“They’d want to know your source.”
“Someone will want to publish it regardless. You know that.”
“Is this your way of saying you want me too, Casey?”
Casey answered him with a kiss, a light butterfly kiss on his firm, warm lips.
When Alex kissed her back, he took her into his arms and nearly squeezed the breath out of her, crushing her against him. Casey’s hands found their way across his broad shoulders and up into his hair. His lips urged hers apart and his tongue slid into her mouth. It was a kiss meant to mesmerize, to entice and Casey’s tongue twined with his, their breath mingling. Casey pressed herself against him, grinding her hips against the hot familiar bulge of his erection.
Breathing hard, as if he’d run a great distance, Alex pulled back to smile into her face.
“Not now. I wish.”
Alex’s chuckle was deep and it sent ripples of contentment through her. “We still have a couple of things to deal with before we can go.”
“Nicole,” Casey guessed easily.
“Yes. We have to try. She might listen to you. Even with all that’s going on in the media. She especially might listen to you if I tell you some things that would be impossible for anyone else to know.”
Alex had watched Nicole all her life. He could tell her something that would make Nicole believe. She hadn’t thought of that.
“What’s the other thing?” Casey asked.
“I made a promise to you about something, Casey.”
The seriousness of his expression reminded her of his promise to show her what exactly he was before the two weeks were over. Now she was a little afraid.
“Don’t look at me like that.” Alex looked uncomfortable, his gaze wildly swinging away.
Casey caught his cheek with her palm, made him look at her. “Like what, Alex? Show me. I’m ready.”
“Casey…”
“I don’t care what you are, Alex. It won’t change how I feel or the fact that I want to be with you.”
“You can’t say that. You haven’t seen me shift.”
It was a point. But if Casey were to be with him, she had to accept him for what he was. All of him. She couldn’t do that if he didn’t share his other side with her.
“Show me. How do you do that?”
Alex blew out an exhale. “I didn’t take the pill today, Casey, so now I just need the stimulus. It can be anxiety or…”
Casey remembered how and her pussy quivered in response. If he had sex with her, since she wasn’t his type, he would change. That would do it.
Her mind was made up. “Let’s do it.”
Casey pressed herself against his body again, grinding her pelvis against the hot length of his cock. She stretched up to kiss his mouth and that appeared to be the last straw for him. Alex’s self control clearly snapped and he went wild, crushing her to him. Alex’s hands were everywhere as he guided her back toward the house.
Casey thought as she clung to him, gasping into his mouth, that he meant to go into the house but instead he slammed her against the wall by the glass patio doors. His fingers were frantic on the fastenings of her slacks. He nearly tore the pants from her body as he rid her of them, yanked off her panties.
Savagely he ripped open his jeans, freeing his ready cock before grabbing her thighs roughly. Casey gasped when he hauled her up so he could impale her on his erection, filling her with one smooth, hard thrust.
Casey cried out at his fierce invasion, wrapping her legs around his waist and hanging onto him as he pounded into her over and over. Thrust after thrust, stretching and filling her cunt, pleasure blending with pain as her own weight pulled her down on him and drove him so deep she didn’t know how she’d ever be free of him.
Alex claimed her mouth with a searing kiss as he took her roughly against the wall. While the driving rhythm of his lower body was rapid and punishing, pushing her closer and closer to the orgasm she craved. His kiss was hot and demanding. Casey tasted his desperation in that kiss, his need.
Her cries hung on the night air when she reached her climax, her pussy walls pulsing around the hard length of his cock as it drove inside her. Alex growled his release, the sound fierce and unlike anything Casey had ever heard before. It was enough to startle her out of the consuming sensual fog he’d created around her. It reminded her why they were there and what was about to happen.
Alex gently lowered her to the balcony but his entire body shook. He clasped the front of his jeans before him as he stumbled back from her, his eyes wild. Again another low growl, an animal growl, and Casey trembled as she reached for her discarded panties and slacks. She’d walked out here in her socks and she still had them on.
“Watch, Casey.” Alex’s voice was rough, deeper than normal. “This is what I am.”
In fascinated horror, she watched his handsome face begin to contort and to quiver. Patches of hair, fur, began to thrust through his skin. His entire body began to shift and change shape right before her eyes. His clothing shredded. The ripping of cotton and denim was a violent sound in the peaceful country night. Whatever was happening to him brought him to his knees, and Casey was stunned to realize that his fingers were drawing up to form paws. Great paws with long sharp claws ended each of his four powerful limbs.
Casey recognized the creature that stood in the pile of her lover’s clothes as a large black cat. A panther? A leopard? All she knew was that it was the largest cat she’d ever seen in her life and, as it bared its teeth and growled at her, she knew a moment of real fear. Did he know himself in this form? Did he know her?
Tears stung the back of her eyes at his cruel fate at the hands of the men who made him. “Alex?” Her voice was thin as she cowered against the wall.
The great cat’s eyes narrowed on her as it moved toward her, stalked her. Casey was too afraid to move or react as it came to a stop before her, pressing its nose into the V of her thighs, sniffing her. Casey’s hands trembled at her side, and he then moved his head, nuzzling into the palm of her hand.
