Bringing Wraith down was agonizingly slow, and most likely futile. As soon as they let him up, Wraith would probably go ballistic on Roag’s demons.
“Very, very good,” Roag said. “But honestly, I can’t believe you two haven’t figured out that killing Wraith would make life a whole lot easier.”
Eidolon bared his teeth. “You know what would be easier, you fucking—”
“Don’t.” Shade gripped E’s arm and squeezed. “I can’t risk Runa.”
The wind rustled the leaves in the trees, bringing with it the scent of brimstone. Hellhounds.
“Where’d you get the trackers?” Eidolon eased off Wraith, who leaped nimbly to his feet and stood there, quivering with the amount of restraint it must have taken to not go for Roag’s throat.
Roag stroked his blades through Runa’s hair, and now it was Shade who had to restrain himself, especially when locks of her gorgeous hair began to flutter to the ground. “What, you think I don’t have my own kennel?”
It was on the tip of Shade’s tongue to say Roag couldn’t control his own female, let alone a hellhound, but with Runa still in danger, Shade kept his mouth shut. Two Carceris officers stepped into the clearing, held prisoner by Roag’s minions.
So that was how he’d found Shade. He’d taken the Carceris officers prisoner and forced them to use the hounds to track him. Son of a bitch.
“Shade?” Runa’s voice was quiet but steady, and pride swelled in him. He smelled no fear from her, instead her strength permeated the air. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, lirsha.”
Roag snorted. “You’re fading, you know. I’m thinking it’s not okay.”
A deep, low growl rumbled in Runa’s throat. Shade’s pulse went tachy with panic. “Runa, no!”
She struck. A double blow, one sharp kick to Roag’s shin and a reverse punch to his face. A shockwave of energy hit Shade; she was trying to shift.
“Little bitch,” Roag hissed, and buried one of his blades in her shoulder. Her scream rent the air. “This blade is solid silver. You can’t shift.”
A veil of crimson came down over Shade’s vision. He sprang forward, because he was going to tear out Roag’s throat. Something pierced his neck. A dart, drugged, no doubt. He fell to the ground hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Determined to get to Runa, he yanked the dart from his skin. Eidolon and Wraith’s furious shouts told him they’d fallen victim to the same fate.
The last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was Runa’s bloodcurdling wail.
Nineteen
Kynan stood at the threshold to Gem’s apartment, his stomach in knots and his mind fuzzy from the half-dozen shots of liquid courage he’d slammed before coming over. Before Lori died, he hadn’t been much of a drinker, but lately he’d been lonely and all too eagerly seeking the kind of embrace only Captain Morgan could give him.
Though he normally didn’t fall into the Captain’s arms until after noon.
But this morning he’d started early, after calling Arik and confirming that the military knew about his work at UG. Ky had made clear that he wouldn’t betray Eidolon or the hospital, and Arik seemed to be cool with that. They’d spent some time catching up, and it had all been cozy—too cozy. His spidey sense was tingling.
The door opened, and Gem stood there, looking surprised and really freaking hot in a black V-neck, cropped sweatshirt that dipped low enough to reveal a hint of crimson bra beneath. Her black miniskirt seemed to be made of the same sweat material and was so short he wondered if she was wearing underwear that matched the bra. Strangely, he got the impression that this was her idea of lounge-around-the-house casual.
“Kynan. Ah, this is a surprise.”
“Can I come in?”
She narrowed her gaze at him as though trying to figure out if this was a trick, but she moved aside. Her sweet, citrusy scent came to him as he walked past, and he damned near swayed. It’s the alcohol.
Maybe, but it wasn’t the damned alcohol that was making his dick stand at attention. He entered her small living room and turned to her.
“Were you getting ready to go out?”
“Out?” She looked down at her clothes. “Oh, no. Nowhere special, anyway. I was going to raid the grocery store later. Exciting, huh?”
His dick jerked, because yep, it was excited. Little bastard.
He cleared his throat. Rubbed the back of his neck. Grew some balls to say what he needed to say.
