Free Shameless Desire (The Outlawed Realm) by Tina Donahue Page B

pulled out a chair. “Sit down, please.”
    The moment he did, Gwen sank into her own chair and leaned toward him, resting her hand on his arm. A shiver of delight ran through her at how solid and masculine it was. “I want to know everything,” she murmured. “Tell me about the rulers you mentioned, the guards, the experiments. Why you’re here. How long you intend to stay.”
     
    She talked too much. Not that Kuma minded. He enjoyed the silky sound of her voice. Those melodious sounds, along with her touch, kept him from answering her, driving away every word he’d ever known, dispelling each thought.
    All that remained was stark need, the urge to pull Gwen into his arms, capture her mouth, run his hands down her lush body. Lose himself in her heat and scent. She smelled of life, of freedom, the kind he’d known in the jungle when the guards weren’t hunting his kind and the rulers weren’t slaughtering them.
    Gwen pressed her fingers into his forearm. “Please,” she whispered, “tell me.”
    He slanted a look at Staci. She was biting her thumb and shifting from foot to foot, seemingly uncertain as to whether she wanted to stay and hear everything, or flee and spare herself the horror.
    As though the girl had read his thoughts, she lowered her hand and frowned. “I’m not leaving.” With more resolve than she’d shown earlier, she sank into the chair on the other side of him, rather than the one that was the farthest away. No doubt, so she was close enough to stop him from mounting or harming Gwen.
    “I’m from E4,” he began.
    “Yeah, we know,” Gwen said, “you already told us that.” She ran her thumb over his wrist.
    A surge of warmth rushed through Kuma, stiffening his cock even more, making it difficult for him to breathe, to think.
    “Who are the rulers?” Gwen asked.
    He cleared his throat. His words still rasped. “They were once my people when our worlds began.”
    “Worlds?” Staci asked.
    He clarified. “Realms. Dimensions.”
    “Five of them,” Gwen said. “If they were once your people, then your kind didn’t always come from E4?”
    “No.” He tightened his fingers into fists.
    Gwen noticed, pulling her hand back. Before she could move too far away, Kuma wrapped his hand around her wrist, holding it gently, not caring what Staci thought.
    “My anger isn’t with you,” he explained to Gwen. “It’s because of them. My people were born on E2, the same as the rulers. Those in charge sent my ancestors to E4 as punishment, for their crimes against the realm. Long before the current rulers thought to build the Pleasure Palace—with sex slaves to indulge their every whim—E4 was a prison without walls without any chance of escape.”
    “A penal colony,” Gwen mumbled. “Like Devil’s Island.”
    Staci leaned closer. “Is E4 surrounded by water?”
    Kuma shook his head. “It’s a jungle, a twilight world, the sun far fainter there than it is in this dimension. The plants are enormous and golden, the creatures bigger than anything you have here. Men and women weren’t only banished there, the rulers ordered E2’s scientists to experiment on them. To see how they could manipulate what your side calls DNA.”
    Gwen sagged in her chair but didn’t pull her wrist from him.
    Grateful, Kuma stroked her with his thumb, savoring her skin’s velvety texture.
    She whispered, “They turned your people into werewolves?”
    Staci made a gagging sound.
    He pretended not to notice, concentrating on Gwen. How could he not. In the room’s pleasant light, she was silky warmth, her rich complexion as inviting as her scent. He’d seen how she responded to his attention earlier, the deepening rose in her cheeks, the surrender in her eyes. He noted a flicker of it now within her concern.
    Unfortunately, her worry won out.
    “Worse than werewolves?” she asked.
    He nodded, then added, “Most of those beings died off, unable to survive the hunt for food and predator attacks. Only my