by Larissa Ione
“Runa?” When she didn’t answer, he tested the limits of his chains. “Dammit, he’s Aegis, isn’t he?”
She shook her head.
“Military?”
Her gaze snapped to his, eyes flashing with surprise.
“What? You think demons aren’t aware that governments all over the world are working on the great underworld scourge?” He scrubbed his hand over his face. He was so freaking tired. “I don’t suppose we can count on the military swooping down to save us?”
She just stared.
“Didn’t think so.” He blew out a long breath. “Wraith might be a no-show, too. Looks like we’ll have to save ourselves.”
“How?”
“That,” he said grimly, “is the question of the day.”
“The problem with having evil minions is that minions are stupid.” Roag looked down at a slimy little drekevac that looked like a deformed, hairless ape, cowering at his feet.
“But I brought you the Seminus demon, one of the brothers you asked for.” The drekevac whimpered, his spindly fingers stroking Roag’s boots.
“And torturing him with an unfinished blowjob and the death of his beloved sister was amusing, but ultimately, Shade is useless to me. He’s cursed. Which means his body parts could be cursed. I need Wraith.”
Eidolon would do in a pinch, but Roag had already set him up for a lifetime of torment. Logical, loyal Doc E was being tortured once a month by vampires who would eventually maim or kill him. Besides, he’d need E’s surgical and healing skills to carry out his plan. Since Shade was useless, that left Wraith. Which was bloody fine, because he was the one Roag wanted to suffer the most anyway.
Poor little Wraith, so broken and tormented, so sheltered by his idiot, clueless brothers. Fools. Roag had seen through Wraith from the beginning. His youngest brother was a waste of good organs, but Roag planned to remedy that.
“Once again, you fail me.” He kicked the drekevac so hard it flew across the ancient keep’s great hall and slammed into a trestle table. As it scrambled toward him again, Roag morphed into Wraith’s form, reveling in the transformation that made his stiff, scarred skin turn soft and supple. “Since you obviously need a reminder, this is what he looks like.” And what Roag would look like once he’d harvested Wraith’s skin and reproductive parts.
“Lover?”
He wheeled around, thanking the Great Satan that he’d changed form before Sheryen entered the room. The Bathag demon had never seen him in his true form, and if he had his way, she never would. He needed Wraith, and he needed him soon. Eventually, Sheryen would grow resistant to the mind-sex and would realize that despite all her memories and orgasms, they had never once had intercourse.
“What is it, Sher?”
“I see you have a Seminus in the dungeon. I want to take him out to play.”
Jealousy nearly unhinged him. “You are to stay out of the dungeon, lirsha. How many times have I told you that?”
Her pretty pout made him grind his teeth in frustration. He still experienced the same urges he’d always had, but thanks to the loss of his sexual organs in the Brimstone fire, he could do nothing about them. It was a torture of the worst kind, being aroused but unable to fuck. He’d given Shade a taste of that earlier, when he’d set Solice to work on him, but clearly, she’d not worked him up enough, because he’d come down from his arousal rather than suffering to the point of death. The plan had been to let Shade agonize for hours, until he was nearly dead, and then send Solice back in, give Shade the release he needed … and start the cycle all over again.
A few moments of pleasure, punctuated by several hours of agony. Over and over. Beautiful.
And all ruined because Solice sucked dick as poorly as she performed surgery to remove the body parts from the demons his Ghouls captured. Which was why he needed Eidolon. Finding good medical help was even more difficult than finding good minions.
“Hmph.” Sheryen tossed her long, silver hair over her shoulder. “Then I’m going to Eternal. Care to join me?”
Damn her. She knew he wouldn’t go to any kind of club, let alone a vampire bar. The very idea made him break out in a cold sweat. “I’ll see you tonight in our lair.”
She blew him a kiss and sauntered away. “Follow her,” he snapped to another minion, who had been gnawing on a bone near the blazing hearth. “I don’t want her taking a side trip to the dungeon on her way out.” Shade would gladly seize the opportunity to screw her brains out and then use her to escape.
Roag should kill him. Or slice him up. Seminus parts were damned near priceless on the underworld market.
Problem was, there was no way of knowing if Shade’s curse, one of the most sinister and ingenious Roag had ever heard of, would affect the parts.
He was doing all of this for Sheryen, so he could bond with his true love and keep her in his bed—but he couldn’t risk transplanting organs cursed by an antilove spell onto himself.
But killing Shade outright would be too quick. No, he had to be made to suffer like Eidolon. But how? Roag had killed Shade’s mother, which had been fun even though Roag hadn’t told Shade about his role in it yet, and Skulk’s death would haunt him, but it wasn’t enough.
“What has my brother been doing down there? Is he miserable?” Probably not. Shade had always been into whips and chains.
The drekevac shrugged one misshapen shoulder. “I … think not. The she-warg is keeping him company.”
Roag narrowed his eyes. “They’d better not be able to touch.” If that bastard was finding pleasure in his dungeon—
Wait … that was it. The ultimate torture for Shade. And if all went well, Shade wouldn’t just be tormented for the rest of his life …
He’d be tormented for all eternity.
