by Seere, Diana
What had her body been doing all these years, hiding this potential from her? Lord, if she’d known sex could be like this, she might never have gotten out of bed to finish grad school.
He sucked her ear into his mouth, and again she was aroused by the feel of his teeth, remembering his wolf form, knowing this controlled man on the outside was actually a wild, powerful beast. And he wanted her. He didn’t want to want her… but he couldn’t help himself.
Shouting again, this time with an edge of pleasurable agony, Asher’s thrusts became more urgent, hurried, and deep. He was even bigger and thicker now, pounding into her willing, wet, ravenous body.
She dug her nails into him, imagining they were claws, wanting to scratch him, wishing she could let go the way he could and embrace his true other nature. But this was something she could feel but not touch. It was only a dream. A wild dream she had dismissed years ago, no matter how frequently the visions came or for how many years, even long before she’d ever known that shapeshifters were very, very real.
He shuddered into her. She held him, riding the climax together until he finally stilled with a long, unfettered sigh.
Cradled in his arms, she was heedless of the Bugatti under her bare skin. Throughout all of it, supernaturally strong, he’d supported her hips, her waist, her shoulders. The only bruises would be on her heart—
Forever, she heard him say. Yours.
Her heart responded with a shout of joy, beating in time with his.
“Oh, Asher,” she whispered. “Is this… Is this the Beat?”
He lifted his head and gazed into her eyes. This man she had desired and admired for so long was now inside her, looking at her as if…
“Hello there!” boomed a friendly voice.
Asher’s muscles went taut. For a moment he froze, holding her firmly in his arms.
“Don’t worry, Edward. Asher’s in here. He’s working on the Bugatti.” Derry’s chuckle echoed through the garage.
“Oh no,” Sam gasped.
To shield her from view, Asher curled his body around hers in spite of the fact that his bare ass was being viewed by his bear brother. His rigid, authoritative voice returned. “Get. Out.”
“But we wanted to make sure it was you, Asher,” Derry continued. “Edward and I know how much you value the new security measures in your garage, so when we saw the door was open, we were of course under a brotherly obligation to check—”
“Out!” Asher boomed. When Sam flinched, he spoke softly into her ear. “Apologies, darling.”
Darling. He’d called her darling. She almost didn’t care about the view his brothers must’ve had of her ass and thighs and, hell, her soul.
“So sorry, Asher,” Edward called out. “We really didn’t know you and— You were in here doing— Busy.”
In a voice so cold Sam thought ice would form on the windshield of the Bugatti, Asher said, “Leave. Us. Now.”
The door slammed, and there was silence.
For the first time, Sam realized how hard the hood of the car was. And how clearly she had heard the two men’s voices, as if they were standing very close or as if her bad ear had cured itself.
“I am dreadfully sorry,” Asher said. “I will kill them upon first opportunity.”
Yes, her hearing was definitely better. Either that or he was talking in her mind. She wasn’t sure which she preferred.
“You’d better not do that,” she said. “It would make Jess and Molly sad.”
“Then I will have them all sent far away to some pleasant, well-protected, tropical location where they can enjoy their lives in peace.” He lifted her in his arms, putting her on her feet, handling her with the skill of a ballroom dancer. “So that you and I can enjoy ours.”
A shiver ran through her. She was afraid to hope. She cupped her hand on his cheek, felt the rough stubble, the strong jaw, the surprisingly soft skin below his eye.
“Oh, Ash—”
She cut herself off. The lights overhead were bright, clearly illuminating the odd shape of his pupils. For a moment she smiled, thinking he was about to shift into a wolf, a pleasure she’d been dying to see again and had been trying to think of a scientific reason to ask for a demonstration.
But his eyes were not a wolf’s eyes. The golden color, the sharp, elongating pupils…
“What is it?” he snapped.
“Your eyes…”
He pushed her away from him. “Don’t look at me.”
“But—”
“Don’t look at me!”
