Desire Unchained

Chapter 7

Blackness swirled around Shade, pinning him down as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He tried to roll over, but something more solid than the oppressive darkness was restraining him. He groaned. If he opened his eyes and found himself in Roag’s dungeon again …

“Shade, man, wake up.”

“E?” Shade dragged his lids open as far as they’d go, which wasn’t much. He peeked through slits at Eidolon, who was unbuckling the straps holding him down. Shade looked up at the chains and pulleys hanging from the dark ceiling, and felt a rush of relief. UG. He’d made it to the hospital.

Wait—why didn’t he remember anything, and why had he been restrained? How long had he been here? Where was … Runa!

Panic flared, but dimmed when he sensed her life force through the bond, sensed that she was safe, if angry, in beast form.

“What happened?” he asked, and shit, his throat was sore. He felt like he’d swallowed a spiny hellrat. Whole. And backward.

“Ah, well, looks like you got yourself mated.”

One hand came free, and he reached up to rub the telltale ring around his throat. “Wasn’t intentional.” When E’s brows rose, Shade shook his head. “I’ll explain later. Why am I strapped down?”

“You aren’t. All done.” Eidolon helped Shade sit up and offered him a cup of water, which he refused.

“You gonna tell me what happened?” And why was he naked? Even his necklace was missing. Man, he was sick of waking up in strange places with no idea how he got there. Someone had laid a set of scrubs on the chair beside the bed, so he dressed while his brother ignored the question. “E? You’re freaking me out.”

“What do you remember?”

“Not much,” he said shakily. “I remember chaining Runa up.” Right after that, he’d hiked a few miles to his mother’s cave, something he did out of respect, making sure no other demons had set up shop, but that was a secret he kept to himself. “I entered a Harrowgate, and … and that’s all I remember.” He swore. “How long have I been here? She’s probably starving. I need to get food to her.”

“Runa’s your mate?” At Shade’s hesitant nod, E asked, “Werewolf?”

“How’d you know?” Sure, the fact that Shade had locked her away on the night of a full moon was a dead giveaway, but the way E was hedging, not meeting his gaze … it wasn’t like his brother. Something was seriously wrong.

“Last night, you stumbled into the ER. Do you remember that?”

“Vaguely, now that you mention it.” He struggled to put together the fragments of memories floating around in his head, like the one of him stepping out of the gate and into the reddish light that allowed for day-dwellers to see inside the hospital as well as those who lived in the dark … but after that, the image broke apart like smoke in the wind. “It’s pretty much all a blank.”

“That’s because the moment you exited the Harrowgate, you turned into a warg.”

Shade froze as he tied the drawstrings on his pants. “That’s a joke, right?” When E didn’t crack a smile, Shade inhaled sharply. “E, come on. We’re immune to the lycanthropic infection.”

“I’ll be sure to remind you of that tonight when you’re doing tricks for Milk Bones.”

Shade couldn’t swallow. Could barely breathe. Seminus demons were not prone to “turning.” The only way his species could become part of another species was to be born to it. Like Wraith, who was a full-blooded Seminus but also a vampire. Under the right circumstances, had Shade been born to a werewolf, he’d be a pure-blooded Seminus who would crave Kibbles and Bits three nights out of the month. But you couldn’t turn into a vamp or a warg.

“Tell me what happened, Shade. Where have you been for the last couple of days?”

Shade sank down onto his bed before his knees gave out. “Hell, E. I was in hell.”

A long silence dragged out. The familiar, muted blips of hospital equipment had nearly calmed him when E finally spoke. “You said your mate is chained. Where?”

“My place.”

E nodded, knowing exactly which place. “That’s why you changed so suddenly. The time difference between Central America and New York. All it took was stepping out of the Harrowgate. You completely missed the transition period.”

Yeah, Shade had seen a were or two shift from human to beast and vice versa, so he knew they didn’t just poof into shape. Apparently, he had. He must have been one pissed-off puppy once his shift was complete.

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“There were a few scrapes and bruises, but nothing serious.”

