Eve Silver - Sins of the Flesh (Hqn)

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my editor, Tara Parsons, who is brilliant and patient and funny. To my agent, Karen Solem, because without her encouragement and support this idea would not have flared to life.

To everyone at Harlequin Books who had a hand in helping this book (and the other two in the trilogy) along the way.

To my writing pals who share in the ups and downs and all the moments in between: Nancy Frost, Michelle Rowen, Ann Christopher, Caroline Linden, Kristi Cook/Astor, Laura Drewry, Lori Devoti and Sally MacKenzie.

Thank you to my family. To Dylan, my light; Sheridan, my joy; and Henning, my forever love. They fill my heart and replenish my well.

And a special thank-you to my readers.

For Henning
My hero

Spawned. Spurned. I might have lamented my fate if I hadn't found a way to love it instead. Chaos. Anarchy. Ah, the tenets of my youth: Filch. Swindle. Lie. I was a lawless brat who danced one step ahead of a beating or starvation or the long arm of the law. Back then, boys like me got hung by the neck till dead. If they got caught.

Back then, boys like me thought the devil would welcome them home.

In my case, he did.

--Malthus Krayl

M ALTHUS K RAYL CROUCHED on the balcony railing, powerful thighs flexed, forearms resting on his knees. The street was sixteen stories below him, shiny and black from the recent rain, reflecting the stars that freckled the night sky and the lights of the buildings that rose on either side like sheer canyon faces of steel and concrete. He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet and leaned out, almost far enough to tip and fall.

He relished the thought, pictured the possibilities.

Freefall.

The cold wind in his hair, making his skin sting, billowing his shirt out behind him. Exhilaration tearing through his veins.

Tempting.

He was the first to admit that he was an adrenaline junkie. He had a liking for the razor's edge, for the thrill surging in a wave of tidal proportion.

But he didn't let himself do it. Not because he could die from the fall, but because he couldn't.

Oh, he might break a bone or two, but he would heal--his kind always healed. And he could just imagine the expression on his prey's face if he fell from the sky like a dark angel.

The thought made him laugh.

He was more devil than angel, but in strict truth he was neither. He was a soul reaper.

He killed. He harvested the hearts of his victims. And the darksouls. Those, he fed to Sutekh, luscious entrees of pure power, spiced with lust and greed and unadulterated evil.

Nice work if you could get it. A tad messy. But nice.

Sutekh. He went by many names. Seth. Seteh. Lord of the desert. Lord of evil. He was the Underworld uberlord of chaos. Which Mal figured made him what mortals would call the devil's spawn, because he wasn't just any soul reaper; he was Sutekh's son. One of four.

No, he reminded himself, not four. Not anymore. Only three now. Lokan was dead. Skinned. Butchered.

Mal stared out at the night sky and fought the pain that twisted him in knots, focusing instead on the moment. The hunt.

Tonight's prey was special. Not only was his soul so dark it might have been dipped in toxic waste, but he was a potential source of information that Mal wanted so badly he could taste it.

Like any good predator, he waited, hunkered on the balcony rail.

If patience was a virtue, it was one of the few he possessed.

A taxi edged around the corner, water spraying up from the tires. Senses humming, he leaned out as far as balance and gravity allowed.

The cab slowed to a stop and after a few seconds the back door opened and a man climbed out. Pyotr Kuznetsov, High Reverend of the cult of Setnakht. Mal's attention sharpened and narrowed. The hunt had started to get interesting.

Kuznetsov turned back to the cab and offered his hand to the passenger still inside.

A woman stepped out. Blond hair. All curves. Human. Kuznetsov steered her away from the cab toward the lobby doors.

Mal cursed softly.

Looked like the hunt had just been postponed.

C OLORED CONTACTS CHANGED Calliope Kane's eyes from their usual all-too-memorable green to dark, liquid brown. Her dark hair was slicked down and pinned and tucked up under a long auburn wig of full curls. Subtle use of highlight and shadow altered the appearance of her nose, her cheeks. She didn't look like herself. Even the clothes she was wearing--short, low-cut Lycra dress, impossibly high heels--were a far cry from her usual utilitarian choices.

But that was the whole point.

Tonight wasn't about being utilitarian. It was about freeing the part of herself that craved human contact.

No. Not true, and if she would be nothing else in the endeavor, she would be honest. Tonight was about sex. Clean, simple, necessary sex.

Twenty-eight months since she'd allowed herself to be touched, held, stroked to fulfillment. The longest she'd ever gone before this was seventeen.

She'd pushed it as long as she dared, held on to her rigid control and her impenetrable serenity, blunting her emotions with her usual success. But she'd lost her cool a few weeks back when confronted by four soul reapers in her own home. She'd made bad choices. And she hadn't been able to fully get it back together since then, even though three of the soul reapers were dead, and one of them was almost an ally.

Almost...but not quite.

As her former acolyte Roxy Tam was fond of saying, almost only counted in horseshoes and hand grenades.

So tonight, a fast and dirty impersonal encounter was on the menu. Just enough contact to make her feel as though the ice that ran through her veins wasn't so cold, so complete. To make her believe that the edge she perched on, so close to losing it, wasn't precipitously sharp.

The edge would be better afterward. And worse.

It always was.

But she was out of options. Her kind had two choices. Sex, or blood.

For her, blood had always been the hardest path. She closed her eyes for a second, pushing back the memories. The past had no place in her present. She would not let it free.

She left the ladies' room and made her way through the crowd, searching. She'd seen him earlier, dressed all in black, the sort of man mothers warned their daughters about.