“Yeah, look, Gem. I think we need to talk.”
“I think so, too.” She propped one hip on the back of her sofa, black leather like all her furniture. Even her lampshade was black. In fact, everything in her living room was either black or stark white. No shades of gray for Gem, but that was no surprise.
“Maybe we could start with why you’re still torturing yourself,” she said bluntly. “Lori’s been dead a year.”
He hadn’t expected that, and surprise veered quickly to defensive anger. “There’s a time limit on grief?” he snapped. “Is that a demon thing?”
“Why does it always come back to that? I could say I think clouds are pretty, and you’d say they’re only pretty to demons.”
The fact that she was right only pissed him off more. “What do you expect? I’ve been fighting them for years. Losing friends to them. Losing my wife to them.”
“And yet, here you are in a demon’s apartment.”
“I’m not here to stay.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you here?”
“To apologize. I was an ass the other night. I shouldn’t have led you on like that. I used you, and it wasn’t fair. I won’t do it again.”
“You didn’t use me. I needed you, you needed me … there’s nothing wrong with that.”
“We walk in different worlds, Gem.”
“Oh, really? Because I see you walking down the same hospital halls I do. I see you wearing the same hospital scrubs bearing the demon caduceus.”
Cursing, he jammed his fingers through his hair. “You think I don’t know how messed up that is?”
“I think you’re immersing yourself in a world you hate so you can hang on to your anger. You don’t want to forget your wife’s betrayal, do you?”
“You don’t know anything,” he ground out.
“You think I don’t see that it’s not demons you hate, but yourself? That you hate the fact that you’re starting to like some of us?” She walked up to him, got right up in his face so her breasts brushed his chest. “You hate the fact that you want me. It’s driving you nuts, isn’t it? Screwing with your head.”
“You know what’s screwing with my head?” He fisted the hem of her skirt, and his voice plummeted to a low growl. “These skimpy little fuck-me outfits. Do you get off on teasing men? Is it human men you’re after? You like to fuck them and then laugh at how you got the unsuspecting, stupid human to screw a demon?”
They were unfair questions born of anger, frustration, and plain old lust. He wasn’t sure what he’d hoped to accomplish by asking them, but the pinch to his biceps wasn’t it.
“Dumbass.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Talking down to someone isn’t you, Kynan.” Her voice was soft but strong, and surprisingly free of anger. After what he’d said, she should be furious. “I know you’re hurting and you’re lost, but underneath it all, you’re still a decent person.”
“Stop saying that! Would a decent person abandon the people he worked with for years? Would he hang out with demons? Would he want to take a demon to b—” He broke off before he could say more, but she knew.
“I would never have taken you for a coward,” she said, which got the steam blasting through his veins. “But you are, aren’t you? You’re so afraid of your own weaknesses that you can’t allow yourself to feel anything. To do anything that might go against the mountain of moral superiority you stand on to look down at everyone else.”
Coward? He was still stuck on that word
, one that took him back to his military days, where even the scent of cowardice in someone was a brand he couldn’t shake for his entire career. Ky could admit fear—who the hell wouldn’t while facing a thirty-foot-tall Gerunti demon with T-Rex jaws and claws as long as a man. But he wasn’t a coward.
Except he’d pretty much just proven her point when he’d failed to admit, even to himself, that he wanted her. He wanted to be all over her. Inside her. Making her scream. God help him, he wanted to sink into a demon’s body and scour away the rest of his troubles. Just take that last step to cross the line that separated good and bad. Naughty and nice. Pleasure and pain.
The line blurred as he let himself drown in her eyes, but when she licked her lips, the pink tip of her tongue parting them in a slow, sensual sweep, he didn’t just step over the line; he sprinted across it.
With no warning, he fisted the hair at the nape of her neck and brought his mouth down to hers. She stiffened. Sealed her lips and denied him entrance. All of his instincts came to bear, the male impulses that demanded he get the female under him, the soldier impulses that demanded victory.
