by Lora Leigh
ll staring at her in shock.
Callan gave himself a second, then another. Then before he could control himself, he was in her face, his canines flashing in a furious snarl as she plopped back in her chair, paling.
Callan braced his hands on the arms of that chair, leaning close to her, his eyes holding hers, enforcing his authority over her, feeling the strength of the animal inside him rising to the fore.
He was pride leader. It was his decisions that led his community, and damn her to hell, but she would submit to those decisions. He stared down at her, waited until her gaze shifted from his to his shoulder in respect, and the smell of her fear overcame the smell of her arrogance.
“Would you care to repeat to me the insult that just left your lips?” he asked her, the hard rasp of the animal fury coursing through his voice.
Her gaze flickered, lowered, as she breathed roughly.
“I apologize,” she whispered. “I had no right to say that.” Her eyes lifted again, and he saw the fear and the concern in her gaze as she stared at his shoulder once again. “Callan, I’m frightened for Mercury, and for that woman. He’s dangerous and you won’t listen to me because he’s your friend. I understand that. But you have to do something.”
“Jonas.” Callan kept his gaze on Ely’s eyes, boring into them, enforcing his strength, enforcing his command. “Did you order her to keep this information from me?”
“I did, Pride Leader.” Jonas was smarter than the scientist; he kept his voice level, calm.
Callan moved back, watching as Ely’s eyes lowered, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her posture calmer now.
“Why?” He turned on the director.
In terms of power within the hierarchy of the Breed Ruling Cabinet, Jonas was but a step below him. If push came to shove, the other man could possibly enforce certain areas of strength, but Jonas understood the battle they were fighting. Sometimes.
“I disagree with her assessment,” Jonas stated calmly, confidently, though he cast Ely another confused look.
“You’ve seen the tests?” Callan asked him.
“I’ve seen the test results. I compared those results to the security video of Mercury and Ms. Rodriquez, as well as the video from the lab the day Ely tricked that blood from his arm. She deliberately antagonized him, then took the blood. Results from the blood taken moments earlier showed none of the feral hormone. It was only in the blood she took while accusing him of raping his woman that it showed up.”
“She’s not his mate,” Ely snapped. “I’ve run all the tests, Jonas. There’s no possibility of it.”
Callan turned, and before he could halt it, a hiss of male fury passed his lips. Animal to animal, Breed to Breed, that sound had the power to shock them both, because it was one Callan never used. It was a warning of strength and power, and the line she was crossing.
Callan turned back to Jonas now. “What’s your opinion now, Director Wyatt?” he snarled.
“Callan, Mercury’s always had the feral hormone.” Jonas sighed. “His lab reports show this. The drug therapy they used merely kept him under their control. He killed when he was ordered. The drug controlled him; it silenced the need for freedom inside him and the anger he would have felt at the death of his pride members. You don’t see him in battle, or during missions. I do. And I’ve blocked Ely’s attempts to test him before and after his missions. Dr. Morrey’s concern for Mercury is commendable, but unnecessary.”
Callan’s eyes narrowed. “Why have you blocked those tests, at those times?”
Jonas sighed roughly at the question. “Because he’s what he was created to be in battle,” he admitted. “I have no better enforcer than Mercury. He’s cunning, merciless and frighteningly intelligent. His kill rate is lower than the other enforcers because he has enough power to take his enemies down physically, hand to hand, in large numbers, and he’s intelligent enough and in control enough to know when to kill and when not to.”
“And I haven’t been informed of these possible problems for what reason?” Callan growled back at him.
“Because the Bureau of Breed Affairs isn’t under Sanctuary’s control, Callan,” Jonas stated, albeit respectfully. “The enforcers are mine to watch over, and if I do say so, I do a damned good job of watching out for them. In the middle of mating heat, with Supremacists and fucking protestors crowding around our asses every time they see one of us on the streets. Those are my men, and regardless of Dr. Morrey’s paranoid little suspicions, the manipulations she accuses me of are some damned brilliant strategy if I do say so myself. My enforcers succeed, and that record speaks for itself.”