Without a kiss, without a word, he turned on his heel and ran out of the garage, each step more graceful, each step more horribly feline, than the last.
Chapter 7
“Manny,” Asher snapped as he closed the garage door firmly, vision changing while he fought the bizarre double viewing inside his mind. Pressing the alarm button that summoned security, he simultaneously added fingerprint lockdown, trapping Samantha in the secure garage until his team could move her.
For now, she would be safe.
“Yes, sir.” Manny’s voice crackled through the intercom. “We’ve located the target. A plane overhead, skating at low altitude. Roger’s on it with his team, but it looks like the plane moved already, disappearing north. Never filed a flight plan, so in stealth mode.”
The words shattered his sense of being, the reality that Tomas was closer than he’d imagined hitting his solar plexus, a physical jab that felt like a mocking smirk, a cat toying with an injured mouse.
“My brothers and sister? The babies?”
“They’re all in secure locations. We have an aviation threat plan we’re initiating. The ranch is already secure but will be in full lockdown protection mode within minutes.”
“Good,” Asher snapped. He could see a plane’s control panel, feel the padded headset Tomas wore, smell the cockpit’s scent that combined Tomas’ favored cologne, petrol, and upholstery. Long stretches of dark treetops and moonlit prairies filled the image centers of his mind.
He was seeing the world through a cat’s eyes.
And the Stanton ranch was in the line of sight.
Bristling at the notion of being victim to anyone else’s power, Asher took a long, deep breath, then told Manny, “Get Dr. Baird into the vault in the lab.”
The garage door handle jiggled, just enough for Asher to sigh, knowing what was next.
“Yes, sir. We’re on it. Do you need Dr. Santino? Are you… hurt?” Manny asked.
Naked, smelling of sex, in a half-fevered madness from that all-consuming passion that made him commune with Samantha in the oddest of locations, Asher looked down to find the scar on his hip a bright, angry red, the black outlines of the scar raising slightly, as if Tomas himself were trying to emerge out of Asher’s body.
“No,” Asher lied. “No. Your focus is on Dr. Baird.”
“Asher!” Muffled banging came from the other side of the door. “Asher? Are you there! I’m locked in here. Help!”
Pressing his hot forehead against the cool metal, he let her knocks, then insistent bangs of frustration, vibrate through him. His breath was her breath, his heart was her heart, and if he didn’t stop this connection between them, Tomas Nagy could find a way into her mind, too.
Asher felt it. Knew it.
Hated it.
“You’re safe,” he whispered. “Safe from Tomas.”
And me.
What he’d seen back there, the flash just after sex had ended, Asher’s mind inserted inside Tomas, the cat eyes looking down at the Stanton estate, glowing electric lights turning the quiet fortress into a gleaming target in the moonlight, infuriated him to the core. A plane, Manny had said. That made sense. What was Tomas doing? What was his goal?
And how in the hell was Asher inside his old friend’s mind?
“Asher!” Samantha demanded. “Let me out!”
Bang bang bang.
He closed his eyes, letting the air pump his chest to an impossibly wide degree, blood flow
ing into hands that were slowly elongating. Fingers curled into claws. His vision narrowed. Scent became excruciatingly precise and hauntingly evocative.
Rarely did Asher allow himself the luxury of shifting for the sake of escape, but if ever there were a time to clear his mind and go into primal mode, it was now.
Licking his lips, he waited, ready to argue with her, to let Samantha have her say even if he would not budge. Her protection was paramount.
Her anger was secondary.
A thick, hard thud made the metal door shudder. A few seconds later, it happened again, followed by the sound of metal against metal, then a clanging sound. An alarm began to ring on the keypad panel.
“Sir?” Manny’s voice cracked from the intercom. “Dr. Baird is using various tools inside the garage to dismantle the exterior door. She’s broken off the handle and is attempting to remove the hinges— Wait. We have surveillance video in there, and we’re watching her. There’s a… precision to her movements. She’s… Oh no. No! She’s hurting the Bugatti!”
