by Lora Leigh
his black eyes glaring into hers.
“Oh, I know just how much you don’t care,” he bit out. “To the tune of eight months. Without my mate.”
“Oh yeah, I can really see how you suffered.” She was shaking with emotion now. So many months of loneliness, fear and even, at times, guilt raging through her. “I saw that when I walked into my bedroom and caught you all but fucking Sofia. Damn you to hell.” She shoved harder, and was surprised that he moved back, even more surprised that she followed him.
She was in his face. Nose to nose. “You let that bitch touch you.”
“It’s not as though you attempt to touch me.” He bared his teeth at her. “You ran. Like the child you were, rather than facing what you knew couldn’t be changed.”
“I changed it. I suffered those damned tests and I got what I needed to make sure you couldn’t control me again.” She slapped one hand to his chest, then the other. She gripped the lapels and jerked.
Buttons flew as his gaze reflected surprise, then burning lust.
“And I’ll change it now if I want to.”
Desire and need was like a demon inside her. Not like the mating heat, but like a surge of pure, white-hot lust that didn’t need hormonal help. Like it had been earlier. Powerful. Desperate.
It was helpless emotion, caught in a grip of fearing for his safety, terrified, aware that anytime in the past months she could have lost him. A knowledge that she might never have the chance to touch him again.
Nights of tossing and turning. Dreams that didn’t stop. An aching hunger she couldn’t rid herself of. And fear. In one striking moment she could have lost all those dreams. He could have died in front of her eyes because she wasn’t prepared, because she was a liability. She had to be protected for his sake because she was too damned frightened to accept the place he had made for her. As his mate. As his coya.
Well, he had to be protected too. Because he was hers. Mate, lover, man, whatever. She couldn’t name the possessiveness that rose inside her, not yet.
Her hands pressed against his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her palms, the muscles that bunched and rippled at her touch. Her fingers curled, her nails scratched across his flesh, and she reveled in the rumbled growl that left his chest.
“Did you want Sofia after me?” She shocked herself with the question, then with the actions that followed it. She bit his lower lip, and it wasn’t a love nip.
“Do you care?” His voice was graveled, so rough it was feral.
Did she care? Oh hell yes, she cared, but she’d be damned if she would give him the satisfaction of hearing it from her lips.
“Do you care if I fuck another?” she asked him. “Maybe I should have found someone else.”
She was challenging him and she knew it. Daring the Breed, part man, part animal, to claim what was his. To claim what she didn’t know how to give him.
He buried his hand in her hair and jerked her head back as he snarled in her face. “Don’t make that mistake.”
“Why?” Her nails scratched his hard abs. She felt the flexing power in them, heard the growl of hunger that parted his lips. “Why would you care?”
He didn’t answer the question. He bore her back until she was beneath him, stretched along the leather seat, arching against him as his lips covered hers, his tongue driving into her mouth.
Fire and lightning sizzled around her. Hunger and need clashed inside her head. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers speared into his hair as she met the kiss, sucked his tongue into her mouth and gave them both what they needed.
He hadn’t fucked Sofia since he had taken Anya. She could feel it. She knew it. Sensed it. The female part of her, the woman who knew when something had touched what belonged to her, assured her of that. And she was going to make damned sure the bitch never touched him again. The man she held in her arms belonged to her. And she was going to claim every inch of him.
CHAPTER 10
Her common sense was screaming, Mistake. Her independence was clawing against the need thundering through her system, but something stronger, something more vital had Anya pulling Del-Rey closer, holding on to him tighter, her lips moving beneath his, tempting his kiss deeper, hotter, stronger.
He kissed her as though he were starved for her, just as he had earlier. And she kissed him, knowing she was starved for him. Not just for the taste of the mating hormone, but for the man. The man who filled her senses even when he wasn’t touching her. The man who could have been lost to her forever.
When had it begun to matter?
It had always mattered.
