Stolen Desire (Outlawed Realm) (25 page)

Paige lowered her hand. Surprise and joy pulsed through her, followed by dread that it might not be true. “Seriously?”

Gwen nodded. “When the guards came to my house, my cousin Staci and I fought them. We sent both of them to E3. They were very much alive at the time.”

“But that’s the realm of the dead,” Paige said. She looked from Gwen to Regina. “Is it possible Eeete could have survived?”

“Can you find out?” Regina asked Nikoli. “Would Meelo know?”

He had the man back on Skype within seconds.

Paige wasn’t a bit surprised that Meelo looked so much like Nikoli, except for his age and a cruel scar on his face. He listened to Nikoli’s questions, then said in English, “One doesn’t have to be dead to enter E3.”

“Then we can save her?” Paige asked.

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“How soon you can get to her,” Meelo answered.

What did that mean? “Why?”

“If she remains too long, she’ll lose her life force. Not all of it like the truly dead, but enough that she won’t be able to return to any of the other realms. She’ll be an outcast, a stranger in all the dimensions. Doomed to an existence worse than death.”

Oh, good Lord, no. Not Eeete.
She’d suffered so much. A cry of sorrow and frustration caught in Paige’s throat. The wall in front of her shimmered, then grew transparent. Within seconds, Kuma, Zekin and the next batch of men and slaves arrived.

Zekin took one look at Paige’s face and was at her side in a moment. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“We have to get Eeete,” she said. “We have to leave right now.”

Violent winds buffeted Eeete’s body. Piercing light surrounded her. She squinted, then stared at the guard’s head floating nearby, his eyes unseeing.

Her mouth fell open on a shriek she didn’t hear.

And then it was over. The light dimmed and the winds paused. No longer supported by the gale, the guard’s head fell at her feet.

She backed away from it, out of the portal, only to bump into something else. Spinning around, Eeete gaped at the cocoon-like thing she’d touched.

The color of snow and made of a diaphanous material, it swayed gently. The man inside it watched her, blinking. He tried to open his mouth, but his lips were fastened tight, not allowing him speech any more than what surrounded him granted movement.

A scream rose in her throat. Only a whimper escaped as she noticed more of the cocoons of varying sizes. Each conformed to the body shapes of the person they had imprisoned.

She bolted heedlessly through hundreds of them, bumping some, dodging others. Suspended in air, they rocked when struck, but made no sound.

Eeete moaned, then slapped her hand over her mouth, her facemask, to keep from making any noise, afraid of who, or what, might—

Her thoughts and steps paused abruptly. She’d reached the end of the cocoons. Ahead was a cavernous area, a pale gray color with no definition. The walls and floor changed shape constantly. At first, they appeared to be solid, only to fade away, leaving nothing behind or beneath them.

Not knowing where to go, too frightened to move forward or back, Eeete froze.

She whispered, “Zekin, please come for me. I’ll serve you and Paige. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll become like her to please you. Don’t leave me in this—”

Eeete’s plea died in her throat at the things approaching her. They seemed to float, rather than walk, their bodies so transparent she could see through them. There were holes where their eyes and mouths should have been. Several resembled males, other females.

She turned to run but suddenly couldn’t move, her body held by a force she couldn’t see or fight. Her mind racing.

Don’t hurt me.

She clawed at her facemask, pulling it off, struggling to breathe, to be heard. “I’m not dead! I’m not! Come back for me,” she sobbed, seeing Zekin’s face in her mind, his attempt to stop the guard from pulling her away. Paige hammering on the pod’s wall, screaming for her.

“I’m still alive,” she whispered to them, praying they’d hear. “Please don’t leave me here.”

The things reached Eeete, surrounding her. Prepared to wrap and imprison her as they had the others in that awful space she’d just passed?

Eeete fought as she’d never done before, breaking the force’s hold on her. She ran blindly, not knowing where she was going, not bothering to see if the things followed.

Tears clouded her vision. The air was so thin, she could barely pull any in. Still, she ran, her thoughts returning to Zekin and Paige.

Recalling their faces—Zekin’s masterful touch, Paige’s soft concern—Eeete continued to plead.

Don’t leave me here…don’t forget me.

About the Author

Tina Donahue is an award-winning, bestselling novelist in erotic, paranormal, contemporary and historical romance for Samhain Publishing, Ellora’s Cave and Kensington
. Booklist
,
Publisher’s Weekly
,
Romantic Times
and numerous online sites have praised her work. Three of her erotic romances were named finalists in the 2011 EPIC competition. The French review site, Blue Moon Reviews, chose one of her erotic romances as their Book of the Year 2010 (erotic category). The Golden Nib Award at Miz Love Loves Books was created specifically for one of her erotic romances, and two of her titles received an Award of Merit in the RWA Holt Medallion competition (2011 and 2012). Tina is featured in the 2012
Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market
. She was the editor of an award–winning Midwestern newspaper and worked in Story Direction for a Hollywood production company.

Email:
[email protected]

Website:
www.tinadonahue.com

Twitter:
www.twitter.com/tinadonahue

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/tina.donahue.75

Pinterest:
www.pinterest.com/authortina/my-books

Triberr:
www.triberr.com/tinadonahue

Look for these titles by Tina Donahue

Now Available:

The Yearning

Outlawed Realm

Unending Desire

Illicit Desire

Shameless Desire

Stolen Desire

The Prophecy

Come Fill Me

Deep Within Me

Passion without limit. Carnal hunger that knows no bounds.

