Desire Unchained

“Can you sit?” Runa helped him up, too quickly, and his head swam. She pushed him back against a wall with more strength than he’d expected. He didn’t resist, grateful for the cool, damp stone that eased his nausea.

“Answer my question,” he said, because he now suspected that this wasn’t a sexual hangover, which meant that there could be no good reason to be chained up and feeling like shit with a woman who probably wanted to cause him some damage.

Runa snorted. “You’re still an arrogant ass.”

“Shock, huh?”

“Not really.” Her hand came down on his forehead, as though checking for fever, but as a human, she’d have no idea that his normal body temperature ran high, and he pushed her away. Besides, her touch made his temp jack up even more, something he definitely didn’t need.

“Well? Where are we?” They seemed to be in some sort of cell inside a larger enclosure, maybe a dungeon. Something dripped incessantly, straw littered the floor, and candles burned in iron sconces on the stone walls.

Hell’s bells, he’d been cast in a cheesy horror movie.

“I don’t know where we are. We seem to have four captors … at least, four different demons have been down here to feed us. They call themselves Keepers.”

Yeah, this was definitely bad. “Us?”

“I’ve been here a week. There are a few others in cells. The Keepers take out some and bring others in.”

For the first time, Shade looked down at himself, saw the heavy chains connected to his left wrist and ankle. Runa was secured to the opposite wall with a manacle around her right ankle. She wore jeans and a tight, sleeveless sweater he’d have appreciated if it weren’t for the fact that he was being held prisoner. She looked different than he remembered, too. When they’d dated—if screwing like rabbits could be called dating—she’d been shy, needy, and easy to control, which had fed his need to dominate, but had ultimately grown boring.

Beneath the conservative dresses and slacks she’d worn, she’d been a little round, soft, even. But now … holy hot. She’d put on muscle, and he swore she’d grown taller. Her well-worn jeans fit like a glove, and the black sweater stretched across breasts that were definitely smaller than they had been, perfect for his hands. His mouth.

And this line of thinking was doing nothing but making him hard in an extremely inappropriate situation.

Then again, as a Seminus demon, he was pretty much always hard.

“When was I brought in?”

“Last night.”

He shook his head, trying to loosen the congestion that had jammed up his thoughts and memories. Last night … last night … what had he been doing? Wait … he was wearing his paramedic uniform. He remembered going to work, checking in with Eidolon, and getting into a scuffle with Wraith. Their newest doc, a human named Kynan, had broken it up by dousing them both with a bag of saline.

Same old, same old at the one and only medical treatment facility for demons.

Shade and Skulk had gone out on a call, an injured vamp at a New York meat packing facility. They’d entered the building, but from there, his memory took a leave of absence.

“Was anyone else brought in with me? A female?”

“The Umber demon?”

His heart thundered like a trip-hammer. “An Umber came in with me?” Runa nodded, and he didn’t stop to think about how she even knew what an Umber demon was. “Where is she?”

“You sleeping with her?” Her sharp tone cracked in the dank air.

“She’s my sister, and I don’t have time for your jealousy.”

“Seems to me you have nothing but time,” Runa said, but her voice had softened. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what they did with your sister. They took her away a little while ago.” She shifted away from him, and he realized she was at the very end of her chain. “You don’t look like her.”

He didn’t offer an explanation for the fact that he and his sister were different species, and she didn’t ask. Instead, she watched him as he eyed the bars in the door to their cell and wondered how sturdy they were. Then again, they could be paper for all it mattered if he couldn’t break the chains that tethered him to the wall.

“Our best chance to escape won’t happen until they come for us,” she said.

“You said they feed you.”

“Yes, but they push the food and water in with a stick. They won’t come close.”

“Who are they?”

“I think … I think they’re what you demons refer to as Ghouls.”

Shade’s blood pressure bottomed out. “What? How do you know?”

“That’s what someone in another cell called them.”