Desire Unchained

He’d always despised Wraith, despised the attention showered on him by E and Shade, but since that day at Brimstone he’d wanted Wraith to suffer as no one in history ever had. And when Roag was satisfied that Wraith had suffered enough, he would die. But not before playing skin and organ donor. Wraith would give back what he’d taken from Roag.

A commotion at the end of the hall grabbed his attention, and when he looked up, his heart, what was left of it, stopped.

“My lord,” a Nightlash minion said, “we found her near the Harrowgate …” The Nightlash carried Sheryen’s crumpled, broken body in his arms.

Roag stared at Sheryen as she was placed at his feet.

A bloody, injured Darquethoth limped forward. “We chased your brother and his female. They attacked—”

“Who killed Sheryen?” he rasped. “Who?”

“Your brother’s mate, my lord.”

Rage rolled through him, rattling his bones, stretching his joints, making his leathery skin crack until blood streamed from the fissures.

“Summon a necromancer.”

The Darquethoth hissed. “But master—”

“Do it!” Roag roared. “Now!” He would have his lover back. Consequences be damned. “And get a new spy into the hospital.”

“Yes, master.”

“I will have Wraith,” he swore, “and I will ruin my brothers’ lives, but first I will have that bitch’s head on a spike.”

Roag knelt next to his beloved, his entire body shaking as he pulled her into his arms. Thank the Great Satan she’d died near a Harrowgate, where the demonic energy prevented her body from disintegrating.

With a silent prayer, he willed the necromancer to hurry. Sheryen must be reanimated before her body began to decay, and the clock was ticking.

“Fear not, my love.” He brushed his mouth over hers, glad she couldn’t feel his scarred, stiff lips. “Soon, I will be wearing Wraith’s skin, and you will feel the pump of Runa’s blood in your veins.”

He smiled at the thought, the delicious irony that only the blood of the one who had killed her would bring Sheryen back to life.





Eight





Runa lay on the floor of Shade’s cave, her body aching with residual postshift tenderness, her stomach knotted with hunger. She also ached with arousal, an inconvenient side effect of the shift from beast to human after a full moon. The effects usually lasted an hour or so as the primal animal hormones raged inside her human body. It didn’t help that she’d awakened naked on a blanket that was steeped in Shade’s scent.

Bad enough that he affected her when he was with her. Now he was doing it from a distance.

Need twisted her insides, made her clench her thighs and her teeth. She hated this phase of the werewolf change, when no amount of self-gratification was enough. Raw, violent urges roared through her, and it was probably a good thing Shade wasn’t here, because she knew damn good and well she’d attack him.

For sex.

Where was he, anyway? she wondered. Her stomach rumbled, and her mouth watered. Why had Shade not delivered food last night as he said he would? Had something happened to him? She sat up, only to feel the heavy tug of the chain attached to her ankle.

She was tired of being chained. From one dungeon into another in a matter of hours. In her heightened sexual state, she studied the whips, canes, and flogs that decorated the walls of Shade’s bedroom. The masks and gags and cuffs. Disgusting. Disturbing. And yet … what would it be like to be at Shade’s mercy, to have his strong, talented hands wielding the tools he could use for pleasure … or pain.

He’d always been relatively gentle with her … relative to all of this, anyway.

I wasn’t the gentlest lover, was I?

No, she supposed he hadn’t been. He hadn’t allowed her to touch him except during sex. He’d commanded her actions in bed, and some part of her had liked the way he handled everything. When he was in charge, she could relax. Between her brother’s illness and her coffee shop’s imminent closing, her plate had been full, her spirit all but broken.

So when Shade took her to his place for dinner and a few hours of sex, and then promptly brought her home, or when he’d meet her at a hotel, screw her hard and fast, and take off afterward, she’d been okay with it, for the most part.

And actually, hard and fast sounded really good right now. Just thinking about it brought a low growl into her chest and wetness between her legs. The wolf-beast in her wanted to get down and dirty. Wanted to submit to a powerful male, but only after a stimulating, hardcore battle.

She had never believed she would want to have sex with someone she hated, but maybe hating him would make it easier. It was just sex, right? No emotional attachments, no falling for him again. Just. Sex.

Except, could their relationship remain that way, now that they were bonded? He’d made it sound so … permanent. But maybe the R-XR could find a way to get her out of it. And if not, well, they had a few things to work out, because they couldn’t spend decades—or even centuries—hating each other.

She shook her head, because she refused to believe this was permanent. There had to be a way out, and she’d do whatever she had to in order to find it.