“This is your Change?” she asked, and he nodded. He hadn’t said how the actual transition would occur, or how long it would take, and she certainly hadn’t expected it to be this intense.
“Hurts.” As though his body agreed, it convulsed violently.
“What can I do?”
His lips drew back from his clenched teeth.“I … need … you.”
His words washed away the hurtful things he’d said last night. He needed her. “I’m here. Take what you need.”
His eyes peeled open. There was no warning. Just his body pinning hers to a tree. She cried out as the bark dug into her spine and his mouth crushed her. “Forgive me,” he mumbled against her lips. “Please. Forgive me for what I’m going to do to you.”
Shade woke up with a groan. Every muscle ached, his head throbbed, and his skin felt as if it had been bathed in acid. Next to him on the bare floor of the cave, Runa lay curled in a ball on her side. She opened one groggy eye.
“Do you need me again?” she croaked.
He inhaled, took in her scent, the savory aroma of the nonstop sex they’d had. He didn’t need her again, but he wanted her. Now more than ever. She was his mate, and he had completed The Change. All his focus, all of his desires, were now concentrated fully on her, and one of his new desires was to fill her with his seed, his young.
And wouldn’t that be a disaster. He was possessive enough as it was, could hardly bear the thought of doing what must be done in order to save his life, but if she were carrying his child …
“No.” His voice was as hoarse as hers, a result of hours of panting, shouting, and straining during the marathon sex that had taken place in their normal forms all day yesterday, and then all night long in their warg bodies. “Rest. I think it’s over.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” Eidolon’s s’genesis had been different, had taken place over the course of a few days, with minimal sexual side effects, a result of his months of holding it off with an experimental treatment using his own blood. Shade’s change had been faster and more intense, but thank the gods he’d had a mate to spend himself on.
Shame sat like a weight in the pit of his stomach. All this time he’d been bitching about having a mate, and yet, he’d been happy to use her to make his transition to a fully mature male easier. Hell’s bells, he was a bastard.
Images from the last eighteen hours came to him in bits and pieces, erotic images of everything they’d done as he’d felt the s’genesis breaking through the surface. Runa had never resisted him, had offered herself as a willing sacrifice to the constant need. Then again, he’d given her little choice.
He touched his throat, winced at the sensitivity. “Do I have a new mark?”
She stroked where his fingers had been. Instead of hurting, her touch soothed. “You have another ring around your neck. Knotted symbols that link to the other ring.”
He was fertile now. Closing his eyes, he let her stroke him, felt himself sway toward her. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. What about you?”
He swallowed, opened his eyes, took in the angry bite marks on her shoulder, the welts left by his nails on her back and buttocks. After what he’d done to her, he didn’t deserve her concern. He didn’t deserve her.
With a curse, he shoved to his feet, ignoring her calls as he fled to the waterfall.
“Shade.”
“Dammit,” he growled, swinging around to her. “What?”
She was nude, gloriously naked, but she hugged herself as if she regretted not getting dressed before she followed him outside. “What would have happened if I hadn’t been around for your s’genesis?”
“If we hadn’t been bonded, you mean?” The cool spray eased his burning skin as he stood there. “I’d have been forced to seek out human and demon females. As many as I needed. I wouldn’t have cared about consent or their desires.” The idea made him sick, because he doubted he’d cared much about Runa’s consent last night, when the worst of it hit him, when he’d felt only the insane, driving urge to spill inside her.
“You didn’t rape me, Shade.”
His mouth fell open, and he had to snap it shut. He knew she couldn’t feel his emotions because she didn’t share the link with him, but somehow, she knew what he was thinking. “I didn’t give you much choice.”
She moved forward, took his hand in one of her delicate ones. “If I’d wanted to defend myself, I could have.”
That much was true. During the daylight, she could have shifted into her warg form and kicked his ass. “You should have.”
Few Seminus demons survived to their hundred-year mark, but of those that did, fully half died during s’genesis, victims of too little sex or killed either by the females they tried to rape or the males trying to defend their females.
“We’re in this together now, like it or not,” she said, and he almost laughed. They weren’t in shit together. She wasn’t bonded to him, and he was going to have to kill her to get out of the bond he had with her. This wasn’t a pairing made in heaven. It had been thrust upon them in hell.
“So what now?” she asked.
He felt his gaze grow hot no matter how hard he willed it not to. “I can make you pregnant.” Her harsh intake of breath was audible even over the roar of the waterfall, and he relieved her worry quickly. “I didn’t. You aren’t fertile right now.”
Her hand was still in his, and he couldn’t resist using his Seminus gift to probe her body, to go deep inside her reproductive organs to determine how close to ovulation she was. He could force ovulation if he wanted to, and damn, the temptation made him itch.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and studied him. “Shift into something.”
“What?”
“I want to see what happens. Do you have any limitations?”
“We can only shift into similar-sized, live birth species. No egg-layers. We can go up to twice as large as ourselves but not smaller.” The females had to be capable of bearing a Seminus’s young, and smaller demons wouldn’t fare well if forced to give birth to a larger species.
