Desire Unchained

He shrugged, a tense roll of one shoulder. “We have a warg paramedic on staff at the hospital who can sense them, and he’s a hundred years old, was turned in his twenties. So he started sensing Harrowgates somewhere in that eighty-year time frame.”


She shot him an irritated glare. “How helpful.”

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, the one that had been shredded by the Bathag’s teeth, and she winced. “You’re hurt.” He drew her knuckles closer to his face, bringing her body in as well.

“It’s nothing.”

Shade ignored her, running his fingers lightly over the raw, torn skin. A breeze rattled the trees, bringing with it Shade’s scent, a potent mix of earth and sweat, battle and sex. Dirt and blood streaked his chest, and a bruise darkened one cheek, but he was all the more gorgeous for it. She hated her primitive response to the way he’d fought for her, hated him, in fact. But she couldn’t stop staring any more than she could stop her heart from beating.

“Let go of me.” She bit the words out viciously, desperate to get away from him, but he held her with his hypnotic gaze and slow, soothing passes of his thumb across her knuckles. When a low-level buzz shot through her hand, she gasped. “What are you doing?”

“Speeding up the healing process. I can’t do what Eidolon does and heal you on the spot, but I can nudge your body’s natural curative abilities into high gear.” His voice was husky, reminding her of the way he sounded when he was inside her, murmuring sexy, naughty things in her ear.

He must have been reminded of the same thing, because he cursed and dropped her hand. “Follow me.” He moved off without another word.

Frustrated by both her mercurial feelings for him and his unpredictable behavior, she watched him go, tempted to try the Harrowgate on her own.

“You won’t be able to work it,” he called out, and dammit, how had he known what she was thinking?

He led her along an overgrown trail, his movements swift and sure. Leaves sliced at his skin and branches clawed at him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

She didn’t know how far they’d walked with her jumping at every noise, but she sensed at least an hour had passed when he began to slow. The sound of rushing water reached her ears about the same time as a swarm of mosquitoes attacked her.

“God, I need a shower.” She slapped her neck, squishing one of the bloodsuckers. “How can you stand living here?”

“The native wildlife doesn’t bother me, and only the most extreme temperatures affect me.”

She remembered how, in the cold dungeon, he hadn’t so much as shivered after he’d been stripped of his clothes. She, on the other hand, had thought she’d freeze to death at times.

The thick weave of mossy trees and lush plants thinned, opening into a clearing bordered on one side by a sheer rocky cliff and a massively tall waterfall, a sparkling paradise in the middle of hell.

“Let me guess, the entrance to your cave is behind the fall?” Too cliché.

He said nothing, merely kept walking. She followed, slapping mosquitoes and brushing aside branches that snagged her sweater and tugged at her hair. They passed between the cliff and a giant rectangular stone, the path angling sharply upward for about thirty feet, until they ran into a dead-end tangle of brush and vines. Shade reached into a section of vegetation, fumbled with something until she heard a click, and a large chunk of rock slid sideways, revealing a narrow opening.

“Who built this?”

“Demon contractors.”

There was something you didn’t hear every day.

They stepped through the opening into a cool cavern. Soft light flooded the cave from fixtures mounted in the polished white stone ceiling.

“The waterfall powers the place,” he said before she could ask.

Behind them, the stone slid back into place, but she barely noticed, was way too fascinated by this lair of his.

Open and surprisingly airy, the natural features of the cave had been used to create living space. Stone benches lined with plush fabric were scattered around the cavern. A hearth had been set into a deep recess in the smooth, dark walls. There was even a large flat-screen TV hanging over the fireplace.

“It’s mainly to watch movies,” he explained, as he moved toward the rear of the room. “I don’t get cable here, so I’ve got a helluva DVD collection.”

Yeah, she had noticed that. One entire wall had been carved into shelves that held more DVDs than a video store. And for God’s sake, could he get dressed? The way the muscles in his back rippled, the globes of his ass flexed as he walked … she couldn’t help but stare, and he definitely didn’t need that kind of ego boost.