Desire Unchained

Her cell rang as she mounted the old wooden steps. The ring tone unique to her brother sang impatiently as she set down the grocery bags on the porch and dug in her windbreaker’s pocket.

“Hey, Arik, you home?” He’d come for a visit last week and had left this morning to head back to the base.

“Yup. Got off the plane about fifteen minutes ago.” The clank and whirr of a baggage carousel forced him to raise his voice. “Maybe you could bite me or something, so I can use Harrowgates. Much faster than airplanes.”

She laughed. She’d learned to use them, though she still preferred the good old-fashioned feel of a steering wheel in her hands. In fact, she almost always drove to work … at Underworld General.

A couple of days after the battle in the dungeon, Runa and Arik had talked things out. After meeting Shade, he’d been willing to keep her secret from the R-XR if she wanted to continue working there, but the idea had made her uneasy. She couldn’t put Arik’s career in jeopardy if the truth ever came out, and besides, she’d found something even better to do with her time.

She’d approached Eidolon with an idea to take over management of the hospital’s cafeteria. The challenge of providing for the needs of dozens of species excited her, and where she’d taken a conservative approach with her coffee shop, she now felt free to take risks. Sure, she wasn’t trotting all over the globe to sniff out shapeshifters and were-beasts, but Shade could take her anywhere she wanted to go when she felt the urge to travel.

“Arik, it’d kill you to be locked up three nights a month.”

“Maybe.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “It was good seeing you so happy, sis.”

“I’m very happy,” she said. “I know you had your doubts about Shade, but you don’t need to worry.”

“I’m not. He’s obviously devoted to you. Doesn’t change the fact that he’s a demon, but he did save my life.”

“And mine,” she said softly.

“Which is why I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

“What about Kynan? Is the Army giving him the benefit of the doubt?” She still didn’t know what was up with that situation. Kynan had been taken to R-XR headquarters, where he’d been subjected to a battery of tests. He wouldn’t talk, and neither would her brother, but Ky had given her a message to pass on to Gem.

“Tell her not to wait.”

“I can’t talk about Kynan. You know that.” Arik paused. “There’s my luggage. Gotta sail. Love you.”

“You, too.”

She hung up, and for whatever reason, she looked down the street. A man stood on the corner, his heated gaze focused on her. A tingle skittered over her skin. Why, she had no idea, but when he jerked his gaze away, she followed it to where another man sauntered up the sidewalk toward her. He was as light as the other man was dark, but something united them.

Something familiar.

Her pulse began to race.

The men glared at each other, both measuring the distance between themselves and her. Their eyes glowed with hunger and impending change, and she drew a startled breath. They were wargs.

Her body flooded with heat and liquid arousal. Oh, God. That was why she’d been so unsettled lately. She was entering her first yearly breeding heat.

She needed to call Shade, and now. Before instinct overruled her mind and caused her to do something stupid, like take one of the werewolves into her cage to mate. Female wargs in heat waited for the males to fight it out, and would then mate with the victor. If she became pregnant during the moon cycle, the pairing would become permanent, as wargs formed bonds similar to those of Seminus demons, and mates were for life.

The men came together in a crash of fists. They were as propelled by instinct as she was, and though they’d started the fight in human form, they’d finish it in beast bodies. Which could turn into disaster in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

“Go,” she muttered to herself, because the darkest, most primal part of her wanted to watch, to root for a victor, but the still-human side knew she had to get out of there.

Shade, hurry … He’d sense her sudden hunger and was, no doubt, on his way now. No matter what kind of emergency had prompted his trip to UG, instinct would bring him home.

She looked up at the sky, at the rapidly growing darkness, though she didn’t need to. Her body told her the moon would be up in a matter of minutes.

Quickly, she let herself into the house and darted to the basement. The unfinished room was large, the soundproofed walls allowing for as much noise as two werewolves could make.

She slipped inside the cage in the center of the room, which she and Shade had enlarged and made comfortable for both of them. She slammed the door shut and spun the combination lock.

The crash of glass sent her pulse into overdrive, and then the men were in the basement with her, launching at each other. Come on, Shade. She dug her phone out of her pocket and dialed Shade.