Viper Game

by Christine Feehan

  "Don't." She said it softly, her tone drowsy from the painkiller. "Don't think about sex anymore. I'm having enough trouble with the bite this time."

  "I'm sorry. You're... potent. I don' know what it is, woman, but you've got me tied up in knots." And harder than a damned rock. His sense of humor was beginning to kick in and that could be fatal. "Before we go any further in our relationship, you might tell me just what other weapons you have available to you besides sex. Just in case we should argue or somethin'." Deliberately he drawled the question.

  Her eyelashes fluttered. Her mouth curved into a smile. "Our relationship? I'm not certain what that means, bayou man."

  "That means you and me. Together. You've got that knife, and the men in our family are really fond of women who carry knives. Which reminds me, I forgot to return Nonny's to her. One of the guards at the laboratory stole it from her."

  "That's why you were there?" This time her eyes actually opened and she looked at him. "To get your grandmother's knife back?"

  He swept back her hair again, using his palm in order to feel her forehead. "That and to beat the livin' daylights outa Larry the guard. He shoved her. She's no spring chicken, although never tell her I said that. She'd take a switch to me just to show me she's still spry."

  For the first time she actually smiled. "You really went there to call out one of the guards? It had nothing to do with me or the babies? I knew it. Somehow I just knew that's what you were doing."

  "Well, Grand-mere did mention the presence of the Rougarou in the swamp and told me she was keepin' the shotgun handy. I think she did expect me to take care of that as well, but seein' as how you and the little one turned out to be the swamp monsters, she'll be happy enough that I just gave the guard a beatin' and took her knife back."

  "It was a serious beating," Pepper said. "You weren't kidding around, and I could tell you were going easy on him."

  "So you were watchin' me all along," Wyatt said, giving her a grin that spoke volumes. "Likin' what you saw. You just had to come here and show me that knife, didn' you?" Before she could answer he frowned. "You and Nonny didn' cook this up together, did you? She's been wantin' a woman and babies outa us boys for a while now." He poured suspicion into his voice.

  "Now that you say that, she did mention it a time or two that you were hopeless at finding a woman yourself and she was thinking of buying you one of those mail-order brides to help you along your way." Pepper delivered the revelation with a straight face. "We had a lot of time to talk while she was fixing up the bullet wounds."

  "I wouldn' put it past her," Wyatt said, sobering instantly. "Don' you enter into any conspiracy with that woman. We'll end up married with ten or fifteen little ones runnin' around the bayou. If she had her way, this house would be filled with children."

  "She has a good heart. She put out blankets and food when she could have turned the dogs loose on us like everyone else did."

  "Best heart in the bayou," Wyatt agreed. "She called us home because she thought something was wrong at that compound. A few years back there was a mental institution on that land. Whitney owned it. He had one of his experiments housed there. I think the woman he kept there was supposed to be terminated, but she escaped and now is married to one of the GhostWalkers. The place burned down and the land was sold. I'll bet Whitney set up a dummy corporation and bought his own property back."

  "I wish I'd known about her. I've never been outside other than on carefully supervised field trials."

  "You're fast. Very fast. How could they contain you?"

  She touched her throat with shaking fingers. "They have a shock collar - one that can put you down fast and hard. I could never figure a way to counteract it. And then after... there were the babies. I was introduced to them when I was labeled uncooperative. They broke my heart. Someone had to care about them and love them."

  "Do they love you back?" Wyatt figured if those three little viper babies were going to be in his grandmother's home, or he had to handle them, he wanted to know if they were little serial killers in the making.

  She nodded and winced, her breath catching in her throat.

  He knew better than to touch her, but he did it anyway. This woman had a sense of humor, and that along with her knife was skating close to his dream woman. He smoothed back her hair, the pads of his fingers gliding over her forehead. He felt the touch all the way into his gut. "Is it bad again? Do you want another dose?" He glanced at his watch. "We slept for a couple of hours."

  "No. You got me through the worst part. It's not too bad now. And they aren't serial killers. They're wonderful children who need love and guidance. It isn't their fault that someone cooked them up in a petri dish." There was definitely a defensive note in her voice.

