by Marie Harte
She glanced down at her forearms, unnerved at the black veins now visible through her tanned skin. Her hair remained long and nearly white with streaks of brown. The rest of her skin stayed Circ, not mutant. But every now and then, in the reflection of a mirror, she saw a hint of red in her eyes, a sign she’d begun to deteriorate faster than she’d thought possible. Her body had begun to decay, but her ability to camouflage herself, to blend into any environment, grew stronger.
Unlike the rumored Circ who could actually become invisible, she simply changed her skin patterns to match her surroundings. Not invisible, but she might as well be. Against the dark rock at her back, she looked like another shadow. And thanks to the lack of moonlight, she wouldn’t be silhouetted against the rock. Not even when she lifted her arm and pointed her Circ Special, a .45 caliber weapon designed with Circs in mind, in their direction.
She took a deep breath and released the pheromones she controlled. The perfume of female lust pushed through her pores and entered the crisp June air. She mentally thanked the last snow front that had hit just a week ago. Odd for this time of year, but the weather had been a blessing in disguise.
“Smell that?” she heard one of them say. Though they were some distance away, her Circ hearing made it possible to track them with ease. When they pushed past the small cluster of pines she’d been watching, she took aim and fired.
Mike went down with a hole in his forehead while Dave took cover, which she’d been expecting. She laughed to herself. They never expected Circ-piercing rounds, but she’d learned from the best. Ali could hunt and shoot years before they’d abducted her the first time. And hell, after her third time in the stews, she’d made damn sure to never be taken unaware again. Too bad Granddad Dill couldn’t be here to see her in action. But then, he’d been taken with her the last time, and he hadn’t survived the devil’s drugs they’d been injected with, not like she had.
She fumed at the memories and released more of her scent. Rogues had a hard time resisting the lure of a female in heat. And since Ali couldn’t—wouldn’t—relieve her needs with a Circ, she was more than potent.
“Damn. Hold on, bitch. I’m coming.” Dave took little care with his safety as he trampled through the snow to get to her. She took note of his Circ attributes. The claws, the fangs, the eyes. The dark, naked skin, and worse, the monstrous erection. “I’m gonna fuck you raw. Just you wait.”
Lucky, lucky me. Glad for her enhanced eyesight and night vision, she aimed her weapon for his cock and pulled the trigger.
His cry of pain was music to her ears. Knowing it would attract the others, she eased back onto the rock shelf upon which she hid and waited, gun in hand, hatred in her heart. She’d never be used again, not by anyone. The only good Circ was a dead Circ. And she aimed to make sure she took out as many as she could before biting the bullet herself.
Chapter Three
“Coffee’s on.”
“Thanks.”
Silence reigned until Bas clinked the glass of the coffeepot against the mug Gray had set out for him. He poured himself a cup and waited. He put the carafe back. He toyed with a spoon.
More silence.
Inwardly, he cringed. Their coming together had been building for months. But Bas wouldn’t have thought they’d go from nothing to twenty-four hours of marathon sex to awkward pauses the very next morning.
“Nice weather we’re having, huh?” Surely Gray would say something about his inane comment.
“Yeah, I guess.” Gray sipped from his cup and returned to reading the Washington Post. He wore dress slacks and a button-down shirt and looked like a stockbroker getting ready for work. One with a beast that gave Bas confused glances out of beautiful hazel eyes.
Yesterday morning Bas would have teased Gray. He’d have made fun of his fancy clothes and no shoes, the way he ground his beans and used a three-hundred-dollar coffeemaker like a yuppie from hell. But after that intimate connection the day and night before, he was loath to upset the man who’d wormed his way firmly into his heart.
He’d try sidestepping the issues Gray wouldn’t talk about and focus on their mission. For now.
“So this Al Ross. What do we know about him?”
Gray put the paper aside, finally, and looked at Bas. “Not much. And we leave the day after tomorrow for Bend. We’ll be getting in late, but Jack will make sure we have a place to stay for the night before we get to work.”
Bas didn’t like relying on anyone associated with that fucked-up PWP. He’d left them long behind, or so he thought. His agitation unfortunately manifested in the carafe that shot out of the coffee warmer and crashed on the floor, spilling hot coffee everywhere.
“Shit.” Gray jumped out of his seat and stared at the shards of glass. “What the hell?”
“Weird.” Bas leaned forward and pretended to be confused. But when he glanced up to meet Gray’s gaze, he noted the suspicion lingering there. “You got a mop, hero?”
Gray scowled. “In the closet behind you, junior.”
“Junior? That’s a good one.” Taunting Gray might not have been the smartest thing he could have done, but it had taken that untrusting look off his face. “So besides a possessed coffeepot, what else have you got?” He grabbed a dustpan, broom, and mop and got to work while Gray wiped up the excess mess that had spilled onto some lower cabinets.
“Got?”
“On Ross. Focus, Gray. Hell. For such a professional, you sure do lose track easy.”
“Dickhead.” Gray’s frown remained, but he answered while he cleaned. “Ross has apparently been keeping himself apart in the mountains for months. He’s rogue, and he’s killed.”
