Base Instincts (14 page)

“Duosos. I’d never heard of it until he told me.”

“Interesting,” Eidolon mused. “They’re isolationists. Rare outside of their communities. So rare that I’ve never met one, and we’ve never treated one here.”

Raze kept to himself the fact that Eidolon had, indeed, met one. “What do you know about them?”

“Not much, and what I ‘know’ is mostly rumor and speculation. But if you were able to have sex with a male of that species, then one of the rumors might be true.” Reaching over, he swiped his laptop off the counter and tapped on the keyboard. He studied the screen for a moment, and then turned back to Raze. “According to Baradoc, who developed the Demonic Biological Classification system, Duosos demons are born female, and at some point in their lives, they can choose to morph into males.”

Raze sat there, stunned. The pillow talk he’d shared with Slake came back to him, and the words he’d spoken took on new meaning.

“They accepted me until I turned into something they couldn’t understand: a male who was attracted to other males.”

Holy hell, he’d meant that literally. He’d actually turned
into
a male.

“If that’s accurate,” Eidolon said, “and there’s no reason to doubt that it’s not, then maybe our Seminus instincts get kind of . . . scrambled, for lack of a better word . . . in the presence of a male Duosos who used to be female.” Eidolon’s dark eyes lit up with excitement. There was nothing he liked more than a medical mystery. “Will you be seeing this male again?”

Eidolon might as well have punched him in the gut. Slake had saved his life and brought him to the hospital, but that didn’t mean he planned to see Raze again. Not that Raze could blame him if he didn’t. Not after what Raze had done to him.

The memory lingered, an uneasy combination of both regret and excitement that the one impossible thing Raze had wanted all his life, to be wholly with a male, had actually happened.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if you do, tell him I’d love to talk to him.”

By “talk,” Raze figured Eidolon meant, “poke, prod, and take a whole lot of bio samples.”

“I’ll let him know.”

The door swung open, and Dr. Shakvhan stepped inside. The tall, curvy succubus offered a thin smile. In all the time Raze had worked at Underworld General, he’d never seen her show warmth for anyone except a potential sex partner. Fortunately for her, the fact that she was a top-notch surgeon made up for her shitty bedside manner.

“I’m ready for the procedure,” she said crisply, and Raze frowned.

“What procedure?”

Eidolon stood. “Remember I said something was odd with the way you were healing? When I consulted with Dr. Shakvhan, she said it sounded familiar. She’s here to test you for a sexual tether.”

“A what?”

Shakvhan moved like a serpent. One second she was near the door, and the next, she was pressing Raze’s palm in hers. “This is going to hurt—”

He yelped as what felt like a thorn jammed into his hand. “What the hell?”

“Shh.” The succubus hummed, and searing heat spread from his hand through his body, the intensity growing until he thought he was going to pass out again. Sweat coated his skin, and his heart thumped about a million beats a minute, and just as his vision began to blur, she released him. Blood dripped to the floor until Eidolon wrapped his hand in gauze.

“Just as I suspected,” she said, with an arrogance only she could manage. “He’s linked to a female.”

“Linked?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Somehow, you allowed a succubus to attach herself to you.”

“That’s not possible. I’ve only been with one, and she wouldn’t . . .” Would she? Surely Fayle wouldn’t have done something like that without his permission?

“Whatever,” Shakvhan muttered. “But I’m telling you, a succubus formed some sort of bond with you, and it’s draining you.”

No. Raze refused to believe it. He must have spoken out loud, because Shakvhan huffed with impatience. “Has she ever been able to find you, like, out of the blue? Have you ever wanted to get away from her but kept being drawn back to her? Do you put up with things she does and you have no idea why?”

Raze’s gut churned. He could answer yes to all of those things. This . . . tether . . . would explain a lot, in fact.

“How can he get rid of it?” Eidolon asked, sparing Raze the humiliation of replying.

Shakvhan shrugged. “He can kill her. That would sever the link. Or she can remove it herself if she’s so inclined.”

Still half-numb with disbelief that Fayle could have done this, Raze asked roughly, “And if I can’t find her?”

“Then it sucks to be you.”

Raze clenched his fists, thinking how lucky it was for Shakvhan that the hospital operated under an antiviolence spell. “How helpful,” he ground out.

“It’s possible,” she said as she opened the door to leave, “that another bond could break it.”

“Like our mating bond?” Eidolon asked. “If Raze went through the mating ritual, the bond he forms with another fe—ah, person—could sever the ties he has with the succubus who did this to him?”

“Maybe.” Shakvhan shot Raze a curious look. “Either way, good luck.”

Raze wasn’t overly fond of the doctor, but right now, he’d take all the luck he could get.

Slake had been searching for Fayle for three days, and now, as his deadline was ticking down to the final hours, he’d finally caught a break.

Fayle had led him on a wild-goose chase through the bowels of Sheoul, where he’d gotten close once, in a brothel in the Spectral Abyss. But somehow she’d slipped away only minutes before he’d arrived.

The trail had gone cold for a day, and not even a meeting with a Transylvanian Seer had given him a new direction to take. Failing at that, he’d staked out an underworld pub to rattle some info out of an ugly horned demon who did regular business with Fayle’s people.

Big. Fat. Bust.

But today his luck had taken a potentially soul-saving turn. Using a sample of hair he’d found in Fayle’s bedroom, he’d paid a Charnel Apostle to perform a location spell.