  "Don' go all commando on me, sugar," Wyatt cautioned. "You gettin' all bossy just turns me on, and right now there's not a damn thing either one of us can do about it. I'm just askin' questions here, tryin' to get a sense of how much danger Nonny might be in."

  Those dark eyes searched his face. He felt the impact in the region of his cock, but that didn't surprise him much. Everything about her was felt in that region.

  "The babies don't know anyone but me. Not like that. They've been used for experiments, not nurtured as they should be. There's only been me."

  "That's why Ginger tried to bite me, she was tryin' to protect you, wasn't she?"

  Pepper closed her eyes again, turning her face from him. "Yes. I'm the only one she has - the only one fighting to save them. She knows that. She's seen death. She knows it's permanent. She won't hurt your grandmother, Wyatt. She won't."

  "I hope not. Ezekiel is sleepin' on the floor right outside her door. It would kill him to have to hurt a child. He's a roarin' tiger when it comes to readin' from the good book, but he's a softie for women and children."

  "He's scary," Pepper said, her voice back to a thread of sound.

  "I'm scary, and you're here with me."

  A slow smile curved her mouth. "Is that what you are? I was trying to figure it out."

  Damn. Humor and a knife.

  Chapter 5

  Wyatt sensed movement. Danger. He didn't move, but he knew he wasn't alone. The danger was in the room with them - and he'd locked the door. Pepper appeared to be sleeping. He'd given her a second dose of painkillers when her body had cramped up again, every muscle locking up and fighting to shut her down. The fluids and painkiller had helped immediately but she'd slept through it and that had worried him a little. Clearly her body wasn't used to any kind of drug.

  He waited, his body relaxed, his breathing even. Patience was a hunter's weapon, and he had learned that from a very early age. At the end of the bed, the sheet bunched near his feet. He felt a slight weight ease onto the mattress. He knew immediately what had come into the room so quietly.

  "Good mornin', Ginger," he said softly, keeping his voice low and using his ability to soothe shamelessly. "Did you come to see Pepper?"

  He opened his eyes and slowly sat up, keeping his movements slow and nonthreatening. The child looked as if she'd been crying for hours. She didn't look at all dangerous. She looked like a normal human seventeen-month-old baby who needed comfort. He could see how that would be a problem. Her eyes were large and very dark, but now were ringed with red. His instinct was to gather her up and cuddle her, but he didn't want to startle or frighten her - knowing she could so easily inflict a lethal bite on him. Those little tiny baby teeth were going to be introduced to caps as soon as possible.

  "Pepper is fine. Do you see how peacefully she's sleepin'?" He shifted his weight, easing his legs out from under the covers. It was far better to be safe than sorry. He needed to be able to move fast if he had to. He didn't want the baby to get the wrong idea, and she was looking over the fluids going into Pepper's arm.

  "She hurt last night. Her muscles cramped hard, so she needed fluids to help that go away." He was counting on the fact that Pepper had said the child was extremely intelligent. Her too-
old eyes told him the same thing, although she still looked like a baby to him, a very upset baby.

  "Do you understand what I'm tellin' you, Ginger? Pepper is fine. You made a mistake, but it's all right now. She isn' goin' to die."

  The little girl's eyes welled with tears and his heart clenched. He could never be the father of girls. They'd break his heart. He needed rough-and-tumble boys. That he could work with.

  "Are you hungry? Do you need to be changed?" He felt like a fool asking her questions. She might be the smartest baby in the world and understand every word he said, but she couldn't talk yet. Maybe a few words, but she was still mostly human and that meant even intelligent babies didn't have a huge vocabulary of words they could actually say - understand maybe - but not pronounce.

  Ginger lifted her hands and made a couple of gestures, clearly conveying something to him.

  He frowned and leaned toward her. "Do you sign? Is that how you communicate with Pepper and the others? With your two sisters?"

