Shameless Desire (The Outlawed Realm) by Tina Donahue

money to buy it,” she said, opening the Mountain Mist.
    Staci stopped running her tongue around the lip of her bottle. “Then how does he live? Where do you live?” she asked him.
    He took the water from Gwen and finished half of it before answering. “In a building a short run from here.”
    Gwen pictured her neighborhood, guessing he’d taken up residence in one of its many boarded-up houses. “Where did you get your clothes?”
    She could see his jeans weren’t a perfect fit. However, they did look relatively new and surprisingly clean, except for a few dark stains on them and his jacket that might have been mud or blood. As Staci had earlier, Gwen took a healthy gulp of her beer. She scrunched her nose at the bubbles stinging it.
    Kuma ran his hand down his jeans, his expression saying he didn’t much like them. “I took them from a man in another building, similar to the one where I stay. He wasn’t dead,” he added quickly. “He fell asleep after putting something in his arm.”
    Heroin? Most likely. Given the quality of Kuma’s garments, Gwen figured the junkie was a rich kid from Bainbridge Island or one of Seattle’s tony suburbs, come to the inner city for his drugs. She wondered about Kuma surviving on the street. Did he wash in public restrooms as so many of the city’s homeless did? Or did he wait until night and bathe in Puget Sound and other bodies of water when no one was around to watch?
    How strange this dimension must seem to him, how terrifying when he’d first crossed over. Not that E4’s jungle sounded any better. Kuma indicated that he’d taken…or eaten…the guard’s hands and feet so the man wasn’t a threat any longer.
    Not wanting to dwell on the picture that created, Gwen recalled him saying he hadn’t tried to return to E4, that it was easier to hunt his enemies here. “Earlier, you stated the guards would pay for what they did. What was that?”
    He tightened his fingers around his bottle.
    Afraid he’d crush the plastic, Gwen pried the drink from him and hazarded a guess. “They hurt one of your family…a member of your pack?”
    “Zule. My mate.”
    “Like your wife?” Staci asked.
    What else? He’d said her name with such reverence, it troubled Gwen more than she would have liked. She didn’t know him. Hell, he wasn’t even fully human. Somehow, that truth didn’t stop her from envying Zule for still having his adoration.
    “You have no reason to fear her,” Kuma said.
    Gwen’s cheeks prickled with heat. She wanted to avert her gaze but didn’t. Within the pain in his eyes, she saw longing too.
    The same as when he’d been above her in bed, their lips so close, breath mingling, giving her a sense of safety and comfort she’d rarely experienced, along with a burning need to have him inside of her, taking what he willed, while offering—
    “What happened to Zule?” Staci asked.
    Gwen kicked her cousin beneath the table.
    Staci bared her teeth.
    “It’s none of our business,” Gwen said to him. “You don’t have to tell us.”
    “I want to.” He laced his fingers together and squeezed them. His body trembled with what appeared to be rage. “When the guards are in the jungle, they generally stay within sight of the Palace so they can run back and hide there if need be. Everyone in my pack knew to keep their distance from that place. They’d heard tales of females who’d ventured too near. What was left of them after the guards or rulers engaged in their assaults. I never believed the guards would come so deep into our territory to attack. They’re the worst sort of cowards. I allowed myself to become complacent. For that, I’ll never forgive myself.”
    Gwen reached out to touch him, to offer whatever comfort she could. He didn’t seem to notice. She brought back her hand.
    “On the day Zule died,” he said, “her mother was ill. Zule was tending to her while the others in our pack hunted for food. Without our protection, the guards risked