A Jaguar's Kiss

FOURTEEN

Saban sat outside the little brick house, outside Buffalo Gap, outside period.

Natalie’s bedroom light was on. She’d left the curtains cracked just the slightest bit, and he’d warned her about that. Warned her to the point that he had started closing them at night himself, just to make certain they were secure.

Well, maybe not just to make certain they were secure. Her bedroom was like this hive of scents. Everywhere he turned there was another subtle tease of a scent that made up Natalie. Her perfume, the smell of her soap and shampoo mingling, the scent of passion on her sheets, of frustration on her pillows. The smell of the feminine struggle against the male dominant force. Her unconscious, wary battle to hold back her own needs, her hungers, even as the scent of those needs and hungers reached out to him.

Hell. He rubbed his hand over his face in frustration. How could he have been so wrong? Dammit, Natalie wasn’t a fickle woman. Fickle had a scent, just as deceit, dishonesty, and depravity had a scent. There was nothing fickle in what he smelled from his mate.

Stubborn. Eh, she had vast quantities of stubborn. Distrust, she had a fairly healthy dose of that as well. But her character was strong, pure.

He leaned his head back against the seat with a rough growl. He remembered clearly his rage when he realized what she had done. She had risked her life, risked the life they could have together, and her own soul with the horror she would have faced if Amburg had managed to take her. All to save the worthless hide of an ex-husband.

But hadn’t she also nearly wrecked the vehicle Callan had given her that first week to avoid a lame dog in the middle of the road that couldn’t move quick enough? Then, sweet mercy, what had that female done? She had gotten out of the car and approached it, despite its terrified growls and dazed eyes.

She had risked herself then as well. And him. He still carried the mark of that mangy mutt’s teeth in his leg where it had bitten him. All because molasses-brown eyes had been filled with tears, and his mate’s soft heart had decided the bastard deserved to live.

It could have rabies, yet, there he had been, risking his neck for a wounded, enraged animal so she wouldn’t risk hers.

Could Mike be no more than a stray that she feared he would euthanize?

Or was he attempting to make excuses for himself and the woman who owned his soul?

He inhaled warily, looked at the digital time displayed on the dashboard of his truck, and grimaced. It was nearly three in the morning. Natalie was still awake; he had seen her shadow pass the slit in the curtains. He knew the enforcers, Shiloh Gage and Mercury Warrant, were still awake.

Two of the most contrary Breeds ever born were Shiloh and Mercury. No doubt they were in different rooms, in opposite corners waiting, like a cat on a mouse, for the unwary.

No wonder Natalie was pacing the floors. When those two were on guard duty, conversation was in very short supply.

Damn. He’d sat out here in the dark feeling fucking sorry for himself long enough. He wasn’t going to have the answers he needed until he confronted her, until he asked her why she risked herself for her ex-husband. And he would have his answers.

He was man enough to accept that she had loved before, but he’d be damned if he was man enough to accept that those emotions could still remain for another man.

Pushing the truck door open, he moved from the vehicle, closing and locking it with a flick of the security button on the key before heading to the house.

The front door opened before he stepped to the porch, and Shiloh stepped outside, quietly closing the door behind her before leaning against the doorframe.

Dressed in black, her long, dark hair pulled back tight from her face, her dark gold eyes gleaming in the moonlight, she looked exactly as she was: a powerful predator, a force to be reckoned with.

She was considered the brat of Sanctuary, a bit spoiled, definitely a shade arrogant, but she had a kind heart. And from her expression, she had managed to find a bit of sympathy for Natalie.

“Shiloh.” He stepped onto the porch.

“Broussard.” She smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant.

Shiloh wasn’t known for her even temperament, but she was known for her ability to hurt a man. In ways he was sure even the Council wouldn’t have approved of.

He stopped and stared back at her evenly. “Are you gonna let me into that house, Shi?”

She looked out into the night before bringing her gaze back to him.

“She’s cried most of the evening.” There was a hint of a hiss in her voice. “Since when is it okay to make your mate miserable, Saban? This damned place reeks of her misery.”

“I’ll take care of her,” he assured the enforcer. “You have your own things to take care of. I thank you for coming here and taking care of her for me.”

She sniffed at the gratitude but moved away from the door before opening it and heading for the steps.

Mercury moved from the darkness beyond, nodding easily to Saban before he followed the other enforcer and disappeared into the night.

Saban stepped into the house, locked the door, and checked the security system before heading for the stairs.

Strangely, it wasn’t misery that the house reeked of, it was anger. Hot, brilliant, and definitely female.

He moved up the stairs, slid into the hallway, and approached her closed door. Beyond that door lay ecstasy. The bed he had shared with his mate, the scent of their passion, the knowledge, complete and overwhelming, that this woman belonged to him, no matter the evidence to the contrary.

This insanity where she thought she could save the world and those hapless males drawn to trouble because of their own stupidity was going to have to stop though.

He clenched his teeth as the scent of anger grew sharper here, firing the hormone-laced adrenaline, pounding in his head with a primal urge to show her, to enforce his dominance over her. To ensure this never happened again.

Never, ever, would she take another’s side against him. If he felt blood needed to be shed, then he would shed it. He didn’t need her standing between him and danger or between him and his own conscience.

She had no idea the blood he had already shed in his fight to survive. Standing between him and one weak-kneed, paranoid little son of a bitch wasn’t going to make a difference, and she needed to learn that right quick.