He brought his hard body against her lush one. Heart pounding, he stroked the seam of her lips with his tongue with increasing urgency. He cupped her ass and pressed her against his rapidly growing erection, and with a groan, she went liquid. Her lips parted, and he took immediate advantage.
She tasted good, all sweet fruit and savory spice, and as his tongue tangled with hers, all he could think about was tasting her everywhere. He wanted to take her down to the floor and drive into her so hard she’d scream for more …
And then what? They’d get married and live happily ever after?
Panting, Ky tore away from her. His blood drummed painfully through his veins and his cock. “I can’t. This can’t happen.”
Gem’s eyes were glazed, the sheen of lust a beacon to everything that made him male. “Yes, it can. We’re adults, Kynan. We don’t need permission.” Her voice sharpened. “Or is this about your demonphobia?”
He wished it was only the demon thing. “I’m not ready for anything nice, Gem. I’d take you rough and hard, with a big, fat, emotional disconnect.” He took her chin in his palm and got in close. “It would be nothing but a fuck, and you’d be nothing but a body to spill into. I can’t give anything else right now, and you don’t deserve that. I can’t give you what you want. I don’t know if I ever can. The only thing I know is I’ve got nothing to offer you but sex.” He wheeled away, heard her stepping closer, dammit.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Ky, I’ve wanted you for so long. If I’d thought I had a chance with you back when Lori was alive, I’d have tried to get you, and I’d not have cared that you were married.”
Her voice, so small, with a touch of a tremor, set him off. “God, Gem, you can do better than me. You need to do better than me. You deserve much more than what I can give you.”
“Wow, it almost sounds like you respect me. A demon. I mean, really, does a demon deserve to be treated well?” Now her tone was bitter. He ground his teeth because she was right. She was a demon. Why was he worried about her feelings? Her fragility?
He spun around. “So you want it, then? You really want me to fuck you like an animal?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He was on her in an instant. He spun her and bent her over the arm of the chair. With one hand he pushed her skirt up, with the other he released his raging erection. God, the sight of her tight, round ass had him panting even harder, and he took just a moment to stroke the soft skin there. She shuddered and pushed wantonly against him. Unable to wait and not wanting to slow things down, he tore off her underwear—red, as he’d guessed—and sheathed himself in one powerful stroke.
He felt her barrier too late, heard her cry of pain that didn’t end even after he’d frozen.
“Fuck.” Closing his eyes, he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because,” she murmured, head bowed so he couldn’t see her face, “I was afraid you wouldn’t do it if you knew.”
Snarling, he pulled out of her. “Damn fucking straight I wouldn’t have!” Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He’d already gone soft, so he tucked himself back in his pants and collapsed against the wall before his knees gave out. A virgin. He’d only had one before this.
Lori.
He’d been a virgin himself when they met. He’d just turned eighteen and was shipping out to boot camp. She’d been at the MEPS station, enlisting. It had been love at first sight, and even though he’d never truly hoped to meet her again, they’d ended up stationed at the same base. They’d dated for six months and then got married on a whim. He’d taken her virginity that night, slowly, gently. It had been an amazing experience for both of them.
And now he’d taken Gem’s virginity, ruthlessly, and hadn’t even given her an orgasm to show for it.
“Dammit, Gem,” he said wearily. “Why me? Why did you hold on so long and then give it up for me?”
She turned to him, tugging her skirt down with shaking hands. She didn’t look at him as she said, “I’ve been in love with you for years. Since I first saw you at Mercy General.”
Those days seemed so far away. He used to take injured Guardians to a doctor there, one who knew of the battle between The Aegis and demons. Gem had been an intern, and he’d never suspected she was a demon.
“I couldn’t bring myself to have sex with anyone else,” she continued, “even though I knew I had a snowball’s chance in Hades with you.” She sniffed and wiped a tear with the back of her hand. “I just … I just wanted to give you something pure. It’s all I have. Had. Everything else about me is tainted by demon blood. But I had that. And it’s always been yours.”
Ah, hell. His chest squeezed as if an invisible vise had wrapped around it. Shame made his skin crawl right off him. What was he supposed to say to that?
