Chapter Seventeen
Peren’s eyes opened, and she found herself staring into a pair of royal-blue eyes as she lay in an unfamiliar room. She blinked twice, thinking it a dream. Then the events in the woods hit her hard. Her body reacted to the fear and she tried to get up. Her legs quivered, and her stomach twisted into a knot. Suddenly feeling faint, she needed some air.
A warm hand stroked her forehead softly. “No, baby, don’t move. Just rest.”
“Luke?”
He smiled down at her. Why was he calling her baby? And why did it make her insides want to turn to goo? Why was she dreaming about stroking his cock? She didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She moved her hand up and touched his black curls. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she knew it wasn’t her own. It was Lukian’s pain she felt. His sadness had manifested itself in her, causing her to weep for him.
This had happened to her on several occasions in her life. It scared her. She pulled her hand away and felt his overwhelming need to kiss her.
She tipped her head upward to meet his. Warm lips came down on hers, almost crushing her at first. Her dream flooded back to her and the panic in her rose again. Lukian got control of himself and pushed his tongue gently into her mouth. Heat washed over her, causing her nipples to harden and her body to perspire.
What’s happening to me?
His tongue dove around in her mouth, exploring her, charting areas she hadn’t even known existed. She pushed at his tongue with hers, panting softly, feeling the weight of his body moving over hers. Lukian cupped her face in his large palm and she planted tiny kisses on it, noticing how rough it was. He fanned his fingers out and caressed her face. Peren drew his middle finger into her mouth and sucked softly on it. He pulled it out slowly, but she hurriedly latched on to it again.
Lukian’s eyes closed and his mouth opened. She knew an invitation when she saw one and she wanted to accept it far more than she should. She wanted him above her, driving in and out of her. She didn’t want to bother with foreplay or anything else that might hinder him ramming into her.
She wanted to be fucked by him, so hard and long that she’d forget about monsters chasing her in the woods, forget about Kyle going missing, and forget her own name if need be.
Chapter Eighteen
A low trickle of laughter surfaced in Lukian when Peren’s thoughts rushed over him. She wanted to be taken by him and pounded until she was in a state of oblivion. That was exactly what he wanted to do to her. He wanted to take her luscious body, fuck it, mark it, and claim it as his.
Lukian looked down into her green eyes and wondered how the lover she still longed for could have left her. Her beauty alone was enough to hold any man close to her, and he knew that wasn’t all there was to her. No, Peren Matthews was a complicated young woman. That much he was sure of.
He was also sure she’d change her mind on wanting to be fucked by him. While he wanted it too, he didn’t want to take advantage of her fragile state of mind. Damn, it sucked being an honorable gentleman sometimes.
He hated to leave her side, but he wanted to triple-check the security around the safe house. He knew he was anal about it, but the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with was lying there, needing his protection, and he’d be damned if he wouldn’t give it.
Spend the rest of my life with?
That phrase struck him with some force. He’d had many women in his immortally long life. He’d never once wanted to claim one as his own, as a mate. Peren made him crave that. To have her walk with him as his mate would be the greatest gift ever. He dared not wish for it, fearing that the gods would punish him for being so selfish as to think a woman as perfect as Peren would accept him, but it didn’t matter, she made him want to offer her the world regardless of the potential backlash.
Reluctantly, he pulled away from her and walked toward the bedroom door. Her eyes were closed when he looked back at her. She’d had a long night. What had her friend downstairs said? Now he remembered. It was her twenty-fourth birthday. Well over a century separated them, age-wise. Thankfully, he didn’t look a day over thirty. Most people had a hard time believing he was even that old. No, age wouldn’t be the major barrier between them; his condition would.
He’d read her fears as she ran from him in the woods. He knew that shifters had attacked her more than once now and that one had been responsible for the death of her mother. Peren wouldn’t want to be near him if she knew what he really was. Telling her seemed so unimportant next to touching her.
