There lying on the floor of the hatch was a woman curled up and passed out that smelled like honey. Dev almost didn’t resist the urge to lick her while rubbing against her, so she smelled like him.
With murder in his eyes he walked back to his brothers, if even one of them tried to touch her, he knew he would kill them. His bloodlust rose up, and there was no way to control it.
“What did you find?” Lore asked as he and Ben took a few steps backward. They had seen that look before. It was on Tane’s face as he contemplated killing Jay.
“I found honey, and she’s mine.” Dev’s eyes darkened the pupils changed shape, and his claws grew waiting for a rival to try and take her from him.
“Calm down, Dev.” Lore slowly raised his hands to show he wasn’t a threat as his gaze swung to the open hatch of the SUV and the female that lay sleeping there.
A rolling rumble came from Dev making Lore focus on him one more time.
“You can’t just claim a female and keep her.” Lore said relinquishing the idea that she was a woman. No, the government had experimented on that female and then sent her in to capture them. No, they sent her in to capture Dev. She must be one of the females the government was turning into mates for their escaped shifter males.
It was nice of them—the government and military to make females for them, but they had shit for timing.
“You can’t just decide to keep a female. That’s not our way. They want their freedom too.” Lore said again hoping to bypass the animals and find the male.
“Tell that to Tane. I’m only doing what he did.”
They could barely understand Dev his words slurred around his fangs.
The male turned and walked back to the SUV climbing into the hatch. His body moved until he was surrounding the female. His hands moved of their own accord rubbing the soft skin of her cheek. His nose pushed against her neck meeting no resistance as he inhaled deeply.
Sweet honey, he needed a taste.
*~*~*~*
She was warm, when was the last time she felt this good? She sighed and snuggled up against the hard body next to her. Since when had her on again off again boyfriend felt this good? Last time she remembered he was a little flabby in the middle. He must have started hitting the gym the way he always swore to.
Snuggling a little closer, she felt his massive cock next to her. Damn this must be a dream. Her boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, never felt like that snuggled up against her ass. She drifted deeper into the dream. Her dream man rubbed his erection on her while she moaned her approval. Her mind screamed wake up they needed to run, but she begged for five more minutes. She never got to experience a dream like this. If you can’t have it in real life, you might as well dream about it.
The feel of him rubbing against her neck was too good to lose. She just needed five more minutes.
“I looked for you everywhere. What took you so long to find me?” She asked her dream man, maybe if he answered she could find him in reality, and that killed the dream. What man would want to be paired with a side show act courtesy of the military?
Rissa’s eyes popped open to feel the very real possessive weight of a hand on her hip, flipping over she looked into the brown eyes of the male holding her and screamed.
Chapter Three
Rissa jumped back knowing that going for the hatch would put her in even more jeopardy as there were two other males staring in.
“Please, I mean you no harm. I just needed a place to sleep, and this place smelled so good.” Good going Rissa first they have you on breaking and entering although the hatch was unlocked. Now you tell them you did it because it smelled good.
“The hatch was unlocked, and I just needed a place to sleep.”
“All the doors were locked. I checked them before we left the vehicle,” Ben said challenging her
“All I know is the hatch was unlocked. You can examine it yourself to see I didn’t force it.” She inched back a little further the male sitting beside her was staring, but not saying a word.
She took in a deep breath his scent hitting her; he smelled of comfort. Get it together Rissa, men don’t smell of comfort.
“Please,” she said one more time. How she hated begging but she needed to be free, and they had to let her go. “I’m sorry for napping in your vehicle if you just move away from the door I’ll be on my way.”
She used her best I’m not a threat smile and tried to channel happy from the days when she used to be that very thing.
The males outside turned to look at the male beside her.
“No,” he practically growled. If she were faint of heart or even timid, she’d back down, but he was making her animal rise. Unfortunately, he was also turning her animal on.
Her eyes took him in. He had thick auburn hair and deep brown eyes. His body was thick, and muscular reminding her of a football player in great shape.
Not knowing what else to do she threw herself over the back seat and scuttled out the door on her behind before she began running flat out. She wouldn’t let them capture her and take her back.
A growl followed her making her feet falter. She looked around to see him running after her. She pumped her arms and legs faster she had to get away. They wouldn’t torture her again. Her body collapsed, it refused to move another inch. Hunger and exhaustion took its toll as he came to stand over her. She had failed.
“Please…don’t hurt me,” those were her last words before she passed out.
Dev reached down and picked her up carrying her like she was the most precious person on the face of the earth.
“We need food and water for her.” He climbed into the back seat holding her carefully.
“Ben,” Lore said never taking his eyes off of Dev. “We need a cooler, ice, lunchmeat and the fixings, chips, water, etc…Get extra’s we’ll be hungry later too. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.”