Five
Satin sheets. Down pillows. Chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne. All of it was too decadent for Shade, who preferred a lot less comfort and a lot more leather and chains, but the luxury suited Runa. Her soft skin deserved silky sheets. Her long, thick hair fell in shiny waves across the puffy pillow. And the way she licked strawberry juice from her lips set him on fire.
Somewhere in the back of Shade’s mind, he suspected this was a dream, but he didn’t want to fight it. Being with Runa felt too damned good.
He moved against her, buried deep inside her wet heat. It had been so long since they’d been together, so long since he’d let himself enjoy being with a female instead of just getting off in one.
It was dangerous, allowing sensation like this. If she hadn’t caught him with the two females last year, he’d have sent her packing, not because she’d grown clingy as he kept telling himself, but because he had been growing clingy. If not for the curse, Maluncoeur, he might have been tempted to hang on, see where their relationship might go, even if bonding with a human was out of the question. Even if, with her inexperience and shyness, she wasn’t his type.
Something about her had drawn him, had him thinking about her long after he’d left her at her coffee shop, had him hunting down her phone number and calling for a date two nights later.
“I’ve missed you, Shade.” Runa’s voice was sweet nectar, bubbling in his veins like the sparkling wine he’d sipped from the small of her back a few minutes earlier, when she’d lain on her belly, spread out before him like a feast. “Take me inside you.”
His head snapped up. Her eyes, glittering with lust and love and everything in between, gazed into his and he knew she meant what she’d said. She wanted to bond with him. To become his mate and help him through the s’genesis so he wouldn’t go through it alone, so he wouldn’t have his life turned upside down.
The right side of his face throbbed, the dermal markings trying to punch their way to the surface and declare that he’d gone through The Change. He was weeks away, days or hours, even, from becoming a shapeshifting demon who forgot his old life and spent his days in the mindless pursuit of females to impregnate.
Bonding with a mate would st
op the insanity—literally. Posts’genesis males often went insane, Roag being an example of that. Bonded posts’genesis males kept their sanity, became fertile, and could shapeshift, but the only females they could sleep with were their own mates.
The fact that they would be limited for life to one female was the reason many Sems didn’t bond, especially after s’genesis—who wanted to spend six hundred years with the same mate? Worse, there was only one way out—the death of one of the partners. And since demons, in general, held a serious disregard for life, finding a mate you could trust not to kill you in your sleep two hundred years into a bond was next to impossible.
Still, Shade would be willing to take the chance … if not for the curse. He couldn’t risk falling in love with the female he bonded himself to—and he knew he would fall, and fall hard. The desire for a loving family had been bred into him on his mother’s side, and every day he ached for what he couldn’t have.
For now, though, he had Runa.
Her legs locked tight around him. She arched up, taking him to the root, moaning robustly. He’d forgotten how tuned she was to him in bed, always responding to his every desire with enthusiasm. Her curiosity had been limitless, and he’d enjoyed introducing her to various positions, toys, and acts.
Reaching low, she dug her nails into one butt cheek, forcing him into a rhythm of her choosing. “Harder,” she growled. “Until I scream, demon.”
Surprise rang through him; she’d never shown any kind of aggression during sex, had catered to his desires and needs, had been pliable and perfect.
This was even better.
He pounded into her, giving her what she wanted, making her whimper as they climbed higher. The scent of her arousal rose up, intoxicating him with lust. Making him so drunk that the room began to spin, and when she commanded him to “Drink me” and dragged a long nail across her clavicle and drew blood, he did, without thinking.
She threaded her left fingers through his right ones, stretched their arms high above her head. Pain shot through him, lovely, delicious pain that radiated from his shoulder where she’d sunk her teeth. The dermoire that extended from his fingers to his neck began to glow with liquid heat, seeming to melt their limbs together.
Hell’s rings, they were bonding. Oh, shit, it was happening and he couldn’t stop it, not when her blood flowed like wine down his throat and she drew his blood with strong, erotic pulls. Not when his orgasm was barreling down on him like a freight train and she was screaming and …
He roared in his release as her climax milked him, her slick inner walls contracting around him and holding him prisoner.
Prisoner …
Blinded by the orgasm that went on and on, he couldn’t see straight, but something wasn’t right. The smells in the room were off, no longer chocolate and arousal, but mold and sewage. His knees weren’t sliding on satin. They were scraping on hard stone.
“Runa,” he whispered, and she moaned, rousing herself with the same dreamy fogginess that affected him.
“What happened?” She blinked up at him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the dermoire on his arm stop glowing. He felt her inside him, in his soul, his heart. They were bonded.
And with growing horror he realized where they were.
“You bastard.” Rage nearly boiled Runa’s blood as she glared up at Shade. “What did you do to me?” She shoved hard at his bare shoulders. “Get off me!”
To his credit, he seemed as bewildered as she was. He scrambled off her, his movements jerky and awkward. But then, she wasn’t exactly moving with grace and finesse, either. Her limbs felt heavy, as though her veins ran thick with lead instead of blood.
“Shit,” he breathed, kneeling beside her. “What happened?”
“You don’t know?”