As she felt the hem of her gown rising above her stockings, Anya admitted that to herself. When she heard his hungry growl, felt his hand on the bare flesh of thigh, she knew it would always matter.
Twisting, arching beneath him, she held on to him, her lips caught by the pleasure of his kiss, by the storm tearing through her.
“Part your legs.” His voice was so deep, filled with such rough hunger, that she whimpered, her lashes lifting to stare into the fierce, black depths of his gaze.
“No woman has mattered to me as you do,” he rasped, one hand cupping her cheek, holding her still as his thumb curled under her jaw. “I’ve taken no woman since I touched you. Desired no woman. I’ve craved nothing but the taste of you, Anya.”
His body lowered, his hips wedged between her thighs as he lifted her leg and laid it along his hip.
“Feel how hard.” He nipped her lower lip. A tiny sting against the sensual pleasure raging through her. “Feel how I’ve needed you, Coya. Your touch and your heat. Only yours.”
She licked her lips, staring back at him as she fought to draw enough air into her lungs just to breathe.
“The hormonal therapy.” She knew there was a therapy for the males as well. A way to tame the raging need that burned in them, though it was said not to be as torturous for them as it was for the females.
He shook his head. “Do you think I wanted to lose a single moment of knowing something in this world belonged to me?” he asked her, destroying her. “One thing, Anya.” His thumb ran over her lips and his hips rolled against the mound of her sex. “In this world, God granted me one thing for the honor I chose rather than the evil I could have followed. He gave to me the woman that I saw as a tender woman-child, and desired above all things. When you were no more than sixteen, tender and so innocent, I claimed you. I don’t want to lose a moment of knowing, even if you walk away, that there is proof that I’m worthy of something that isn’t marked by blood.”
She shuddered, her heart clenching as tears filled her eyes. His gaze was liquid black now, dark, haunted and sinking so deeply inside her that she wondered if she would ever be free.
“You can’t base that worthiness on me,” she finally whispered, torn, aching for him in ways she couldn’t name.
“I base my worthiness all on you, Coya. My Anya.”
Before she could protest, his lips settled back on hers, parting them, his tongue licking over hers like a promise. She felt herself gasp, felt the damp heat that spilled between her thighs as his hips rocked against hers, stroked her clit, sent unimaginable sensation tearing through her.
“I want to touch you.” She was pushing at the jacket he wore, the edges of his shirt that she had torn.
His flesh was hard and warm beneath her palms.
“Anya.” He tensed as she pressed against his shoulders.
“I need to touch you. You took before, Del-Rey. Now let me have what I need. I need this.”
She needed her control.
Del-Rey could feel the force of the lust tearing through his balls, his senses. He couldn’t let himself lose control again. Not this time. Not this close. She wanted to touch him. She wanted to stroke him.
He eased up, following her direction, his teeth clenching furiously as rumbled growls echoed in his chest.
Oh fuck. Sweet God have mercy.
Her nimble finger faltered only a little,
pulled at the button of his pants, then eased the zipper over the raging erection it covered.
Del-Rey could feel a snarl building in his chest as her slender fingers wrapped around the swollen flesh. His erection was thick, the engorged head throbbing, threatening to spill the slick ejection that Wolf and Coyote males produced once mating heat began.
“Ah hell. Anya. Sweet Anya.”
Her lips touched the heavy crown, slid over it as her tongue flicked over the tiny slit at the tip. Holding back was killing him. He knew how shocked, how frightened she had been the first time he had taken her. He didn’t want that for her now. He wanted her to explore as she needed to. To taste. To touch.
He wrapped his own hand at the base, feeling that sharp bite in his balls that warned him the first sharp ejaculation of pre-cum was building.
He shook his head, feeling the rivulet of sweat that ran down his chest as sharply as he felt her hot little tongue circling the head of his cock.
Looking down, he was torn by the sight of her—her lips glistening, those blue eyes staring up at him—then her lips parted and covered the throbbing head, sinking over it as her tongue flicked over the swollen, sensitive flesh.