He walked to the room down the hall from his and tapped on the door lightly. He opened the door slowly and heard the sounds of sex. He looked in to see his field operator, Lance, pumping himself into Peren’s blonde friend, Melanie. He had her bent over before him. Lance looked over at him and smiled wide as he ran his fingers down the girl’s back. She was too busy holding on to the bedrails, screaming out for Lance to fuck her harder, to even notice Lukian standing there.
Lukian concentrated on Lance’s thrusts, not out of the need to watch him have sex with her, but out of the need to make sure that Lance was using protection. He was. Lukian backed out of the room, nodding his head softly.
Can’t risk getting a human pregnant. It could kill her.
He’d tried to instill that in his men’s heads from day one. He was the only one on the team who had been born a lycan. One had survived an attack. The rest were man-made. Roi was part wolf, like him. In fact, it had been Lukian’s own DNA injected into Roi. Green was part panther, as was Lance. Wilson was part rat and Jon was part tiger. They had most of the bases covered. It was an odd grouping. In nature, these animals would never run together, but in their unit it worked out well. He was the alpha male, their captain. No one questioned him. He’d never really given them a reason to until Peren.
His team had been brought in to eliminate her. They answered to the highest men in the military and no one else, but he wasn’t foolish enough to think that the orders came from there. No, someone with a shitload of money had wanted Peren out of the picture and almost had their way tonight. Almost.
Lukian walked down the stairs quietly and listened as Roi and the other girl, Missy, argued in the kitchen. She still wanted to go home and Roi was still trying to convince her that it was too dangerous. Lukian stopped and laughed when he heard Missy call Roi a pig’s asshole—again. Yep, Roi had finally met his match.
He continued down the hall to the basement door. He was pleased with himself for setting up nearly twelve of these types of safe houses around the states. He’d managed to set up more than fifty in foreign countries over the past twenty years. It was always easier to do bizarre things in other countries. Americans, post 9/11, had become more vigilant. Everyone was suspicious of everyone now.
He pushed the door open and headed down to Green’s lab. He turned the corner and found the redheaded man busy at work. Green had his eyes pressed firmly to his microscope as he babbled to himself.
“Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?” Lukian asked.
Green spun around and shook his head. “Try not to do that. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Sorry. What’s interesting?” He smiled softly. Green had survived an attack by a werepanther decades ago but had never taken to the predator side of the beast. He was easy to sneak up on when he was preoccupied.
Green pulled up a picture on his computer screen and pointed to it. “Look here, the target’s…Peren’s,” he corrected himself quickly. “Her DNA is a melting pot. Look,” he said, pulling up another page. “This is normal human DNA. This here is normal shifter DNA, and here’s hers. Notice the extra strings? She’s not human, Lukian, and she’s not just a shifter either, she’s…” He seemed to be searching for the best way to tell him this.
“She’s what?”
“She seems to be a living and breathing incubator for various strains of supernatural creatures. There are signs of vampire, human, Fae, and shifter blood in her. I’m als
o picking up bits and pieces of cells that I can’t yet identify. I do know that the wolf blood is prominent, I think because of the attack you told me about. She showed me the scars on her leg. Pretty nasty. She’s lucky she didn’t lose her leg. I’m guessing that having vampire and Fae DNA in her sped up the healing process. That would also account for her throwing out that jolt of energy you felt when she first touched you.” He took a deep breath. “There’s something else.”
“Go ahead,” he said grudgingly.
“Her father is Dr. Lakeland Matthews. One of the scientists brought in to help stabilize the Ops program. Someone who would have had access to the experiments and DNA samples.”
Lukian’s stomach dropped. “Oh God. He was a major contributor to the program until he suddenly went cold turkey,” he thought back, “almost twenty-five years ago.” His mouth was suddenly very dry. “Green, you don’t think he did this to his own daughter, do you?”
