Passion Unleashed by Larissa Ione Read Free Book Online Page A

humans was forbidden for most species of demons, and E had accidentally taken a woman’s virginity nearly fifty years ago. Guardian angels were serious tattletales, and E had been forced to endure a severe flaying by Seminus Council members.
    Wraith’s reluctance to take a virgin had little to do with the punishment, and both his brothers knew it. “I swore I would never screw a human again, let alone a virgin—”
    “I know,” E interrupted. “But this is life or death.”
    Flashes of the past blinked in his head, the years he’d spent in a cage, held there by his own evil mother. Innocent female humans had been stripped and tossed into his cage after their virginity had been taken—brutally—by the vampires who had brought them to him. Vamps, since they were technically human, weren’t subject to the can’t-deflower-virgins rule. So they’d gotten off on waiting until Wraith was nearly mad with lust, and then they’d raped the females in front of him, tossed them in the cage, and sat back to watch and wait.
    Even now, eighty years later, he still broke out in a cold sweat when he thought about it. Going through the s’genesis was supposed to have made him forget. Not care. No such luck.
    “Who is this chick? Why is she charmed?” Wraith paced, trying desperately to outrace his nervous energy. “And how did you find her?”
    E closed the book he’d been reading. “Long story. But between Gem, Reaver, and Tayla’s Aegis connections, we were able to get a bead on Serena.”
    Mickey nuzzled Wraith’s ear, as though trying to comfort him. “I wouldn’t think information like that would be available to Aegis grunts.”
    “Tay isn’t exactly a grunt.” E leaned back in his desk chair, looking annoyed.
    No, Tayla was definitely more than a grunt. She headed up the New York City cell of slayers, and since taking command, the demon body count had gone down, and so had demon-on-human violence. A fragile truce had been declared between the New York cell and peaceful demons, which left the slayers more time to concentrate on taking out the harmful species. In addition, the friendly demons were more willing to give up intel. The symbiotic relationship had worked well so far, but with the unrest in the demon underworld lately, Guardian-demon relations were once again on shaky ground.
    Wraith rubbed his palm over his face. “I don’t like this. I need to think about it.”
    “You don’t have time,” E said. “And there’s something else you need to know.” He trailed his finger along the gold-embossed spine of the book in front of him. “She was bitten by a Mara before she was charmed. After you take her, the disease will progress rapidly, and she’ll die.”
    Wraith paused mid-step. “What?” He looked at Shade. Then E. Then Shade again. “This is such bullshit. I’m not doing this.”
    “You have to—”
    “No!”
    E stood, knocking his chair into the wall and startling Mange to his feet. “Then you doom the hospital.”
    “What the fuck are you talking about?”
    Eidolon planted his fists on the desk and leaned forward, nailing Wraith to the wall with the intensity of his gaze. “We built it with our blood, sweat, and tears.”
    Literally. When the foundation had been laid, each of them had given up one of the elements in order to make the hospital strong, enchanted, and undetectable to humans. Wraith had given his blood. E, tears. Shade, sweat.
    “Yeah, and?”
    Shade scrubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t believe we didn’t see this coming.”
    “See what?” Wraith snapped, at the end of his patience.
    “Our life forces are bound to the hospital,” E said softly. “You’re dying.…”
    Ah, fuck. Wraith exhaled slowly. “So the hospital is dying. That’s why strange shit is happening there.”
    “Yeah.”
    Nausea rolled through him. “Is that also why it’s running half-staffed?”
    E shook his head. “Whatever is shaking up the underworld is shaking up the staff. They