“I know we just bonded. But I have no idea how we got to that point.”
Bonded? She winced at a twinge of pain in her head. She must have been drugged. Her mind worked furiously. Nebulous images swirled through her head. The Keepers had brought them food and water. They’d eaten, and after that … her mind was a black hole. She vaguely remembered hearing Roag’s voice, but then she was in a hotel room with Shade, and they were making love …
Bonding. The biting, the blood … some sort of mating ritual?
A tingling shock of arousal washed over her, purged her of coherent thought. Oh, she remembered this, remembered how sex with Shade left her enjoying orgasms for long afterward. She bit back a moan, ashamed that under the circumstances, she could possibly find another release.
As it swept over her, Shade drew her into his strong arms. “I love this part,” he murmured into her ear. “After I’ve taken you, and you come apart while I watch.”
She arched against him, clinging to his broad shoulders, clinging to the exquisite ripples of pleasure she didn’t want to end. His hard slabs of muscle buffered her body’s spasms. Dimly, she realized his thigh had spread hers and she was rocking against him. He held her tight, driving the hard length of his erection into her belly.
His lips brushed the rim of her ear as he talked her through the orgasms that came one after another. His words were graphic, hot, a verbal aphrodisiac that kept her shuddering in his embrace.
When it was over and her head had cleared, she shoved him away again, though with less force than before. “This is insane,” she said, her voice as hoarse as she’d ever heard it.
“So is Roag.” Shade shoved his hand through his hair, watching her as though gauging her ability to handle everything that had happened.
“I remember hearing Roag’s voice. They must have drugged us. But why?” She glanced around the tiny cell, only now realizing that they were no longer chained to the walls. Hope sang through her. She welcomed the feeling until a dark hunger made her realize that it wasn’t hope she was experiencing.
It was the pull of the full moon. The time was near.
“Why, I don’t know. But Roag has the power to make us think things that aren’t real. It’s the same gift Wraith has. He got into both our heads and made us want to bond.”
“And what, exactly, is bonding?”
“It’s what Seminus demons do if they want to either avoid or reverse the worst effects of s’genesis. We still go through The Change, but if we have taken a lifemate, we don’t sink into a life of violence, and we don’t have the urge to impregnate every female on the planet.” He leaned forward, his eyes dropping to her exposed breasts, which tightened under his hot gaze. “We only have the urge to impregnate our mate.”
She swallowed and wrapped her arms around herself. “Did you …”
“I’m not fertile yet.” He frowned. “Do I have a ring around my throat?”
“Yes.” It was an extension of the dermoire running up his arm … a knotted collar around his neck. She reached out to touch it, but he shied away.
“Don’t.” His voice was low and rough. “I’m having a hard time controlling myself. The things I want to do to you …”
Her heart thundered in her chest. Jumped to her throat so she could barely find her voice. “Is … is that normal?”
“I’ve heard that taking a mate before The Change brings it on faster.” His gaze darkened until the whites of his eyes had nearly been consumed by the black. “Because of the permanent supply of sex.”
The mere word, the possessive intensity in his expression, nearly had her moaning. “Think again, buddy. I’m not going to be your little sex slave.” She hoped that sounded more convincing to him than it did to her.
Shade put more distance between them, but the way his body was coiled, the way he watched her, reminded her of a panther ready to pounce. “That’s not how it works.” He fingered his throat. “Are there one or two rings?”
“One.”
“There will be two once the s’genesis is complete. The first one means I’m bonded. The second means I’m fertile. You’ll develop arm markings that match mine in a few minutes. Since the lycanthropy altered your DNA, you’re n
o longer fully human, so the bonding shouldn’t kill you.”
Shouldn’t?
This was really, really not good. She shoved to her feet and started to pace, the wolf blood itching just beneath the surface of her skin. “Okay, how do we unbond?”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “We don’t.”
“What do you mean, we don’t? There has to be a way. A spell, a ritual—”
“There isn’t.” He rubbed his jaw again. “Fuck.”
It occurred to her that she should be more upset, but since they were probably both going to die sometime in the next day or so, mating for life didn’t seem like a big deal.
“For fun, let’s say we survive the Ghouls. What does being bonded mean for me? For us?”
He stood, paced for a moment, his toned body a thing of beauty as he walked. “Forced fidelity, for one thing. Neither one of us can willingly have sex with another. You’ll feel pain if you try. I won’t be able to get it up. It means we will sense each other’s arousal no matter how far apart we are. We’ll feel each other’s emotions. I can feel your anger right now.”
“I’ll just bet you can.” She glared at him. “So this all sounds pretty shitty. Why would anyone do this? I mean, I get that it might make things easier on you, but why would women do this?”
“Not women. Our blood is toxic to humans, so we can’t bond with them.”
“Fine. Females, then. Why would demon females bond with you?”
“Demons do fall in love, you know,” he snapped. “Females do want to keep the male they love from going insane and fucking everything that moves.” He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, he was calmer. “Some species get longer lifespans out of the deal. Prey species get a protector in a mate. There are lots of reasons a female might bond with a Seminus demon.”
“What about werewolves?”
“Out-of-this-world orgasms.”
