by Lora Leigh
Dammit to hell, why had she come back?
“Lawe’s in position, you have three minutes,” Jonas spoke in his ear. “You have to clear that exit and be in the van before the cameras go to normal operation again.”
The scheduling of the security upgrades was top secret, even the floor security personnel had no idea when it happened. Jonas, miracle worker that he was, had managed to find out not only when it would happen, but how to ensure how long it would take.
“I’ll have ten seconds to spare,” he muttered, racing down the stairs, his steps silent, his movements sure despite his burden. “Have the doors open.”
“Open and ready,” Law reported. “Get a move on big boy, this area won’t stay secure the full time.”
Get a move on. He grunted at the order. As though he wasn’t going fast enough.
“Break the girl’s damned neck and dump her.” Another voice came across the line. “She’s a liability.”
A growl rumbled from Matthias’s throat, though his pace never faltered.
“Shut up, Simon,” Jonas ordered. “Two minutes, Matthias.”
He would make it in plenty of time if Sleeping Beauty didn’t decide to wake up and pitch a fit. And she could pitch a fit. He’d met her during the mugging Jonas had staged for Matthias to save her from. If he hadn’t moved in when he had, Simon might have been charging the Breeds extra for hazardous-duty pay.
Thankfully, she stayed quiet. He hit the exit, ducked, and disappeared into the interior of the van, with two seconds to spare. The door slammed shut, barely missing Grace’s head. The van was accelerating away from the exit less than a second later.
“Security system active. All monitors showing normal operational status. The Monarch Suite is locked and secured. Good going, Matthias,” Jonas congratulated him.
Matthias placed his hand protectively against Grace’s head, shifted her from his shoulder, and laid her on the tarp-covered floor of the van.
Simon watched him, smirking. The blond-haired mercenary with the smooth southern drawl was a pain in the ass under normal circumstances. A blue-eyed ladies man and self-professed rogue, the mercenary was also a tactical genius.
Beside him, Jonas, the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, sat in the secured chair in front of a bank of monitors and finessed a keyboard like it was a lover. The military cut of his black hair revealed an imposing profile, though his eerie silver eyes were damned odd for a Lion Breed.
Breed Enforcement agent, Lawe Justice, drove, and Rule Breaker (hell of a set of names for cats) watched him expectantly from the front passenger seat.
“He didn’t kill her,” Simon stared down at Grace almost mournfully, as he tipped his cowboy hat back and flicked a glance at Matthias. “What the fuck are you going to do with her, wolf?”
“My problem.” Matthias moved to peer over Jonas’s shoulder at the monitors that recorded the hotel’s security, tracked personnel, and alarms.
“No alarms.” Jonas moved between the monitors using keyboard commands. “Your entrance or exit wasn’t recorded or seen. We’re in the clear.”
Jonas turned in his chair, and Matthias retreated to rest his back against the wall of the van, as Jonas stared down at Grace’s unconscious form.
“Why didn’t you kill her?” Jonas repeated Simon’s question dispassionately. “If she was in Albrecht’s suite this late, then she was a part of him.”
Matthias stared back at him coldly. “I won’t reward her help by snapping her neck.”
“Then I will,” Jonas decided, moving as though to do just that.
Matthias lifted his lip in a growl, causing Jonas to pause.
“Matthias, she’s a risk. She can identify you and place the weapon in your hand. What other choice do you have?” Slashing quicksilver eyes clashed with Matthias’s gaze.
“I’ll take care of the situation.”
“And when she’s reported missing? I managed to have her vehicle picked up by one of my enforcers, but she only had a week’s vacation. What then?”
Matthias shifted his gaze from Jonas’s to Grace’s face. Her features were relaxed, her dove gray eyes closed. Rosebud lips were softened, and her creamy flesh was pale.
He had terrified her, but there hadn’t been time for gentleness.
“I’ll take responsibility for her,” he stated firmly.
“And when she reports what she saw?” Jonas asked, his voice hard. “When she reports that a Breed, a known associate of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, killed Dr. Albrecht. What then, Matthias? You’re risking the whole community, not just yourself.”
“Touch her, and I’ll kill you next,” Matthias growled, a hard rumble of violence that had the tension in the van spiking to heated levels. “Think about harming her, and I’ll kill you.”
“Then hide her.” Jonas shrugged. “And hide her well, wolf, because if she even breathes the truth of tonight’s events, I’ll make sure she never takes another breath.”
• • •
Jonas watched, several hours later, as Matthias loaded his conscious, bound and gagged little burden into the folded-back front seat, secured her into place, and drove away.
He leaned against the outside of the van and grinned, hell if he could help it. Sometimes, his people just amazed him, especially those who hadn’t yet heard the truth of the mating heat, or the first signs of it.
Common sense was the first casualty to the heat, and he almost regretted letting the Wolf Breed drive away to parts unknown. It would have been fun as hell to watch.
“He’s gonna mate her,” Simon drawled from inside the van. “That look in his eye was impossible to mistake. I thought he was going to rip my throat out when I suggested breaking her neck.”
“He came close.” Jonas smirked.
“You should have warned him,” Lawe sighed.