It was Alex. He did know her.
Casey smoothed the fur of his nose at the top of his head. It had a fine silky texture. A lot like his hair…
In the blink of an eye, he was bounding away from her across the balcony. Casey’s heart leapt into her throat when she watched him jump over the railing. There had to be a twenty foot drop to the paved path below.
Running to the rail, she glanced over frantically just in time to see him land effortlessly and dash off into the blackness, his color making him blend in so well with the night that it appeared he’d just disappeared.
He had to kill now.
Dear God.
Trembling more from terror than cold, Casey wrapped her arms around her body and made her way back into the house.
* * *
“Casey?”
She found Joey in the family room, sitting alone in the dark. The faint light from the television lit up his face and his expression was one of concern.
“What?”
Casey dashed to stand next to the couch where she could see the television, but only saw a commercial for canned dog food.
“What was it?” she asked Joey, really not liking the haunted look he wore.
“It’s his sister.” Joey’s gaze was dark and serious. “They mentioned tonight that the police are looking for another woman and they showed her image. They said she was wanted for questioning in this case but also in the case of murders in the city last year.”
Holy shit! Nicole!
“Where’s Alex?”
Casey swallowed hard. “He went off for a while.”
Joey scowled. “He did what?”
“He changed.” Casey didn’t know how better to explain it. “He wanted me to see… he’s out there now, hunting.”
“Shit!” Joey jumped up from the couch. “Of all the damned times to do this.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Joey clasped her arms in his large hands and it fri
ghtened her until she saw the warmth in his eyes.
“Will he be okay?” she had to know.
“Yes, he’ll be fine. I’ll go get him.” Joey’s gaze searched her face. “He’s very taken with you, Casey. Now that you’ve seen, will you stay with him?”
No matter how shocked she’d been at what she’d seen, it didn’t change how she felt about the man. That’s right. In that moment, Casey realized that it had changed nothing.
“Of course I’ll stay with him.”
Joey crushed her to him in a hug that made her ribs compress. “You give me hope, you know that?”
“Glad I can give someone something.”
“You stay here,” Joey told her. “We’ll be back soon.”
Nodding at him, Casey watched him dash out of the house. She had no idea what he meant to do but as long as Alex was safe it didn’t matter.
And Nicole? After that report, Nicole and her family would flee. From everything Alex had told her about Leviathan, it might be what they wanted her to do, to draw her out into the open. Knowing the police were after her because of what her husband may or may not have been involved in was one thing. Being sought by a company that had created her and watched her all of her life was another. She remembered Alex’s fear that they’d capture her. Nothing could be crueler than stripping away someone’s reality and taking away their freedom.
But as she thought of Alex, she knew she’d be devastated if something were to happen to him. If they caught him or worse, killed him, what would she do? How could she go on?
She didn’t realize that she’d wandered into the kitchen but she had. The silver ring of keys with the yellow rental car company tab winked at her from the counter.
Casey knew New York City like the back of her hand. Alex and Joey didn’t. She could go to the city to warn Nicole and her husband, then find a way to reunite with Alex at another place, a safer place.
If she took him and Joey with her, she’d only put them in danger.
Snatching the keys from the counter, she headed back to the bedroom for her shoes and a coat. Her mind was made up.
Chapter 9
Alex trembled as he tried the door to his sister’s apartment with Joey on his heels, not knowing what he’d find. Fear for Casey had torn at him for the entire length of his race back to New York. He knew if anything happened to the woman he wanted for his mate, he wouldn’t want to go on. It would be all over.
The door slowly swung open and two pairs of startled eyes fastened on him as he quietly walked in. Joey followed and closed the door behind him.
Dashing to Casey and kneeling at her feet where she sat in an armchair, his gaze raked over her. She didn’t appear harmed, though the shadows beneath her eyes told him that she was very tired.
“You’re okay?”
Casey smiled at him, nodded. “I’m fine. I’m just fine. I’d like you to meet someone, Alex.”
Alex turned and gazed up into the green eyes, so like his own, of Nicole Kerensky. His sister. Finally, she was here. Not on a screen. She was lovelier in person than he could have imagined. She was tiny, fine-boned, with fair smooth skin and short dark hair that was a little darker than his. Her features were sharp and neat. She wore a tight fitting black sweater with dark colored jeans that showed off her slender body.
And like Casey, she looked fatigued. Fear haunted her eyes as they met his.
“Hello,” Nicole said quietly.
“Hello.”
“I’ve been telling her about you, Alex,” Casey said slowly.
“Hopefully the good stuff.” Alex smiled at his sister, wanting to put her at ease.
“It has been interesting,” boomed a deep voice from the doorway of the kitchen -- an accented voice. Alex recognized the tall, dark haired man as Nicole’s mate. The Russian from the wild who was naturally what Alex was manufactured to be. In his arms, the man held a baby. His baby with Nicole.
The tiny boy would be his kind also. He had the same cells as Nicole and himself. That child was his family.
“Why are you here?” Vitali Kerensky’s voice was calm, but Alex’s instincts tingled all over. He sensed the man would fiercely defend his mate and posed a greater threat than the other Kerensky brother he’d met.