Ben nodded and took off going the way they came.
Lore climbed into the front seat of the vehicle after closing the hatch and the other doors.
“Dev, we should talk about this. Come to some sort of agreement.”
“Reach into my bag and turn the other interference jammers on.”
Lore reached over and pulled out several jamming devices making sure they were on.
“You think they are tracking her?”
“I think it’s not a coincidence she ended up in this town the same time we ended up here.”
Lore nodded and started the SUV. “Dev…”
“Not now I can’t think straight. Her smell is all around me, and the thought that you or Ben might try to take her from me is messing with my head.”
That was as much of a warning that he was able to give. If they even touched her, he knew there would be bloodshed.
Lore took the long way to the grocery store looking to see if anyone was following them. Ben was waiting for them when they arrived.
“What now?” Ben asked. He placed the cooler, ice, and fixings in the hatch before he climbed up front.
“We get out of this town, ditch this ride then see what we can do about making sure she is tracker free,” Dev answered his eyes never leaving the female.
Lore took off making sure to check on Dev in the backseat. He was the picture of contentment as he held the sleeping female against him.
He stroked her hair. It was the color of flames calling out to him. If he closed his eyes, he could see her light gray eyes. They were mysterious beckoning him to get closer. Her body was small, she looked like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. He fought down a growl. She had begged him not to hurt her, which meant she’d been mistreated just like Leza. The government had a lot to be held accountable for. Her little frame was curvy; it shouted that she should have extra weight on her. He would get her back up to what she should be. He swore he would take care of her now if only she would let him.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to relax knowing his brothers would be on guard.
*~*~*~*
&n
bsp; She woke up her head snuggled against something hard and hot. She moved her cheek liking the heat and the scent invading her nostrils. Wake up. The voice in her head insisted. Five more minutes please, she couldn’t remember the last time she slept and felt this good at the same time. It was the whisper caress against her cheek that made her body still and her senses go on high alert.
Someone was holding her, not causing her pain, but she knew how the guards liked to play tricks. She stiffened her backbone and waited for the first blow to land somewhere on her body.
“I know you’re awake.” That same deep voice from earlier whispered in her ear.
Her eyes flew opened no longer able to pretend she was asleep to avoid the beating she knew was coming.
“What now?” Anger flashed in her gray eyes. “You beat me or do you pretend everything’s fine and strike out at me when I’m not suspecting it?”
“They treated you bad.” Dark laughter emerged from her lips.
Treated her bad? Did they know any other way to treat someone? She had been thrown into a dark hole with rats like so many of the other women that they held, but there were the individual tortures. The ones they specialized for each female.
If she closed her eyes, she could still hear the hiss and the slither along the bottom of the hole. She shivered praying never to go back there and raised her head to look into his warm brown eyes.
It’s a trap Rissa he’s working for them don’t fall for it.
“Where are we?” She moved to find that she was snuggled on his lap covered in the blanket that she wrapped up in earlier. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Eight hours. I thought you might sleep longer you were so tired. We’re on the highway headed towards a small town to swap cars and take care of your trackers.”
“Trackers?” He nodded.
“Are you hungry?”
Her body tensed up; she would kill for food. The animal they placed inside of her was starving, and she was willing to kill anything man or beast for something to eat.
With a controlled move she nodded. “Food would be good.”
He slid her onto the seat next to him before turning over on his knees and rummaging in the back of the SUV. He came out with bread and the fixings for a sandwich. Her stomach made a loud growling noise, and she slid closer to the door to keep herself from attacking him.
She watched with rapt attention as he placed a paper plate on the seat between them and made her a thick sandwich. Her tongue peeked out between her lips to wet them. Then he opened a bag of chips and placed a generous amount on the plate next to the sandwich. He slid the plate towards her with his fingertips making sure to keep his hand away from her.
She grabbed the plate and stuffed chips in her mouth while she chomped noisily on them. Taking the sandwich, she took a large bite while she looked at the two males in the front seat making sure they weren’t reaching for her food or her. She ate fast packing as much away as possible not sure when she would get another meal.
He slid a bottle of cold water over to her. He—she needed a better name for him. Maybe she could call him the male, but that would probably become tricky if she ever decided to acknowledge the other males in the car. With a twist of the cap, she had the bottle raised to her lips and drained it. The cap hadn’t been tampered with, so she knew the water was fine, but the food might have been laced with drugs to knock her out. She waited to see what would happen.
He made her another plate with a thick sandwich and more chips and slowly pushed it towards her. She wanted to grab it, but her initial hunger had abated, and if the food was laced with poison or something else as deadly, she shouldn’t take any more of it into her system.
