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.

Chapter 5

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 stop 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 cl**ax 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 br**sts, which tightened under his hot gaze. “We only have the urge to impregnate our mate.”

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