“Bro!” Wraith strode into the room and yanked Shade into a bear hug.

“Someone was a little worried about you,” Eidolon drawled as Wraith released Shade.

“Like you weren’t.” Wraith punched E in the shoulder and turned back to Shade. “Now, big bro, you have some explaining to do. Starting with what the fuck you were thinking getting yourself bonded.”

Shade shook his head. Which felt like it had been whacked with a baseball bat. “Trust me, that’s not where I need to start.”

“Where have you been?” Wraith crossed his thick arms over his chest, obscuring the raunchy phrase on his T-shirt. “We know you were in pain, and we know you were shielded.”

“Shielded? Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I couldn’t feel you. Wondered why you guys didn’t come rescue me.” Roag would have been smart enough to install a damping spell around his castle to keep demons inside from sending out telepathic pleas for help, as well as to weaken the waves of misery that would be felt by those sensitive to it.

“Wraith nearly came out of his skin, he was so stressed.” E made it sound like he hadn’t worried, but the puffy shadows beneath his brother’s bloodshot eyes said otherwise. “Everyone here was worried about you and Skulk.” His voice lowered. “She is okay, right?”

“No.” Shade’s chest tightened around the empty hole Skulk’s death had left. “The ambulance run we went on was a trap. Skulk and I were taken by Ghouls.”

The temperature in the room plummeted as his brothers went dead still.

“Skulk?” E’s voice was barely a whisper.

Shade couldn’t say it. Not with the way his throat had closed up.

“Ah, fuck,” Wraith rasped.

Eidolon said nothing, merely closed his eyes and hung his head. He’d be offering up a prayer in the tradition of his Justice demon upbringing, a prayer asking for fair judgment of her soul and a satisfactory return to a new physical body.

Shade, whose religious upbringing had been less fundamentalist than Eidolon’s, wasn’t sure what to believe about the state of Skulk’s soul, but like many demons, humans, and vamps, Wraith didn’t pray to anyone or anything, and curses began to fall from his mouth, nasty invective in several different human and demon languages.

“I’ll kill the bastard who did it, Shade. I swear to you, I will mount his head in the specimen room.”

More curses spilled from him as his rage gathered. Wraith had two switches—I-don’t-give-a-fuck and I’m-going-to-kill-something—and any intense emotion threw one of them.

A voice screamed inside Shade’s head—Roag’s crackling, hoarse words saying that Wraith had been his target, not Skulk. “We’ve got to find him first.” He patted his shirt out of habit, seeking a pack of gum.

“Tell us everything,” Eidolon said, and Shade braced himself for their reactions.

“I woke up in a dungeon. Runa was with me.”

Wraith scowled. “Runa? That human you were boning last year?”

“Yeah. She’s not so human anymore. And now I’m bonded to her.”

“Why? How?”

This was so humiliating. “We were forced into it. By someone who knew about my curse. Someone who wants us all to suffer.” He patted his shirt again. First chance he got, he was putting in an order for a damned vending machine in this place.

“It was a vampire, wasn’t it?” Wraith asked.

It was a logical conclusion, given what had gone down between vamps and Seminus demons thanks to their father’s insane indiscretion. The vampires considered what he’d done to be the worst kind of offense, and Shade had to agree. What kind of sick bastard raped a woman during the transition between human and vampire, impregnated her, and then used his gift—the same gift Shade had—to keep her body alive so the fetus would grow, until she gave birth? He’d violated her repeatedly during her pregnancy and kept her in what had to have been a hellish stasis, not quite human, not yet vampire.

Not surprisingly, the female had gone mad, and Wraith had paid the price. Eventually, so had their father, once the vamps caught up to him.

“I wish the fiend responsible was a vampire.” He realized his hand was still at his chest, but he was rubbing it instead of patting for gum. The hole Skulk had left hurt, and talking about it only made it ache more. “It was Roag.”

Wraith’s eyes narrowed, and he waved a hand in front of Shade’s face. “E? Did you order a CT scan? Did he hit his head?”