Kane spoke up then. “I want to know what made Dr. Morrey suspicious enough to deceive a friend and deliberately enrage him before taking that blood. You’ve always been someone we can trust, Ely. The one person we could count on to figure out what was going on with our mates, and in the Breeds’ cases, with their bodies. Why trick him?”
She stared at her hands.
“That’s something I’m interested in as well,” Callan stated, staring back at Ely. “Why did you target Mercury?”
She lifted her head, though she didn’t meet his eyes. She stared at his shoulder, the animal in her realizing the fine line she was walking now.
“The mating tests,” she whispered.
“He’s not her mate, so what’s the problem? Besides the feral adrenaline that showed up in it.”
Ely’s gaze flickered. “She’ll make it worse. Her hormones intensify the feral fever,” she whispered. “For some reason, when I tested for their mating values, that feral quality immediately showed up in the adrenaline. She’ll destroy him. His reaction to her will destroy him.”
“Or she’ll complete him,” Jonas spoke up, turning his gaze from Ely to Callan. “I’ve studied the lab reports, Callan. I don’t think Mercury lost his mate in those labs; he lost his animal instead. I think Ria is possibly his mate, and the presence of the strength in that feral adrenaline proves it. Mercury’s test results are never the same as other Breeds’. The animal DNA fluctuates in its recession, as Ely can confirm. I believe the results of those mating tests are more an indication that she is his mate, rather than not. I think the lioness could have been his mate. But I believe Ria is his mate.”
Ely’s anger built around her, the scent of it causing Callan to shoot her a sharp look.
“Respectfully,” she finally bit out, “where did he obtain his degree in genetics? Because his supposition is the most dangerous load of crap I’ve ever heard.”
“Respectfully, Dr. Morrey,” Jonas stated then, “I don’t need a degree to know not to betray a friend. It appears perhaps your education was lacking, though.”
“I know the science, and I know Breed genetics,” she fired back at him, though quieter than before. “All you know is your own arrogance.”
“Ask yourself, Ely, is it possible in any way that your findings could have been tampered with as well? Because if you’d pull your head out of your scientific ass long enough to realize it, you’d see that Mercury is in complete control.”
“Ely, leave the room,” Callan ordered her, staring at her, something hardening inside him at the sense of fanatical certainty he could feel pouring from her. “Return to your labs. I’ll let you know when I need to talk to you again.”
“Callan, you can’t let him continue this game,” she cried, jumping to her feet and facing him with a hint of desperation.
“Get your notes and your tests in order and have them faxed into this office,” he told her, his voice hardening. “I expect to see them within the hour.”
She stared back at him, breathing rapidly, before clenching her fists and stalking from the room. Callan watched her go, his eyes narrowed, his own suspicions aroused now as he turned back to Jonas.
“Any orders I give concerning Mercury will come from me, in person.” He turned to Kane. “Find out who the hell is falsifying my orders and bring that person to me. I want to know exactly what
the hell is going on here.”
“The enforcer who relieved Mercury of his weapon and uniform came to me afterward,” Jonas told him. “He said the order came into Austin Crowl’s office. The enforcer took the call himself. Someone’s impersonating your voice, at the least.”
Callan rubbed at the still-sensitive flesh of his chest, where he had taken a bullet but months before, and turned to Kane.
“Is this room secured?”
Kane moved from his chair, slid open a drawer on Callan’s desk and lifted free the handheld listening device detector.
“It says we’re clear,” he murmured, replacing it. But his pale blue eyes were suspicious.
He drew away a second later as the phone at his side rang.
“There’s no way to impersonate me to my mate,” Callan growled as he stared back at Jonas. “If you’re in doubt regarding an order, bring Merinus to me. It’s the only safety precaution we can depend on. Until then, find out what the hell is going on here, and where these fucking orders came from.”
“Gentlemen.” Kane sighed as he lowered the phone that had rung at his side moments before. “Our problems have just been added to.”
