“Kita.” Behind her, Creed still held her.
He had caught her as her uncle fell, his blood spattering from a single gunshot wound to the shoulder, low, perhaps too close to his chest, inflicted by her father.
Her father had also been the reason the lights had blown.
As her uncle confronted Kita and Creed, Horace Engalls had done what he had always done best: he tinkered. This time, with the electric generator that fed the fluorescent lights in the garage.
As the lights went out, he had rushed in just in time to save Kita from the injection her uncle had been preparing to shove into her arm.
The one that would have destroyed her as it had destroyed him.
“I’m okay,” she finally answered him.
The answers hadn’t come quickly.
Kita felt as though they had been there for hours.
When the lights had been restored, Jonas Wyatt, a half dozen Breeds, Diane Broen, and the mercenary working with her were the only ones still standing.
Phillip Brandenmore and the other three mercenaries he had hired were dead.
“You’re not okay.” He was holding her against his chest, his hand at her head, and she was still crying.
Not as hard as she had been, but the tears didn’t want to stop.
“Creed, I need your weapon.” Diane loped over to them, a delicate hand extending, palm out, revealing a slash of scars emphasized by the blood on her hand. “Once the authorities arrive we don’t want to blow your cover.”
Creed handed it over as Kita lifted her gaze and saw the compassion in the other woman’s expression.
Diane tucked the weapon into the back of her jeans, then hesitated before slowly hunching down in front of Kita. “Nightmares begin like this,” Diane said softly, glancing up at Creed, then back to Kita. “Don’t blame yourself, Ms. Engalls, and they won’t be near as bad.”
Kita could only shake her head as the other woman stood again and walked toward Jonas.
“Come on. Dealing with the authorities isn’t something I’m in the mood for.” Creed didn’t give her a chance to answer; he picked her up in his arms and before she knew it, she knew she was holding on to him like the lifeline she needed, burying her face against his neck.
Minutes later, he sat down on the bed, his hand stroking her hair.
“I love you, Kita,” he whispered. “I loved you before that first month was out, and I love you even more now. Give us a chance to work through this.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t make me beg.” His voice was dark, tortured.
Lifting her head, she stared at him. “You don’t have to beg, Creed,” she whispered tearfully. “If you left me now, I don’t know if I could handle it. Nothing seems real to me anymore except you. You are the only thing in my life in the past year that hasn’t changed.”
Surprise lit his gaze. “You didn’t know I was a Breed.”
“Didn’t I?” She couldn’t smile, even to comfort him. “I think a part of me did know. Subconsciously, I think I’ve always known. There’s nothing to forgive. As long as you hold me. As long as you kiss me.”
He kissed her. Gently. His lips parted hers, his tongue stroked, but in comfort rather than in heat, in love rather than in that loving lust they had shared before.
This was a kiss to warm, to comfort, to ease. It was a kiss to bind hearts and meld souls and build a foundation for the future on.
When his head lifted, she touched his jaw, and this time, she managed a smile.
“Uncle Phillip died a long time ago, didn’t he?”
It was then her father entered the room. “He died the day your mother did.”
Kita turned her head.
He stood there, his shoulders straight, the grief in his eyes and on his face as heavy as the weight she knew he carried on his shoulders.
“I was trying to protect you,” he whispered.
“Your father is the one who has been feeding the Breeds information through the Engalls and Brandenmore companies for the past several years, though he remained anonymous until he contacted Jonas a few days ago,” Creed informed her. “He knew I was a Breed, Kita. Just as he knew the horror your uncle was attempting to create.”
Her father swallowed tightly. “For your mother. For you.” He gave his head a hard shake. “I just wanted to protect you.”
From the monsters of the world. Creed loosened his hold and helped Kita to her feet, rising as he watched father and daughter.
Horace Engalls moved slowly across the room, his face lined, heavy with the decision he’d been forced to make.
Even Creed hadn’t been aware of what Engalls was doing until after the chaos in the garage. Only then had Jonas revealed the full measure of the other man’s involvement and the information he held.
Bastard. Marriage sure as hell hadn’t done anything to cure him of his manipulations.
“Kita.” Horace paused in front of her. “I wanted you safe.”
“You should have trusted me.”
And Creed could do nothing but agree.
Horace nodded. “I should have. But the father manual didn’t come with all the answers to the hard questions, sweetheart. It said follow your heart. And all I wanted to do was save you the knowledge of what your uncle was doing. Of how evil the world could be. That’s what fathers do for daughters, honey. Or at least, that’s what they want to do. Just protect them.”
Kita trembled, and Creed could sense her tears. But these weren’t tears of anger or sadness; rather, they were tears of release, of reconciliation, and maybe even of joy.
“I love you, Daddy.”
Father and daughter.
Creed stood back and gave Horace his moment. A chance to right any wrongs, to be the father, and for Kita to be the child.
Tomorrow would be time enough for him to claim his mate again.
Now, he gave the other man a nod and a smile. Now was the time to lay that foundation.
A foundation on which to build a life.