Shade swatted his brother’s hand away. “Roag lives. And he’s more twisted than ever. He’s been behind the black market operation for the last couple of years.”

Eidolon went taut, his expression haunted. Wraith took a second longer to absorb the announcement, but when he did … shit. Shade had never seen his brother go so deathly white.

“Not funny, Shade.” Wraith’s voice was a harsh growl. “Not. Fucking. Funny.”

“Do you see me laughing?” Shade exhaled slowly, needing a moment to make sure he could keep his shit together, mainly because as unstable as Wraith was on a good day, this could get real ugly, real fast. “Roag survived the fire. I don’t know how. He’s damaged—skin like beef jerky, no nose, missing half his fingers.”

Eidolon, ever the logical one, shook his head. “We felt him die. We’d feel him if he was alive.”

“His death severed the connection,” Shade said, “but when he was resuscitated, the connection wasn’t.”

“How was he resuscitated? By whom?” Wraith dug one hand into his jeans’ pocket, and Shade knew he was comforting himself by feeling up one of his weapons. His brother was never unarmed, not when he was sleeping, fucking, not even in the safety of the hospital. No doubt there were a half-dozen more blades concealed on his body.

“Solice. She was there, with Roag. No doubt she’s been spying for him.” Shade clenched his fists at the memory of how she’d gone down on her knees and tortured the hell out of him in the dungeon.

“Solice?” Wraith’s lip curled into a nasty snarl. “She’s so fired. Like, with real fire.”

Eidolon was totally revved, grinding his teeth, tugging on his stethoscope. “This doesn’t add up. He was massively touched in the head, but why would he want to hurt you? And Skulk?”

“He killed Skulk to torture me. The rest … he thinks we’re responsible for the fire at Brimstone. He wants revenge.”

Wraith’s eyes shot wide open, and E shook his head. “The Aegis did it.”

“I know, but he’s convinced we wanted him dead.”

“I sure as hell want him dead,” Wraith ground out.

“You won’t get an argument from me.” Shade pegged E with a look, daring him to disagree, but his brother only nodded.

Wraith paced in a circle, his boots striking the obsidian floor so hard Shade expected to see sparks. “You say Roag forced you and Runa to bond?”

“He made us think we were dreaming.”

E cursed. “He really is sick. He knows that if you have a female tethered to you, you’ll fall for her.”

“And activate the curse.” Wraith wheeled around. “It’s an easy fix. We just kill Runa—”

A low growl erupted in the room. The writing on the walls began to pulse, and Shade realized the noise and aggression was coming from him.

“Easy, Shade,” E said. “You know Wraith is right.”

Yeah, he knew that. But the fierce, possessive instinct to protect his mate was burning inside him.

“I’ll do it.” Wraith’s voice was hard, decisive. “Where is she?”

Shade was in his brother’s face so fast he didn’t remember getting there. “Touch her, and I’ll lay you out like roadkill.”

Wraith held up his hands, smiled with a flash of fangs. “See? This is why I’m never, ever bonding with a female. Makes you stupid.” He shot a meaningful glance at Eidolon. “Or pussywhipped.”

Pissed as Shade was, he had to give Wraith that one. Not that Eidolon being whipped was a bad thing. His mate, Tayla, had kept him from going insane, but she also had him wrapped around her slender little slayer finger. When she crooked it, he came.

Pun intended.

“Shade,” Eidolon said softly, “would it be easier if Tayla did it? Tonight, after Runa changes?”

“No!” Shade backed away from Wraith, ran his hands through his hair, and left them clutching his skull as if doing so would help him keep his head on straight. “Nothing will make it easier. You think I want to know that Wraith is getting off on killing my mate or that your slayer is beating the hell out of her?”

E nodded as if he got that. “I can do it. I’ll sedate her first. She won’t feel a thing.”

Anguish twisted Shade’s gut, and he dropped his hands. His body and emotions were so tweaked out. “That’s not like you, offering to kill someone.” Then again, it was the logical thing to do, and E was all about logic.