“You should have had him dragged back to Sanctuary for those stupid tests,” Rule snarled. “If they don’t find a cure for that shit, I’m never going to fuck again. It’s starting to give me the jeebies.”
Jonas chuckled. “We need to understand it, you can forget about curing it. Besides, Ely and the Wolf Breed scientists have enough victims. No sense in adding a new pair to the mix.”
“And if he can’t convince her to keep her mouth shut?” Simon voiced the question rolling around in Jonas’s head. He grimaced at the thought of the answer to it.
“Track him,” he ordered the other man. “If he can’t convince her not to talk, then we’ll have to.”
Permanently if necessary. He’d hate it. It would sicken his soul, but he had done worse to see to the Breeds’ survival, and he was certain he would do so again. Shedding innocent blood would add to the nightmares, though, and that he wasn’t anticipating. As far as Jonas was concerned, he had enough nightmares to fight.
• CHAPTER 2 •
She should have changed out of the short black skirt and white blouse she wore to work. She should have worn jeans. Pants, anything but the leg-flattering little skirt she was so fond of. Because it was now around her thighs. So indecently around her thighs that Grace felt herself flushing.
And while she was considering her recent mistakes, she should have let someone know she had returned. Checked in. Put off dealing with Albrecht’s complaints. Anything but what she had ended up doing.
But she just had to come back for that stupid little bathing suit she had stuffed in the pocket of her jacket. And when she had, Mr. Albrecht’s message had been flashing on her machine. Irate. Demanding action over some slight by the staff.
She had listened to the message, erased it, because she was anal about stuff like that, and then had gone to Albrecht’s suite. That had been her biggest mistake.
The door had been slightly open, but Albrecht was known for that kind of absentmindedness. He was so arrogantly certain no one would dare attack him under the eagle eye of the security cameras that he ignored every precaution. Security had warned him repeatedly that they could not ensure his safet
y if he didn’t stop leaving the suite door open. Normally, one of the security personnel contacted his bodyguards in the other room and had them do it. Tonight, security hadn’t taken care of it. Which meant they were updating the security system. Which meant the damned system, as well as the backup, was off-line. Which meant no one knew what the fuck had happened to her!
Ten minutes. The system had been off-line for ten freaking stupid minutes, and one of their most influential residents was dead.
It didn’t matter that he was an asshole. He was still dead. And Matthias had killed him.
Her breath hitched as she battled the tears filling her eyes. The man she had fallen in love with was a killer.
She glanced over at him.
His expression was imposing in the low lights from the dash. The wicked scar that slashed over his forehead, across his eye, then to the center of his cheek was hidden from her view. His profile revealed only the dark curve and slash of arrogant bones, the arch of black brows. Thick, coarse black hair, as dark as night, flowed down his neck and was caught at the nape of his neck with some sort of elastic band.
Broad shoulders and a body so tight and hard it gave a girl damp panties. He was dressed in his customary black leather pants, shit-kicker boots, a T-shirt, and black leather jacket.
The gloves he had worn on his hands had been black as well. They were gone now.
And to top it all off, he was a Wolf Breed. Powerful, charismatic, scarred, and dangerous. All the things that made a girl’s heart go thump in the night.
And he was a killer.
She flinched as his hand moved, then drew in a shaky breath as the gag was removed from her mouth. He didn’t stop to untie her, or to release the restraints holding her to the lowered seat. But at least she could speak now.
“Just how damned stupid are you?” The words broke past her lips before she could think. “You should have killed me back at the hotel, because I swear to God I’m going to watch you fry.”
She tried to tear herself loose, jerking and writhing against the bonds furiously.
“Keep it up, and I’m going to see more than just those pretty thighs, Grace.” His husky voice had her stilling, her gaze jerking to where he was glancing at her thighs before looking down her body.
“Oh yeah, as if you haven’t already made certain you could see more,” she yelled, flushing at the knowledge that her skirt had ridden to the crotch of her panties. Her damp panties. “What are you going to do now, rape me before you kill me?”
He stared down at her with whiskey-colored eyes. Those eyes almost mesmerized her.
“If I intended to kill you, I wouldn’t rape you first,” he promised her mockingly. “Somehow, that just reeks of foul play.”
“And murder doesn’t?” She gasped in outrage.
“Albrecht was a member of the Genetics Council.” The sound of his voice, low, husky, nearing another of those dangerous growls she had heard just before he grabbed her, had her flinching. “That wasn’t a murder, Grace, it was an act of mercy.”
She stared back at him in shock.
“He was a mean old man,” she admitted in disbelief. “But he couldn’t have been part of the Genetics Council any longer. He was so absentminded he forgot to close his stupid doors. If he had been a member, he had likely forgotten it by now. Which makes it murder.”
She hated liars.
“You were using me all along.” Fury filled her at the thought. “Was the mugging a setup, too? A way to get on the stupid manager’s good side? Is that what it was? And here I didn’t even get a mercy fuck for my trouble.”
He hadn’t wanted to be seen with her, she had thought it was because of her plain looks. He said it was because he was a Breed, he didn’t want to see her hurt. It hadn’t been. It had been because right there in her living room, shoved into her little bookcase, was all the information he would have needed to get to Albrecht.
