Desire Unchained

Something about her had drawn him, had him thinking about her long after he’d left her at her coffee shop, had him hunting down her phone number and calling for a date two nights later.

“I’ve missed you, Shade.” Runa’s voice was sweet nectar, bubbling in his veins like the sparkling wine he’d sipped from the small of her back a few minutes earlier, when she’d lain on her belly, spread out before him like a feast. “Take me inside you.”

His head snapped up. Her eyes, glittering with lust and love and everything in between, gazed into his and he knew she meant what she’d said. She wanted to bond with him. To become his mate and help him through the s’genesis so he wouldn’t go through it alone, so he wouldn’t have his life turned upside down.

The right side of his face throbbed, the dermal markings trying to punch their way to the surface and declare that he’d gone through The Change. He was weeks away, days or hours, even, from becoming a shapeshifting demon who forgot his old life and spent his days in the mindless pursuit of females to impregnate.

Bonding with a mate would stop the insanity—literally. Posts’genesis males often went insane, Roag being an example of that. Bonded posts’genesis males kept their sanity, became fertile, and could shapeshift, but the only females they could sleep with were their own mates.

The fact that they would be limited for life to one female was the reason many Sems didn’t bond, especially after s’genesis—who wanted to spend six hundred years with the same mate? Worse, there was only one way out—the death of one of the partners. And since demons, in general, held a serious disregard for life, finding a mate you could trust not to kill you in your sleep two hundred years into a bond was next to impossible.

Still, Shade would be willing to take the chance … if not for the curse. He couldn’t risk falling in love with the female he bonded himself to—and he knew he would fall, and fall hard. The desire for a loving family had been bred into him on his mother’s side, and every day he ached for what he couldn’t have.

For now, though, he had Runa.

Her legs locked tight around him. She arched up, taking him to the root, moaning robustly. He’d forgotten how tuned she was to him in bed, always responding to his every desire with enthusiasm. Her curiosity had been limitless, and he’d enjoyed introducing her to various positions, toys, and acts.

Reaching low, she dug her nails into one butt cheek, forcing him into a rhythm of her choosing. “Harder,” she growled. “Until I scream, demon.”

Surprise rang through him; she’d never shown any kind of aggression during sex, had catered to his desires and needs, had been pliable and perfect.

This was even better.

He pounded into her, giving her what she wanted, making her whimper as they climbed higher. The scent of her arousal rose up, intoxicating him with lust. Making him so drunk that the room began to spin, and when she commanded him to “Drink me” and dragged a long nail across her clavicle and drew blood, he did, without thinking.

She threaded her left fingers through his right ones, stretched their arms high above her head. Pain shot through him, lovely, delicious pain that radiated from his shoulder where she’d sunk her teeth. The dermoire that extended from his fingers to his neck began to glow with liquid heat, seeming to melt their limbs together.

Hell’s rings, they were bonding. Oh, shit, it was happening and he couldn’t stop it, not when her blood flowed like wine down his throat and she drew his blood with strong, erotic pulls. Not when his orgasm was barreling down on him like a freight train and she was screaming and …

He roared in his release as her climax milked him, her slick inner walls contracting around him and holding him prisoner.

Prisoner …

Blinded by the orgasm that went on and on, he couldn’t see straight, but something wasn’t right. The smells in the room were off, no longer chocolate and arousal, but mold and sewage. His knees weren’t sliding on satin. They were scraping on hard stone.

“Runa,” he whispered, and she moaned, rousing herself with the same dreamy fogginess that affected him.

“What happened?” She blinked up at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dermoire on his arm stop glowing. He felt her inside him, in his soul, his heart. They were bonded.

And with growing horror he realized where they were.





“You bastard.” Rage nearly boiled Runa’s blood as she glared up at Shade. “What did you do to me?” She shoved hard at his bare shoulders. “Get off me!”

To his credit, he seemed as bewildered as she was. He scrambled off her, his movements jerky and awkward. But then, she wasn’t exactly moving with grace and finesse, either. Her limbs felt heavy, as though her veins ran thick with lead instead of blood.

“Shit,” he breathed, kneeling beside her. “What happened?”

“You don’t know?”