Desire Unchained (7 page)

“Get on with whatever you came to do.” His voice, strong and deep, cracked like a whip.

The other male hissed and lunged, halting just out of Shade’s reach. “I’ve always hated

you. Nearly as much as your pathetic little brother.”

Shade bared his teeth. “That might mean something to me if I knew who you are.”

For a moment, their captor stood there, a vein in his temple pulsing. He’d said he was

Shade’s brother, but Shade didn’t seem to be buying it. Still, it was weird how much he

resembled Shade, except for the blue eyes and blond hair. When he tore off his robe, revealing a

sculpted, athletic body, she noticed other differences, mainly that Shade was broader in the

shoulders, but slightly shorter—which, at around six-three, wasn’t short. The markings on his

right arm were the same, but where Shade sported an unseeing eye on his neck, this other demon

had an hourglass.

Suddenly, the muscle-bound demon shimmered and morphed into some sort of humanoid

creature, withered and hunched over, its cracked skin wrinkled in some places and stretched tight

and shiny in others. Whatever it was, it looked as if it had been dunked in a deep fryer and

cooked extra-crispy.

“I can’t hold on to an adopted form for long,” he said. “A couple of hours, at most. I have

all the limitations of a Seminus after
s’genesis.
” His gaze caught Shade’s and held it, the newly brown eyes glinting with more than a touch of insanity.

The blood drained from Shade’s face so fast she thought he might drop.

“Yes,” the thing rasped. “You know who I am now, don’t you?”

“No.” Shade stumbled sideways, catching the wall with his shoulder. He’d gone deathly

pale, his skin glyphs pulsing starkly against the ashen tone of his skin. “You can’t be …”

Scarred lips twisted into a grotesque smile. “Look at me. We heal quickly and well, but

look what fire does to us.”

“Fire,” Shade whispered. “Fire destroyed the Brimstone.” He shook his head, his dark

hair whipping into his eyes. “But you were killed. The place was burned to the ground. I felt you

die.”

“I died for a time,” the burned thing said, “so the bond we brothers shared was broken

that day, but you know it’s me.”

“Shade?” Runa’s voice broke into the tense air hanging in the cell. “What’s going on?

Who is he?”

“He’s my dead brother,” Shade bit out. “It’s Roag.”

Four

Roag was alive.

Shade tried to process the information, but he didn’t get very far. Nothing was making

sense. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

Roag waved his shriveled arm. “This? The demon parts harvesting? You’ll find out soon

enough.”

“How long?” Gods, Shade had visions of Roag running an operation for decades, right

under their noses.

“Couple of years. I’m the new kid on the block, but my operation has all but put the

others out of business.”

“But why did you let us think you were dead?”

“
Why?
” With a roar, Roag swung the club. Shade ducked, but his chain restricted his

movement, and he caught a glancing blow on the cheek. “You have the gall to ask me that? You

tried to kill me.”

Blood dripped down Shade’s face in a stinging rivulet. “What the fuck are you talking

about?”

“Brimstone, you dumb shit. You, Wraith, and Eidolon arranged for me to die. The only

thing I don’t know is who made the final decision that I was too insane to live.”

Actually, Shade had decided that decades ago. It had been 1952, and all four of them had

just spent thirty-six hours sharing a Bedim demon harem. Sated, exhausted, and still feeling a

sexual high, they’d discussed what life would be like after
s’genesis.
Unlike E and Shade, Wraith and Roag had been looking forward to it. But Roag not only looked forward to it, he truly hadn’t

cared how he’d come out of it. Sane or not, it made no difference to him.

Eidolon had been surprised by Roag’s attitude, but not Shade. He’d always thought Roag

was one rat short of a plague.

“It wasn’t us. For some reason, no matter how batshit crazy you went, E looked the other

way.”

“I’m not insane,” Roag snarled.

“Right. Because sane people cut up other people to sell their parts.”

That earned Shade another whack with the club, this time in the shoulder. “You dare

judge me? I had nothing until after I healed from the fire and started up this operation, but now I

stand to take all you and our brothers took from me.”

“It wasn’t us,” Shade repeated.

“Liar! I know it was. And for that, you will all suffer. Just like your sister.”

Roag signaled to the Nightlash, who came forward with his own club. Runa screamed,

but Shade just closed his eyes. Fighting would be pointless, and Roag would get off on it.

Instead, he bore the beating until his knees gave out.

At some point the blows stopped and Roag and the Nightlash left, but he had no idea how

long ago that had been. Felt like days. Stones and straw bit into his knees as he knelt on the floor

of the cell. His head throbbed and his mouth was dry, and he was only now coming around

again.

Runa’s touch, light and feathery, might have had something to do with that.

“How long?” he croaked.

“I don’t know. A while.” She pulled her hand away. They were still chained to the walls,

barely able to touch and only if they stretched.

“Son of a bitch,” he breathed, settling painfully onto one hip. “That son of a bitch.”

“That demon … Roag … you thought he was dead?”

“For three years now.”

