. But it is very rarely an issue when I’m working.”

He doubted that, and now he wanted to kick himself for not considering that he might want her blood so badly because she was a succubus. It might not be her blood at all—it could be her pheromones that were driving his hunger, not an impending addiction.

Unless…

“What is your succubi requirement?” he snapped.

Her raven eyebrows popped up. “Uh… sex?”

“No, I mean, what is it you steal or cause?”

She jammed her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t steal souls, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t do anything.”

Oh, she did something, whether or not she knew it.

A hiss, like the sound from a flattening tire, rose up behind him as the Nightlash’s body dissolved. He waited until the noise died away before asking, “How long before you’ll need sex?”

“Not long. And all my regular partners are at the den.”

A stirring of… something… made him twitch. It couldn’t be jealousy. He’d never experienced that before. Not over a female. But something definitely torqued his temper, and he herded her into the passenger seat with his jaw set so tight he practically had to pry it open to talk after he settled behind the wheel.

“We’ll figure something out, but we won’t have much time at my house.” He cranked the engine. “The Carceris will be looking for you in all your haunts, but you can bet your ass that they’re investigating me. It won’t be long before they find out where I live.” He had two residences—hopefully they’d check out his apartment first. “We should have time to clean up and map out our next move.” Like maybe handing her off to one of her brothers. Sin didn’t seem to have heard him. She was staring off into space and absently rubbing her breastbone. “Hey, you okay?”

She blinked. “Of course I am.”

Right. No weaknesses. But he wasn’t buying it. Her own assassins were trying to kill her, take her job, and unless she had ice water in her veins instead of blood, it had to bother her.

And he knew damned good and well her blood ran hot, not cold.

“Does your chest hurt?”

“A little. It’s a dull ache from losing two assassins I was bonded to.”

He grimaced, unable to imagine being able to sense someone’s death like that. He got the rig moving as Sin fished a cell phone from her pocket and dialed. “Who are you calling?”