“Better her than you.” Eidolon’s dark gaze sharpened. “I won’t risk losing you, Shade. Not to that curse. We’ve already got the werewolf thing to deal with, on top of your impending s’genesis.”

The s’genesis that was clawing at him even now. He could feel the throbbing in his throat, right above where his mated mark had set into his skin. His groin throbbed in time with his neck, and he knew he’d need to be with Runa, and soon.

“No one touches her until I’ve gone through it,” he growled. “Having a mate will make it easier, and with the lycanthropy complications …” What a nightmare. If s’genesis struck during a full moon, he could only imagine the horrors he’d inflict on the females he’d attack for sex.

Eidolon blew out a breath. “I agree that it makes sense to wait, but you’re taking a chance.”

“I’m not going to fall in love with her anytime soon, bro. She’s annoying as hell. I have time.”

“I don’t like it,” Wraith said.

Shade snorted. “You just want an excuse to kill her.”

Wraith didn’t deny it. “How did she infect you, anyway?”

His body cramped, as though it remembered the agony he’d been in when he’d begged Runa to hurt him.

“She shifted to bite me.” He frowned. “She can shift at will. She doesn’t need the full moon.”

Eidolon started. “How is that possible?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“This isn’t good, Shade. Were-beast infections are human diseases. We’re not meant to catch them. Who knows what the lycanthropy is doing to your body. And what happens during a full moon when you need sex? You could rip your partner apart.”

“I’ll have Runa.”

“For now.”

Shade clenched his fists and changed the subject. “Maybe you should run some tests on her.” The tests might reveal why she didn’t sport the mating markings, too. Though that was something he’d keep to himself for now.

“Good idea.”

Wraith picked up a scalpel from a nearby tray and tested the edge with his thumb. “You two are acting like she’ll be alive long enough to find out what’s wrong with her. Are you forgetting that she needs to die, and the sooner the better?”

Shade’s hackles raised. “You’re a little too eager to put her in the ground, brother.”

Eidolon stepped between them. “I need to see Runa. If she can shift at will, she might have some unique antibodies to the lycanthropic infection. If I could isolate what makes her different—”

“You might be able to develop a cure for me,” Shade murmured.

“Exactly.”

Shade tried to ignore the sense of relief that took pressure off his chest, tried to pretend the relief was due to the fact that he might be cured of his lycanthropy and not that Runa had been given a temporary reprieve.

The relief didn’t last long though. A wrenching, agonizing sensation slammed into his midsection, and his skin screamed as though he were being pricked by a million needles.

“Shade?” Wraith’s voice vibrated with alarm. “What is it?”

He heard the scalpel clatter to the floor and felt two sets of hands on his arms, felt his body being braced between his brothers’ large, sturdy frames.

“I’m okay,” he breathed. “It’s Runa. I felt her shift back. Burn of re-entry, I guess.” He shuddered as the sensations eased away, was suddenly very glad he’d been drugged for his transformation. “She’s hungry.” A stirring in his groin told him food wasn’t all she craved.

Hell’s teeth.

“Go to her,” E said, in a tone that said he knew exactly what was going on. “Bring her in later.”

Shade pulled in a ragged breath. “We need to deal with Roag. He’s after us, and he might have more spies in the hospital. And Runa killed his female. He’ll be after her, too.”

“I still can’t believe he’s alive.” Eidolon picked up Shade’s chart and tucked it under his arm. “Do you know where you were being held?”

“It was a castle. Ireland, I think.”

Wraith bared his fangs. “I’ll find it. I swear to you, I’ll nail his ass to the wall.”

Shade nodded. If anyone could find Roag, Wraith could. His job at UG was to research, locate, and retrieve rare artifacts, spells … anything that might come in handy during the course of treating demons. He had experience, instinct, and single-minded focus that couldn’t be easily broken. When he wanted something, he got it.

“Be careful, bro. Roag has always had a real hard-on when it comes to you.” And speaking of hard-ons, Shade’s punched painfully against his scrub bottoms. He needed to get to Runa.