He realized he was stroking her wrist with his thumb, drawing her closer, easing her into relaxation, an incubus trick of seduction. Only this time, it was he who was succumbing. How many human women could have adapted to his world so quickly and with so little fear and reservation? She should be terrified about the changes in him, but she’d rolled with the punches—his raging sexual need last night, the fact that he could impregnate her at will, and now, she wanted him to shapeshift into something potentially horrifying.
She was magnificent. If not for his curse, he’d be thanking his lucky stars that Roag had forced him to mate with her.
“I’m not sure how to shift,” he admitted.
“Well, when I shift outside the moon phase, I just picture myself shifting … and it happens.”
Eidolon had said something similar, that being in the presence of a demon helped one to turn into that species, but otherwise, the key was concentration. Shade cycled his mind through dozens of different species and in the end decided not to terrorize Runa too much. He settled on a Sora demon. He concentrated … and in moments, he felt the sting of stretching skin, the agony of popping joints, and the next thing he knew, he had bright red skin, long nails, and a whiplike tail.
Cool.
Runa had backed up a step, but she watched him with curiosity, not fear. “You look like a cartoon devil. You just need a pitchfork.”
He laughed, because Tayla had said the same thing about Ciska, the Sora nurse at UG. The one who could do amazing things with her tail …
Which gave him a wicked idea.
He whipped his tail up, catching Runa at the waist. She didn’t resist as he pulled her toward him, though she swallowed audibly when she noticed his erection. He looked down, and yup, that sucker was worthy of a little trepidation. It pulsed a deep, dark crimson, and the head was broad, the tip glistening with a drop of liquid arousal.
Still, he didn’t sense fear from her.
“It’s so easy for you, isn’t it?” she murmured.
“What’s easy?”
“Sex. Seducing women.”
Shade drew a finger across the tops of her breasts. “It’s what I am.” Slowly, he slid his tail down her bare butt. “Spread your legs.”
She hesitated for a mere heartbeat before obeying. He slipped his tail between her thighs and feathered the tip over the pad of her sex. She made a sound, the tiny, feminine catch in her breath he loved to hear.
He trailed the fingers of both hands to her nipples, and he used his slightly elongated nails to pluck them gently as he tickled her sex with his tail. What a handy appendage. So maybe this s’genesis thing wasn’t all bad.
For a mated male, at least.
Dipping his head, he swiped his tongue along the seam of her mouth, demanding that she open for him. When she did, he slid inside her mouth, tasting the faint tang of toothpaste, and he wondered when she’d found the time—and energy—to brush her teeth this morning. Eager to taste more, to take more, he thrust his tongue against hers and started an easy, penetrating rhythm that had her clutching his shoulders and rolling her hips against him with the same carnal timing.
Before Runa, he’d never enjoyed kissing, had detested the intimacy of the act. But he loved how she put her soul into every kiss. She wasn’t practiced, but what she lacked in experience she made up for in emotion and effort.
One of her hands dropped between them, and her fingers skimmed over the head of his cock to play in the slick moisture there. Groaning, he threw back his head and let her play, something she hadn’t done since this whole nightmare began. Runa had given him so much last night, and it was time to return the favor.
He dropped his mouth to her ear, nipped the lobe lightly. “You smell like me, Runa. Did you know that every time I come inside you, my essence permeates every part of you? Your blood, your hair, your cells.” She shuddered, but from his words or the fact that he’d worked his tail between her folds and was stroking slowly, he didn’t know. “And your skin, it tastes like me. I want to taste you everywhere.”
It was his turn to shudder as he remembered the other night when he’d captured her arousal with his finger and brought it to his mouth. She’d been decadent, smooth and rich with a bite like Irish cream.
His blood pounded through him in an erotic surge that had him dropping to his knees. He worshipped her flat abdomen, skimmed his tongue from her navel to the boundary marked by her soft, caramel curls. At her breathless gasp, he looked up at her. She watched him with wide eyes, and he realized that this was the first time his mouth had been close to this beautiful, feminine place. Even when they’d been dating he hadn’t taken the time to love her like this.
Idiot. So much time wasted.
“Spread your legs wider,” he commanded and, still watching him, she did.
Keeping his gaze on her, he pierced her slit with his tongue. Instantly, her eyes glazed over and her lips parted. The erotic sight would have brought him to his knees if he hadn’t already been on them. Desperate for more, he palmed her thighs to hold them apart as he spread her feminine lips with his thumbs.
He captured her hot flesh with his mouth, first licking at her and then sucking in long, gentle pulls. Her hands clutched his hair, holding him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Not when the sweetest nectar on earth and Sheoul was pouring down his throat, lighting him up from the inside out.
“Shade, oh, yes …” She pumped her hips and climaxed hard, her body jerking with such force that he had to hold her in place as he finished her off. When her muscles began to quiver as her orgasm tapered, he pushed to his feet, lightheaded, his body aching for her.
“Do you want me to change back?” he asked as he ran his hands up and down her arms, feeling the strong muscles beneath her silky skin.
“No,” she whispered. “This is part of who you are.”
