Coyote's Mate

CHAPTER 6

She was warm. So warm she felt toasty and relaxed all over. Well, almost relaxed all over. There was that pesky arousal she couldn’t seem to get rid of in the past months. The dampness between her thighs, the ache in her clit, hard nipples.

And she had worn her bra to bed for some damned reason. She hated wearing a bra to bed. She would wake up enough to take it off, but that would mean pulling out of the pocket of warmth she had managed to find, and she wasn’t willing to do that.

She shifted closer, and realized she had to be dreaming again. Because it wasn’t a furnace she was hugging, it was a hard, clearly aroused male body.

Her lips tilted at the corners. She must be surely desperate to be dreaming this well. She hadn’t dreamed like this in, well, days maybe. But she had never been warm in those dreams. She had been cold and frightened, confused and begging him to help her. To warm her, while he stared at her in confusion.

Del-Rey.

She still had moments when she was amazed that such an incredible creation had ever touched plain, plump little Anya Kobrin. Her father had always told her she was mother material, and that one day she would find a good man that would appreciate that in her. The men she knew went for the tall, slender, beautiful women. Not the short, plump ones like her.

But from the moment she had first met Del-Rey, when she was around him, she didn’t feel plump or plain. She had felt excited and warm, tingling all over. At sixteen she had had her first seriously sexual dream, and they hadn’t stopped.

So yes, this was definitely a seriously whacked dream, because Del-Rey wouldn’t be holding her.

He hadn’t held her after he’d had sex with her that first and only time, and he wouldn’t be merely holding her now to keep her warm. Not with that erection she could feel pressing between her clenched thighs.

He was just as large as she remembered, she thought with sleepy wonder. So thick and heavy.

She’d felt every rasp of every bulging vein in that wide shaft as it pushed inside her that night.

The pleasure/pain of it had been nearly more than she could stand. The shocking events that came later, though, had nearly thrown her into a catatonic shock.

He had been large already, but as he’d begun releasing inside her, another secondary swelling had grown in the middle of that hot, hard cock. He had knotted her. Animal genetics had kicked in like a bitch—that’s how Dr. Armani had explained it.

It was part of the mating heat. Part of the changes that occurred in both male and female once mating occurred. It was something the world wasn’t aware of, and something Anya knew wouldn’t help the Breeds if it were known.

She let herself touch him. She was asleep, and this was her dream. She liked this dream better than most too, because she could feel the warmth of his body. She could pet him as she wanted to.

Wouldn’t the big, tough Coyote Breed alpha be shocked to know that she longed to pet him?

Even when she had hated him the most, she had been on the verge of begging him to just let her touch him, let her share the warmth of his body.

Her hand smoothed over his shoulder, his biceps. Timid fingers tested the hard muscles beneath tough flesh. She stroked down his arm as it lay over her hips. She let her nails scrape over his skin, enjoying the ripple of response beneath her touch.

Okay, that was a new sensation in her little dreamscape. She didn’t normally feel that.

Beneath her lips, more warmth beckoned. The taste of salty male flesh met her tongue as she licked over a hard pectoral muscle. A response rippled there as well, tightened beneath her tongue. She liked that. This dream was incredibly more satisfying than any other.

She thought perhaps she heard a groan or a growl, and filed it away to think about later. Would he growl when she touched him? She doubted it. He hadn’t wanted her touch before, just her kiss. He hadn’t wanted foreplay or warmth, just the main event.

She pouted at the thought, and for damages ensued over the months, she nipped at his flesh, just to be contrary. Her dream lover would love that little nip.

And he did. He definitely growled. A sound of rough pleasure as his arms tightened around her and his cock twitched between her thighs.

That hard flesh was pressed against her sex, heating it as his hips moved, pressing it deeper between the notch of her thighs. He hadn’t bothered with just pressing against her belly. Nope, the dream Del-Rey was just as arrogant as the one she knew when she was awake. He had just gone ahead and pushed between her legs as though it were his right.

Arrogant Coyote.

Sometimes, she liked that arrogance a little too much. She didn’t like admitting it. She intended to take that secret to the grave with her, because she didn’t care what her father said to excuse Del-Rey’s actions, she wasn’t willing to excuse his lack of trust in her.

She had trusted him. He should have trusted her.

And he should have cuddled her after fucking her, it was just that simple, rather than mounting her like he’d bought her off the streets and couldn’t bear looking her in the face.

She nipped at him again for being so damned inconsiderate.

Her dream. Nips allowed.

But then she licked over the little bite and moaned at the taste of him. God she loved his taste.

She wanted to taste all of him, from his lips to his thighs and all parts in between.

She wanted to feel the heavy heat of his erection between her lips, she wanted to lick the broad head, wanted to taste the hot essence of the man. She wanted him until she was burning for it.

A distant corner of her mind was warning her to beware, that this dream was too intense, too rich with sensation. But she didn’t want to wake up yet.

Her hands petted his arm, then traveled to his hard waist and hips. He was just so damned hard all over, and so warm.

She let her thighs clamp on the erection between them, creating a friction and pressure against her clit as she heard a muttered curse above her. She smiled at the sound. His voice was very husky, very rumbling and primal. She liked it. She wanted to hear more of it.

Later.

First, she wanted her kiss. She had longed for his kiss for so many months. Sometimes she swore she could almost taste the spicy hot wickedness of it in her mouth. Sometimes she swore she was still in heat, though Dr. Armani assured her that her hormone issues were stable.

“Kiss me,” she ordered him. It was an order, a command. She wanted to be kissed and she wanted it now. And he’d better comply. Her dream. Her kiss. It was time the coya got her due.

