Desire Unchained

Shade paced, thinking of a plan to get them out of the dungeon. He watched the Keepers who came and went, trying to get a bead on their patterns, species, and sex. Seducing a female would give them their best shot at escape, and so far, he’d seen two—the female imp who had taken him from the cell earlier, and another who fed them.

Runa had fallen asleep a few minutes ago, so he sat next to her, back against the wall, and thought about Roag, hoping to remember something that might shed light on why Roag blamed Shade and his brothers for what had happened to him in the fire at Brimstone.

Runa’s soft snores lulled him as he thought about the last day he’d seen Roag alive.

The first ambulance run of the day had been a bust. By the time Shade and Skulk had arrived at the alley where a Soulshredder had been injured, he’d died, leaving behind only a thin, greasy oil slick on the ground. Returning from the run, Shade had turned into the condemned parking garage, spiraling down several levels beneath the New York City streets. Deep underground, a garage door shimmered, invisible to humans, but a beacon for demons. Shade had punched a button on the ambulance’s dash, and the gate opened, allowing the rig to enter. They’d emerged inside a giant parking lot adjacent to the hospital.

After parking in an ambulance stall, he’d headed for the break room, where Eidolon was arguing with Wraith, over something stupid, no doubt. Roag was propped against one wall, eyeing Solice, a vampire nurse, as she bent to raid the fridge.

“Shade,” Roag said in his Irish brogue, “I’m trying to talk our brothers into going to Brimstone. They’re refusing. Again.”

“Why do you even try? No one wants to go.” Not even Wraith was crazy enough to hang out in lust-filled demon bars.

But Roag no longer cared about consequences. He was a slave to his instincts and libido. Even now, as he watched Solice, the scent of lust rolled off him in waves. Licking his lips, he crossed to her, hauled her against him, and shoved her face-first into the wall.

Eidolon cleared his throat. “No sex in the break room. You know the rules.”

As though he hadn’t heard, Roag continued to caress the nurse, and Shade braced for a battle. But when Eidolon took his first step toward the pair, Roag backed down. “You’re so uptight, E.”

“I’ll meet you at the bar when I get off shift,” Solice purred, and Roag grinned.

“We’ll play spank the naughty nurse.” He nipped her earlobe and released her. She swayed, affected by his incubus pheromones as he stalked toward the door. Most females would avoid a post s’genesis Seminus demon if they recognized what he was, but since vampires couldn’t conceive—except in Wraith’s mother’s lone case—vamps had no reservations about screwing them.

“Idiot,” Shade said as the door closed behind Roag. “He’s going to get himself killed.”

Once he was gone, Wraith came to his feet, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “One can only hope.”

“Shade?”

Shade blinked out of the replay of the day Roag had been killed. He’d dozed off, and gods, he’d much rather be back in the dream than in the reality he’d awakened to.

He looked at Runa as she stared down at him and his heart pounded. It was only a matter of time before he fell for her, and the consequences of his emotional weakness would make a lingering death seem fun in comparison.

Shade had never feared anything, but the Maluncoeur, cast on him by a pissed-off warlock eighty years ago, scared the ever-living crap out of him, and if he wasn’t careful, Runa would be his doom. Because even now, his body was surging to life, demanding that he possess her over and over, until she became addicted to him. And it would happen. With every orgasm, his semen would bond her more strongly to him, a chemical process that would result in more powerful, longer orgasms and a release of endorphins that would linger for hours. In short, she would learn to crave him as much as he craved her.

If only he hadn’t given in to the needs of the human female so long ago, the beautiful silent film starlet who had fucked her way to fame and who demanded rough, violent sex from Shade as a form of penance. If only he’d not killed her husband when he found Shade naked with his tied-up wife. If only that husband hadn’t been a warlock who’d thrown the curse at Shade in his last, dying moments.


I call thee, servant of Evil, Demon of Vengeance, I call thee, Arioch, who giveth revenge, who taketh away life. I command thee, bind this demon to the Maluncoeur, to a life eternal of unslakable thirst, relentless hunger, unending pain, unrelieved desires. He shall not know love, lest he pass into shadow and Maluncoeur. Come hither, Come hither. Accomplish my will.

Eighty years later, the warlock’s words were as clear as the day they’d been uttered through bloodied lips.