  The little girl nodded her head several times, her gaze clinging to his. He had time to study her face. She was beautiful, her little face oval with high cheekbones and large, very dark eyes. Her lashes were black along with her wavy dark hair. He thought her hair might be thicker than normal for a baby her age, but her hands and feet were very small.

  "I'm not the best at signin'. My brothers and I used to sign when we were kids and didn' want Nonny to know what we were plottin'." He took a breath. "Which of course was very bad on our parts and we'd never do such a thing now."

  The baby smiled at him. For the first time he allowed himself to relax a little. She didn't look as if she'd go all viper on him and strike out with those tiny little teeth that he already found quite charming in her.

  She signed with her fingers. She had to do it three times before he caught what she was saying.

  His heart clenched again. He shook his head. "No, baby, why would I want to kill you? I don' want you dead. You're safe here with Nonny and me. And we'll keep Pepper safe too. Ezekiel and Malichai will help me get your sisters free if we can. As long as you're in my home, I'll make certain no one hurts you."

  He tried to sign as many words as he could remember, even as he said them aloud to her. He was going to have to build a seriously lethal arsenal and get his home secure.

  Don't mislead her.

  Pepper lay quite still listening to the sound of Wyatt's soothing voice. She loved his drawl. The slow easy charm. The smile in his voice. His cool confidence. She'd never come across a man like him, not in all the men she'd met in training. She wasn't supposed to feel attraction to the actual man. He was supposed to feel attraction to her. She had a sex drive to end all sex drives, but it was only that - being in heat. She detested her body most of the time, especially around men. She didn't want them to find her attractive. That only made it much more difficult to keep her resolution.

  Until Wyatt. She had lain in the bed with him and breathed him into her lungs. She'd touched his soft, wavy black hair and her heart had nearly melted in her chest. Every time he spoke, whether it was in a low soothing voice he was using now, or his sexy, commanding one, she felt slick heat gathering between her legs. His voice also wrapped around her heart and became the thing of all her fantasies.

  Still, she couldn't allow him to charm Ginger into thinking he would stick around with his voice and his ability to make a child - or a woman - think they weren't alone in the world. She couldn't allow that to happen.

  Don't tell her something that isn't true. She's been lied to her entire life.

  Wyatt turned his head to look into Pepper's violet eyes. There was no diamond starburst, only pain. His gut knotted. He didn't like his woman being in pain. He might tell himself different, but he was going to claim her whether or not it made sense.

  Pepper's voice slid in his mind, warm honey pouring into every empty, broken crack, filling him with warmth, with the knowledge that he wasn't alone. His body reacted, coming alive, every cell humming, but not necessarily in a sexual way. Pepper was definitely stronger. He could feel the difference in her.

  I'm not. Nonny would never allow us to leave two small babies in a place like that. This house is safe for them. We're GhostWalkers. Maybe you haven' heard the term, but we're like you, no matter whether or not you think you're the only flawed one. We're all flawed, Pepper. Clearly you haven' been around any of us.

  We have to keep moving. It's the only safe thing to do. These children can't go to a school, or be around other children until they learn discipline.

  There was no note of hope in her voice, but still, he felt it through their connection, probably a remnant of hope she didn't even recognize she felt. She'd been utterly alone for a very long time with an overwhelming responsibility. The three children couldn't be let loose on the world, not when they were teething. Not when they truly didn't understand consequences.

  First, that's your trainin' talkin', sayin' you got to keep movin'. They'll expect that, he pointed out.

  That's the problem with the babies. They do understand, but they don't have the discipline to stop themselves when they feel threatened. Pepper replied to his thoughts, not his words.

  It wasn't the first time she had responded to something in his mind - and he had a lot on his mind. Wyatt couldn't help worrying about keeping the babies in his home, not that he was concerned they'd hurt Nonny. Very few creatures in the bayou would harm her. She had the "gift," a miracle she'd passed down to her grandsons. Still, he had brothers and neighbors to think about, yet where else could they go?