Callan’s gaze cut to him.
Just what the hell they needed, a bigger problem. As though dealing with Jonas and Ely butting heads over the enforcers again wasn’t enough.
Kane looked at them all mockingly. “Ms. Rodriquez has just notified her boss that her job is being blocked, she’s been insulted, and she’s requested the Vanderale heli-jet to be sent to transport her to the airport, where the Vanderale private jet is to pick her up. Let’s kiss our funding good-bye right now. It was nice while it lasted.”
CHAPTER 10
In her life Ria couldn’t remember ever being so furious as she had been when she walked out of Sanctuary. And she couldn’t even explain to herself why the burning anger was rushing through her so powerfully.
The moment she entered the cabin, she put her case on the bar and lifted the laptop from it before setting it on the counter and lifting the screen.
She pulled her email up, very much aware that her connection was through Sanctuary’s secured network and would be intercepted. She didn’t bother to encrypt the email she typed out to Dane, and pushed “send.”
She let a smile tip her lips. She had no intention of leaving Sanctuary, but it would bring Dane on their asses like a ton of bricks.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Mercury stated as he passed by her on the way to the kitchen. “And you need to eat. You haven’t eaten today.”
She curled her fingers against the counter and bit back the smart-assed comment hovering on her lips. Yeah, she was a bitch. She knew she was a bitch, but it was an attitude that worked for her. Usually. She had a feeling the consequence of that attitude might be more than she could handle at the moment. And besides, she knew how to be a cautious bitch. It was the intelligent path to take when Dane was in one of his crappy moods as well; she hoped it worked with Mercury.
“This isn’t the time to treat me as though I were one of your underlings,” she informed him coolly, though she felt anything but cool. “Sanctuary has some serious problems at the moment, Mercury.”
“And canceling their funding is going to help that?” He snorted as he faced her from the other side of the bar. “If there’s a power play within the ranks, then we need to figure out who’s doing it and what the hell is going on.”
“Why should I bother? Why should you?” She glared back at him, pushed to a limit she hadn’t known she had. “Do you think I haven’t read your Sanctuary file?” She hadn’t been given the lab files. “Are you aware, Mercury, that your pride leader has all but disavowed you?” Her accent slipped free. Dammit. “Ah, why the hell do I care? Obviously you don’t.”
She reached behind her to release the bun at the back of her head, her headache intensifying with each moment it weighed on her head.
The long strands of hair rippled through her fingers as she turned away and pushed her fingers through it in frustration.
“Do you know . . .” She went silent as she turned back to him. “Mercury?”
He was moving around that counter, slowly. His eyes were hammered gold rather than amber, those blue sparks intensifying the color once more.
Berserker. Once, long ago, his ancestors had terrified English conquerors with their savagery and strength.
It wasn’t rage she saw in his eyes though, it was hunger. Arousal. The same arousal that had tormented her since that kiss days before. The one that had left her burning each night, enflamed, tossing and turning in her bed as she struggled against the need for his body and her need to protect her heart.
“I like this blouse.” He stopped in front of her, the backs of his fingers caressing along the shoulder of the silk blouse she wore. “Why don’t you take it off?”
“Take it off?” she whispered. “How insane would that be?”
Did his expression appear more savage than normal? His eyes more sensual?
“That way I won’t have to rip it off you,” he stated, his voice rough, watching as his fingers rubbed against the material before he lifted his gaze to hers. “I wouldn’t want to destroy such pretty clothes.”
She wanted him to rip the shirt from her. She wanted something she didn’t understand, something she had never faced about herself before. She wanted her lover to be wild. But as much as she wanted him to rip her clothes from her, she wanted to rip his as well.
And that terrified her. She wasn’t a wild lover. Hell, one of her lovers had even told her she was much too polite in bed for his tastes. But Mercury, he made her want wild. He made her want to be wild.
She backed away from him, watching his gaze flicker, his expression turn mocking.
“Afraid?” he asked her.
