Desire Unchained

They’d been held in a castle.

“Where are we?”

“Ireland, I think.” A guess, based on the landscape, but also on Roag’s background. Upon his first maturation, he’d emerged from Sheoul, the demon realm deep inside the earth, to live among humans in various Irish cities, eventually becoming involved with the IRA. Nothing excited him more than causing trouble.

Runa doubled over, panting, though he suspected her respiratory issues had less to do with exertion than with her impending change into a warg. “What was all that about? The shaking.”

“The Bathag … they have control over earth and water. They can cause tsunamis, earthquakes, all kinds of shit if they’re riled. She was pissed.” Angry shouts interrupted, sending him into his own bout of spastic breathing. “We gotta go, babe. I’d love to stay and play, but it seems like this stupid bond has brought out some seriously protective instincts.”

“I can take care of myself.” Her voice was soft but infused with steel. Just like her gaze.

He took her in, aware that time was running out, but not wanting to deprive himself of this moment. She had a warrior’s soul, a fighter’s resolve. It called to him, overriding his common sense.

He grabbed her around the waist and tugged her up against him. At the same time, his skin tightened and his blood flushed hot. He wanted to take her right then and there. Hell’s fires.

“I know you can. But I can make sure you don’t have to.”

Knowing the smart thing would be to leave her here to get herself killed, he cursed the bond, took her hand once again, and dragged her toward the forest.





Runa kept up with Shade, welcoming the stitch in her side and the way her lungs burned with every breath. She was free, and the fresh, crisp evening air ignited an urge to run, howl. Hunt.

“It’s coming.”

He stopped so suddenly she nearly ran into him. “Roag?”

She inclined her head toward the horizon, where a sliver of the day’s last light peeked through the curtain of mist. “Night. I’m turning.”

“Where do you usually go?”

“Does it matter? We’re thousands of miles away from the United States.”

“I can get us anywhere in minutes. Now, where do you go?”

She had a comfortable cage on the Army base, a secret installation beneath Washington, D.C., that ingeniously used the pentagram and hexagram layout of the city to its advantage. The symbols of Masonic significance, mistakenly believed by some to be satanic in nature, provided protection against evil while enhancing defensive magic.

Obviously, she couldn’t tell Shade about it or take him there. Civilians weren’t allowed anywhere near the operation. Demons were, but only if they were restrained, part of the R-XR program … or dead.

“My house in New York. I have a setup in the basement.”

Not that she’d been there in months; she’d been too busy working with the Army to go home. Who’d have thought there were so many were-creatures in the world? She spent most of her days traveling the globe to were-beast hot spots, mostly coming back to D.C. only for the full moons. She loved the travel, the challenge of tracking down others like her, most of whom were tagged and left unharmed. The military seemed to think that in the event of a battle between humans and demons, weres and shapeshifters could play a vital role, and the military wanted them fighting on the side of humans.

Shade shook his head, but his alert gaze never ceased scanning the area around them. His muscular body sang with restrained power, and his sharply defined tribal dermoire lent an uncivilized, predatory quality to him. Amongst the haunting, untamed landscape, he fit right in. All he needed was a broadsword, and he could have been an ancient warrior, built for two things—fighting and sex. She shivered in a primal, feminine response to the image of Shade claiming a victory in battle, and then claiming her.

“Roag might know who you are,” Shade said. “I don’t want the Ghouls finding you.”

Panic flared, making her heart thunder violently in her chest. Or maybe the tight, strung-out feeling inside was just the werewolf wanting out. “We have to do something. If I change …”

She trailed off, not wanting to voice the problems that could come from changing into a slavering, murderous beast that would probably kill Shade and then run off in search of human victims.

“I know.” Shade lifted his face to the sky, as if he wanted to let loose a howl. She knew the feeling.

“What are you doing?”

“Probing for a Harrowgate. Roag wouldn’t base his operation far from one.”

Harrowgate. An underworld transportation system. The Army had been trying to figure out how they worked for years.

“Got it. This way.” He started moving in the direction from which they’d just come.

“Uh …”