Roping Savannah

by Jory Strong

  He started the truck’s engine and escaped the parking lot, moving away from the area just as police cars roared in with their sirens blaring and their lights flashing. Next to him Savannah whipped around, a frown settling on her face as she looked out the back window. Frustration moved through Kye. If they were already mated then he would know Savannah’s thoughts, but since they weren’t yet connected in that manner, he had to ask, “Why do you frown?”

  She turned back to him, scowling, though he sensed it was directed at herself and not at him. “I wasn’t thinking straight. I should have at least checked the car to see if The Ferret’s body was in it.” She leaned over and turned on a police radio, its static and squawking stretching Kye’s nerves even further.

  “And who is this Ferret?”

  “A snitch.” When Kye frowned, she said, “An informant.”

  “He takes money for information?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Outrage flashed through Kye. Primitive and hot, and directed at his soon-to-be-mate. “You trusted such a man!”

  Temper flared in her eyes, a challenge that tightened Kye’s body with need. “Look, Batman, the only reason I’m not dropping you off at the nearest bus station so you can buy a ticket and head back to your cave is because I don’t have time at the moment. Now take a left at the next light.”

  A shock of laughter filled Kye’s chest at his fiery mate’s words, at her boldness and confidence. At her audacity to threaten him with exile even as he was driving her primitive vehicle!

  But he turned as she’d directed, arguing with himself as to the wisdom of letting her go to this Ferret’s living quarters, though he feared he had little choice. She would be in no mood to accept his advances until this matter was attended to, and he could not afford to part from her until after he’d mounted her and pierced her with his fangs.

  Kye’s hands tightened on the steering wheel in anticipation of that moment. His cock protesting the delay, surging painfully against the uncomfortably tight pants he was forced to wear while in Savannah’s world.

  The need to mate with her was almost unbearable. The pheromones her body was assaulting him with making every moment in her presence a battle for control. The Vesti mating fever was upon him, had been from the moment he first saw her.

  By the stars, he had not expected this to happen. Had not even hoped for it. In truth, he had not wanted it—yet.

  He had offered his services to the Council because he believed the only way to overcome the devastation wrought by the cursed Hotalings was to work together, to change and accept the unavoidable. That both races weren’t doomed to extinction was a miracle, though right now it was only human women with the Fallon gene sequence who provided the hope and promise of children. Even so, Kye had not completely reconciled himself to sharing a mate with anyone. He still could not envision it—especially with the Vesti mating fever burning through his veins and pooling in his cock and testicles.

  Once the Vesti and Amato had been a single great race of winged shapeshifters. But arrogance and jealousy, pride and prejudice had destroyed it, splintering it into a multitude of races that were lesser than what they had once been.

  And then the Hotalings had struck. Unleashing their bio-gene weapons, thinking to kill all those on Belizair and gain possession of the Ylan power stones, or perhaps simply to hold the threat of extinction over the heads of the Vesti and Amato in order to gain what they desired.

  A few on Belizair had died as a result of the virus, mainly the weak, the old. Their passing painful, but not a festering wound. Far more devastating had been the miscarriages by women who were early in their pregnancies, followed by the realization there would be no new pregnancies.

  Kye turned his attention to Savannah and felt his heart expand. She was a gift he hadn’t asked for, or expected, but one he wouldn’t refuse. He’d been content to use his skills as a bounty hunter—a law enforcer—to track and watch over those women the Council scientists discovered carrying the Fallon genes. Lyan and Adan’s mate was one of those women.

  Kye frowned, thinking of all the cities Krista had traveled to, never staying more than a few days in any one of them. She’d first been found in San Francisco, where she was a teacher. But before the scientists could match the marker in her genes with a Vesti or Amato mate, she’d disappeared.

  He had chosen to risk censure and ridicule by implanting a tiny tracking chip in her without being told to do so by the Council scientists. Usually the chip was implanted only when the scientists feared they might lose track of a potential bond-mate. It was done at a distance, with a special device, so the female was not frightened or forewarned. The sting was no more painful than the bite of an insect and the chip was easily destroyed once the female was claimed and mated.

  If it were left to him, then all potential mates would be tagged. Why risk losing them? Especially now, when old jealousies and long-held grudges threatened to surface and take over in the wake of the Hotalings attack.

  True, the Amato were sticklers for following the law when compared to the more hot-tempered Vesti. But neither race had allowed the hostility of its own members to escalate to the point of bloodshed. And now each race needed the other—desperately.

  Kye shook his head, glad he had tagged Krista. Had he not done so, he might never have found her again. Her movements across the country had been unpredictable, except for the fact she appeared to gain what money she needed by visiting the gambling hells.

  Kye shifted in his seat, trying to relieve some of the pressure from his too-full cock. Thank the stars Krista was now Lyan and Adan’s responsibility! His own mate was going to require all his attention.

  “Park in that spot right there,” Savannah said, sending his pulse spiking upward a few moments later when she got out of the truck, striding away before he’d even cut the engine. Leaving him scrambling after her like a banzit after dropped fruit.