Hell’s fires. The blast of emotion that came from her rattled his bones and melted his organs. This was dangerous, but he couldn’t stop himself. He needed to be inside her.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he entered her gently, his size stretching her as he seated himself to the root deep inside. “I’m hurting you,” he moaned. “I have to change back.”
She grasped his face in both hands and held him with her gaze. “Stay. Please.”
He had no choice. Compelled to do her bidding, he began to thrust, slowly. Her tight heat squeezed him with exquisite pressure, and he managed to go slow and easy for a few thrusts before instinct took over. He pumped into her like a demon possessed, which, he supposed, he was. She called out his name, over and over, and each time he heard his name fall from her perfect lips, he had to bite his cheek to keep from coming.
He gave up when she rocked her head forward and bit deeply into his shoulder. His orgasm shot up his spine with such force he felt it blow through his skull. Runa screamed with her own release, her tight clasp milking him through another orgasm, and another, until he lost count.
They collapsed against the wet stone. His legs were so shaky he could barely hold himself up, and he suddenly realized it was Runa’s strength that kept him from sliding to the ground into a mindless puddle. At some point he’d taken his true form again. Interesting that he hadn’t felt the transformation. Weakly, he checked himself out to make sure all parts were present and accounted for, but as he studied his hands, his heart stopped.
His fingers flickered from solid to transparent and back again. His chest began to cramp as his heart took on a random rhythm dictated by terror.
Damn … oh, damn.
Runa arched, bucked with such force his sex slid out of her wet depths. Though he trembled so hard he nearly slipped on the slick stone beneath his feet, he held her through it, and when she eased, he glanced at his hands one more time, and he knew.
The curse had activated.
Thirteen
“That was amazing,” Runa murmured against Shade’s shoulder. Drops of water beaded on his skin, and she lapped at them, savoring the cool splash of wetness on her dry tongue. She tasted jungle heat, fresh earth, and powerful male.
He moaned, still leaning on her and pinning her against the wet stone. He held her tight, closer, it seemed, than he ever had. He’d been gentle, caring, his big body shuddering against her. He’d broken her heart a year ago, but she could feel it beginning to heal.
Naturally, Shade couldn’t allow the warm fuzzies to last. He pushed away from her, and without looking her in the eyes, he strode into the cave. And was it her imagination, or did he seem to be transparent in places? She’d seen him turn practically invisible in a shadow … but this seemed different. A side effect of his shift into another species of demon?
She stepped into the waterfall to rinse—how cool was it that he had a natural shower built into his dwelling?—and when she finished, she found him in the kitchen, his hair still wet but dressed in his usual black leather garb.
Including gloves.
His hands shook a little, and tension surrounded him like a blanket. Was he uncomfortable with the closeness they’d shared? Something was up, and he still wouldn’t meet her gaze.
“Are we going somewhere?”
Ignoring her question, he tossed her a bath towel and slid a plate across his dining room table. “Eat.”
Wrapping the towel tight around her, she stared at the ham and cheese sandwich, and though she was starving, the sudden awkwardness between them unsettled her stomach. “I’m not hungry.”
His gaze finally caught hers, and her breath hitched at the sight of the dark shadows in his eyes. “Yes, you are. I can sense it.”
Damn him and his senses. He bit into his own sandwich as though ravenous.
“How come I can’t sense your hunger?” she asked.
“Dunno. Eat.”
Sighing, she sat across from him and watched him chew, watched his throat ripple as he swallowed. That mouth
had been on her, and she flushed at the image that was burned into her brain; him, between her legs, his jaw muscles rolling as he’d feasted on her.
“What are you staring at?” he asked. “Do I have something in my teeth, or what?”
She laughed. “No, of course not. I like looking at you. I can’t help it. Is that a crime in demonland?”
“I guess not.”
A cool draft blew through the cave, sending a chill across her wet scalp. She dragged a hand through her tangled hair. She must look like a drowned rat. “Listen, I know this isn’t the ideal situation for either of us, but if you’re right, and this bond is permanent—”
“It is.”
“Okay, then, it seems to me that we need to work some things out.”
He broke a Fresca off the six-pack he’d set on the table and pushed it toward her. “Like what?”
“Like the fact that I don’t plan to spend the rest of my life in this cave. The moon cycle is done. Can we go someplace else now?”
“No.”
“So you expect me to remain your prisoner for the rest of my life?”
Shade gripped his sandwich so hard mayo dripped from between the slices of bread. “Did you forget about Roag? You killed his female. He’ll want revenge.”
“How do you know? You said he’s insane.”
“His insanity only makes him more dangerous. And I know because it’s what I would do if someone killed y—” He threw his sandwich down on his plate, knocking the top off kilter. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
She stared at him. Part of her wanted to kiss him for what he’d said—or almost said—about what he’d do if someone killed her. But the other part wasn’t going to get sidetracked by his all too familiar avoidance.
“Well, too bad.” She tossed down her own sandwich. “I can’t live like this, and I won’t. Did it occur to you that I have a life? A job I’m good at? People who will miss me?”