“That’s flattering,” Wraith said wryly, “but he’s still going to die.”

The door whispered open, and Ciska entered. “Doc E? We have a new trauma patient in the ER. Gem is asking for your assistance.”

“Got it.” Eidolon slapped a hand on Shade’s back as he passed. “Go to Runa. When you bring her in, we’ll get this figured out.” He disappeared down the hall, but before Ciska could follow, Shade stopped her.

“Got a second?”

“For you?” she purred, sliding seductive glances between him and Wraith. “Always. Are we going to party?”

Wraith shrugged, the motion casual, but he still looked a little wigged about everything. “I’m game.”

Wraith was always game if the female wasn’t human or vampire, and since the nurse was a pretty little Sora demon both Shade and Wraith had tapped, Wraith’s enthusiasm was a no-brainer.

“Come here.” Shade pointed at his brother. “You. Stay.”

Ciska sauntered up to him, pressed her ample chest to his, and began to rub in a way that should have triggered an electric tingle. But it didn’t. “Is he just going to watch?”

“Touch me,” Shade commanded.

Smiling, she reached down, grasped his cock. For a moment, he stayed hard. Hope soared. Maybe he wasn’t truly bonded to Runa. Maybe … she began to stroke, and he deflated like a punctured lung.

Fuck.

He wheeled away. The need for sex was still there, raw and persistent, but his groin felt as if it was connected to Runa by a rope. It tugged, bringing his erection back, making him burn.

Runa might not be marked, but he was definitely bonded to her. She wanted sex, and by the way his adrenaline was surging, she wanted it in a way she hadn’t before.

Damn her, she was going for his jugular, and it was only a matter of time before he bled out.

“Ky, buddy, would you mind checking on Wraith?”

Eidolon strode into the ER, where Kynan and Gem had been treating a Trillah demon—a sleek, catlike species—with a mangled foot. Gem had just come on shift, so they still hadn’t dealt with how Kynan had practically run out of the break room yesterday, and the air between them crackled with unacknowledged tension.

“What’s wrong with Wraith?” Ky tossed some bloody gauze into the trash.

“Remember the dead brother I told you about?”

Kynan nodded. “Roag, right?”

“He’s alive.”

“What?” Gem looked up from spiking a bag of saline. “That can’t be right.”

Fury flared in Eidolon’s expression, quickly snuffed by the doctor’s usual cool façade. “I’m having a hard time believing it myself.” He snapped on some surgical gloves, all business, which was, Ky had discovered, how the guy handled stress. “Shade says he’s behind the newest black market operation that’s been filling our ER and morgue. He captured Shade, forced him to bond with a warg, and … and he killed Skulk.”

“Jesus,” Kynan muttered. He watched Eidolon assess the patient as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened, but his eyes, flecked with red that came out when he was extremely pissed off, were flashing.

“I don’t know how Wraith is going to react to all of this once it sinks in. I’d appreciate it if you could help me keep an eye on him.”

Great. Just his luck to get tasked with babysitting detail. “No problem.” He stripped off his bloody gloves and checked his watch. Six hours. He’d be off duty in six hours and drunk as a skunk in seven. Couldn’t happen soon enough.

He’d wanted to get lit last night after the encounter with Gem, but there’d been a minor crisis at Aegis headquarters, a rookie Guardian who’d fallen apart after her first battle. Tayla could handle pretty much anything that came up during normal operations, but she was a little too hard-edged to deal with meltdowns. The traumatized Guardian had also required medical attention, so he’d pulled double duty as medic and shrink. Afterward, he’d gone straight to the tiny bachelor pad he’d moved into after his wife left him and crashed out of exhaustion rather than an alcohol binge. Tayla had offered to let him stay on the couch at headquarters, a six-bedroom house where two dozen Guardians lived, but he couldn’t bear to stay where he and Lori had been happy.

Happy. What a joke. He had no idea how long Lori had been cheating on him before he caught her, but now their entire relationship was in doubt, all the way back to his first military deployment. She could have been screwing anyone while he was getting his ass shot at in deserts and jungles.