  He entered the building seconds past when she did, but still there was only time to see one of the elevators close. Fear for her safety clashed with anger as he stood helpless, waiting to see which floor the elevator stopped on even as he hoped it was indeed the floor where she exited.

  Despite the show of bravado in front of Krista and Kye, adrenaline-laced wariness raced through Savannah as she took the final few steps to the fourth floor. She’d had a lot of close calls during her life—the time she flipped her ATV while chasing an ornery bull, the time a visiting cousin had found a loaded rifle in the bunkhouse and fired at her—not realizing it was loaded, the time she’d ended up in the hospital when a drunk driver she’d pulled over put his car in reverse and mowed her down. But she’d never had someone want her dead seriously enough to plant a bomb and then detonate it.

  She shivered, easing the stairwell door open. What could The Ferret have known? And why call her instead of someone higher up in the force? Though the answer was obvious when she thought about it. Maybe he’d just figured she was good for her word. She’d let him slip on a minor infraction a time or two in exchange for information—well, maybe more than a time or two.

  Her stomach tightened. It’d crossed her mind that maybe it was a setup. But she couldn’t think of anything she’d seen, done, or said that would warrant a car explosion.

  Damn! She should have taken the time to see if there was a body in the car. It might help if she knew whether or not the information The Ferret had was hot enough for someone to stick around and see who showed up to meet him. Though of course, if they recognized her before they tried to blow her up, things could get a little dicey once they realized they’d missed her. Savannah doubted Krista had seen anything in those first seconds after the car had blown, but when she called and checked in with Krista later she’d ask her if she’d noticed whether the black car and its occupants had stuck around long enough to see the results of the explosion.

  Savannah cocked her head, surprised she didn’t hear footsteps in the stairwell. Then again, she’d gotten lucky when an elderly
couple had stepped into the elevator and the door had closed just as she was coming through the front door. That might divert Kye for a few minutes. She had a bad feeling she was already going to be in enough trouble without involving a civilian in this—even if said civilian was the most gorgeous man she’d ever met.

  Just her luck to encounter him today, when Krista was in town—and after Krista’s blushing confession of being with two men at once. It was one of Savannah’s favorite fantasies, even without the rope she’d joked about.

  She looked at the number on the door across from the stairwell. Depending on how many units were on each floor, The Ferret’s apartment was toward the other end, on the same side as she was unless it was around either corner where the hallway formed a “T” with another section. She couldn’t guess how those units were numbered.

  Savannah double-checked that the safety on her gun was off before moving forward. Chances were that whoever had blown up The Ferret’s car had already been to his apartment and gone. But she wasn’t going to be stupid.

  Impatience crawled over Kye’s skin, adding to the jangling clamor of nerve endings left raw by the disappearance of his bond-mate. When he got his hands on her…

  His attention shifted to the numbers displayed above the elevator and he knew immediately that he’d erred in waiting to see which floor it stopped on. She wouldn’t have taken the elevator to the second one.

  He retraced his steps and found a stairway, cursing himself as he moved upward, pausing at the door to the second floor. There was no choice but to open it. To sprint down the empty hall and check around the corner, then dash into the stairwell again and repeat the process on the next floor. And then the next.

  His training as a law-keeper served him well, as did his instinct. Though he was also willing to credit luck and the faint hint of his elusive mate’s perfume for drawing him down a hallway and around a corner to where a door stood open, Savannah’s curses finding him in the hallway.

  Kye closed the distance between them, promising himself things would change once he got her to a private location and claimed her. He intended to ride her so fiercely, to pleasure her so thoroughly she wouldn’t find it easy to get farther away from the bed than the kitchen or the bathroom.

  He stepped into The Ferret’s living quarters and into chaos. The place had been ransacked and in the middle, surrounded by debris, stood Savannah.

  Kye actually found amusement in the sight. He could well imagine that his fiery-haired bond-mate was capable of such fury, though he doubted she could have rendered the apartment inhabitable in so short a period of time.

  “It would appear someone was here before us,” Kye said. “I doubt anything useful remains to be found.”

  “Shit! What was The Ferret involved in?”

  She moved deeper into the apartment and Kye followed, both of them stopping in the doorway to the small bedroom. Seeing the slashed mattress, the dresser drawers tossed on the floor, their contents scattered everywhere.

  Chapter Three

  “I’m going to have to bring the captain up to speed on this and he’s going to nail my ass to a desk-chair. If I’m lucky,” Savannah said, wading into the bedroom but not touching anything.

  Kye nodded in approval then stilled when Savannah whipped her head around and glared at him.

  “If you’re going to ride with me, Batman, you’d better start paying attention to your surroundings.”

  Kye laughed, undaunted by his feisty bond-mate, though his gaze went immediately to the mirror where his face and expressions were captured. Revealed.

  He grinned. Unrepentant. Her Earth-days were numbered and he would prefer she not work at all. But if she must, then he would gain a measure of peace by knowing she was guarding a desk, safely entombed in one of the cave-like buildings the humans seemed to feel safest in.

  He needed to get a sample of her DNA to the Council scientists so they could confirm what his cock and his instinct already knew. She was his. Once it had been confirmed by the scientists, then he needed only to choose a co-mate from among the Amato and make arrangements for lodging in Winseka, the Bridge City where all those newly mated to humans lived.

