Sins of the Flesh

Beneath his feet, the earth shifted, a subtle tremor.

Something stirred in the leaves over their heads, disturbing the sultry air. Alastor glanced up. The number of amber eyes looking down at them had increased exponentially.

And the sensation that he felt Lokan here had increased, as well.

He hesitated, torn. He ought to get Naphré out of here, get her somewhere safe.

“Don’t waste this opportunity,” she murmured, squirming from his hold and dipping to draw a knife from her boot.

She was cool and calm and competent, and he reminded himself that she had survived as a Topworld enforcer for years before he came along. But that tidbit of logic went only so far in the face of perceived threat. The emotions he kept chained howled for release.

Again, the earth shifted, enough that he was forced to correct his balance. The creatures on the lowest branches snapped and snarled, baring teeth that were arranged in rows, pointy and serrated.

The next shift was anything but subtle.

“Whoa!” Naphré grabbed at him as the earth beneath their feet gave a great, undulating roll, like the coils of a massive snake unwinding. When the ground finished its sickening lurch, the tree appeared to have grown even taller, the roots more exposed.

Trapped in the gnarled, twisted morass of roots and earth and slick, green slime was a rectangular box. It looked like a coffin sized for a small child.

He took a step forward. The rodentlike creatures surged along the branches, nails clicking, teeth bared. Slowly, he took another step forward. Again, they moved in equal degree.

Attention split between them and the box, he took yet another step.

The creatures held still, which ought to have pleased him, but instead made him strangely uneasy. The air felt as if it hummed with pent-up energy and expectation.

“Do this, before they get hungry,” Naphré said.

With a flicker of regret—he’d bought these slacks less than a month ago—he got down and crawled through the tangled roots toward the box, his fingers sliding along the slime-slick surfaces. He grabbed hold, gave a tug, then tugged harder. Extricating it from the roots proved unexpectedly challenging. He tugged. He yanked. The box was well and truly stuck.

But this close, any doubt he’d harbored evaporated. He could feel Lokan here. Something inside that box had belonged to Lokan. Or was Lokan. He hated that thought, but he couldn’t discount it.

The roots were thick and twisted and the more he pulled, the more they seemed to close in on the small coffin. He dug his fingers into the earth, underneath a root and, with a twist, snapped it off.

“Alastor.” At Naphré’s call, he rolled onto his back. “Try this.”

Her knife sailed through the air toward him. She was already pulling a second knife from the sheath at her waist.

He caught the hilt and rolled back over to hack at the roots and work at freeing the box. Naphré stood nearby, knife in hand, watching his back.

With a high-pitched shriek, one of the braver creatures dropped from a low branch. The weight of the thing forced the air from his lungs as it landed on his back. Hot breath fanned his neck and saliva dripped to his skin, sizzling like acid.

With a snarl, Naphré dragged it off.

Alastor was on his feet in a blink, moving toward her, but she shot him a look so hard it’d turn a diamond to dust.

“Mine,” she said, and he knew that with that single word she was saying a great deal more.

He had to trust her to watch after herself. He had to swallow the urge to coddle her to death. Or he’d lose her. He knew that.

“Bloody sodding hell.” Then, “Spit’s nasty,” he warned.

The creature snapped and snarled and lurched for her throat. It took everything Alastor had not to leap into the fray. With a grunt and a thrust, Naphré took it out, stabbing deep to its underbelly and dragging the knife up.

The blood that sprayed them both was cold and black.

“Quickest way to get me out of harm’s way is to get the damned box,” she said as another creature braved the drop.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Naphré stabbing and punching at its head. He went for the box.

Others leaped from the lowest branches. Not to attack her but to attack their fallen comrade, Naphré’s first kill. They fell on it, and in seconds there was nothing left but an exoskeleton shell.

Alastor hacked at the tree’s roots, focusing on his task, aware that behind him, a stream of black blood flowed along the earth as the creatures began dropping down on them like rain.





TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER, Mal was back on the balcony railing, waiting for Kuznetsov and obsessing over the wacko chick who’d left him in the basement of the club with his dick so hard it hurt and a not-so-lovely case of blue balls.

Damn, she’d been hot. And crazy. Not a great combination.