“I left him in Shade’s room,” E said. “Thanks, man. I owe you.”

“Damn straight.” Kynan stalked out of the emergency department, made it to Shade’s room a minute later.

The door opened as he reached for it, and Ciska brushed past him, a secret smile on her lips. The secret became less of one when he entered the room and saw Wraith zipping up.

Wraith rolled his eyes. “E sent you, right?”

“Yep.” Kynan closed the door.

“I don’t need a babysitter, so take a hike.”

Ignoring Wraith, Kynan sank down in a chair. “Where’s Shade?”

“Probably fucking his mate by now.”

Yeah, that news had spread like hellfire through the hospital. Ky wasn’t sure why Shade taking a mate was such a big deal, since E had done the same, but apparently it was a Very Bad Thing.

“It’ll work out, Wraith. It’ll be fine.”

“Whatever. I don’t care.”

“Don’t give me that shit. You care a lot.”

Wraith snorted. “I don’t care about anyone or anything, human.” He jabbed Ky in the chest with one finger, leaned in close to growl in his ear, “I’d sell out my own brothers for the right price. Get that through your thick skull.”

With that, Wraith stalked out of the room. As the door shut, Kynan heard him shout, “Hey, female! Come here!”

Kynan stared at the door. Wraith might not be looking for a fight or making a beeline for a junkie right now, but he had a tendency to use sex in place of drugs or violence when he was upset.

When the sex ran out, Wraith was going to go for one of his other two vices, and then things would get ugly fast.

Wraith waited until the lab technician he’d just screwed closed the door to the supply closet in which they’d just bumped uglies. Strike that—he’d bumped ugly. With her underbite, overgrown lower canines, and patchy fur, she wasn’t the most attractive Slogthu he’d ever banged.

As soon as she was gone, he slid to the floor, spine against the wall, and buried his face in his hands.

Fucking Kynan. What made him think Wraith cared about anything?

I’d sell out my own brothers for the right price.

His words rang through his head, a harsh truth because he had sold out a brother. He’d betrayed his own kind, his own flesh and blood.

And he’d fucking gotten off on it.

Three years ago, while hunting New York City street gang members for sport more than out of a need to feed, he’d run into an Aegis slayer. Naturally, the moron had tried to kill him. Wraith supposed the guy had been an adequate enough fighter, but there wasn’t a being on earth or in the demon realm of Sheoul who could take Wraith in hand-to-hand, and within seconds, he had the guy on the ground, dagger at his jugular.

It had been tempting to kill him, to drain him dry with his teeth. Instead, he’d given the guy a tip. Well, more than a tip. Wraith had practically drawn the Aegi a map to Roag.

Roag, who’d had a tenuous hold on sanity before s’genesis, and who had gone about as evil as could be after. Wraith and his brothers had agreed that none of them should have to live like that, but no matter what Roag did, Eidolon demanded full investigations before any severe punitive action was taken.

But the investigations took too long, and finally, after finding the remains of a human female Roag had raped to death, Wraith took action.

He could have killed Roag himself, but E would have figured it out. Wraith hadn’t counted on The Aegis taking out the entire demon bar where Roag had been hanging out. Not that it had been a big deal—so what if a bunch of vamps and demons got whacked? But didn’t it just figure that the one who was supposed to have died was the one who survived.

And now, because of Wraith, Roag had tortured Shade, nearly killed him, and had killed Skulk, one of the few females at UG Wraith hadn’t screwed—and not because Shade would have blown a valve. Wraith had kinda liked her in a big-brother way.

And now she was dead, and Shade was suffering. Because of him.

“I’m so sorry, Shade,” he whispered.

He threw his head back against the wall, eyes closed, mind jonesing for the mellow blotto of a drug binge or the cranked-up rush of a battle high. Sex wasn’t working; he could screw every female in the hospital and it wouldn’t be enough. He needed more.

Balling his fist, he punched it into the wall. The pain gave him a momentary buzz, but dammit, nothing was going to fix his life. He figured he still had a year left before s’genesis, and then he wouldn’t give a shit about any of this.

