He cursed as he realized what a mess he'd made of his bed. Growling at himself, he used his powers to set everything to rights before he conjured a pair of flannel pajama bottoms for himself. But they did nothing to hide his erection that now formed a solid tent at his crotch.
Put her out of your mind.
Yeah, right. Her touch was as branded on his senses as her scent and there was no relief in sight.
Kill me. . . .
He sighed and forced himself to turn over. But the moment he did, he felt a powerful shift in the air. One that could only herald the arrival of an extremely powerful entity.
Ready to battle, he crouched in the bed to find Thorn standing just inside the door.
"What are you doing here?"
Thorn gave him a piercing glare. "It's time for you to earn your keep, wolf. You ready?"
"Earn my keep?" Fang said slowly to Thorn, enunciating every word just so that there was no miscommunication. "Are you out of your fucking mind? I just got back and I can barely stand on my own. What do you want me to do? Bleed on them?"
Thorn laughed. "You sound rather robust to me."
Whatever. The man was high if he thought for even one second that Fang could do much more than what he was currently doing. Sitting. Thorn definitely had to be on something.
Fang leaned back on the bed to glare at him. "What do you want exactly?"
"An end to the mistreatment of small, fluffy dust bunnies. But that doesn't seem feasible at present, so in lieu of that I want you to know that while Xedrix and company may have assisted you and Aimee, they are still demons to be watched and executed if need be."
Yeah, that really sounded like something he was raring to do. Sign him up . . . never. "Why aren't you sending them back to Kalosis if they're such a problem?"
He looked extremely disappointed. "They don't really fall under my jurisdiction. Charonte demons are a different entity and have a separate pantheon they answer to. It doesn't mean we turn a complete blind eye to them, but so long as they take it easy on humanity-which means they're eating the corrupt and not decent upstanding citizens, and their gods keep them in check, we don't worry about them . . . much."
Thorn manifested a five-by-seven photo and handed it to him. It was of a man in his early twenties whose heart had been torn out of his chest. "This, on the other hand, is what concerns us. Or more to the point, me and thereby you as default."
While gruesome, it was a scene Fang had seen several times since coming to New Orleans. "It looks like a typical voodoo sacrifice."
"Well, slap my ass and call me Sally if you're not bright. It is part of a summoning ritual for a Grand Laruae."
That was a term a wolfwere didn't hear every day. In fact, he had heard of it never. "A what?"
Thorn's features were completely impassive. "Badass demon with a superiority complex who picks his teeth with the bones of infants. Let's just keep it simple and say he's a demon I want out of the human realm. ASAP."
"And why can't you go after him?"
Thorn looked extremely perturbed by his question. "That's a long story for one night when I'm under-the-table drunk. In the meantime, the shortest and simplest version is politics, which really chafes my ass. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do. In fact, I'd like nothing better than pinning this bastard's warted hide to the nearest tree, preferably an oak one . . . but let's not go there. Unfortunately, I, personally, can't touch him without war breaking out."
He indicated the photo with a jerk of his chin. "Phrixis has taken out some of my best people over the centuries and I'd give anything short of my soul to put him out of commission once and for all."
Fang looked down at the face of the kid in the photo. His features were contorted by fear. Poor kid hadn't stood a chance and that set off his own anger. One thing Fang had never been able to stomach. A bully. Thorn was right. This asshole needed to be stopped.
Thorn pinned him with a lethal stare. "You, my little loup-garou, are the best weapon in this battle since our VD maven won't see you coming and neither will Phrixis."
"What about the priestess?" he asked since Thorn had brought her up. "What do you want me to do where she's concerned?"
"Her, I'll take care of. There's no treaty where she's concerned so I have free rein to do with her as I will. Bitch going to rue the day she decided to unleash Phrixis on the world."
Fang arched his brow in amusement. Now there was a sentence you didn't hear every day. "Rue the day?"
Thorn shrugged. "I'm old enough to make you look like an embryo. Sometimes it shows. You have twenty-four hours to find Phrixis or I'm sending you back to the Nether Realm."
That threat and his tone hit the wrong nerve. Fang glared at him. "Fuck you, asshole."