Desire Unchained

The female came at him. Luc didn’t recognize her, but he knew her, and he knew what she wanted.

He caught her by the throat just as the pain struck her. She writhed in his grip, not because he held her a foot off the ground, though that couldn’t have been comfortable, but because she’d tried to hurt him, and now she was paying the price. Luc had never tested the Haven spell, had no idea what it felt like to suffer what she was going through, but even if he had, he doubted he’d have much sympathy. Nothing fazed him anymore.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. The weird malevolent link he shared with this female fazed him. He felt as if he’d snorted evil-tainted cocaine. The high was incredible, but so was the raw, explosive desire to wreak havoc. He hadn’t felt this way since he’d hunted down his own sire and torn him apart with his bare hands.

“Let her go, Luc.” Shade’s voice was a low, controlled drawl as he and his brothers approached, but his expression was a mask of rage.

“Gladly.” Luc opened his palm and let her drop, but Shade caught her before she hit the floor. Too bad.

“Pain,” she gasped, holding her skull so tightly her hands were white.

Shade held her against him and shot Luc a look promising murder. “What did you do?”

“She attacked me.”

A faerie nurse nodded from a nearby cubicle where she was draining bloodpans. “He tells it true. Stupid girl.”

Shade petted the stupid girl’s hair, his glare still black with homicidal intent. “Why would she attack you?”

“Because I sired her.”

You could have heard a mouse tiptoing across the floor with the way the normally noisy ER went dead silent. Frank, one of the lab techs, actually froze midstep as he walked past.

Shadows shifted in Shade’s eyes, seething like living things. “You?”

“It was the night the slayers tried to take me.” The night they’d slaughtered his would-be mate before he had a chance to claim her. “They were on my ass, and she ran into me.” He shrugged. “If it’s any consolation, I thought I’d killed her.” He’d hoped so, anyway. The Warg Council was not forgiving when it came to killing or turning humans, though they definitely preferred the kill over the turn. The Warg Council was made up of born wargs, and if they had their way, they’d eradicate the earth of turned wargs, whom they considered second-class citizens.

Before that night, Luc had been lying low, avoiding catching the Council’s attention. He’d retained much of his humanity, had been living among humans, doing the right thing by locking himself up every full moon.

Then the slayers had attacked. They’d broken into his house and into his locked cell where he and Ula had been about to mate. They’d killed her and seriously injured him before he managed to escape. That night screamed through his memories, his nightmares.

He had no idea how long or how far he ran, keeping to the shadows and ducking behind parked cars, but when the adrenaline ran out and he began to fade again, he was in unfamiliar territory, caught on the edge of the city and well out of his suburban neighborhood.

Fire seared his lungs with each breath, and nausea tumbled in his stomach.

Ula.

A scream ripped from his throat, ringing as a howl through the darkness. Going up on two legs, he opened his mind, sought the nearest Harrowgate. North. Several blocks away. Too far, but his only hope.

He loped toward it, no longer bothering with concealment. Operating on instinct alone, he rounded a corner and slammed into a woman. She smelled of rage and hurt that veered instantly to stark, icy terror. The emotions collided with his identical ones, intensifying them in a massive explosion.

Out-of-control hunger, the need to take something apart, made him tremble as he towered over her.

“Run, Little Red Riding Hood.”

In beast form, his words came out as a snarl, and she screamed like a fucking B-movie horror actress. The slayers would hear. Panic eroded what little remained of his humanity, and he struck, sinking his teeth into the soft spot between her shoulder and neck. She pounded against his chest, kicked wildly in futile defense as he shook her like a terrier with a rat.

“This way!”

A slayer’s voice broke him out of his murderous rage. The woman moaned, hanging limp from his jaws. In the distance, the sound of pounding footsteps echoed off the surrounding buildings.

With a toss of his head, he flung the woman’s unconscious body behind a Dumpster and sprinted down the sidewalk, bouncing off light posts and street signs in his insane bid to get to the Harrowgate. To the hospital.

He’d made it to UG, and Eidolon had saved his life. But what remained of his humanity had bled out through the deep wounds the slayers had dealt him.

He’d finally become the monster he’d always feared, but he couldn’t dredge up even an ounce of give-a-shit. It was only a matter of time before Wraith made good on the promise he’d made, the one that would ensure that Luc wouldn’t prey upon innocent humans.