Desire Unchained

Prologue

Three Years Ago …

“He’s gone. Let’s call it.”

Shade ignored his partner and crunched another series of compressions into the shapeshifter’s chest. Beneath his palms, cracked ribs grated with each downward stroke.

One—one thousand, crunch. Two—one thousand, crunch. Shade’s own heart was pounding, pumping enough blood per minute to fuel Underworld General’s lava-thermal generator, but the patient’s heart didn’t so much as spark. Three—one thousand, crunch. Shade’s thigh muscles screamed with pain, cramping after Gods knew how long kneeling in blood next to the patient. Four—one thousand, crunch. A tingle spread down the dermoire that encased his arm from his right shoulder to his hand as he used his specialized gift to force the patient’s heart to beat.

“Shade. Stop.” Skulk, Shade’s half-sister and paramedic partner, put a dainty gray hand on his arm. “We did all we could.”

Knowing Skulk was right didn’t make giving up any easier, and Shade didn’t have enough breath left in his lungs to curse about it. Panting, he ceased CPR and sat back on his heels on the filth-strewn floor of the abandoned brewery. His arms trembled from exertion, and his stethoscope hung heavily around his neck.

He ground his teeth as he looked into the glassy eyes of his deceased patient. The vic was just a kid. Fourteen, maybe. He’d probably only recently learned how to shift out of his human form to whatever species his family belonged to. The telltale birthmark of a true shifter, a red, star-shaped mole behind the left ear, had barely formed.

“This is bullshit,” Shade muttered, standing. Nearby, the two False Angels who had called in the report to the hospital stood, their sweet, virginal appearances belied by the sinister glint in their eyes.

“You didn’t see who dropped him here?” he asked.

One of the angel impostors shook her head, her golden hair swishing against her white gown. “He was just lying there. Peaceful.”

“He looked peaceful with half his organs missing?”

The other False Angel smiled. “Touchy, touchy.” She trailed her fingers suggestively along the low-cut neckline of the gown no true angel would wear. “How about we help you relax, incubus?”

“Yes,” the other one purred. “I’ve always loved a man in uniform.”

The first False Angel nodded. “Veragoth does so enjoy haunting police stations.”

“Mmm …” The female called Veragoth twirled a strand of hair around a finger and swept her hungry gaze from Shade’s face to his feet. “But I’m starting to think I should be hanging out with paramedics.”

Yeah, his black, BDU-style medic uniform made all the females hot even when he wasn’t casting off the fuck-me pheromones that came standard issue for Seminus demons. But for once, Shade didn’t feel like getting naked with two beautiful females. He was exhausted, angry, and damned sick of the newest rash of demon mutilations. Worse, no one gave a rat’s ass that someone was chopping up demons for their parts and selling them on the underworld black market. It had been going on since time began, but few cared.

Shade did.

He was the asshole who got called to scenes where he rarely made a difference in whether or not the vic died. Most were too far gone. Or dead.

Skulk holstered her radio and dug through the jump bag for a fresh pair of gloves. “Since shifters don’t disintegrate aboveground, Doc E wants the body. Let’s scoop it up. We’re done here.”

We’re done here. Too many calls ended like that lately.

Cursing, Shade helped Skulk load the kid’s body onto a stretcher and wheel it to the rig. The black ambulance, one of two servicing Underworld General Hospital, was protected by a spell that rendered it unnoticeable to humans, but here, the cloak wasn’t needed. They were in a quiet part of New York City, a formerly industrialized area that had been abandoned during Prohibition and was only now starting to build up again as a residential neighborhood.

“Let’s roll,” Shade said, and slammed shut the rig’s rear doors.

It was Skulk’s turn to drive, so Shade climbed into the passenger seat, popped a stick of gum into his mouth, and concentrated on filling out the run sheet.

Patient’s chief complaint? Deadness due to organ removal.

Patient’s response to treatment? Still fucking dead.

“Sonofabitch.” Shade pinged the pen at the dash. “This sucks—” He cut off, suddenly shaken by a rumble deep inside him, an earthquake in his very soul. Pain rolled up from the epicenter, spreading through his body until the tsunami of agony slammed him backward in his seat.

“Shade? What is it? Shade?” Skulk shook his shoulder, but he barely noticed. He threw open the door, thankful they hadn’t taken off yet, and fell from the vehicle.

His knees hit the pavement with a crack he heard through the roar of blood in his ears. Doubled over, he wrapped his arms around his gut. Blackness engulfed his vision, his brain. One of his brothers was dead. Who? Gods, who?

He reached out with his mind to connect with Wraith, the brother who couldn’t be more his opposite, but with whom Shade had a unique connection. Nothing. He couldn’t feel Wraith at all. Struggling for each breath, he felt for the weaker connection with Eidolon, but again, nothing. He couldn’t sense Roag, either.

In the background, he heard Skulk talking on her cell phone with Solice, the on-duty triage nurse at the hospital. “Where are Shade’s brothers? I need to know. Now!”

“Skulk …” he gasped.

She knelt next to him. “Hold on.” She listened into the phone for a moment. “Okay, Solice says Roag went to Brimstone. She’s all mad because he wouldn’t take her with him, but she’s getting ready to head there now. She doesn’t know where E and Wraith are. They refused to go with Roag.”

Not a shock. No Seminus in his right mind would step inside a demon pub where female lust could hold you prisoner for days, or worse, send you to your death at the claw-end of a jealous male. But then, Roag had never been in his right mind.

Shade groaned, swallowed sickly. Gradually, a pinpoint of light pierced the darkness. Wraith. He could feel Wraith’s life force. Thank the gods. Relief made his shoulders sag, but only for a second. He couldn’t sense Eidolon. Blindly, he reached out with his hand as though he could touch his brother. Skulk caught his arm, twined her fingers through his.

“Breathe, Paleshadow,” she whispered, using the childhood nickname she’d given him over eighty years ago. “We’ll get through this.”

Not if E was dead. Shit, he was the brother who kept them all level, who kept Roag in line and Wraith alive.

Awareness sifted through him. Eidolon. He was safe.

The pain faded, but a gnawing, aching emptiness drilled one more hole into Shade’s soul. Seminus demons were connected to all their brothers, and when one died, he took a chunk of his surviving siblings with him. Thirty-seven deaths later, Shade felt like a colander.

“Who was it?” Skulk asked softly.

“Roag.” He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “It was Roag.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” he said, but it was an automatic response. As much as he hated to admit it, the world was now a better place.