Shameless Desire

© 2013 Tina Donahue

Outlawed Realm, Book 3

Within Earth’s five dimensions, nothing is as it seems…and desire is never far away.

In E4’s jungle, Kuma was the Alpha werewolf, bent on revenge against the hated guards. Swept with them into the E1 dimension, now he prowls Seattle at night, stopping the thugs from abducting women for use as sex slaves in E4’s Pleasure Palace.

On her way home from her nursing job, Gwen senses danger in the night’s shadows—an instant before a stranger attacks. Clinging to consciousness, she watches the impossible, a wolf fighting him off…protecting her. She wakes in her own bed, convinced it must have been a dream until she sees Kuma in human form. Virile, intense. A man like no other.

Within his powerful embrace, Gwen experiences rapture she didn’t believe existed. His unrestrained lust and burning need ends her loneliness, though not the menace they face. The guards are a constant threat in their hunt for women and their determination to see Kuma dead. Together, he and Gwen must fight—for his life, her freedom, their future.

Warning: Out-of-this-world sex and a romance to die for. Features a hunk whose inner beast won’t be tamed, and the woman who craves his most shameless desire.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Shameless Desire:

She wasn’t alone.

The thought startled Gwen even as she tried to dismiss it. The hairs on her arms rose up. Something was wrong.

What? Other than the obvious—that she couldn’t afford a car or to live in the suburbs.

Frowning, she gripped her pepper spray even harder and continued across the lot to the surrounding neighborhood, a combination of inner city and working class that had seen better times. Failed attempts at gentrification had resulted in islands of beautiful two- and-three-story historic homes surrounded by blight, trash, weeds.

She hurried past the first vacant lot as quickly as she could, telling herself tonight was no different from any other. No one was after her. She wasn’t a psycho’s type, being too tall and not at all helpless. Hadn’t one of the residents said it very well last week when he’d jokingly referred to her as a ball buster for teaching those self-defense classes at the hospital? You bet he had. Her kind of woman wasn’t on most guys’ radar, especially those looking for an easy target.

Besides, she didn’t have all that far to walk and would get home safely.

Moisture rolled down her cheeks and throat. If the weather deteriorated any further, her hoodie would soon be soaked through. Huffing from her pace, she approached the street corner. The signal was red; the sign warning her not to cross. In both directions, the road was empty. Its wet surface gleamed in the available light.

Wind whisked around an abandoned confectionary, buffeting Gwen. She shivered and turned down the street, deciding to take a shortcut through an alley in the distance. From behind, a car approached. Glancing over, she saw it move down the main thoroughfare rather than turning in her direction.

Her running shoes made slapping noises against the damp pavement, the sounds obtrusive, not seeming to belong. Leaves rustled above her, the dying ones torn free by the wind. The bass of an unknown song thumped from a nearby brick building, its curtainless upper windows amber with light. A young boy with wavy black hair and dusky skin blew on the glass, fogging it, and then he drew a series of letters with his forefinger.

Gwen reached the vacant lot that cut from this street to the next, one over from her own. Just a bit farther to go. She’d be all right. No one was around. No one was following her.

Needing to be certain, she continued to glance back. There was nothing except darkness interrupted infrequently by dated streetlamps, their crumbling concrete facades matching the pockmarked sidewalks. Empty bags of Lay’s potato chips, Cheetos and other fast food littered the area, the cellophane crackling beneath her shoes.

With one hand around her pepper spray and the other clutching her house key, she entered the alley. Debris skittered down it, carried by the wind, the sickly sweet stink of garbage less noticeable in the brisk breeze. Yards ahead, half the length of a football field, was her street, a wall of murkiness separating her from it. Craning her neck, Gwen glanced at the many windows facing the alley, most boarded up. The ones that weren’t were dark.

Go on.
She’d walked this route last night and countless times before that. The only hassle she’d faced were stray dogs crouching in the gloom, growling at her intrusion into their territory.

Tonight, even they were gone. For the first time ever, Gwen missed them. She knew she could easily frighten animals. Men, on the other hand… There might be a fight.

Again, she sensed someone watching, following.

Sudden outrage rather than fear pumped through Gwen. Halfway down the alley, she halted and turned, ready to rumble, show the jerk some of her martial arts moves.

No one was behind her.

She listened and heard nothing. Certainly not heavy breathing, except for her own.

Renewed apprehension cut through her aggravation. Gwen pivoted, ready to run the remaining distance. A faint whooshing noise interrupted her panting and the other night sounds. Before she could identify it, something hit her neck, stinging her skin.

Jesus, had someone shot her, with a fucking silencer no less?

Her hand flew up, then stalled not on blood but something else. What the hell?

What felt like a small dart had pierced the side of her throat unprotected by her hoodie. Where in the crap had something like that come from? Suddenly, her limbs went numb. Her hand dropped from her neck before she could remove the dart.

Down Gwen went, her legs unable to support her weight, her knees hitting the broken asphalt. She heard the crack of her bones, but the pain didn’t register, blunted by whatever flowed through her. A tranquilizer, she guessed. Although she tried to remain kneeling, her efforts didn’t last. She fell to her side even as her mind kept screaming
run.

Too late. Out of the shadows he came. A man she’d never seen before, hadn’t noticed, his build bruising with a thick neck, burly shoulders and arms. In the light bleeding from her street, Gwen could see his eyes were a light brown, his hair curly and black, his features and complexion not quite African-American or Indian but a mixture of races, the same as her.