The succubus was in Amsterdam.

Slake rummaged through his cabin to finish loading a backpack with rope, weapons, and a few spell-bombs that would magically seal rooms and render him, and anyone he touched, temporarily invisible. He glanced at his watch and cursed. He had three hours before Dyre’s time limit was up.

As he strode toward the front door, his phone buzzed. Hoping it was Raze, he plucked it from his pocket. His heart gave a huge thump at the message on the screen.

It’s Raze. I’m okay. Heading home in a couple of hours. Call me.

Screw calling. Slake needed to see him. To know he was truly okay.

But first, he had to catch Fayle. As he hefted his backpack over his shoulder, the instant, alarming sensation of being watched made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

“Hello, Damonia.”

Slake froze in the middle of his living room. Went as still as an angel strangled by its own halo, as the ancient Sheoulic saying went.

No one had called Slake by that name in decades, and only one person was brave enough to try.

But too bad for Gunther that “brave” was merely another word for foolish.

In one smooth motion, Slake drew a
sinisphere
from his pocket and pivoted around.

“
Dhru’ga
.” The whispered command launched the tiny ball at the vampire’s blond head.

Gunther easily dodged the weapon . . . until it made a U-turn and punched through his shoulder. He yelped as blood sprayed from the hole that also ruined what was probably a very expensive leather jacket.

Slapping his hand over the puncture, Gunther rounded on Slake. “What the fuck?” he yelled, his English accent making him sound almost reasonable, even in his anger. “A bit unnecessary, don’t you think?”

“‘Unnecessary’ would have been sending an entire swarm of
sinispheres
at you.” Slake flexed his hand over his pocket and the remaining dozen lethal balls. “But don’t think I wasn’t tempted. Or that I’m still not.” Fury jacked him up so much that he had to relax his jaw in order to continue. “I told you the last time I saw you that if you came back, I’d put a hole through you. You’re lucky it wasn’t your skull.”

Gunther hissed, the pearly fangs that used to give Slake so much pleasure glistening. “You were
aiming
for my skull.”

“And I’m a little embarrassed by the fact that I missed.” Slake raked Gunther with his gaze, expecting to experience the flutter of attraction he always felt when Gun came crawling back. But this time, all he could do was make comparisons to Raze, and the vampire couldn’t match up. Not anymore.

Gunther stood there, his black slacks neatly pressed, his silver button-down shirt so starched it would be afraid to wrinkle. He had always been an impeccable dresser, but then, he’d spent a thousand years accumulating wealth, knowledge, and taste.

“You could have killed me,” Gunther said, sounding so put out that Slake almost laughed.

“Stop whining. And stop bleeding on my floor. I just had the hardwood refinished.”

“See, that’s why our relationship didn’t work,” Gunther said, rubbing the puncture in his shoulder. “You’re an asshole.”

“No,” Slake corrected, “we didn’t work because I’m not female, and you couldn’t seem to keep your dick in your pants.”

Gunther’s pale-blue eyes flashed. “I’ve changed. I want you back.”

Son of a bitch. Not this rerun again. “You say that every time.”

“And every time, you fall for it,” Gunther pointed out, still as arrogant as ever.

“Not this time.”

“Uh-huh.” Gunther’s skeptical expression pissed Slake off. “And why not this time?”

An image of Raze flashed in his brain, but he quickly shoved it aside. Yes, the Seminus demon had sexed his way into Slake’s mind, but more than that, he was tired of not being accepted for what he was. For who he was.

“Because you’re never going to be okay with who I am.”

“I fell in love with who you are.”

Slake shook his head. “You fell in love with who I was on the outside.”

“Damon,” Gunther said, “if that were true, I wouldn’t keep trying to be with you.”

“I don’t doubt that you loved me. That maybe you still do. But ultimately, the fact that I have a penis will chase you away again. It always does. I can’t do that anymore.”

Gunther took a step closer and spread his hands in a plea. “What if I promised I was okay with it? What if I swore I’d stay with you, no matter what?”

“You can’t do that,” Slake said. He’d been through this before, and it always ended in disaster. “You know you can’t.”

“For the sake of argument. Say it could happen. Would you take me back?”

That was something Slake had thought of more than once. And long ago, the answer would have been yes. But too much time had passed. Too much had happened. And after seeing how Raze was so dependent on Fayle and yet so miserable . . . Slake could never tie himself down to someone who couldn’t commit a hundred percent.

He wanted a relationship. He wanted love. And yes, Gun had loved him, but not enough to truly get past the fact that Slake was one hundred percent male with no remnants of his past. Well, except the fact that he was still attracted to males, just as he’d been before the transformation.

“I’ll never take you back, Gun. Get that through your thick skull. I’ve moved on.”

Instantly, Gunther went taut and looked around, as if he expected the person Slake moved on with to come slinking out of the bedroom. “You’ve found someone else, haven’t you?”

“You lost the right to ask that question when you banged a female werewolf in our bed.” Weird how he wasn’t angry about that anymore. He’d held on to that particular grudge for the last ten years, but now that Gunther was here, begging to come back into his life, it no longer mattered.

Gunther’s upper lip curled, his fangs gleaming wetly against blood-red lips. “Does he know? Does he know the truth about you?”

“Fuck off.”