The ringing of his cell phone startled him, and he hated himself for his shaking hand as he pulled the phone from his pocket. “Go.”
“Ky, man, it’s Arik. I can’t get hold of Runa, and I’ve got some information that might be important. Do you know how to contact Shade?”
Kynan swore Arik choked on Shade’s name, which was no surprise if he knew his sister was mated to him. A demon. “I’ll do my best.” He hung up. Didn’t look at Gem as he said, “I have to go.”
He took off without looking back, proving he was the coward she’d said he was.
Awareness swirled around Runa, and with it came blackness so thick she wasn’t sure her eyes were open until she blinked several times.
“Runa. Lirsha. Wake up.”
Shade’s worry cut through the darkness. Lifting her head, she winced at the biting pain streaking along the back of her skull. She swallowed, an ineffective attempt to quell the nausea bubbling in her stomach. Where was she?
Orange light flickered at the edges of her vision as she sat up on the cold stone floor, the clank of the chains clamped around her ankles echoing around her. She squinted at the light. Candle flames? No, torches. Familiar. She sniffed the air, taking in the oppressive scents of blood, mold, feces, and terror.
Oh, God. She was in Roag’s dungeon again. Her stomach lurched, and she leaned over just in time to keep from puking in her lap. Her gut convulsed, emptying its contents in a hot wash. Through her ringing ears, she heard Shade repeating her name, his voice growing more concerned with every passing second.
The memory of her capture slammed into her like a freight train, and she wished she could just pass out again into blissful ignorance. She closed her eyes and considered curling up to do exactly that. She’d done it before, once when her father had gone on a drunken rampage. For three days she’d lain on the floor of her closet, her mind taking her somewhere far more pleasant, somewhere where she wasn’t aware of anything going on around her. Doctors had called it catatonia, and they’d eventually brought her out of it, but she’d never forgotten how easy it had been to go th
ere.
How easy it would be to go there now.
“Runa, baby, stay with me.”
Shade knew. Knew what she was thinking, knew her weakness. He’d taken away the guilt that had plagued her for years, but he hadn’t taken away the girl she’d been. He kept saying she’d changed in the last year, that she’d grown stronger, but the fact that she wanted to curl up and give up proved how weak she still was.
“Runa.” Eidolon’s voice, a deep, commanding drawl, brought her up above the fog of self-pity. “Look at me.”
Still on her hands and knees, she swung her head around to him. Her vision had cleared, but that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She’d thought she was in a cell similar to the one she and Shade had shared before, but this was worse.
They were in Roag’s dungeon, but they’d been imprisoned in the large outer chamber where Roag kept the torture instruments. She’d been chained to the wall, while Shade and his brothers had been stripped of clothing and crammed into individual cages. Shade pressed against the bars of the middle cage as though trying to get as close as possible to her, his body flickering in and out of solidity.
“Oh, Shade,” she whispered.
“Listen to me,” Eidolon said from his cage on Shade’s left. He was sitting against the back bars, arms resting casually on his knees as though he was lounging at home in front of the TV. “The more Shade worries about you, the faster his curse progresses. And if you die, his grief is going to finish him off. You need to hold on. Be strong.”
“She is strong,” Shade said. His dark gaze bored into her, going obsidian with intensity. “You are. You’ll get through this.”
Roag stepped out from the shadowed stairwell at the end of the chamber, followed by two burly, ram-headed demons. “And wouldn’t that be a good trick? Surviving this, I mean.” He swept forward in a fluid, dramatic swirl of black robes.
Wraith, who had been standing in the corner of his cage, head hanging and hair matted to his face with dried blood, hissed. Runa gasped. Wraith looked like, well, a demon. His expression was a mask of rage, his fangs the size of a tiger’s, and his eyes glowed like amber tossed in a fire. He was a mass of blood and bruises, far worse off than either Shade or Eidolon, and as Roag approached, Wraith went rabid. He attacked the bars, slamming repeatedly into them as though trying to break every bone in his body so he could squeeze between them. Shade tried to talk him down, but nothing worked.