by Lora Leigh
Aiden hung limply in the straps, his head lowered as he stared at her kneeling before him. Hatred welled within him, fury igniting every nerve ending in his body as he watched her lick the last remaining evidence of his seed from her mouth.
The betrayal was nearly more than he could bear. It pumped hard and fast through his body, searing nerve endings, tightening muscles. Yet, once stimulated, his cock now refused to return to its limber state, though the desperate swelling beneath her hand subsided. She had betrayed him. The reasons why did not matter.
“You will pay,” he growled. “Somehow, some way, you will pay.”
Her sad little smile was only reinforced by the tears in her eyes. “I already have, Aiden, in ways you will never know.”
And he promised himself, one day, she would pay by his hand.
Chapter One
Six years later
Breed Labs, South America
Escape. It was a litany within her head. The Labs were exploding around her, the mechanical countdown to the final explosion echoing around her with hollow gloom. The backup generators had finally failed; releasing the lock to the cell she had spent the past months confined in.
Charity paid little attention to her nakedness or the burning pain in the soles of her feet as she rushed across the metal floors. The mountain would collapse when the countdown finished, that she knew. She was on the wrong end of the underground compound to even pray for help. She had been kept isolated after she aided the Winged Breeds in their escape attempt. Placed as far away from them as possible in the hopes that should the others be rescued by their brothers, then she, at least, would remain.
Chemicals exploded around her, broken electrical lines danced in a mad marionette as she rushed through the cavernous rooms. The adrenaline pumping through her system would only move the latest batch of drugs through her body that much quicker. She knew time was running out for her. When the full force of the artificial hormone hit her, she would be too weak, too helpless to protect or save herself.
The air around her heated as the flames became more intense. She could feel her feet burning, blistering from the scalding metal beneath them, and pushed herself to run faster, harder. If she could just reach the escape tunnel in time, then she knew safety would only be moments away.
The dim lighting from the battery-powered lamps guided her, the eerie red glow shedding at least partial illumination on the long corridors that led through the Breeding Labs. Yet the faster she ran, the closer the flames and the heat seemed to get.
She fought for breath, feeling the weakness invading her body, knowing that time was something she didn’t have and sure as hell couldn’t steal this time. A ragged scream born of fury escaped her throat. Surely her sacrifices wouldn’t end in her own death, as she had always feared. She was so close, so close to freedom that she could taste it. Feel it.
She gasped, hope blooming within her as she staggered through the marked exit. The floor was so hot she could feel the knifing pain searing through her ankles as it baked her flesh, but she could feel the cooling breeze on her face.
“Damn you, Aiden,” she cried out the curse. She always cursed him when the fear overwhelmed her. It gave her strength, gave her purpose.
He had left her in those damned Labs six years before. Left her aching, needing as he escaped, hoping he would return for her. For years she had nursed that hope inside her.
She had deceived the Council at every turn. Passed information, passed messages, fought for the tortured souls the bastards created, and prayed each day that some miracle would occur to halt the genetic experiments. But they never had. And each day she had prayed he would come for her. Until the prayers slowly stopped, the hope strangled away, and she gave up. She gave up, but her body remembered.
The remembrance he had left inside her had been her downfall. Her punishment. He had sworn she would pay, and she had paid in exacting measures over the years. In the last months, the payment had increased until she feared for her very sanity.
Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision as she struggled through the last tunnel. The countdown was drawing closer to the final number, the final escape. It would be far easier, she thought distantly, to wait it out, to become another casualty to the desperate battle between science and its creations. But some part of her, some last shred of her survival instinct refused to let her surrender. She had to escape. She had to live. Though for what, she was no longer certain.
Finally, blessedly, the deserted opening to the mountain loomed ahead. The drugs were pumping harder through her body now, weakening her legs, sending pain radiating through her abdomen. She clutched her stomach, fighting to ignore the torturous reaction of her body to the chemicals as she burst through the opening and into the clear night air beyond.
Explosions blasted around her as she screamed out in shock, her hands covering her head as debris rained upon her. A blast of heated air threw her to the ground, but she couldn’t stop. She half crawled, half ran to the protection she knew only the jungle could provide. And she kept running.
The shelter of the trees cut even the fragile rays of the moon to the dimmest light, making it nearly impossible to see now. Despite the flames behind her, the inferno bursting through the night sky, here darkness reigned. Cool, soothing, the night air whispered around her, safe and sheltering as she pushed herself through the jungle, forcing her body to put as much distance as possible between her and the exploding Labs.
The soft dirt beneath her feet was like daggers through her flesh as she kept moving. Always moving. Escape. Safety. She had fought for years to escape and had been too terrified of what would happen to those she fought to save. She would die, she swore, before she allowed them to take her back this time. She was doomed now. They knew her secrets, knew the changes slowly occurring in her body. She was of little use to herself, and of no use to the Breeds she had tried to save for so long.
She stumbled into the jungle, her vision faint now as the drugs filled her body. Pain was a brutal reminder that at least she still lived, though why she fought to do so had become the question of the year. She should have given up months ago, she thought sadly. The brutal testing should have killed her, not to mention the stress of blood loss, and the forced transfusions of blood her body no longer wanted to accept.