“Of you, or myself?” she asked him nervously, trying to skirt around him, only to come up short as his arm snaked out, wrapped around her waist and drew her to a stop.
She stared up at him, way up. Six-four was a hell of a stretch for her five-six. Her head barely topped his chest, and his height and breadth made her feel entirely too feminine.
“Why would you be frightened of yourself?” he asked her, using his other hand to stroke down her hair as though soothing her. His fingers threaded into the strands, caressed them, eased her head back until he was staring into her eyes.
Ria swallowed tightly. “We have enough problems here; mixing it with a sexual relationship between us isn’t a good idea.”
She could barely breathe. And focusing on all the reasons why a relationship was a really bad idea was getting harder by the second. By the stroke. The stroke of his hand over her long hair. She had never considered her hair particularly sexy until this moment, until she felt him caressing it, enjoying it.
“A sexual relationship between us is a given,” he told her, that growly thing he did with his voice sending shivers down her spine. “I think you know that, sweetheart.”
He called her sweetheart, and he said it in a way it had never been said to her before, as his hand tightened at her hip and pulled her closer to him.
She felt his erection beneath his jeans, thick and hard, pressing into her lower stomach.
“Mercury.”
His head lowered. His hand slid beneath her hair, cupped the side of her neck and held her in the most erotic grip she had ever known, as his lips settled against hers.
“Kiss me, Ria,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me alone in the cold. Warm me, as only you can warm me.”
And she was supposed to deny him? No man had ever asked her to warm him. Not to leave him out in the cold where she always felt she existed herself. Always on the outside looking in. Always left out in the cold.
But there was no cold here. As Mercury’s lips opened over hers, pressing into hers, there was only heat and pleasure; the feel of his hands stroking her, building the fire inside her as he soothed a part of her.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He h
ad already mated. He could never belong to her. Not really all-the-way-to-the-soul belong to her. But she couldn’t deny him either.
A whimper of surrender left her lips, met his kiss, and her hands lifted from his chest to his shoulders. Then to his hair. Coarse, thick, warm. She tightened her fingers in the strands and held him to her as he kissed her with slow, easy possession.
His tongue licked over hers. Faintly rough, just enough to cause her to jerk at the thought of what the lick of his tongue would do to other parts of her body. It was dominant, possessive; it stroked over her lips, her tongue, and when she trapped it and suckled it, she almost cried at the lack of the mating taste. A taste she had heard was wilder than the male giving it.
She let her hands dig into his scalp, lifted herself tighter against him, licked at him, her lips fighting for the kiss as her soul fought to possess some part of him. If even for a moment, to claim a part of him as her own.
And this was why she had fought the attraction building between them. As his hands controlled her, lifted her to him, she had to fight the need to give him parts of herself that no one else had ever touched before.
That wild center growing inside her, the one that wanted to shred his clothes from his body and mark him. That primitive stupid female center that couldn’t accept that he belonged to another, even if she was dead.
He growled as he tore his lips from hers.
Ria opened her eyes, staring into his primal gaze as his hands gripped the curves of her rear and clenched. She shuddered, her lashes dipping closed before she forced them open once again.
“I’m hurting you,” he said quietly, his hand lifting, touching her cheek as she stared back in surprise. “How am I hurting you, my Ria?”
She shook her head, tugging at his hair, trying to pull him back to her. “Don’t stop, Mercury. Kiss me more.”
His head lowered. A gentle kiss to the corner of her lips when she didn’t want gentle. The stroke of his hand along the hair behind her ear when she wanted the sharp bite of his fingers tangling in it.
“Why are you doing this?” she moaned. “Don’t tease me.”
“Tell me how I’m hurting you,” he demanded, and even his voice was gentle.
She closed her eyes against the knowledge that there would be nothing she could hide from him, and so much he could hide from her.
“Because I’m insane,” she whispered, opening her eyes again and gazing back at him. “Because I want more than I should.”
He paused, his expression somber, but his eyes watched her with primitive awareness, with desperate hunger.
“What do you want, Ria?”
“I want all of you.”