“How many?”
“Three. The rest we figure he’s made into his own little army.”
Bas finished cleaning up the glass and started mopping. “So while he’s amassing forces to do his bidding, he’s killing the opposition maybe?”
“Doesn’t feel right, but it’s what’s in the file.”
“That you got from trusting some psychic asshole out West.”
“Pretty much.”
It annoyed Bas that Gray seemed so unconcerned. How could he blindly trust those people? The psychics he’d met had put him through hell and back. Almost as bad as the scientists experimenting on him to see how he’d respond to different doses of the Circe serum. But the psychics… They’d hurt him deep down, where he thought he’d buried his fears.
“You okay?”
He blinked and saw Gray looking at him. But damn if he could read Gray’s expression. Man would have made a fortune playing cards. “Yeah, fine. Just tired from last night.” He leered at Gray. “Oh Jesus. Is that a blush?”
Gray, as usual, ignored what he didn’t want to hear. “So Ross is to be put down hard. No questions, no second chances. We find him, we take him out before he pulls in more rogues. It’ll be bad enough getting in undetected. Our job is to eliminate the threat and return home.”
“Ross, but not the others.”
“No.”
“Cut the head off the enemy and the rest will fall?” It made sense to Bas.
“Something like that. Mrs. Sharpe is convinced Ross is the key. Then she’ll send in a cleanup crew to handle the other rogues. But this Ross needs special handling.”
“Great. We’re just going to wander into the lion’s den and hope we find him before more of his rogue buddies find us.”
“That’s about the gist of it.”
“Gee, sounds like fun.”
Gray grinned.
“Almost as fun as yesterday.”
Gray’s smile disappeared. His eyes darkened. But instead of responding, he turned away. “Good point. After all that fucking, I didn’t get much sleep. You should rest up too. You’ll need your energy tomorrow.” Then he walked back down the hallway without a backward glance.
Bas wanted to hit something. His beast wanted Gray, and the creature made his head ache and his skin itch to feel more of the sexy Circ against him
. Irritated, tired, and now smelling like a Starbucks gone wild, Bas felt himself slip again. Energy poured out of him in waves.
“Shit.” Gray’s loud yell had him racing down the hall. He burst into Gray’s room only to see Gray face-first down on his bed, unable to move. His legs were spread wide, his arms pinned above his head to the bed.
Perfect, his beast rumbled. Without meaning to, Bas started to change.
“What the hell is going on?” Gray snarled, the sound muted through the sheets. He managed to turn his head and caught Bas’s eye. “What are you doing?”
Bas wished he had more control. He’d be embarrassed about it later, but right now, his libido controlled his strings. “Need you. Too hot.”
Gray blinked. “Shit. You’re in a mating heat?” Between one heartbeat and the next, Gray’s pupils elongated and his hair started to grow. “Fuck. You just pulled me into it, you bastard.”
Bas stripped down to nothing in seconds and forced himself to change back to human, though it wasn’t easy. His beast complied because Bas promised him Gray. “Not my fault.” He wanted to speak in more than two- and three-word sentences, but he couldn’t. Not now. With brutal hands, he yanked Gray’s pants and underwear off, leaving him gloriously bare from the waist down.
“Why can’t I move?” Gray asked, but he didn’t appear to be struggling.
“You can if you want.” At the thought, his mental holds on Gray disappeared.
His lover sat up so fast, it made Bas’s head spin. And then Gray switched places with Bas and bent him over the bed to mount him from behind. No foreplay, no soft words or kisses. Gray’s slick cock shoved hard between Bas’s ass cheeks.
“Fuck, yeah. You need it? It’s yours.”
Not it. You. Bas could only take what Gray gave him, hoping it would be enough to strengthen their weak connection. Physically, they fit like a lock and key. But emotionally, Gray might as well have been on another planet.
Their rhythm grew frantic. Gray gave while Bas received. Each tug, each shove was returned with a shift of his ass, a jiggle of his hips.
“Bas. Here I come.” Gray came into him, and the warmth of his seed pushed Bas’s beast once more. “Oh no, you don’t. You don’t come till I say so. You think you can play mind games with me? Do you know who you’re fucking with?”
Gray knew what he’d done. Oh hell. Not good. As usual, when confronted with discomfort, Bas tried to joke his way out. “I know exactly who you are. A sexy asshole with control issues and a superiority complex.” Bas grunted as Gray continued to fuck him with brutal, orgasm-inducing strokes, that hard cock growing stiffer despite his climax.
“Okay, junior.” Gray panted. “Here’s the discipline you’ve been lacking.”
Bas didn’t know what the hell Gray meant, and then Gray pulled out and flipped Bas onto his back as if Bas weighed next to nothing. Apparently Bas hadn’t been the only one holding back when they’d fought.
Gray stared into his eyes as he ripped off his button-down shirt. So much for the stockbroker. The beast had returned wholeheartedly. “Open for me.”
Bas frowned, then panicked when he felt a familiar pressure on his mind. But before he could pinpoint the sensation, it disappeared.
