His knees buckled. He fell down on all fours and yakked desperately, his body shuddering with the effort to expel the unwelcome intruder. He felt raw, violated, unable to bite down on the reedy whimper that escaped when the last bit of the thing glided into him with a little pat against the roof of his mouth. On his knees in front of the car, Riley coughed and retched and trembled, every sense focused on what was going on inside him. He could breathe easier now, but his belly felt full and heavy, icy cold radiating from his center. It was seeping into his muscles and sinews, made them feel sore and overstretched. There was a tickle along his spine, an itch so deep down it must’ve come from his bones. Riley groaned and panted as shock crept in, numbing his perception and fucking up his system even worse. He felt nauseous, frozen, vaguely aware of how thready and weak his pulse was getting. His teeth chattered; his whole body shook helplessly.

Then the creature did something to his head that felt like being sliced open and eaten alive, and Riley reared up and howled like a dog, hoarse with hurt. He felt it stab at him, into him, penetrate him even deeper, rooting around until it could infiltrate every inch of his body. Cold and hot at the base of his skull, a raspy lick against raw nerves. He tensed, tried to prepare himself for the pain, but there was no anticipating, no dealing with the kind of agony that followed.

This time, he didn’t fight the blackness.

He embraced it.

SIX

THE desk in Misha’s office had once been pristine, tidy and organized. Lots of workspace, everything neatly arranged for maximum efficiency. He’d known where everything was at a glance, hadn’t had to think twice before reaching out to grab whatever it was he needed at the time. It was the way he’d been raised, though to be honest, the strict discipline of his professional training had only enhanced his natural neat-freak tendencies. It certainly had come in handy once or twice when Riley and he hadn’t made it back to the bedroom and ended up fucking right there on the sturdy table, drenching the antique wood with their sweat and come. Riley had looked gorgeous spread out on the dark mahogany in sweet exhaustion and smiling like the angel he most definitely wasn’t.

Apparently Riley had taken Misha’s sense of order with him when he’d left (among other things), because right now the desk was an unholy mess. The only thing not buried under maps and reports about Riley Cooper’s possible whereabouts was the phone. Nowadays, Misha got twitchy when he couldn’t see his phone. He was staring at it now, willing it to ring. Kolya was overdue, which wasn’t like him at all. It didn’t worry Misha so much as it made him restless, because if Kolya didn’t call it meant he was too busy, and “too busy” in this case likely translated to “following a lead.” One more dead end and Misha was going to do something rash and probably unnecessarily destructive. He couldn’t afford to lose his cool, so Kolya had better bring him good news when he finally deigned to report in.