“No. Well, I wouldn’t think so. It’s impossible to do this to someone and not kill them or leave them as a vegetable for the rest of their life. I can’t explain what she is or how she came to be it. I think this happened because of his involvement with the creation of the Immortal Ops, but I don’t think he did it on purpose. At least, I hope that he didn’t do it on purpose.”
Chapter Nineteen
Peren sat on the edge of the large bed and pulled up her feet. She was thankful for the t-shirt and sweatpants Lukian had given her to change into after her shower. Being attacked in the woods, and then, upon her arrival at the safe house, subjected to endless tests from his friend, Green, left her feeling tired and on edge. Green had tried to be quick, but he was the stereotypical man of science, wanting to perform every test possible on her. She knew his kind. Her father was one and Kyle had been another. She was actually surprised she’d managed to get out of the testing when she did and that it wasn’t still going.
She had wanted to let her father know that she was okay, but Lukian had thought it was best that she and her friends just lie low for a while. After spending some time watching Lukian and the men he called friends, it didn’t take her long to figure out they were some sort of paramilitary group. She’d grown up around enough talk of government covert operations to make her immune to it—almost.
A cool brush of energy prickled over her, and she knew Lukian was headed back up the stairs to her room. She turned to the door and watched it open slowly. He poked his head in quietly, obviously expecting to find her asleep.
His blue eyes narrowed as he saw her sitting up. “You should be resting.”
“I feel fine. I’m a fast healer. Always have been.”
“You have no idea,” he said so quietly she almost missed it.
She turned her head away from him. Staring at his muscular arms and wide shoulders made her mind wander to thoughts of sex with him. Why didn’t her hormones understand she was in crisis mode? Now wasn’t the time to be lusting after the hunk who had saved her life. Her hormones didn’t give a crap. They wanted the man—beast-men stalking her and missing boyfriends be damned.
Stupid hormones.
Lukian stepped closer to her and her gaze traveled the length of his body. The man looked like he could bench-press a small country. It was easy to imagine him using that same powerful frame to brace himself above her as he drove himself in and out of her. Heat flamed her upper chest and cheeks as she got a pretty good mental picture of that very thing happening. Her hormones applauded.
Their gazes locked. For a second, she thought for sure she could see his soul and it was a perfect match for her own. This was all happening so suddenly. Too fast for her to be able to catch her breath, let alone think clearly. It was all she could do to remain on the bed and not throw herself at the man. This wasn’t like her. Not at all.
It had taken her almost a year to find Kyle remotely sexy. His looks weren’t the problem. Most girls on campus drooled over him. The Science Department had had a boom in class registration when he’d come on to instruct some courses. She’d gone through high school and the greater part of college and remained a virgin. She’d dated a number of men, but never found one sexually appealing. A year after her father first introduced her to his new hire, Kyle, she suddenly found him so irresistible that at times she could scarcely keep her hands off him. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in her. A switch they were currently jumping up and down on when it came to Lukian.
Now she sat on the bed, forcing her hands under her legs to keep from reaching for Lukian. Something about him called to her and made her want to run her fingers through his dark black curls, and to see what hidden wonders lay under his pants and t-shirt.
The bed dipped down a little and she looked to find Lukian sitting near her. He didn’t try to touch her, and she was grateful. If he did, she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from tearing his clothes off. He let out a tiny laugh and she glanced over at him.
“What, my not being able to sleep funny to you?”
His lips curved upward, but he kept his eyes down. “No, sorry, just, umm, nothing, sorry.”
She rolled her eyes and turned to lie back down on the bed. Lukian went to get up to give her room for her legs. Don’t go. Please, don’t let him go. I feel safe with him near me. I can sleep when he’s close.
Lukian sat back down at the foot of the bed. Peren didn’t care what made him change his mind. She was just happy he did. Now, maybe if she was lucky, he’d lie next to her and hold her in his arms. She had no clue how to ask him to do that without looking weak, and she already felt weak enough as it was, so she just lay still and pretended to drift off.
He slid up the bed, like a cat, and moved next to her. He swept her long hair out of the way and put his solid body against hers, spooning her.
