by Lora Leigh
Fluttering against the ultrasensitive female flesh there, finding the bundle of nerves just beneath her clitoris and pressing inside it, the barb locked him inside her and increased the ecstasy for them both.
Rapture exploded over and over inside them.
Beneath him, Diane convulsed again, the second wave of release more intense than first, fueled by the barb spurting and fluttering against the sensitive curve it held in its possession.
Lawe growled against the nape of her neck, his hips jerking, his release spurting inside her again, blinding him with the pleasure of it until the last eruption sent a shudder racing through him.
His teeth were still locked in place, his tongue licking, stroking, easing the sting that might have existed if it weren’t for the hormone spilling into the womb.
The mating hormone.
Easing his teeth back from the shallow bite, he laved it again, this time with more languorous licks as he felt the final pulses of the hormone easing from the glands beneath his tongue.
Covering her, Lawe felt her body relax into the bed, exhausted, sated, her ragged breaths matching the pace of her still-racing heart.
Still buried inside her, locked in place to allow his seed every chance to find fertile ground, Lawe too fought to simply breathe.
A part of him felt shattered. An emotion much too close to terror began to grow insidiously inside him.
He could lose her. Even now, over twenty years after the vivisection that had killed his mother and her mate, there were still those scientists who used the pure blood groups and other various Breed enemies to secure live research specimens for them.
Mates.
Those Breeds who found the one whose unique biological, chemical and pheremonal makeup came together to ensure they stayed together as long as they lived. Because each was the perfect match to the other to ensure conception and the survival of the species.
He’d heard some say God had adopted them.
The reverend he knew said God had touched man’s creation and bestowed the Breeds with a soul to show man, once and for all, that only God could give life. And still others said they were no more than a fluke of nature, like a reptile. Soulless, capable of nothing but survival and dark evil.
And there were those who would give their own children to possess a hybrid Breed, a child of a mated pair, to learn the unique secrets the Breeds could one day possess.
Proof of any of their abilities would almost certainly ensure the destruction of the Breeds if used the wrong way.
This was all that contained the information. Keeping it confined to mates for the most part. Men and women who understood exactly what they had to lose if the world ever knew.
This.
Their souls.
“Diane,” he whispered her name as he clenched his eyes closed for the impossibly long moment it took him to bite back that dark emotion threatening to engulf him.
He’d get her back behind the protective walls of Sanctuary, deep in the middle of the compound, surrounded by the cabins, tents and lairs of the unmated Lions and Lionesses, Wolves and Coyote Breeds that constituted the Breed community.
Once there, she would be safe from the fanatics as well as her uncle’s enemies. The men who had taken her nearly a year before had been but one of the teams searching for her. They were the only ones who knew who they were searching for or at least knew the face of the woman they believed could lead them to the man they were seeking and the secrets they believed he held.
Secrets she was rumored to hold as well.
“You’re heavy, Lawe,” she answered moments later, her voice drowsy, lazy.
She would sleep well tonight.
She didn’t always sleep well, Jonas had informed him several months ago after Diane had spent a few days in the new wing of the main house, which had been built for Jonas and his mate.
Jonas was a member of the Pride family, whether he liked it or not, and his Pride leader half brother, Callan Lyons, had insisted on building the new wing to house Jonas, his new mate and their daughter. The main house was connected to a series of underground protected rooms and tunnels that had once been used for Breed research. It was now used to protect the mated wives and children on the few occasions the compound had been attacked.
Lawe knew that a wing of the main house was something he would never want himself. He’d never aspired to such things. He preferred a measure of privacy, and Lawe knew Jonas often chafed at the lack of it at times.
Lawe’s home was located close to the main house, though, less than a half acre away. As the head commander of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, his position necessitated a close proximity to the Bureau director as the commanding force behind the Bureau’s teams of Enforcers.
He worked with Jonas on each phase of every operation and mission going out of the bureau and ensured Jonas stayed up to date on each one.
Diane would be as protected as any of the Prime family, he would ensure it.
Forcing himself to ease from her, the barb finally retracting back into its position beneath the hood of his cock, Lawe collapsed beside her, exhaustion weighing his own muscles down.