EPILOGUE
THREE WEEKS LATER
Tall, wide windows spilled brilliant light into the spacious bedroom of the Manhattan apartment Phillip Brandenmore had owned. A property his niece, Kita Claire Engalls, would soon possess once the courts ruled the missing owner as dead.
Once the authorities had arrived at the cabin after Brandenmore’s attempt to kill Kita, her uncle had been transported back to Sanctuary, his mind almost broken. He’d been animalistic, incoherent growls and snarls leaving his lips as spittle gathered on his lips.
“I found it.”
Creed turned from the impressive view of upper Manhattan as Kita all but whispered the words.
Her voice was filled with tears, the scent of her pain filling his senses and drawing him to her to stare at the files she had unlocked.
They had been stored, innocuously, on a hidden hard drive inserted into a digital video frame of family videos at Brandenmore’s penthouse apartment.
Sitting in clear view on his desk, it was a device Creed knew for a fact had been checked.
“The hard drive was very cleverly hidden,” she sighed tiredly as they stared at the files continuing to pop up on the computer the device was attached to. “It didn’t show up with normal search parameters, or even those used to uncover hidden files. He was a genius.” She rubbed at her face wearily. “I remembered the file when he was talking about Mother and the fountain of youth. I came into the office and surprised him days before Jonas captured him. He had the frame, and he was muttering about the fountain of youth. That was the second password.”
Creed stared at the files. They hadn’t even known there could be a second password.
“How did he hide it?” Creed stared at the proof that he had indeed hid it, in amazement.
“As I said, he was a genius.” She gave a small shrug, though he felt the disillusionment that tore through her. “And he told me how to find it. He told me to always remember my mother the day I was born.”
>
Minimizing the files, she pointed to the picture of her mother holding a newborn child. With a roll of her finger over the mouse pad the little arrow touched the very tip of the corner of the picture, and there, a thumbnail appeared. The mouse then moved to her mother’s left eye.
“He told me I was the apple of my mother’s eye.” She clicked, and there, the message showed up, a request for the password. “Type in a password that has been found on any other file, and this is what you get.” She typed in one of the more well known passwords the Breeds had uncovered.
A series of hidden files came up documenting the life and death of Kita’s mother. Canceling those, she tried again.
“Type in the right password, Fountain of Youth, and you get the files you were looking for.”
And there they were. Labeled by date as well as Breed. Hundreds of files hidden on a hard drive so minute it had been overlooked, because it had never been done before.
It was their last hope to learn what Brandenmore had done to the infant, Amber Broen. If the answers weren’t here, then they faced a future of losing her, as they were losing Brandenmore, if the serum reacted the same as she became older.
He watched as she carefully copied each file to the epad Jonas had given him before disconnecting the frame and laying it carefully on top of the electronic pad used to connect enforcers with the bureau when needed.
Creed sent a carefully worded, encrypted message to Jonas to pick up the package, then lifted his mate from the computer and turned her to face him.
As he suspected, tears whispered down her cheeks. They were tears of regret, of acceptance. There was no longer any denial left inside her, no illusion of anything good left within her uncle.
“He loved you,” Creed whispered. He was convinced of that. “Your uncle loved you and your mother, Kita. Loved you so much that the need to protect you from her fate drove him to the lengths he went to.”
She nodded before laying her forehead against his chest, her breathing hitched from the sobs she tried to hold inside.
“There was no life more important to him than the life of the daughter his sister loved more than anything on this earth.”
During one of the few coherent moments Brandenmore had had over the weeks, that information had come out. It was easy to kill, he had screamed, sobbed. Easy to torture, to maim and to destroy if it meant finding the secret of the fountain of youth. An elixir that halted aging, that cured all diseases, that could save his sister from death. And later, nothing had mattered but saving his niece from the same fate.
The experiments had begun the month Brandenmore had learned his sister had one of the few incurable cancers that still existed. Remission was possible, but the doctors had warned her family it would never last for long.
He’d accepted an offer the Genetics Council had made him that week and begun his research. For massive amounts of money he was given the Breeds needed, then the few mated couples he had been able to acquire. From there, it had snowballed and a monster had been born.
Then, he had learned he had the same cancer, years before his sister had died. Not the niece, but the brother was to be cursed with that fate. It had been more than Phillip Brandenmore could bear.
“He was selfish,” she whispered. “A monster is born, Creed, they’re not created. He was born a monster.”
Unfortunately, Creed agreed with her.
The pain of realization was a strike of agony slashing at him as it tore through her.
As she lifted her head, his head bent, his lips slanting over hers, the need to replace that agony with pleasure driving him to kiss her with a strength and hunger he hadn’t felt since that first kiss.
Her kiss flamed beneath his lips. Arching against him, she twined her arms around his neck, a low moan of need passing her lips as he picked her up in his arms and bore her back to the bed.
Her gown was removed easily. The soft cotton pants he wore pushed from his hips and down his legs with little thought to care.
Thick and heavy, his cock pressed against her lower stomach, throbbing, demanding the heat he sensed rising between her thighs.