But right now it hurt. And with the exception of self-inflicted pain, he didn’t do hurt well.

“This is like the plot from a bad comic book,” Roag growled. “I’m surrounded by complete incompetence.”

A Drec minion knelt before him, his head bowed. It had been nearly a day since Shade escaped, and the mess still hadn’t been cleaned up. Several of his Ghouls were missing, and Sheryen hadn’t returned from Eternal yet, which wasn’t unusual, but which pissed him off nevertheless.

“Only two of our other captives escaped when their cell doors were damaged by falling stone,” the Drec said.

Roag’s withered hand curled into a fist. He wasn’t concerned about the other escapees. What really chapped his cracked hide was that Shade and the warg bitch had broken free.

Fury seared him, shivered painfully across his ruined skin. Wraith was going to pay for ruining his life. For turning him into a burned-out shell.

Because he had no doubt Wraith was ultimately responsible. The night at Brimstone played over and over in his head, a movie that was stuck in a permanent play-rewind-play cycle. He’d been minding his own business, fucking a couple of faeries in the back of the pub, when the place had been overrun by Aegi. Roag noticed that one slayer, a Mohawk-haired punk, had been searching for someone in particular, and when he laid eyes on Roag, he’d zeroed in.

Roag had known, in that moment, that he’d been targeted. Instantly, he used his gift to enter the slayer’s mind, and he’d seen a memory in the slayer’s head. One where he’d been tipped off by Wraith, given directions to Brimstone and a description of Roag. His little brother had even sweetened the pot by telling the Aegi that he’d pay for proof of Roag’s death.

Thanks to s’genesis, Roag had been able to shapeshift into something bigger and meaner, and he’d ripped that Aegi apart. When the pub erupted in flames, the only thing that had saved his life was that the demon he’d shifted into was immune to fire. Shifting into another species didn’t bring with it the special gifts unique to the species, so Roag hadn’t been completely immune, but he’d received enough resistance to prevent him from burning to a pile of ash. Still, if not for Solice showing up after the slayers left, he’d have died.

He’d always despised Wraith, despised the attention showered on him by E and Shade, but since that day at Brimstone he’d wanted Wraith to suffer as no one in history ever had. And when Roag was satisfied that Wraith had suffered enough, he would die. But not before playing skin and organ donor. Wraith would give back what he’d taken from Roag.

A commotion at the end of the hall grabbed his attention, and when he looked up, his heart, what was left of it, stopped.

“My lord,” a Nightlash minion said, “we found her near the Harrowgate …” The Nightlash carried Sheryen’s crumpled, broken body in his arms.

Roag stared at Sheryen as she was placed at his feet.

A bloody, injured Darquethoth limped forward. “We chased your brother and his female. They attacked—”

“Who killed Sheryen?” he rasped. “Who?”

“Your brother’s mate, my lord.”

Rage rolled through him, rattling his bones, stretching his joints, making his leathery skin crack until blood streamed from the fissures.

“Summon a necromancer.”

The Darquethoth hissed. “But master—”

“Do it!” Roag roared. “Now!” He would have his lover back. Consequences be damned. “And get a new spy into the hospital.”

“Yes, master.”

“I will have Wraith,” he swore, “and I will ruin my brothers’ lives, but first I will have that bitch’s head on a spike.”

Roag knelt next to his beloved, his entire body shaking as he pulled her into his arms. Thank the Great Satan she’d died near a Harrowgate, where the demonic energy prevented her body from disintegrating.

With a silent prayer, he willed the necromancer to hurry. Sheryen must be reanimated before her body began to decay, and the clock was ticking.

“Fear not, my love.” He brushed his mouth over hers, glad she couldn’t feel his scarred, stiff lips. “Soon, I will be wearing Wraith’s skin, and you will feel the pump of Runa’s blood in your veins.”

He smiled at the thought, the delicious irony that only the blood of the one who had killed her would bring Sheryen back to life.