Shade stared past her, at the stone wall that oozed moisture, but in his head, he was

seeing a replay of the day he’d learned Roag had died. Only later had it come to light that The

Aegis had somehow located the magic-cloaked demon pub and slaughtered everyone inside.

When the Guardians were done, they burned Brimstone to the ground. How Roag had survived

was a mystery, but the fire damage explained why Shade hadn’t recognized his voice, which was

now so gravelly and deep that his Irish accent had been distorted.

“I’m guessing that when he looked normal, with the blond hair, he was impersonating

one of your other brothers? Wraith, right?”

“Yeah.” He glanced over at Runa, wondering how she was handling all this, but man, she

was a trouper, sitting there all calm and cool when Shade just wanted to go as batshit loco as

Roag.

“Is … is there anything I can do?” she said softly.

“Only if you can bring back my sister.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He risked another glance at her. “I thought you hated me.”

Her head snapped back as though he’d slapped her. “I would never wish this on you.”

She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. “I know what it’s like to love a

sibling.”

Shame shrank his skin. He remembered her brother, her devotion to him, her misery as

she watched him waste away. They’d been close—she’d told Shade how her brother had been

awarded custody of her when she was sixteen, after their father disappeared and their mother had

been hospitalized. Arik had protected her as a brother should.

As Shade should have protected Skulk.

“How is Arik?” he asked, needing something—anything—to keep from screaming.

“He’s great.” She slid him a sidelong glance. “Thanks to you.”

Shade cranked his head around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You healed him.” She searched his face, but he didn’t know what she was looking for.

“I know you did.”

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t. I know it was you. Arik was dying, and then you came over … and after you left,

his condition began to improve.”

Shade sighed. Three days before Runa found him with the two females, he’d gone to her

house, an older two-story in New Rochelle, to drop off the jacket she’d left at his place. He’d

also planned to make a clean break from her. He’d sensed her growing attachment, her need for

more than he could give. The moment he walked through the door, the rank stench of death had

assaulted him. Runa had been on the phone, so he’d wandered through the house until he found

the master bedroom, where her brother had been lying in bed, a living skeleton.

“He was suffering from a demon-inflicted disease,” Shade said, when her stare made it

clear that she wasn’t going to let this drop.

“What did you do?”

“Shit.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. He hadn’t wanted her to know any of this. He

hadn’t wanted her to feel grateful or that she owed him. The last thing he needed was for her to

harbor any kind of tender feelings toward him.

“Shade? How did you cure him?”

A scuffle broke out in a nearby cell, followed by obscenities, a few barks of pain, and

then things settled down. The silence, with the exception of the nerve-wrackingly incessant

dripping noise, was enough incentive to keep Shade talking. Anything was better than listening

to the sound of his own thoughts.

“I have the ability to affect bodily functions. The primary purpose of my incubus gift is to

force a female into ovulation, but I can also enter the body at a cellular level, reverse some

diseases.” He shrugged. “Your brother’s disease was an easy fix, actually.”

“The doctors were amazed,” she murmured. “I took him to the hospital the next morning.

He walked in on his own two feet for the first time in months.”

“Happy to hear it.”

“Thank you.”

And there was the gratitude he’d been hoping to avoid. “Don’t thank me. I did it for

purely selfish reasons,” he growled.

“How can saving a life be selfish?”

He forced himself to meet her gaze with as much malice as he could muster. “I didn’t

figure you’d give it up if you were grieving over his death.”

She gasped, and he felt a twinge of guilt for lying to her. He’d saved Arik because that’s

what he did. He was a paramedic, and even though the guy was human, he’d been suffering.

“You’re a bastard.”

“Yep.”

He winced as he made himself more comfortable—hard to do after Runa’s bite and the

torture he’d been subjected to. Abruptly, he felt like a piece of shit for wincing at his discomfort, given what Skulk had probably gone through.

“So how did you survive the warg attack?” he asked. “How did it happen?”

She remained quiet for a moment, as though the silent treatment was a punishment, and

he supposed in a way it was. “It happened the night I went to your place and found you with

those … whores. I ran out, wasn’t paying attention to anything going on around me, and the

werewolf attacked me.” She flinched so violently Shade swore to kill the warg if he ever caught

him. “He tossed me behind a Dumpster when he was done. I don’t know how long I lay there,

but I did manage to find my cell and call my brother. He came for me. Took me to the hospital.

The doctors wanted to keep me for a couple of days, but Arik checked me out against medical

advice the next evening. I didn’t know why, but I trusted him.”

“He knew you’d been bitten by a warg.”

“Yes. He didn’t tell me that, though. He took me home and locked me in the wine cellar.

I thought he’d lost his mind. The next morning, when I woke up in the destroyed cellar, he

explained.”

Shade shifted forward, his aches momentarily forgotten. “How did he know? And how

did he contract a demon virus?”

She jerked her gaze away, and he wished they were closer so he could force her to look at

him. Then again, it was probably best if they didn’t touch. He had too many memories of how

good she felt under his palm. Under his body.

“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