When she began suckling, her cheeks hollowing, laying an exquisite pressure along his nerve endings, Del-Rey shook his head. Ah God. He couldn’t hold back much longer. He gripped the base of his shaft tighter, but he couldn’t hold back the spurt of pre-cum that jerked from his cock.
The silky, slick fluid had its own purpose Dr. Armani had warned him. The hormones contained in it excited the nerve endings in the vagina, even as they relaxed the snug sheath and allowed for the swelling that came when a male Coyote spilled his seed fully.
Anya’s eyes widened as a second spurt filled her mouth. Her lashes lowered and a little moan escaped her lips before she was sucking him deeper, more firmly, as though she craved more of the taste that spilled from him.
He couldn’t do this. He didn’t have the control for this. He wanted inside her. He had to fuck her, fill her, take her. Hold her hips and pound inside her until the ravaging waves of hunger were stilled.
The fingers of one hand held his cock as he reached out with the other to touch her face, his thumb caressing over the side of her lips as she worked her mouth over him.
Need. The need was more animal, the clawing hunger demonic in its intensity. He couldn’t wait. He was going to take her here. Now. He had to. If he didn’t, he’d lose his mind forever.
“Incoming!” Ivan’s voice screamed through the intercom between front and back. A second later an explosion rocked the limo as a mortar struck the road in front of it.
Anya fell back as Del-Rey pushed her from him, zipping his pants and latching them as he hit the switch to lower the window between the passenger’s and driver’s sides.
Another explosion rocked them as Del-Rey’s eyes narrowed on the vehicles ahead of them. Behind him, Anya was scrambling, the brush of her dress assuring him she was now crouched on the floor of the limo.
“It’s coming from the mountain,” Ivan yelled as another streak of fire filled the night air. “Someone’s going to get hit, Del-Rey, we have too many vehicles together.”
“Air support?” he clipped out.
“It’s coming in. We had a team airlifting from the army base camp in the area, but I’ve not had radio contact.”
The next explosion took out a chunk of road, raining sparks and fire over the front of the limo as Ivan swerved and kept moving.
“They’re going to get lucky,” Del-Rey snapped before reaching into the front and jerking the radio from the dash. “Brim, are you there?”
“Dragging in behind the convoy,” Brim yelled back. “Mortar fire is coming from the north, at the head of the mountain. Cheap bastards. They should have invested in heat-seeking rockets.”
“Don’t give them ideas,” Del-Rey snarled as he jerked the cuff of his jacket up to reveal the mic at this wrist. As he flipped it on, the receiver at his ear activated. “Wolfe, are you in the lead?”
“We’re lead and hell’s coming down on us.” Wolfe was snarling.
Del-Rey stared ahead. “In two clicks. Sharp right, then left—it’s going to bounce like hell. The dry creek bed there runs for three miles and takes us out of the line of sight.”
Wolfe repeated the orders to his driver.
“Ivan, get that to the rest of the vehicles,” Del-Rey ordered before lifting the radio he could hear Brim screaming into. “Brim, you have weapons?”
“Enough.” Brim’s response was cold, furious. “They’re targeting the vehicles with the bartender and the body of the Wolf Breed, Del-Rey. I have a line on location.”
Del-Rey reached forward again, hit the sunroof and tore the jacket and shirt from his shoulders. The hanging material would only get in his way at this point.
“I’m bailing from the limo. Ivan can’t slow down for the exit. Watch for the falling body and pick up the pieces.”
“Here.” A leather jacket was shoved in his face. “It will protect against the fall. Here.” A lightweight submachine gun was pushed into his hands as he noticed that the backseat of the limo had been raised.
Another, closer explosion rocked the car, nearly tilting it as Ivan cursed, swung the wheel, then made the turn into the creek bed they would be using for a road.
Del-Rey quickly pulled on the jacket, zipped it, jerked the gun from Anya, then launched himself onto the roof of the car.