Chapter Twenty
Lukian lay there, listening to Peren’s breathing as she drifted off to sleep. He could barely contain his excitement enough to lie still and hold her in his arms. She’d wanted him to stay with her. He made her feel safe, and that was what he wanted most. Being a gentleman was hard. But every now and then he’d let his fingertips brush the underside of her breast while she slept. Sure, that was hardly behaving himself, but it was better than what he wanted to do—roll over onto her and fuck her brains out.
“Luke,” she cooed in her sleep.
The sound of his name falling from her sweet lips made him even harder. He knew he couldn’t walk with as hard as his cock was, so running away wasn’t an option. If this kept up much longer, he’d be screaming in want for her and possibly shape-shifting. He’d never felt this raw need to be with someone before, and it actually left him a little scared. Fear wasn’t something he felt often.
Peren moved in her sleep and called out his name again. She turned slightly, leaving her large breast firmly and fully in his hand. His finger ran over her soft nipple and found it responding to his touch. Everything in his brain said to get up and leave her alone. She was just an innocent, scared young woman who was reaching out to someone she believed could protect her. Even as he thought it, he knew that it wasn’t true. She was his mate. He was sure of it. He just wasn’t sure how or why.
She’s mine.
Peren moved again, running her hand over his hip. She kneaded at the material of his pants, and her nails scraped his leg. He pulled on her body and brought them even closer together. He pressed himself firmly against her back, rubbing against her. Dry humping her wasn’t nearly as good as getting to be in her, but it was all he had at the moment. She reached back, her hand going to his groin. He sucked in his breath and was afraid to move when she grabbed hold of his cock.
Don’t move, don’t make a sound, maybe you won’t wake her…don’t—oh!
She began to stroke him through his pants. He tried to pull her hand from him, but she wasn’t having anything to do with it. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she should be.
“Peren,” he whispered softly. “Baby, wake up. I can’t believe I’m going to say this,
but can you let go of my cock?”
She gripped him harder, nearly making him come. With a groan, he moved his head back and tried to steady his breathing. It didn’t help much. The woman was going to kill him with sheer need.
“P-Peren,” he managed, his hips wanting to thrust, but he succeeded in refraining—barely.
Lukian had to use more force than he wanted to loosen her hold on his cock. In all his years he couldn’t remember a time when he’d turned down the offer of sex, but he didn’t want her like this. He wanted her to know what was happening when he claimed her, and he most certainly would claim her.
Successful in freeing his dick from her grasp, Lukian made a move to roll off the bed. Distance was the only answer to his current problem. Well, that and a cold shower.
“No, don’t go…stay with me.”
He blinked down at her, stunned to see her green gaze fixed on him.
Lukian cupped his throbbing erection. “You’re awake?”
With a nod, she bit her lower lip, need reflecting in her gaze. She made a soft, almost purr-like noise that sent his wolf over the edge. Unable to stop himself, Lukian moved back onto the bed, assuming the same position he’d been in behind her. He brought his lips down on her neck and drew in her vanilla-scented skin. She wore her attraction to him like a second perfume, but she also smelled of fear. His body reacted and he wrapped her protectively in his arms.
“My sweet Peren. This is too soon.”
“Like hell it is,” said Peren. Her hand moved over the length of his cock and his breath hitched. She was the one who pushed down the front of his pants and cupped him before stroking him. She was the one who made the first move.
Some alpha I am.
The wolf didn’t react. It didn’t push at him, wanting to force her. Instead, it seemed to understand her fragile state of mind and that she required tenderness and love. Things the wolf knew the man was capable of giving. He kissed her shoulder gently, his teeth burning with the need to change and claim her, but not so much so that he couldn’t hold it off for a bit. He silently thanked his wolf and then slid his hands down her back, massaging her sore muscles. Each time he rubbed he could smell the scent of her arousal increasing.
Immortal Ops: New & Lengthened 2016 Anniversary Edition Page 7