He reached over and picked the sandwich up and took a big bite of it. Her animal wanted to growl, but it understood that he was telling her it was safe. Hesitantly she reached over and grabbed the plate eating the rest of the sandwich and the chips. He gave her another bottle of water, and she finally felt stuffed enough to calm down—a little.
She could go days, maybe a week or two before she needed to eat again. The military had starved her so much she learned to do without food.
A casual glance out the window let her know they were going much too fast to jump out the car. She might be able to manage it when they slowed down to enter a town. That’s when she would risk it. She took a deep breath smelling comfort once more but this time with her stomach full and the threat of being hurt in the background she smelled something else.
There was a menagerie of animals in the vehicle with her, but she couldn’t see them. A more thorough look around the SUV proved there was only the four of them in it.
Once again she looked at him—the male. This time, his brown eyes were bright almost as if they were shining. She drifted just a little closer and sniffed picking up the heavy scent of an animal. Letting out a scream of horror she dived for the door; it would be better to be torn apart by the oncoming cars than by the animals in the one with her.
He’d been waiting for her reaction knew it was coming. She was so starved that barely any of her senses were working. All she could do at first was peg them as military, and since that’s what they used to be, he took it as a positive sign.
When he saw the feral look in her eyes, he knew she was close to attacking. The first thing he needed to do was appease her hunger and thirst. Now she was reaching for the handle to the door as he threw his body across hers preventing her from opening it.
“Think,” he growled in her ear. “If we’re like you why would we hurt you? Come on they don’t pick the unintelligent for the transformation. Ask yourself the questions.”
Her struggling body slowly calmed down. He held her still for a few minutes longer trying to make sure she wouldn’t go for the door when he let her go.
She looked at all three of them before asking the only question that mattered.
“Your all shifters. Are you working for or against the military?”
Chapter Four
“Against.” His tone was clipped leaving her no room for doubt.
“How did you get away?”
“Good question and one I was planning on asking you. There were several of us, an informal squad that came together in the hellhole where they kept us. When they placed animals in us, they should have known that we would escape. How did you escape?”
She licked her lips a nervous habit she still had. A slow move of her eyes allowed her to see everyone sitting in the car with her. The two up front were looking straight ahead like they weren’t paying attention, but she knew better. They were all focused on her words.
“There was a rebellion. It should have never happened, but it did. The women, no not women, the females were tired and scared, and one of the guards told them they could be free if they had what it took to run. They didn’t, we didn’t, but we would rather be shot running for our lives than placed in that dark hole one more time.
“I think I was an afterthought. They kept me so far away from the others, when the rebellion started I was stuck in my cage. I knew I wasn’t getting away, that I would feel the brunt of the anger for those that managed to slip past the guards. That’s when my cage opened. I wasn’t sure if the electricity went or what happened I just ran. When I made it outside the women were gone, and I was on my own. I’ve been wandering ever since trying to keep ahead of the military.”
“How have you been eating?”
Her shoulders straightened, and she looked proud even as she looked devastated.
“I stole some food, and I’ve been living off leftovers people leave on their plates. When I can’t get that, I search the trash.”
She wouldn’t defend herself by telling them that she didn’t have cash or credit. There wasn’t even a job to go back to. She hated to admit it mostly because it pissed her off and made her want to kill, but her job sold her out. They left her up there knowing what would happen to her. Maybe they didn’t know the exact details, but they knew enough to know whoeve
r came for her would hurt her.
“Life isn’t easy when you're sharing your body with an animal. You do what you have to, to stay alive and not kill anyone.”
She looked at him, this time she didn’t let his looks stop her or even the fact that he carried an animal inside of him. She looked closer to see what kind of male he was. What she saw made her edge a little closer to the door. He was good. Not kind of good, but good to his core so she clung to the door because if she didn’t, she would be clinging to him.
He was the kind of good she looked for her whole life. Her so called friends all wanted a bad boy, but she knew what a bad boy could do to you. She never wanted to walk that road again. Now here he was her prayers answered, and she couldn’t even take advantage of it. Why? Because they would catch her. She didn’t have the skill to live in the world on her own. All she deserved was a cage for the rest of her unnatural life, and she wouldn’t take him or his friends down with her.
“What happens next? You drop me off at the next town?”
He growled whatever animal was in him didn’t like what she was saying. Too bad it had to be like that. This was her one chance at freedom.
“We could if that’s what you want.” The one driving said.
She found herself shrinking back, his voice grated. It took every inch of control she learned to keep from moving closer to the male who seemed like her salvation.
Trust no one. That was her motto, the only one that kept her alive was her.
“Why don’t we wait, take each minute as it comes. You can sit back here, get to know me. That way you’ll know we don’t want to hurt you, just help you.”
Dev's Mate (Shifters on the run Book 2) Page 2