Riding him as hard as the need for that pleasure was the need for her kiss though. Not just because of the mating heat that would intensify, or the pleasure he gained from that as well. It was a comfort mixed with a fiery hunger. It was an intimate dance of lips and tongues stroking against each other, loving, caressing as the taste of cinnamon and need filled both their senses.
Creed let his hands stroke up her back, then down. They feathered over her hips, returned to her spine, the sensitive pads experiencing the silken heat of her flesh as she moved against him, stroking fire over his dick as the warmth of her belly stroked across it.
Soft fingers stroked his neck, his shoulders as the kiss began to heat, to become hungrier, more intimate, more desperate.
Forcing his hands from the soft caresses he was delivering to her back, Creed lifted her gently and placed her in the bed before coming over her, a growl vibrating in his chest as he slid between her thighs, pressing them wide with his knees as his lips covered hers once again.
He wanted so much. He wanted every taste of her, each soft inch of flesh stroked with his tongue.
The need rolling furiously within him wouldn’t allow that time. Later perhaps, he thought as his lips moved down her neck, laying a trail of kisses along the slender column as he moved inexorably to the swollen rise of her breasts.
Tight, hard nipples drew him. The taste of them, a banquet of sweet heat as he rolled one against his tongue before pulling it into his mouth.
Human instincts were urging him to hurry, to bury the hard length of his cock inside her, feel the ecstasy of tight, heated flesh enclosing it, milking it with hungry, convulsive strokes. There was another part though. A deep, primal instinct that demanded he reinforce the life commitment his heart, his very soul, had made to her.
As his lips traveled down her body, his tongue peeked out to lick at sensitive flesh, the hunger to hear her cries of need echoing around him driving him to touch her, to taste her in the most intimate of ways.
His tongue stroked over the silken curls surrounding her swollen clit, his fingers parting the moisture-laden folds as her hips arched to him.
Fucking her was the most pleasure he had ever known in his life, but he was learning, discovering other pleasures, other ways to amplify that pleasure with each touch against her flesh.
As he lowered his head, his tongue slid up the narrow slit, flicking against the snug entrance and teasing her with the promise to stretch that sweet flesh soon.
His cock pulsed with burning hunger at the thought of working inside her, nearly obliterating any other need from his mind.
That guiding instinct remained steadfast instead.
To pleasure her.
To ensure she knew, forever, to the depths of her heart and soul that no other man could ever pleasure her, could ever stroke her or satisfy her or fulfill the emotional needs he felt inside her.
Emotion that had begun as fascination, then as attraction, and was only now easing into a fully developed devotion, a love that could span the decades they could have together.
It was a love he was determined to encourage. A love the animal inside him seemed to understand, to crave, and was determined to encourage.
He would argue with her, push her, challenge her. He would never allow what they had to become boring, stale, or predictable. The animal instincts inside him would always know which way to turn.
The man would always know how to whisper the words; the animal would understand how to ensure them.
As his tongue pressed into the tight center of her flexing pussy, a growl rumbled in his chest at the rain-sweet taste of her. The slide of silken juices and the sound of her rising moans beginning to fill his senses.
This was what he had longed for.
Her hands buried in his hair, fingers clenching in the strands as she fought to hold him in place as the pleasure
began to tighten inside her. The slide of her heated moisture caressed his tongue as he fucked it inside her, tasting her, building her pleasure, determined to lock her soul to his as her release exploded.
Seconds before she could melt into that oblivion he came over her, the throbbing, sensitive crest of his cock pressing against her, a growl escaping his lips as his head bent to her shoulder and the man he was lost himself to the animal as it rose inside him.
KITA CRIED OUT in a pleasure so exquisite she swore she couldn’t bear it.
Her lashes drifted open as she felt the head of his cock begging to press inside her as his teeth pressed against the curve of her shoulder, beneath her neck.
She knew what was coming. She hadn’t carried his mark, despite the fact that mating heat had been driving them insane for weeks.
Merinus Tyler and her sister-in-law, Sherra, had told her what to expect when it came, but nothing could have prepared her for it.
His teeth raked over her flesh as he began to work the thickly engorged crest of his erection inside her. Tight, hard thrusts that forged a path of burning flames through her pussy, stretching the tender tissue, exposing nerve endings that screamed into life as the broad head parted them and the thick shaft caressed them.
Aching, desperate sensations began to pulse through her vagina. A deep-seated torturous response that silently demanded more. Always more. Harder, stronger, deeper.
She felt taken, possessed, and still, it wasn’t enough. She needed more.
“Creed,” she gasped his name as she felt the next thrust, powerful and fierce bury the heavy flesh in to the hilt.
Her legs lifted, wrapped around his hips. Her head arched back, grinding into the pillows as her hips lifted, demanding more.
“Yes, Kita,” he groaned. “Press up, baby. Give me that sweet pussy. Every tight inch.”
He was buried until he could go no farther before he pulled back and thrust in again, his hips shifting, plunging as he began to fuck her with hard lunges that sent a cry tearing past her lips.
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