“I said open for me.” Gray glared down at his legs.
Weak with relief that he’d only imagined a psychic assault, Bas spread his thighs wide.
“Arms over your head.”
Excitement made him more than hard and left him aching.
“We’ll get to that in a minute,” Gray murmured as his gaze slid over Bas’s erection. “Now move your arms wider. That’s it.” Gray leaned over him, dragging that thick cock against Bas’s belly.
Bas felt cuffs around his left wrist. Then his right.
“You need to be ridden hard, I think.” Gray considered him. “I normally do this with women, but you seem to need it more than most of my dates.”
Bas hated the idea of Gray with anyone else, but he refused to put himself out there more than he already had. “Gee, handsome. And here I definitely would have pegged you as a man’s man. A real bottom.”
Fury flashed in Gray’s eyes. “You don’t know when to quit.” Gray leaned close and…bit his shoulder.
Bas yelled out in pain just as he felt another shock. Gray moved like lightning. One minute he had his fangs buried in Bas’s skin, the next he’d managed to wedge his hips between Bas’s thighs and shoved the tip of his cock into Bas’s ass. But instead of ramming deep, Gray withdrew his bite and steadied himself on his forearms, his shaft moving with extreme slowness. The bastard took his time as he fucked him, making him feel every inch.
“Damn it.”
Gray chuckled, but the meanness didn’t leave his eyes. “Feel it. Every fucking inch. Coming inside you before was perfect. I needed it.” Gray glanced down at Bas’s weeping cock. “Bet you need it too, don’t you? Need to come all over me, to feel me slide deeper inside your hole.”
“Quit playing,” Bas snapped, while his beast delighted in the powerful male’s attention. The dominant Circ cared, offering a bonding even if Gray didn’t consciously realize what the bites and sex meant. Bas’s beast knew, and as Gray watched him while they fucked, new thoughts entered his mind. Of how good it feels to fuck Bas. But I wish I didn’t want the sexy, obnoxious Circ so much. I shouldn’t be so drawn to this unnatural creature. Shit, he’s a scientific experiment. But he’s so hot, and he feels so fucking good. I can’t stop myself. Why him? Why is he so different, so important to me?
Bas had a hard time understanding until the truth suddenly rushed through him. Shit. I’m hearing his thoughts. He didn’t want to hear any more. It hurt to know Gray saw him as something inferior, yet at the same time, it gave him hope that Gray couldn’t stay away. If what he heard from the man was true, Gray lusted after him with a hunger he’d never felt before.
“Stay with me. Right with me.” Gray ran a hand over Bas’s cock, and the dual stroking sensation, inside and outside his body, jolted a burst of seed from him. “That’s good, baby. Give me more. Put it all over my skin.”
Bas had a hard time holding it in. The love, the lust, the need. The anger. And then Gray leaned down to kiss him and clutched his cock tighter.
Bas groaned as he came and continued to come. The explosion rocked his entire world, and the intensity nearly made him black out. When he came back to himself, he saw Gray’s belly covered in semen. Then Bas shifted his hips. Gray’s face tightened, and his lips parted on a moan as he came inside Bas. A second, smaller eruption jetted from Bas’s cock.
“God, you smell so good.” Gray paused, blinked, and seemed to come back to himself.
The intimate connection that had all but joined them as one just seconds earlier faded, then disappeared. Gray withdrew from Bas, left the bed, and stood. “You good now?”
“Good? I’m great.” And confused as shit.
“Okay, then. I’m going to hit the shower and get some rest. You should do the same.” The look he shot the door couldn’t be mistaken. Gray wanted him gone.
Bas sat up, his chest tight, and his eyes burned with what he tried to tell himself was rage. For all that he’d initiated sex, Gray had been right there with him. “Sure thing, hero. I’ll take my unnatural, experimental ass back to my room. Away from your fucking ego.”
He leaped from the bed, ignored the twinge in his ass, and slammed the door shut when he left the room. Then he took a long hot shower in the other bathroom and wondered how the hell he could have fallen in love with such a prick.
The moment the door slammed, Gray shuddered and slumped to the floor. He’d never felt so weak yet so strong at the same time. It was as if Bas had left with a piece of him, and his odd parting words made a scary kind of sense. Unnatural? Experimental? Gray had been thinking that while they’d fucked.
When his first attempt into Bas’s mind had failed, Gray had retreated and hadn’t tried again. Though he had the power, he didn’t like abusing it. As much as h
e wanted to know what Bas thought, he’d never been into rape—of any kind. A violation of another’s mind was a strict taboo. The only times he’d done it in the past had been through his sister to warn her of mortal danger.
In any case, he didn’t want to read the man’s mind. That would mean opening up a connection that apparently already existed, because he’d swear Bas had somehow read his thoughts. An impossibility, or at least it should have been.
He sent out a telepathic knock, needing a conversation he knew his sister would keep quiet and private from their meddling grandmother. If his parents hadn’t been vacationing halfway across the world, he’d have asked them. But he didn’t want anyone even guessing at what he suspected.