As he gripped the edge of the sunroof, his eyes narrowed on the dark landscape passing them. He knew the best place to jump. Grassy, soft earth leveled out in one place. The impact would be lessened, and the chances of being run over by the vehicles speeding through the pass would be nonexistent.
He waited, poised, then lauched himself from the limo, curled and rolled as he hit the ground with enough impact to steal his breath and assure him he’d feel the damned bruises for weeks to come.
The bastards. Del-Rey knew he should have expected the ambush. Hell, the others probably had. The only problem was that there was only one clear road into the town and a lot of mountains rising around them.
Coming to his feet, he gripped the weapon as he ran for the all-terrain Brim had swung to the side of the creek bed. The vehicles were built high, light, and made for mountainous terrain. Heavy shocks supported the dirt-gripping tires and a powerful motor gave the ATV the edge needed to effectively cut through some of the roughest passages.
“Move in on them,” Del-Rey yelled as he swung into the passenger seat.
Behind him, two of his men were braced in the attack supports. One carried a handheld missile launcher; the other gripped the mounted machine gun.
“All vehicles are in the pass,” Jacob, Haven’s head of security, barked into the receiver at Del-Rey’s ear. “Good luck, Alpha Delgado.”
“Move!” Del-Rey shouted the order to Brim as another explosion sent rock and earth flying into the air.
The all-terrain jerked and sped off at his order, climbing the pass and shooting across the road as another explosion sprayed chunks of earth around the vehicle.
“They’ll be waiting in line of sight when they come out of that pass.” Brim jerked the wheel and headed up the mountain.
“Give them a new target,” Del-Rey ordered harshly. “Let them see us coming. Pull the fire off those limos, Brim. If so much as one of those women is injured, there’s going to be war.”
The peace between human and Breeds was always tenuous at best. They were aware that it would take only one wrong move to change the balance in peace. The death of a mate, especially an alpha leader’s mate, would create chaos.
Breed loyalty to pack was everything. Their women were their future, their survival. The death of even one of them would not be taken lightly, and the Council knew that. They knew the Breeds would descend on the murderers with a fury that the humans of the world only imagined them capable of.
Del-Rey’s eyes narrowed along the terrain. His night vision w
as perfect, drawing from the moonlight above, the shadows around them, each detail highlighted.
“We have incoming,” Brim yelled. “Brace. Brace.”
Del-Rey clenched his teeth in a grimace of fury as the all-terrain rocked and sped along the mountain. It zigzagged among the trees that crashed down around it as the explosion ripped through the forest.
“When we reach them, stay the hell out of my way,” Del-Rey ordered.
“We need to question them,” Brim growled in irritation.
Sometimes, Brim was too fucking logical. That was why, Del-Rey decided, Brim wasn’t pack leader.
He smiled, hard and cold, as the all-terrain avoided another explosive mortar shell and raced toward the ambushers’ location. Within minutes, they’d have them.
Del-Rey turned to Brim and snarled, “Question their fucking ghosts.”
A second later, the world exploded in a haze of color and sound as the all-terrain flew into the air.
The limo raced up the mountain to the Coyote Breed stronghold as Anya sat silently, staring into the distance at the explosions on the mountain.
She knew a team of Wolf Breed Enforcers had followed Del-Rey and his men up there. A helicopter was now streaking across the sky, as was one of the lethal weapon-equipped stealth heli-jets that the Breeds used.
She’d listened to the reports that echoed through the limo and flinched, barely holding back a cry when she heard that the Coyote vehicle had been struck.
Del-Rey was fine, she assured herself, feeling the tears that marred her cheeks. He had been through worse than this. He would have been prepared. He was fighting even now, his teeth clenched, a killer’s smile on his face.
“Coya, we’re pulling to the entrance,” Ivan told her fiercely. “Soldiers are waiting at the entrance to escort you into the caverns.”