“Then all of me is exactly what you’ll have,” he promised her.
His lips moved to hers again, took them fiercely, and she felt the wildness inside him as he gave it rein. He nipped at her lips, then pumped his tongue into her mouth as he lifted her against him, turned and bore her to the couch.
Her back met the cushions as he came over her, his lips still on hers, allowing her room to twist beneath him, to arch against the knee that pressed between her thighs.
“Take it off.” She tore her lips from his, tugging at his shirt.
He gripped the hem and jerked it off. Then he gripped the front of her blouse and ripped it from her.
“Damn pretty shirt.” He was staring at what he had revealed, not at what he had ripped. “Damn.” He ran the backs of his fingers over the curve of flesh that rose above her lacy bra. “I knew I could see the hint of your nipples under that damned fabric, and now I know why.”
Because her bra was so sheer the tight peaks were nearly pressing through the lace.
Ria tried to calm her breathing, but nothing could calm it. She needed his kiss again, she needed more of him. She lifted her back, arching, displaying her breasts and praying he would give in to his hunger for them.
And he did. His head lowered, his lips covering one achingly sensitive peak and drawing it into his mouth.
Ria was in ecstasy. Pleasure was rising inside her like a tidal wave sweeping through her fears. Tomorrow. She would worry about the complications tomorrow. Right now, tonight, he was hers. She had had more of him now than any man she had ever been with in the past. What did it matter if he wasn’t mating her? If he wasn’t keeping her? She didn’t want to be kept anyway, did she?
A part of her ached at the question, but it was fiercely reined in by the sensation washing over her flesh. The lash of his tongue against her nipple, even through the sheer lace of the bra, was destructive. The feel of his hands jerking her skirt up her legs, baring her to him as he pulled back to stare at his handiwork.
Her nipple was red and engorged. His lips covered its mate, sucked and licked and nipped as his hands roamed over her thighs and finally tore the panties from her hips.
Ria almost orgasmed. She had never had her panties ripped from her before. It was so sexual, so wicked she felt her juices flooding her vagina as her clit heated and throbbed with a desperate demand for his touch.
“Beautiful.” He leaned back, allowed his fingers to brush over the dark curls between her thighs. “So soft and warm. So wet.” The dampened curls clung to his fingers.
Ria watched at he touched her, then watched as she touched him. Her fingers pressing against his hard abs, feeling silky sun-kissed flesh, toughened skin and tight muscle.
His fingers parted the swollen flesh between her thighs as hers moved to his belt. She wanted him naked. She want to touch.
A cry fell from her lips. Her gaze jerked between her thighs where he was slowly, slowly burying two fingers inside her. Working them into her tightened channel, twisting them with sharp little movements of his wrist and wringing a whimper from her throat.
He grimaced, his lips pulling tight, the little snarl at the corner revealing a canine. Wild. Primal and wild, and he was making her wild. Her back arched and she drove herself on his fingers and cried out his name.
Long, broad fingers. Oh God, she would never be able to see a man’s fingers without thinking of Mercury’s. Without remembering this. The feel of him stroking inside her body, caressing her, sensitizing her until she was writhing against him, her hips churning as she fought for deeper, faster, harder.
“I’m going to taste you, Ria.” The growl in his voice did shivery things to her spine that spread out through her body and echoed with painful pleasure.
She shook her head, one hand falling from the belt of his jeans to grip his wrist, to hold him in place.
“Don’t stop,” she panted. “Please. Please don’t stop.”
He thrust his fingers inside her again, deeper, harder, stronger, and she held her breath, fighting for her orgasm as he stilled just as suddenly.
He ignored her protest as he moved down her body, sliding her hips to the edge of the couch as he knelt on the floor and lowered his head.
The first touch of his tongue against her clit froze her in place, the second had her hips jerking. The third and she was lost. His tongue rasped. The faintest bit of roughness, just enough to turn excitement to sheer brutal pleasure.
Her hands latched onto his hair and she lifted to him as she felt his fingers slide free of her.