“I’m trying to help her,” Alex explained. “All of you.”
Vitali’s eyes narrowed. “I can defend my family.”
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” Alex wished they’d never have to know but it was too late for that now. “They created Nicole and I. They’ll stop at nothing to either take us into their custody or destroy us. All of us. Including your child. They can’t afford for anyone to find out about us.”
Mumbling under his breath in a language Alex couldn’t understand, Vitali stalked into the living room. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
Alex rose to look Vitali in the eye. Okay, he wasn’t as big as the older man, but he wouldn’t be intimidated. “The question is what am I. Can’t you tell?”
Vitali’s nostrils flared as he took in Alex’s scent. He knew the moment Vitali realized that they were the same kind.
Well, almost the same.
“That’s right, “Alex told him. “I’m just like you. And I’m Nicole’s brother.”
“She was adopted. I know this. So you found your birth sister. Why interfere in our lives? What mysterious evil are you thinking you are protecting us from? A drug company? Why would they possibly be interested in us? How could they know anything about us? No one has approached us. Your lady friend didn’t even know what we really were. No one did.”
Alex glanced back at Casey. Her hands wrung in her lap, her knuckles white.
“Do you think I’ve never faced evil?” Vitali asked. “I’ve faced far worse than pharmacists.”
Alex’s gaze swung back in the direction of her sister’s mate.
“You don’t understand.” Proud as he was, this man didn’t know shit about evil. “You’re dealing with an entire group of brilliant people who created us -- who are breeding us for some purpose. I know all about your kind, the curse you believe made you what you are. Whatever you are and whoever you are, you happened naturally. As far as anyone knows, you’re the only ones who were born in nature like this.”
“Created you?”
Alex didn’t miss the disbelief in the man’s voice. “Come on!” Alex pointed to Nicole. “Didn’t you ever wonder how the hell you found a woman just like you who was American? Who didn’t even know what she was? Didn’t that seem a little odd to you?”
The tightening at Vitali’s jaw confirmed Alex’s suspicions.
What would he tell them? Casey had obviously tried to tell them about Leviathan, the danger. What could he say that would make them believe his story?
And then he knew. Walking back toward his sister’s chair, Alex looked her in the eye. “Nicole, do you remember Morgan Watson?”
The color drained from his sister’s face. He took that as a yes.
“He was the one you brought home that night when your parents were asleep. You took him into the basement with you. Do you remember him?”
Nicole nodded, a nervous jerk of her head really. Alex noticed that her mate’s brow lowered behind her, but he stood silently.
“Knowing what you do now about us, our kind, do you wonder what happened there? Why you didn’t transform?”
His sister’s full lower lip trembled but again she nodded. A quick glance at Casey revealed her to be watching him intently.
“They allowed it to happen, Nicole. The lab let you bring him home, and they knew you’d try to have sex. They were waiting. They gave you an injection to stop the transformation after they gassed the basement and knocked you both out.”
“But why?” her mate asked. “Why would they let it go that far? And what did they do with the young man?”
Alex shrugged. “They let him go. He never knew what hit him.”
Nicole’s eyes began to glitter with unshed tears.
/> “They’re scientists. They study us. You were unique, Nicole, in that they sent you out into the human world to observe you. If you’d been very promiscuous, they would have wanted to bring you back a lot sooner because they can’t afford the loss. As it was, they decided to wait until you were in your twenties, to see what impact your true nature would have on your life as it grew more complicated.”
Nicole threw a worried glance over her shoulder at her husband. “Vitali?”
“They are looking for her now because…”
“Because she got away from them,” Alex explained. “Because she did something they couldn’t have anticipated or predicted. She found you. She actually bore a child. They’ll stop at nothing until they get her back now. They’ll want you and that boy. That’s why you have to believe me. They’re coming for you.”
Alex kneeled before Nicole and took one of her hands in his own. She didn’t protest in any way. Her hand was cold and she was trembling.
“Nicole, until you disappeared from New York with your mate, I’d watched you all my life. I saw the real world through your eyes since I was a child. I saw how real people lived. I know I mean nothing to you, but you helped me through so many times and didn’t even know. I’ve lived all my life behind a glass wall like a lab animal. The worst thing they ever did to me was to show me what I could have had. A life like yours. But I hung onto you and the hope that one day I could be out here like you. And I thank you for that. Once I escaped, I had to find you and tell you about them. I couldn’t live with myself if I ever learned that you’d been taken by them, or worse…”
“And he placed himself in danger,” Casey threw in.
Alex held up a hand to Casey. He didn’t want to go there. “I may never see you again and that’s fine. I just wanted you to know what you needed to know to be safe and to keep your family safe. Whether or not you believe me is your choice. I want nothing more than for you to have a happy life.”
Tears spilled from Nicole’s eyes when Alex leaned forward to kiss her forehead.
“They’re here.” Joey, all but forgotten in the tense drama of the room, stared out the window with wide eyes. “Shit, it’s Wojcik himself.”
Eyes of the Leopard 5: Captive Page 7