He hadn’t been able to close his eyes in the nights past since the shooter had attempted to take out Diane’s head with one of the outdated sniper rifles he’d used.
Outdated, yes, but the bullet-propelled weapon was also entirely more effective, if highly illegal. The laser-powered weapons afforded more control, but their response time was much slower. Waiting for such a large weapon to power up before firing in succession didn’t leave much room for error.
A compulsion entirely foreign to him had him pulling his mate close to him, tucking her against his chest and shielding her with his body.
He made certain to lie between her and the door and window. Just in case.
Just in case anyone was stupid enough to come through the door or attempt to slip into the room. Just in case he wasn’t fast enough. He shielded her, giving her a chance to live, a chance to escape, and perhaps . . .
His jaw clenched and the fear he’d fought back earlier returned.
Just in case she had conceived his child.
•CHAPTER 10•
“Diane, you know this isn’t going to work.”
Lawe watched as Diane cleaned her weapons. Efficiently, smoothly, and with an ease that bespoke far too many years of practice.
“How long have you been breaking down and cleaning your own weapons?” he asked when she didn’t comment on the previous statement.
Her expression softened then. The look was one filled with longing and memories she often cherished.
“Since I was barely seven and staying with Uncle Colt while my parents were out of the country on their various business trips,” she remembered with a gentle laugh. “They were spies you know. CIA agents. They met while they were both at Langley, just after they joined while in college. And they died together.”
“There’s a lot of missing information regarding Raymond and Esmerelda Broen’s lives,” he stated as he watched her double-check the cleanliness of the barrel of one of the weapons. “Their deaths and what they were chasing are two of those missing links. Did Colt tell you what happened?”
She looked up for a second, her expression stilling somberly.
“He told me.” She sighed heavily. “We had a deal. Once I managed to successfully command my first mission, then he would give me the information. Just after I did so, he told the others we were celebrating family-style. His idea of family-style was to take me to the mountain in Kandahar where my parents died. They were ambushed and killed while tracking the identity of a man rumored to head a network secretly transporting files, genetic material, Breed DNA formulas, cryogenic embryos and possibly many of the infants and young Breeds that were missing at the time.”
His brows arched. “I was unaware the CIA was working on the behalf of the Breeds. The last records we had, many of their agents were actually involved in the training and information cont
rol of the various labs.”
“My mother left a diary,” she said, “several of them, actually. She knew many of the agents who were working in just such capacities, but they were also slipping information out to those they knew were working to reveal the brutality the Breeds lived under. There were opposing interests in the CIA, according to her. Only a few substations were actually involved with the Genetics Council. Langley was actually trying to verify the rumors, track down the labs, and aid the Breeds’ escape. I gave Rachel the diary last year and I believe she turned it over to Jonas.”
Lawe nodded. “Yes, I read it. From what I read, your parents were far too reckless for a couple with two children depending upon them.”
It was a trait they tragically shared with her uncle, Colt Broen. As a mercenary, Colt had been in the perfect position to funnel information back to the States or to ensure that U.S. interests, as well as the CIA’s, were preserved.
Raymond and Esmeralda Broen had coordinated their trips with their missions, ensuring that if they weren’t home to protect their young children, then Raymond’s brother would be. Still, they had died while their children were young, and according to the reports Diane turned over after she came into the Bureau, their parents’ enemies had immediately gone after the uncle, as well as the children.
She didn’t comment on his criticism, nor could Lawe detect any emotion other than regret. There was no anger toward her parents or her uncle, and no resentment for the life she had led.
But then, he had no doubt she was able to, and definitely would, hide any emotion she didn’t want him to see.
The Breeds who had been a part of her group until the past months had taught her how to bury and conceal her emotions. As they had explained to Lawe, it had become a game between them and their “commander” to detect her moods, her emotions or other various states of being that she experienced.
In the end, Diane had become far more adept at it than either of them had imagined she would.
“Are they the reason you followed your uncle into war?” he asked her finally.
“Their enemies took care of that,” she stated, her voice hardening as she glanced up at him. “They attacked children, Lawe. They came after us like a plague and refused to give up for years. As though they would tell children any secrets they had kept from their superiors over the years.”