But how had they known when the security would be off-line? And was it just Matthias, or were there others?
“I have your luggage in the back,” he told her, obviously gritting his teeth. “Your car has been taken care of.”
“Should I thank you?”
He ignored her again.
“I liked the thought of joining you at the cabin. I checked the place out last week. It’s a nice little place. I thought I’d escort you up there, maybe stay a while. Discuss some things with you.”
Her breath stilled in her lungs. The cabin was by a lake. He could drown her there, and no one would ever know what had happened to her.
He was going to kill her. She had been falling in love with the man who was going to murder her. Now this was just a hellacious ending to a perfectly fucked up love life.
Her father had been right all along. Grace had finally jumped into something that was going to get her killed. He had been predicting it since she was four and she climbed her first tree. Now, it seemed it was going to happen.
“I’m not going to hurt you, Grace.”
“Oh yeah, that’s why I’m trussed up like a Christmas turkey and heading to a conveniently out-of-the-way cabin.” She had to fight back her tears. “Does that mean you’re going to just kill me fast?”
Oh man, she had really stepped into it this time. Wasn’t she the one wishing for adventure, just a few months ago? Surely she wasn’t the one that had taken one look at Matthias after he rescued her from a mugging and thought he was some kind of dark, sexy knight. He wasn’t a knight, he was a monster.
Yeah. He wasn’t going to hurt her. He was just going to let her waltz right into the police department and identify him as Albrecht’s assassin and wish her good luck with the future. Uh huh. She could see that happening.
“Damn, you’re melodramatic, do you know that?” He slanted her a look from the corner of those sexy, exotic eyes of his, and her stomach clutched at the look.
He looked at her like that a lot. Like a man with sex on his mind, but he had yet to touch her, to kiss her. That look was as much a lie as everything else about him had ever been.
“I tend to get that way when I see harmless old men assassinated and I get kidnapped. It has a decidedly melodramatic effect on my life, Matthias.”
He glanced at her again. But not at her face. Once more, his gaze slid to her thighs.
“Yeah, I can see where that would be upsetting.” His gaze finally slid to her face. “But I said I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Like you said my mugger was gutter trash,” she retorted. “Tell me, Matthias, was that a setup?”
He jerked his head to face forward, his expression tightening, as she stomped her feet into the floor of the vehicle.
“Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.” The curses were throttled screams, as she then slammed her head back against her seat. “Let me go! Just let me go, so I can kill you myself.”
She had been terrified. Terrified and so damned grateful to the man who had saved her that she had overlooked every sign that he was trouble. And the signs were there. The diamond glittering in his left ear. The scar on his face. The tattoo she had glimpsed on his bicep, the nipple ring, the faint outline of which she had seen beneath his T-shirt.
He looked like a thug, but he carried himself with such supreme confidence, such arrogance, that every stupid feminine instinct she had possessed had been drawn to him.
“Your mugger is gutter trash,” he finally muttered.
“So you didn’t set that up?”
“I didn’t set it up.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Was it set up for you?”
“I had to find a way to make you trust me, quickly,” he admitted. “That was the only way.”
Anger vied with fear. Damn him, there wasn’t a chance he could let her live. She might as well go down letting him know exactly what she thought of him. She’d already watched him blow another man’s head off. It wasn’t like it could get much worse.
“You lied to me.” She gritted her teeth in fury, surprised at how much it hurt.
“You used me to kill a man.”
“I rid the world of a monster, and I’ll prove it to you,” he said. “What you do after that, is up to you.”
“And if I go straight to the police?” Of course she would go straight to the police. Was there any question of it?
“Then I’ll do everything in my power to protect you.” The regret that shimmered in his voice had her chest tightening. “But once I’m behind bars, others will kill you. I won’t be able to save you then.”
He was lying to her again, of course.
“Grace. Give me a chance.” His hand lowered from the steering wheel to her knee. The shock of his calloused, scarred hand against her bare flesh for the first time sent a riot of sensation cascading through her.
It was his hand, for God’s sake. On her knee. It wasn’t like it was tucked between her thighs.
“I gave you a chance.” She tried to jerk away from him, but his hand only tightened, holding her bound legs in place. “And look where it got me. More lies. And more threats. No thank you, Matthias, I think I’ve trusted you too much already.”
• CHAPTER 3 •
Matthias felt his fingers tighten on the fragile width of her knee and forced himself to relax. He wouldn’t hurt her, and he didn’t want to frighten her further.
Already the scent of her fear was nearly overpowering the soft, subtle scent of the arousal that filled her each time he was near her.
It was one of the reasons he had rarely touched her over the past weeks. He had kept his distance as much as possible, knowing that until he had dealt with Albrecht, he didn’t have the time to deal with what he knew was coming with Grace.
Jonas thought it was such a closely guarded secret that Wolfe Gunnar, the leader of the Wolf Packs, adhered to the strict order of silence on the subject of mating heat. But Wolfe wasn’t a fool. He knew his enforcers were a danger to themselves if they weren’t aware of what could happen at the most unlikely moment.