She fell to her knees. The pain from the abrupt landing merely blended in with the rest of the agony flaring through. She gasped for breath, whimpering as she struggled to keep moving, crying out as she fought the overriding paranoia that the drugs induced. The sounds of the jungle were too loud; the screech of a bird, the shuffle of the wildlife in the brush.
Animals could smell blood. It brought out the scavengers and predators of the night looking for a handy meal. A sobbing laugh escaped her. She would be little more than a diseased snack to any creature unlucky enough to take a bite of her. But she also knew her scent, the smell of her tainted blood, would hold them back. Animals were often much smarter than their human enemies.
She couldn’t force herself back to her feet. The weakness of her body was too draining, and it took more strength than she now possessed, so she crawled instead. It eased the pain in her feet, though the fire raging in her womb only grew worse. The incision made in her abdomen that morning was bleeding again. They could never truly halt the bleeding once the drugs were injected inside her.
She couldn’t stop the pain, or the need. And in that need she whispered Aiden’s name. When the drugs inside her reached their peak, she knew she screamed it out. Screamed and begged for ease, though none ever came. And the bastards who built on whatever Aiden had done to her so many years ago would only strap her to the metal bed, attach the probes to her body and make their little notes.
She hoped they died. She hoped every one of them were in that fucking mountain when it collapsed. Buried in the waste of their own evil. A bark of hysterical laughter escaped her at that thought.
“Sons of bitches,” she gasped, fighting to pull herse
lf through the dense undergrowth of the jungle. “I hope they’re screaming in pain.”
She stopped, her body tightening as she gritted her teeth against the weakness that dropped her further to the ground. She could feel her juices dripping from her body, thick and hot from her greedy cunt. The arousal was more than she could bear now. Her body was hungry, starved for fulfillment, demanding a release that just didn’t exist.
“Aiden…” she cried out his name, desperation born of fury, pain and fear echoing in the air around her. It hurt, this need. The pounding fury of sexual hunger was unlike anything she could have imagined.
Damn, it was worse than before. She tightened her thighs, fighting the pain of the arousal. It throbbed through every cell of her body, tightening her muscles to a screaming peak as her womb clenched in need. She could feel the blood running along her abdomen, the rippling pulse in her womb. Just her luck, she thought, she was going to bleed to death before she could ever effectively escape.
Stupid scientists. She had been under their noses for years as they fought to find or to capture a Breed mate. They had kept the semen collected over the years, preserved for use, constantly watching for a candidate for their evil. They had no idea she existed. No idea she had become bound to Aiden the day she had so foolishly swallowed his semen. But, boy, had they tried to make up for lost time after they found out.
She had messed up, allowed them to catch her aiding the Winged Breeds. They had needed a woman at the time to place with the leader, Keegan, and for a while, debated her use. Until they checked her blood, and found what she had found years before. A hormone known only to the Wolf Breeds and a high level of the aphrodisiac reported to run only through the blood of mated females. From that moment on her life had become hell.
“Bastards.” Her teeth gritted as her womb convulsed again.
She clamped her hand to the incision in her stomach, praying the bleeding wouldn’t become severe again. Sometimes it did. Sometimes, she was certain she would die.
The sounds of gunfire, explosions and the screams of war could still be easily heard. Charity breathed out wearily, knowing she had to move, she had to drag herself farther away from the fighting, the possibility of capture. She wanted to lay down and rest, to forget the horrors of the bastards she had hopefully left behind. But time wasn’t on her side, and sleep was only a prayer.
She dragged herself to her hands and knees and forced her body to move. Just a little farther, she promised herself. She shuddered as a leaf raked her nipple. Oh hell, it felt too good. Too damned good. Her nipples were hard points of exquisite sensation with no hope of relief. She knew well that no amount of touching them, of stroking her straining clit would bring anything more than an increase in arousal.
“Going somewhere, Charity?” She froze. Still on hands and knees, her eyes widened as a pair of boots and long muscular legs came into view.
Her gaze lifted. Up, over the shadowed expanse of tight thighs, a hard abdomen, a wide chest. His face was dark, his silver-gray eyes hidden, but she knew that voice. Knew his voice, and God help her, his scent. Rich and wild, with a hint of summer heat.
“Excuse me. Girls night out,” she gasped as her womb shuddered again, peaking with pain, as though his scent called to her arousal.
She fought to change course, knowing she was caught, knowing there was no hope. He moved to counter her.
“You’re in heat,” he growled. She heard the fury throbbing in his voice and remembered his last vow to her. She shivered in dread.
She leaned against the thick trunk of a tree, sitting down wearily. She knew she was going into shock. She held her hand to her abdomen, feeling the blood that eased past the incision. She didn’t bother to answer his accusation. There was no denying her arousal, or her depleted strength.
“So sue me.” She leaned her head against the tree, watching as he hunched down in front of her, his body so tempting that if she had the strength she would have attacked him then and there. “Go away, I don’t need your help.”