  True, there was the small matter of getting her to agree to go through the binding ceremony and return home with her bond-mates—their destination and true form not revealed until they were in the transport chamber—but Kye didn’t doubt his ability to convince Savannah her future lay with him…and another.

  His chest tightened in protest at the thought of sharing Savannah. It was not the way of the Vesti to share their mates. From the very beginning it had always been one male, one female.

  The thought of another man covering Savannah’s body, thrusting his cock into her, had Kye gritting his teeth. It went against his nature, his instinct, drove the heat of the mating fever into a raging inferno, an insistent demand that he hoard her, guard her, keep her for himself.

  Kye forced the thoughts away. There was no choice but to choose a co-mate. To form a threesome.

  So far the Council scientists had found only one way to defeat the Hotaling virus. Now the Council’s agents searched among the humans in order to identify those females who had the genetic marker of one of the Fallon—the shared ancestor race of the Amato and Vesti.

  All hope to avoid extinction rested on the unmated males, yet each male carried both the fear there would be no match and the knowledge it required a Vesti or Amato co-mate in order to produce offspring. Though the scientists couldn’t reproduce the results in the laboratory with either an Amato or Vesti female, when it came to the human females carrying the Fallon gene, they theorized the serum a Vesti male injected while mating somehow changed the female’s chemistry, allowing for both the Vesti and Amato sperm to fertilize her eggs.

  They’d stumbled on it accidentally, when an Amato in an experimental program was matched to a human but elected to share her with his best friend, a Vesti. She’d become pregnant, the test results confusing as to whether her children would be Vesti or Amato since the twins she carried contained the distinctive markers for both races.

  Still, it was the first conception, the first time a woman on Belizair had managed such a feat since the Hotaling virus had struck. And since none of the earlier “experimental” matches between a human female and a Vesti or Amato had produced children, the scientists had gone to those pairs and urged them to take a co-mate. It had been a difficult undertaking, but eventually all of the couples had expanded to include another partner in their union, and now all were expecting children. Twins. The test results on the fetuses equally confusing, but the scientists were predicting a child of each race. Guessing that perhaps the Hotaling virus had mutated the males’ sperm in such a way that both needed to be present in a human womb of one carrying the Fallon gene and that she also needed to be injected with the Vesti mating serum.

  So the unmated males on Belizair who had reconciled themselves to sharing a mate, to taking a human female, submitted samples of their DNA and waited for a match to be made as they considered who they would choose for a co-mate.

  Kye had not given the choice of a co-mate much thought. He had presented himself to the Council instead and asked to be sent to Earth as one of those aiding the scientists in finding the females with the Fallon gene markers, monitoring and protecting the women then minimizing the impact of their disappearance after they were taken to Belizair.

  It was satisfying work. Fun for the most part, and he’d become fond of Savannah’s homeworld.

  His bond-mate turned toward him, a frown on her face. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “A good plan.”

  The frown deepened, gathering the skin between her eyebrows and making Kye want to reach out and smooth the wrinkles down. He resisted, afraid that if he began touching her he wouldn’t be able to stop.

  His cock was killing him with its demands, its need to sink into wet heat and glorious feminine mystery. Even the thought of it had him clenching his buttocks as finge
rs of white-hot desire speared through his shaft and up his spine.

  Something in his expression gave him away. Savannah’s eyes widened. Her face flushed slightly as her tongue peeked out between lips meant to pleasure a mate. “Let’s get out of here,” Kye said, echoing her earlier statement. Afraid he would soon be forced to decide between two bad choices—to take her here, where others might arrive and interfere, or to take his own cock in hand.

  Savannah stepped forward, the heat deepening in her face. She couldn’t believe this! She should be concentrating on what to do next, how to dodge the captain’s disciplinary bullet so she could blow the lid off whatever it was The Ferret knew. Instead she was having a hard time drawing her attention away from her swollen cunt lips and standing-at-attention clit. Each step sent a small explosion of sensation through her. Engorged flesh fighting the restraint of a g-string and meeting the resistance of stiff denim.

  Damn. She couldn’t remember ever reacting to a man the way she was reacting to the one currently standing in front of her. The one bristling with macho intention, his cock an exclamation mark to his belief that he would be the one in charge.

  Oh yeah. He could try and they’d both have a good time. After the day she’d had she was more than ready to blow off some steam. And right now a stiff drink wasn’t nearly as interesting to her as a stiff cock—Kye’s.

  If she hadn’t already promised herself she was going to try to rein in her impulsiveness and work the system, then she would pore over this crime scene until she either found something or was convinced there was nothing to find. But there was no use making things worse for herself. The planned meet with The Ferret shouldn’t land her in too much trouble. Leaving the scene of the destroyed Beamer might. And then this—coming here instead of calling it in. She sighed and hoped the captain had taken his blood pressure medicine.

  She moved from the center of the bedroom to the doorway, stiffening when two armed men entered the apartment, their weapons drawn, their bodies signaling an intent to shoot if provoked.