  In the bayou they could play and learn and have freedom to grow and thrive. They couldn't be in a city or a place where neighbors were too close. They'd been engineered as soldiers with soldier's instincts. Their games were bound to be... dangerous. Who better to raise them than Pepper and the GhostWalkers right there in the bayou? It all made perfect sense to him.

  Moving them constantly won' give them the security they need to feel, Pepper. You know that. If we clean out the hornet's nest, which we're goin' to do no matter what, then the bayou will be safe for them. That's my job. To make all of you safe.

  Pepper's heart fluttered. A small shiver crept down her spine. Such simplicity. Wyatt spoke as if he meant every word, and she was connected to him. In his mind. She could feel his resolution. As much as it terrified her to rely on or trust another human being, she knew this one wasn't lying to her. She was there. In his head.

  She was so tired of trying to figure out how to keep the children safe by herself. There were three of them. Most of the time she was just trying to stay alive with them. She didn't know family. She didn't do family. Wyatt was all about family. She couldn't stop looking at his face as he interacted with Ginger.

  He was beautiful. Truly beautiful. His bone structure. His dark, beautiful eyes surrounded by long lashes. All that thick, wavy hair. He was the most sensual man she'd ever seen, and she'd seen a lot of men. Her world had been mainly men. Very few women were brought in to work at the school or in the field with them.

  She had the urge to sink her fingers into his hair and put her mouth to his - that mouth she couldn't stop thinking about. For once in her life, she wanted to be kissed by someone who saw her. Saw past her looks and all the enhancements Braden had made to make her so alluring. She wanted to be seen. She had a feeling Wyatt Fontenot saw her.

  Wyatt turned his attention back to the child. Ginger watched his face intently and then switched her gaze to Pepper, as if she knew they had been communicating telepathically. He knew there was always energy pushed into the air when there was any kind of movement, and psychic movement felt different. Most GhostWalkers knew when another used it.

  He hadn't felt energy coming off Pepper or the child. He was uncertain which of them, or maybe it was both of them, could shield their energy from other soldiers like he could. He held out his arms when he realized the baby was nervous.

  "Come here, Ginger. Sit right between us. You can touch Pepper gen
tly and give her a kiss if you want to. That will make her feel so much better. Can I look at your arm and make sure it's healing properly?" The sight of her little arm bandaged sickened him.

  Wyatt looked down at Pepper's face, wanting to read her expression when the little girl came close. There was no fear at all, only love. Her eyes glowed softly, and her smile was warm. She looked almost transformed. He thought she was beautiful from the moment he'd laid eyes on her, but now, in spite of the harrowing night, her face, as she looked at the child, was more beautiful than ever.

  She might as well have given birth to Ginger. She couldn't have loved her any more than a birth mother. He knew the baby had been born to a surrogate, a woman who had carried the mixed cocktail for Whitney or Braden, whichever had ordered the experiment, but when he studied Pepper's face and Ginger's, his mind tricked him into seeing similarities.

  This child really was conceived in a test tube?

  It was difficult to think that even from birth Ginger had never had a parent who cared. It was even worse to go all the way back to when she was first conceived, realizing she didn't have two people who loved her coming together. That knowledge somehow made him feel as if a monster in a lab from a horror movie had thrown ingredients together to concoct her.

  Yes. Pepper reached out with one hand, sliding it along the bed until she caught Ginger's fingers in her own.

  Wyatt's heart performed a curious somersault in his chest when he saw the tiny little fingers curling around Pepper's. The hand was so small and perfect lying in Pepper's palm. His heart actually ached. That was the healer side of him, that sentimental idiot who had believed in happy-ever-after endings.

  He didn't want to feel that way about these two females. He wanted to see them as nothing but problems - preferably someone else's. He couldn't get over the resemblance between Ginger and Pepper. Ginger's hair was dark and wavy, a baby's hair. She had a small dimple that appeared occasionally on the right side of her mouth. Pepper didn't, but her mouth was Pepper's mouth. They had the same high cheekbones and oval face. He looked into her dark eyes, so dark, yet he could see the beginnings of a faint amber ring, surrounding the darkness, much like Pepper's eyes.