“Find your alpha, Ivan, don’t worry about me,” she ordered him. “Which team are you taking?”
He shook his head. “Your protection—”
“Take team two, they know the mountains around here best. Is our jet still waiting here?”
“We’re not armed, Coya,” he stated.
“Get that jet ready to roll and get yourself and team two to your alpha,” she stated fiercely. “You bring him back here alive, Ivan, or I’m going to skin your hide. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Coya,” he snapped before picking up the radio and ordering team two to detach from her protective detail and replacing them with another team.
Coya was second-in-command now, and their alpha was in danger.
“Doctors are waiting at the entrance for Sharone and she’ll be taken straight to Medical. Get ready, Coya, it’s going to be a hard stop.”
The limo skidded, the back end sliding to the side as he threw it to a stop. The door opened and the soldiers assigned to her were pulling her out.
“You.” She was in one of their faces, she had no idea which. “Take me straight to Medical.”
“Coya, we need you in secure quarters . . .” the soldier began.
“Do you want to piss me off, soldier?” Anya snapped, aware of the other limo jerking to a stop and the medical personnel racing to Sharone. “I said Medical and I mean now. The only way you’re going to get me to my supposed quarters is if you carry me there. What would your alpha think of that one?”
She didn’t give him time to respond.
“Samuel, Mordecai,” she yelled at two of the Coyote enforcers. “Get your butts in the air with Ivan and team two.” They were two of Del-Rey’s best men.
They looked to each other, then her.
“Is your alpha here?” she yelled back at them.
“No, Coya.” Samuel shook his dark head quickly.
“Then you obey your coya. Now go!” she snarled. “Now!”
They surprised her. They turned and ran, barely catching up with Ivan as he straightened the limo to head to the top of the mountain and the waiting heli-jet.
She could hear the hum in the air and, over it, the explosions across the mountain. Lifting the hem of her gown, she moved into the caverns, following the medical team that was bearing a still-cursing Sharone through the stone hallways to the lower-level medical rooms.
At least one attack had been made on this mountain while Anya had been here. A stealth jet had managed to penetrate the Breeds’ air defenses and had slammed “cave busters,” mountain-penetrating missiles, into both the Coyote Breed base as well as the mountain that overlooked Haven.
Anya had led then. It had been her first command situation.
There had been damage, but not a single Breed had been scratched. There had been more damage to the Haven buildings and homes, but the rumored base in the mountain that sheltered the valley hadn’t been hurt. Twenty-four hours later Del-Rey had returned and taken over.
“Coya, Sharone’s threatening to leave Base and head to the mountain.” Emma rushed to her side as Ashley flanked her. “She’s cussing up a storm, and it was all we could do to keep her in the limo.”
“Tell the doctors to shoot her full of a sedative if she can’t keep her butt on the gurney and out of trouble,” Anya ordered her. “Ashley, get to Command. Have one of the soldiers get me a headset. I want to know everything that’s going on as it happens.”
Ashley rushed away as one of the male Breeds took her place.
“You!” She pointed to another soldier, watching his eyes widen almost in panic. “Find me some information and find it now. And make damned sure your alpha is still breathing.”
The soldier hurried off as Anya entered the medical caverns and stood back, watching as Sharone cussed out the Coyote Breed medical staff.
If she was cussing, she was just pissed. Sharone could get eerily silent if she was really hurt. Almost deadened.
“Emma, get one of our enforcers down to Haven. I want information on that bartender they brought back and I want to know what he’s saying. Get another to Dr. Armani’s office and see what’s coming out of there, then contact our enforcer in the Wolf Breed security detail and see what he has. I want everything tapped into me, via the link Ashley better have to me within the next second.”
“Yes, Coya.” Emma stepped to the side as Anya wrapped her arms around herself, slowly rubbing at the chill invading her body.
“Coya, I found a blanket.”
A soldier stepped forward, unfolding a thick gray blanket and helping her pull it over her shoulders.