“Hurting? How in the hell do you hurt a car?” Asher demanded.
“Now she’s using a large panel from the Bugatti to ram the door.” Manny, a lover of cars, sounded scandalized, nearly to the point of weeping.
“I will dismantle every one of these cars in here, you sick bastard, if you think you can just sleep with me and then turn me into a prisoner without telling me what’s going on!” Samantha screamed through the door, the muted tones louder now. It wasn’t because she increased her volume, Asher realized.
It was because his hearing was sharpening.
“I had a robotics fellowship in grad school, and every car in here will be nothing but buckets of bolts in half an hour if you don’t let me out!” she continued. “You asshole! You can’t do this to me!”
I don’t want to, Asher thought, muscles swelling, blood pumping faster, faster, faster through his body. But I have no choice.
I must protect you.
An engine revved in the garage, suddenly loud, the whine of a motorcycle roaring like a lion.
Bam! The door dented.
My God. Was she driving one of Edward’s precious machines into the door?
“Manny, tell me she’s wearing a motorcycle helmet!” His finger wavered at the keypad, ready to unlock the door if it meant she would not harm herself. Stubborn to an extreme, Samantha was proving to be more complex than Asher had ever dreamed.
Or hoped.
“Yes. She is. Sir?” Manny moaned. “We’re doing our best, but maybe you need to let her out so we can…” In the background, Manny boomed into other communications devices, clearly rushing his team.
My Bugatti! Asher thought, though the emotion attached to his $40 million prize faded fast as fur replaced skin, his jaw popping as he gave in to the deliciously ripe sense of pure power that always accompanied his shifts, all four limbs on the ground, back thick and straight, his ears aching with so much sound.
Ah, he thought before words disappeared from his mind.
I must save them all.
* * *
Sam rolled the motorcycle to one side of the dented door, deciding it was too dangerous to use the bike to get out of the garage. It wasn’t worth breaking her legs to make her point. It would only give Asher an excuse to patronize her even more than he was doing already.
“Dammit, Asher!” she shouted, parking the motorcycle and dismounting. “The Rolls is next, I swear to God!”
The door, scuffed and concave, began to squeak inward. Sam wiped the sweat off her brow and prepared her best arguments about why he was a horrible man, a terrible lover, a criminal kidnapper, and if he didn’t ask her to marry him right now and take her to his bed forever, she was going to kill him.
Scratch the terrible lover part. Everything else was true, though.
But it wasn’t Asher who walked through the door. It was Manny. Waving a white handkerchief.
“Dr. Baird, please, it’s me, Manny. Manny. Remember me? Please calm down.”
She swept a long strand of hair out of her eyes. “I’m calm,” she said, chest heaving. “Where’s Asher?”
“He’s gone, Dr. Baird. There’s an emergency. The ranch is under Red Level lockdown. We need to get you to safety.”
She looked around the trashed garage. She could’ve easily crushed herself under the Triumph. Her hands were scratched and bloody from breaking as much, as quickly, as possible. And her left ear was throbbing like hell. “Tomas?” She spoke sharply, refusing to be treated like a useless, brainless plaything.
“Please come with me to the lab,” Manny said.
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me the cause of the lockdown. Is Tomas nearby? Yes or no.”
His gaze drifted to the door panel of the Bugatti. Which was on the floor.
“Yes,” he said, wiping something off his cheek. Was that a tear?
“Where?”
With a pleading tone, he brought his hands together and fell to one knee. “Please, Dr. Baird. Please let me walk with you to the lab before anything else—anyone—gets hurt. Please. Mr. Asher and a security team is fanning out to search for Tomas, but with you at risk…”
“How am I at risk? I’m right here.” But she took pity on the truly ravaged expression on his face. And he had dropped to one knee, which was more than Asher had done. “Don’t worry about the car. I removed the door without hurting anything. I just wanted to get his attention.”
