Desire Unchained

“Are you saying he’s going to go self-destructive?”


“As improbable as this sounds, I think he’s trying to keep his act together. Mainly because he’s on the verge of hunting you down. He thinks you need help.”

That headache started knocking at his skull. “Shit. I don’t want him to know about this place.”

“Which means you’d better settle down. Unless …”

“Don’t go there.”

“The Maluncoeur, right? You’re falling for Runa.”

Shade sucked in a harsh breath. “I can’t talk about it.” Talking about it, voicing it, would make it real, and if it wasn’t bad enough already, the moment he truly made it real was the moment he’d disappear forever.

E’s curses blistered the airwaves. “I won’t let it claim you.”

“There’s nothing you can do. This is my mess.”

He’d fucked up, over and over, starting with the day he’d been cursed. All these years he’d thought of Wraith as the screw-up in the family, but Shade left his little brother in the dust.





Seventeen





Runa returned to the bedroom and sank down on Shade’s bed while he finished talking with his brother, and wondered what she was going to do now. Shade said he no longer planned to kill her, but she wasn’t sure what to believe at this point. In any case, he had planned to murder her, and that fact left her cold.

God, she was such a fool for trusting him again.

Shade entered the room and stood there, phone in hand. A hand that seemed to be fading into transparency. His hand went entirely invisible, and he dropped the phone.

“Dammit,” he breathed, and stared at the phone, not bothering to pick it up.

“What’s going on, Shade?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

She shot to her feet. “You know what? I don’t give a crap what you want. You owe me.”

Maybe it was her imagination, but he seemed to be ashamed. “I can’t.”

“Can you tell me why you wanted me dead? Is that on the short list of topics you can talk about? Was getting out of the bond the only reason you were going to kill me, or was there something else?” When he didn’t answer, her control on her temper snapped. She struck him, a hard slap that left her hand numb and a crimson handprint on his face. “God, how you and your brothers must have laughed at me. You must have thought I was so pathetic, so desperate, to swear to stand by you even though I’m not bonded to you.”

The dark shadows were swimming in the black depths of his eyes again. “I never laughed at you,” he said fiercely. “I never thought you were pathetic.”

She laughed, the sound bubbling out of her like an evil sludge. “You should. Even I’m disgusted with myself.” Shaking her head, she looked around the room. “And you know what the worst part of it is? Even knowing what you were, I fell for you. Again.”

“I didn’t want that, Runa. I made it clear from the beginning.”

“Oh, you did that, and more.” Acid dripped from her voice. “Really, I shouldn’t blame you. You did try to get me to hate you. I was just too desperate for love to see it. So truly, this is my fault. There. Hope your guilt is eased.”

She was seriously messed up. As messed up as her mother had been to keep her abusive, drunken, cheating father around. Clearly, Runa had inherited those vile genes. Granted, her father eventually got sober and stopped cheating, but by then Runa had been too bitter to see it. Or to care.

If only she could channel some of that bitterness and rage to aim at Shade. She looked away from him, afraid her genetic weakness would have her falling into his arms. The tools of pain and pleasure on the walls glinted in the dim light, winking at her. Laughing at her.

How many females had they touched? How many females had Shade brought to tears and orgasms with the tools?

Oh, yes, there was the bitterness, welling up and nearly clogging her throat. She could barely speak, but managed to rasp, “I want it gone, Shade. Everything I feel for you. Everything that’s made me so like my mother.” She stripped off her robe and stalked to the whipping post, an eight-foot-high plank of wood with soft leather cuffs hanging from the top. “Do it. Do it like you’ve done to all the other females. And don’t chicken out this time.”

“I won’t do this with you, Runa.” His voice cracked, and she almost felt sorry for him. “Not again.”

“Why not? Why could you do it to the others but not me?”

“They didn’t want it for the same reason.”

“They wanted it because they’ve got some sort of darkness in them. And maybe because they like pain. Because pain turns them on. Well, maybe it turns me on, too,” she said quietly. “In fact, I know it does, because loving you hurts. And yet, I still come back for more.”

“Stop saying that.” He stumbled backward, tripped over the phone. “Stop saying you love me.”

“Then make it stop. Hurt me. Make me feel on the outside the way I feel on the inside.”