Desire Unchained

That much was true. During the daylight, she could have shifted into her warg form and kicked his ass. “You should have.”


Few Seminus demons survived to their hundred-year mark, but of those that did, fully half died during s’genesis, victims of too little sex or killed either by the females they tried to rape or the males trying to defend their females.

“We’re in this together now, like it or not,” she said, and he almost laughed. They weren’t in shit together. She wasn’t bonded to him, and he was going to have to kill her to get out of the bond he had with her. This wasn’t a pairing made in heaven. It had been thrust upon them in hell.

“So what now?” she asked.

He felt his gaze grow hot no matter how hard he willed it not to. “I can make you pregnant.” Her harsh intake of breath was audible even over the roar of the waterfall, and he relieved her worry quickly. “I didn’t. You aren’t fertile right now.”

Her hand was still in his, and he couldn’t resist using his Seminus gift to probe her body, to go deep inside her reproductive organs to determine how close to ovulation she was. He could force ovulation if he wanted to, and damn, the temptation made him itch.

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and studied him. “Shift into something.”

“What?”

“I want to see what happens. Do you have any limitations?”

“We can only shift into similar-sized, live birth species. No egg-layers. We can go up to twice as large as ourselves but not smaller.” The females had to be capable of bearing a Seminus’s young, and smaller demons wouldn’t fare well if forced to give birth to a larger species.

He realized he was stroking her wrist with his thumb, drawing her closer, easing her into relaxation, an incubus trick of seduction. Only this time, it was he who was succumbing. How many human women could have adapted to his world so quickly and with so little fear and reservation? She should be terrified about the changes in him, but she’d rolled with the punches—his raging sexual need last night, the fact that he could impregnate her at will, and now, she wanted him to shapeshift into something potentially horrifying.

She was magnificent. If not for his curse, he’d be thanking his lucky stars that Roag had forced him to mate with her.

“I’m not sure how to shift,” he admitted.

“Well, when I shift outside the moon phase, I just picture myself shifting … and it happens.”

Eidolon had said something similar, that being in the presence of a demon helped one to turn into that species, but otherwise, the key was concentration. Shade cycled his mind through dozens of different species and in the end decided not to terrorize Runa too much. He settled on a Sora demon. He concentrated … and in moments, he felt the sting of stretching skin, the agony of popping joints, and the next thing he knew, he had bright red skin, long nails, and a whiplike tail.

Cool.

Runa had backed up a step, but she watched him with curiosity, not fear. “You look like a cartoon devil. You just need a pitchfork.”

He laughed, because Tayla had said the same thing about Ciska, the Sora nurse at UG. The one who could do amazing things with her tail …

Which gave him a wicked idea.

He whipped his tail up, catching Runa at the waist. She didn’t resist as he pulled her toward him, though she swallowed audibly when she noticed his erection. He looked down, and yup, that sucker was worthy of a little trepidation. It pulsed a deep, dark crimson, and the head was broad, the tip glistening with a drop of liquid arousal.

Still, he didn’t sense fear from her.

“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” she murmured.

“What’s easy?”

“Sex. Seducing women.”

Shade drew a finger across the tops of her breasts. “It’s what I am.” Slowly, he slid his tail down her bare butt. “Spread your legs.”

She hesitated for a mere heartbeat before obeying. He slipped his tail between her thighs and feathered the tip over the pad of her sex. She made a sound, the tiny, feminine catch in her breath he loved to hear.

He trailed the fingers of both hands to her nipples, and he used his slightly elongated nails to pluck them gently as he tickled her sex with his tail. What a handy appendage. So maybe this s’genesis thing wasn’t all bad.

For a mated male, at least.

Dipping his head, he swiped his tongue along the seam of her mouth, demanding that she open for him. When she did, he slid inside her mouth, tasting the faint tang of toothpaste, and he wondered when she’d found the time—and energy—to brush her teeth this morning. Eager to taste more, to take more, he thrust his tongue against hers and started an easy, penetrating rhythm that had her clutching his shoulders and rolling her hips against him with the same carnal timing.