He smiled with obvious relief and got to his feet. “Understandable, ma’am. Mr. Asher doesn’t always listen as well as he might, according to Mr. Gavin.” He cleared his throat. “Please don’t tell either of them I told you that.”
“Tell me how close Tomas is.”
“Very, very close. Flew over in a plane,” he said softly. He glanced at the motorcycle, its front fender crushed from the impact with the door. “Now will you please come with me?”
Only because she didn’t want to stay in the garage a moment longer and because she felt some sympathy for Manny, she agreed to return to the lab, where she was afraid she would also be locked up “for her own safety.”
Oh, that man. That pigheaded… wolf-headed… cat-eyed…
If Asher was experiencing such unprecedented changes, perhaps she could learn more by studying him in the lab. She certainly wouldn’t learn anything in the garage.
“Lead away,” she said, adjusting her clothes. She knew her hair must look as wild as she felt, and her lipstick was probably smudged into her aching temples by now. And she hoped the lab would have a basic first aid kit, because there was a bad gash on her left palm that needed cleaning and a bandage.
Just outside the garage, she and Manny were greeted by an army of security guards. Men and women in black, well-armed, cold-eyed, at least ten of them. If she were more than human herself, she would be able to tell, just by scent, which of them were shifters. But as she returned with the tall, muscular figures to the lab, she realized they might all be shifters. Asher wouldn’t trust anyone else.
The limitations of her own humanity struck her full force in the chest. It would always be like that, her feeling… less.
But she would get over it. She would. Her ego could overcome a little challenge.
When they reached the door of the lab she’d used before, Manny led them past it to another door around the corner. The lab was much more than she’d seen initially. It was much bigger than she’d seen from the garage, built into the ground with separate wings, its own garage and driveway, loading zone, industrial piping, wiring, water tanks, chemical storage, everything.
Manny ushered her into another entrance and then through a sealed glass door that led to a staircase. Fifteen steps down, then around another corner, another pair of sealed doors, a handprint and retina scan and then, finally, a studio apartment.
No, it was much more than a studio. More like a penthouse, except they were underground. Tubular skylights brought lightness into the warm, airy living room. An open kit
chen gleaming with modern appliances and brand-new marble countertops was on one side.
“The bedrooms are just past the home office,” Manny said.
“This is creepy,” Sam said. “I will not stay here. How long has Asher been planning on imprisoning me here? This must’ve taken months to build.” An angry shudder ran through her.
“Oh, no, Dr. Baird, it’s not like that. The original apartments were built decades ago. Each house, each cabin, even the boathouse, has emergency safe rooms tucked underground, just in case,” Manny said. “Shifters always build places like this because, well, they can be a bit paranoid. With good reason, don’t you think? Mr. Asher did have this one built to modern standards, imagining it might be you or Mr. Hayden who might be forced to take sanctuary here someday, what with the lab being here and all.”
“He would never build anything this nice for Zach,” Sam said. “Even if he did marry his sister.”
“Beg your pardon, but you’re wrong. Look in the closets of the second bedroom if you don’t believe me. Clothes for men and women. Your size, that of Mr. Hayden, several members of the staff, each of the lab techs.” Manny pulled a device out of his pocket and brought it to his ear. “I’ll be there in five.”
The thought of being locked below ground filled her with panic. “You can’t leave me down here. At least let me into the lab where I can work—”
“Of course. You have full access to everything within the building. Every door will open to you.” He began walking away, then running. “I have to go. Don’t worry, a full team of my people are surrounding the building.”
“I don’t want a whole team—”
The door slammed behind him. To make sure he’d been telling the truth, she hurried after him. The doors opened. She followed him up the stairs and through the doors until she was facing the internal entrance to the lab. Outside, she saw two men guarding the door and Manny striding away with a third. A dark memory of Tomas washed over her. He’d been the type to harass women at work, especially those without the power to fight back. Even before she found out about the harassment, she hadn’t liked him. And now that he was threatening the life of people everywhere, shifter and human, she wished nothing but the end of him. A swift death.