She needed his cock. There was a difference. Hard, thick and long. She whimpered as she felt her cunt pulse more of her thick juices to her thighs. Glory be, she needed to be fucked. She hated the thought of dying, so aroused, unsatisfied.
“Was I offering to help you?” he asked her, his voice a bit too casual and light. Then he paused. She watched his head tilt, heard him inhale roughly. “Charity, you’re bleeding.” His voice had changed, edged with reluctant concern.
“I’m dying, Aiden,” she whispered then, sadly. She would never know his touch, never know satisfaction.
She heard his indrawn breath, and wondered how he could smell the blood over the scent of raging lust.
“Not yet, you’re not,” he bit out, moving so quickly she could only cry out as he swung her into his arms, against the hard warmth of his chest. “You won’t escape me that easily, Charity.”
God, his body was hard, hot. One arm looped around his neck, the other pressed to her abdomen as she fought to stem the blood welling from the wound there.
She inhaled his scent, so wild and clean, as her breast brushed against the fabric of his shirt.
“I need you,” she whimpered against his neck, the painful lust overcoming common sense or any shred of modesty.
She was naked in his arms, and he was hot and aroused. She could smell his arousal as well. A stormy, primal scent that wrapped around her, edging her own lusts higher.
“And you will have me,” he grunted. “Sooner than you know. But not while you are bleeding to your death.”
“You owe me,” she cried out bleakly. “You do, Aiden. You owe me. Please make it stop hurting.”
His arms tightened around her, his pace increasing as she moved against his chest. She was in need. The lightning flashes of aroused pain were torturous, worse than they had ever been before.
“Soon, Charity.” His answer was a breath of sound. A promise or a warning? She wondered. “Sooner than either one of us needs.”
He was striding through the jungle, moving at a rapid pace, holding her snugly to him, sharing his heat, his strength. Beneath her hand the blood flowed from her body. She could feel the chilling weakness washing over her and knew that this time she would not survive the loss of blood. She had lost too much, and the transfusions took too long for her body to accept. She would escape in death. What he had sought so many years before had now come to her.
“Can I sleep now, Aiden? I’m very tired,” she asked him faintly as she felt the weakness closing over her.
She heard him curse. The sound was dark, deadly. The scientists had once again stolen what he believed was his. First his control, and now his vengeance.
She allowed her head to fall to his chest, a smile to shape her lips. And on a silent breath she whispered goodbye as darkness stole over her.
Chapter Two
“She’s your mate, she can only accept your blood.” The doctor hastily prepared for the transfusion as her assistant stitched the incision on Charity’s abdomen.
The pale skin was smeared with blood, too much blood. It had run in slow rivulets down her abdomen, smearing her thighs, and the smooth bare flesh between them. He had felt her weakening seconds before he reached camp, felt the fight that had always been so much a part of her slowly drain from her fragile body and knew he was losing her. She was dying in his arms.
His jaw bunched as he fought the anger surging through him. He turned his face from her, staring at the side of the tent that held the field hospital. If he watched her, looked at her lying there so pale and helpless, he didn’t know if he would be able to contain his rage.
He had been warned of what was to come, though he had given little credence to the Breeds’ declaration of psychic abilities to the point they claimed to possess them. He had scoffed at their knowledge of the bonds he knew would exist between them. Had mocked their predictions of the events to come. He had assured himself that night in the Labs had been due to the drugs, nothing more. Eve
n though some internal sense had warned him otherwise.
He had been prepared to treat her as coldly, as cruelly as he would any Council lapdog. But the moment he had caught her scent, had seen her face, so pale, so distressed, he had been unable to maintain his determination. Her scent called out to him, her delicacy terrified him. She was so tiny now; so fragile he wondered how she had managed to escape on her own. She appeared too weak to even stand under her own strength, let alone to have escaped into the jungle.
He was within seconds of destroying every Council soldier and scientist they had taken, rather than holding them for questioning later by the Breed lawyers and government officials heading for the area. Remembering the smell of blood, of her impending death was nearly more than he could stand. They had done this to her. They had stripped her of all dignity and used her for their insane experiments. They had nearly killed her in their drive to play God.
He didn’t stop to question his conflicting feelings regarding Charity. His fury over her betrayal of him, his hatred that she had stayed with the Council rather than fighting to be free. His desire for her, his fury at her. It all converged inside him until the morass of emotions became overpowering.
“Stop growling at me, Aiden,” the doctor bit out nervously, her dark face watching him intently. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a needle.”
She inserted said needle into the vein, opening the valve to allow his blood to ease gently through the tube that connected him to Charity. He didn’t care about the damned needle. Over the course of his lifetime he had seen more needles than he could count.
“She’s not my mate,” he snarled, unable to hold the words back any longer. He knew the lie for what it was, though. “I have not accepted this.”
The doctor snorted. She was young for her remarkable skill in Breed medicine. A bit on the short side, with full breasts and hips most men would ache to clasp close. Her skin was as pretty as milk chocolate, and she had long, sleek black hair that fell down her back in a multitude of braids.