“If they manage to capture you again, and kill you without the information they’re looking for, do you think they would then go after Rachel and Amber?” he asked her.
Diane wanted to roll her eyes. He obviously believed he was making a point. It was a point she had no intention to acknowledge. He never lost an opportunity, never allowed a relaxed moment to be preserved.
“Ignoring me isn’t going to solve the problem facing us,” he finally warned her as Diane fought to keep from clenching her teeth.
“I’m not trying to ignore you,” she assured him as she finished reassembling the small, handheld, laser-powered personal defense weapon she usually carried strapped to her thigh.
She was lying through her teeth and he knew it. He didn’t need to smell it.
“Do you think I’m going to allow you to continue this search, Diane? To risk you against a rogue we know so little about, as well as whatever assassins have been sent out to eliminate Brandenmore’s research projects? If they’re even still alive.” It was the wrong way to go about it, and Lawe knew it, but he was damned if he could figure out a better alternative.
She laughed at him, though the sound carried no amusement. What it did carry was disillusionment and a sense of pain. He could feel her pain as though it were his own. And for the first time in his life, Lawe ached for more than his own inability to be anything or anyone other than what his past had shaped him into.
“Do I act as though I need your permission to do anything?” she asked as she repacked the weapon and turned back to him, disdain reflected clearly in her gaze. “Really, Lawe, I’m a big girl now. I don’t need your permission to stay out after dark.”
Technically, she was right since she reported directly to Jonas.
“I’m quite certain Rachel was smart enough to warn you about the effects of mating heat,” he stated instead of tying and gagging her as he wanted to and forcing her back to Sanctuary. “You can’t just return to the same life as before. It doesn’t work that way.”
He couldn’t let her continue this mission either. She wasn’t just facing a rabid Breed in what was suspected to be the throes of a medically induced feral fever but also a team of Council-loyal Coyote soldiers searching for the same prey. And if the Breeds who once fought with her were right, she was also dealing with a traitor within her own ranks.
None would hesitate to kill her if she dared to attempt to interfere with their acquisition of the Bengal Breed Judd, Fawn Corrigan, or Honor Roberts. And they knew she was doing just that, as was evidenced by the attempt on her life before she slipped away from him in D.C. And if they didn’t kill her, the Council scientists would surely love to get their hands on a female experiencing mating heat.
“I can damned near do anything I want to do, Lawe.” Getting to her feet, she packed away the cleaning materials before storing them in her ammo bag and securing it firmly.
She kept her back to him, which was something else he hated. Diane was fairly skilled at lying with her lips and keeping the scent of it covered, but she hadn’t yet perfected lying with her eyes.
It was the only way he would have of detecting her emotions for now.
While she was able to hide certain emotions and their scents, she couldn’t use it as a reliable shield against Breeds for long. Especially not from Lawe.
“Any Coyote who detects the scent of your heat will make it his job to kidnap you and turn you over to the Council and their scientists,” he argued. “That’s not a pleasant place to be, nor is it a pleasant way to die.”
He was restraining himself and the effort to do so was about to snap his back teeth as he clenched them so tight his jaws ached. If he were human, he had no doubt they would have already been ground to the gums.
He had never clenched his teeth so often or as tightly as he did whenever he and Diane faced off in a disagreement, which was pretty much every time they came in contact.
“You should have stayed in D.C. rather than following me,” she told him as she lifted one of her duffel bags to the bed.
Disillusionment covered her. As though there had been some glimmer of hope that he would allow her to continue? The sad part was he had tried. Hell, he was still trying, yet all he saw each time he tried to formulate a plan to allow her to complete the mission, was her blood. Her screams. Her death.
Pulling down the heavy tab of the zipper, she opened the luggage and began packing the few items she had used the night before into the bulging interior. It was evident she had no intention of listening to him.
Which only left Lawe with that idea of tying and gagging her.
“Don’t push me like this, Diane.” Anger had the mating heat boiling inside him. Strong emotion, especially anger, had the effect of intensifying the rush of the sexual hormones and sending them surging through the body. “You won’t win.”
At that point, she did turn and face him, her gaze clashing with his as he got a glimpse of the burning emotions she was still keeping tightly reined.