He gripped the doorknob, pushed the door open, and with a quick widening of his eyes ducked to avoid whatever heavy object was sailing through the air toward his head.

“Dammit, Natalie!” He ducked again and quickly sidestepped another projectile. Some kind of white ceramic creature he guessed as it shattered against the doorframe as the door slammed closed. “That’s enough.”

“I’ll show you enough!” The bedside clock flew at his head and struck his shoulder with a resounding whack. The pain was minimal, but he didn’t have to give her a chance to perfect her aim. He jumped for her.

She was fast, but she wasn’t fast enough. Hooking his arm around her waist, he tossed her to the bed, coming down on her quickly. He straddled her thighs, gripped her wrists in one hand, and held her securely to the bed.

The short robe she wore had worked to her thighs, the loosely belted front slipped open, revealing hard little nipples and swollen, flushed breasts.

The pert mounds bounced as she struggled against him and had his cock straining against his zipper, desperate to be free. The scent of anger and desire filled the room. The heat of it flushed her cheeks and made her eyes darker.

And the scent of pain. It was carefully masked beneath the anger, but he could smell her hurt, sense it in the air around them.

“You dirty bastard, get off me,” she screamed. “Get off me, and get out of my house. Go back to wherever the hell you came from. I don’t want you here.”

Those were tears glittering in her eyes, the damp sheen making her eyes more luminous, darker, sweeter than ever.

Leaning toward her, he let the low, warning rumble in his chest free. The rough, primal sound only had her eyes narrowing, her face flushing deeper.

“That growling thing is not working on me,” she snapped. “You left. You left me with Breeds that wouldn’t even speak to me. But even worse, moron, you left me hurting!”

He had a feeling she wasn’t talking about arousal or mating heat.

“And how, mate, did I leave you hurting?” He snarled. “By not trusting you? By deceiving you and placing my life deliberately in danger? Deliberately choosing another over my mate! Did I do this?”

“What you did was so much worse,” she panted, her voice rasping. “You left me, Saban. You left when you swore you would never leave me.” A single tear caressed her cheek. “You lied to me.”

Yes, he had. He wiped the tear from her cheek with his thumb, feeling the guilt that rode inside him.

“I came back.” He wasn’t going to be swayed by tear-filled eyes.

“At three o’clock in the morning,” she sneered.

Saban almost smiled. She sounded like a wife, and the knowledge filled him with a sense of excitement rather than anger. She could keep a time card on him whenever she pleased.

“Why did you go to him?” He asked the question, hating himself for it, hating the anger that filled him because of it. “I nearly lost you, Natalie. I would have lost my soul if anything had happened to you. Why? Why would you fucking take that risk? Is he so important to you?”

“You’re that important to me.” She jerked, raising her head until they were nearly nose to nose, flames flickering in her dark eyes. “I wanted him gone. I wanted him to leave, and I didn’t want you to have to kill him to achieve it.”

Saban shook his head in confusion. The way this woman’s mind worked, he would never figure her out.

“What made you think you could make him leave? Even if the Council soldiers hadn’t been involved, Natalie. What in God’s name made you think he would listen to you?”

She breathed out heavily and glared back at him.

“Tell me.” He snarled.

Her gaze became cutting, furious. “Because he knows me, Saban. I threw him out of our house; I divorced him despite his pleas. Once he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he didn’t have a chance, he would have left. He would have hated me, and that was fine, but he would have left.”

“And what could you have said to convince him of it when fear of me didn’t?” He growled. “For God’s sake, Natalie, there’s nothing you could have said.”

“I could have told him I love you!” she cried, shocking him to silence. “I could have told him that if he didn’t leave, then I’d not stand between him and your fists ever again. Damn you. I could have made him see reason.”

“Why would you want to?” He shook his head. She had said she loved him, and she meant it. He could see it in her eyes, in her face, he could smell the sweet, burning scent of it now. She loved him.

“Because I can’t stand to see animals or fools bloody and dying. Geez, Saban, letting you loose on him would be like letting an alligator free in a chicken house. Complete annihilation.”

“You were protecting him,” he growled.

She rolled her eyes! Right there, staring right at him, she rolled her eyes at him as though he were an idiot. It shouldn’t have pleased him, but it filled him with pride.

“No, asshole, I was protecting you from defending yourself against a murder charge,” she snapped back. “If you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly rational where he’s concerned.”

“Because he’s consorting with Council scientists,” he yelled impatiently, glowering down at her. “For God’s sake, Natalie—”

“Well, I didn’t know he was that stupid,” she muttered. “Intense, yes; paranoid, sure; that’s Mike Claxton, but he didn’t used to be incredibly stupid.”

He shook his head, amazement filling him. “You’re serious.” He couldn’t believe it. “You expected me to be rational when he was clearly violent toward you—”

“He’s never hit me.”

“No, he would just turn you over to monsters.” His voice was rising. “Trust me, you’d have preferred that he try to hit you.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Not the point?” He was going to pull his own hair out.

“The point is,” her voice softened, “I love you, Saban. I’d have done just about anything, said anything to get him out of our lives. I thought Mike was smarter than he was. I was wrong. I was wrong, and it will never happen again.” Her voice hitched as her eyes filled with tears again. “But it won’t change the fact that you left me, that you couldn’t even look at me or find out for yourself why I felt I had to do it. Nothing will change that.”

“That, mate, is where you are wrong.”