Del-Rey knew he was going to die. He was going to go up in flames right there in that damned bed and go to hell for every sin he’d ever committed. And kissing her would send him there.

He arched his neck back from her inquisitive little lips. No kisses. But damned that order to give it to her had sent a punch of lust slamming into his gut. She’d sounded commanding, hot. Fuck, he was so perverted. He could see his wild little coya straddling him, on her knees, demanding his cock. Instead of Kiss me, she’d order Fuck me.

He was so close to panting it was fucking pathetic.

He let one hand tangle in the red gold curls of her hair as he held her in place. No damned way he was pushing her away from him, but if he kissed her now, he was likely to find himself in front of the Breed tribunal again.

No kisses, Dr. Armani had warned him months ago. Not without Anya’s permission. And he was sure the good doctor didn’t mean her sleeping approval. The hormonal aphrodisiac in the glands of his tongue was like a damned erotic TNT. He knew. Been there, kissed her and burned in the flames.

Kissing her was only going to make it worse.

But God help him, he ached to kiss her. To sink his swollen tongue into the hot depths of her mouth and feel her sucking that hormone into herself. Then, he wanted her lips lower. Sucking his dick with the same hunger she was reaching for his kiss with now.

He sure as hell wasn’t cold now though. He was burning from the inside out, so fucking desperate for the taste of her that he wondered if he could actually hold out.

“Kiss me.” Her voice deepened, sexy and rough, that hint of command causing his hips to jerk against her, burying his cock deeper between her thighs.

“Anya.” His hand tightened in her hair. “No kisses.”

Cunning, manipulation, calculation. He was a Coyote, that was what he was good at.

He pulled her head back, staring into the dazed features of her face, the drowsy sensuality. She moaned, a lost little sound that tore into his soul.

“One kiss,” she whispered.

“Anya. Wake up.” His voice was such a hard growl it surprised him. “I won’t go before another tribunal for tricking you.”

Her lashes fluttered open; her blue eyes were darker, sexier. She looked tousled and ready to be fucked. He was sure as hell ready to fuck her.

“Wake up, Anya.” He glared down at her. “The next time I kiss you, it will only be because you know what’s coming. I will not stand before another tribunal and be flayed for taking what’s mine.”

Awareness shifted into her eyes. Heat rushed into her cheeks, staining them a perfect pretty pink as he watched realization transform her features.

“Oh my God. It’s not another dream.” She stiffened, her fingers curled against his shoulders, and Del-Rey knew what was coming.

Anya was out of the bed as quickly as she could untangle her legs from his and tear herself out of his grip. She stumbled at the side of the bed, fighting to get her weak legs beneath her as she stared back at Del-Rey in horror.

She was in his bedroom. In his bed.

“How did I get here?” She heard the squeak in her voice as he shifted lazily and lifted himself on an elbow.

“Your pussy is so wet those thin little pants are damp,” he growled. “Fuck, Anya. I can see it.”

Outraged horror exploded inside her as she looked down, seeing the faintest of dark prints against the light gray material where his cock had rubbed her pants against her sex. She hadn’t worn panties. Why hadn’t she worn panties again? Oh yeah, they had rasped her engorged clit and irritated her.

“Why am I in your bedroom rather than my own?” she snapped back at him.

He grinned slowly. “Sleepwalking? My, my, Anya, trying to accost me in my sleep? Should I protest this myself in front of the tribunal?”

She started to shake. She had actually done that a time or two. Gone to sleep in her bed and awoken in Del-Rey’s. Just a few times though. And never had he been in it.

She shook her head, feeling herself pale. “I did this?” she whispered, shuddering at the knowledge that she could have set herself up like this.

His brows lifted as he grinned again. “Actually, I carried you here from the lounge and tucked you in myself. You sleep deep, baby. I could have had you fucked and knotted before you knew what happened to you.”

Oh shit.

Anya swallowed tightly. He had carried her from the lounge and put her in his bed. And this was what had happened the first chance she’d had to forget what a lying snake he was.

“You bastard!”

“Yeah? So?” He smirked. “We’ve established this already, haven’t we? Are you going to start throwing things now?”

He was laughing at her. Daring to laugh at her because he had done this to her. This, made her sleep with him. But she remembered the dream clearly. She knew who had started touching first and who had been demanding. It hadn’t been him. It had been her crawling all over him like a bitch in heat.

Heat. The mating heat. She threw him a contemptuous stare before rushing across the room and throwing open the door to her own bedroom.

Was comm still down?

She picked up the secured landline at the side of her bed and stabbed her finger into the button to connect to Command.

“Yes, Coya?” Brim was still there.

“Is comm up?” She was breathing hard, heavy. She felt on the verge of panic. On the verge of rushing back to him and demanding he give her that damned kiss.

“Not yet. We’re still awaiting Del-Rey and Jonas Wyatt from the Bureau of Breed Affairs to go over the diagnostics on the electronics that were found with the hunters. Is anything wrong?”

“I need to see Armani,” she bit out. “Now.”

Silence filled the line for long moments.

“Are you unwell?” His voice was calm, cool. Typical Brim.

“I . . . I’m having an odd reaction to the hormonal therapy.” She swallowed tightly. “Is there any way to contact her?”

He was silent again. Longer this time.

“I can have a team waiting to take you to Haven as soon as I talk to Del-Rey and receive verification to do so. Would you like me to contact him?”

Contact Del-Rey? Her eyes swung to her still-closed door as she swallowed tightly. “No. No.”

She shook her head; she was losing her mind. “Forget it.”

She disconnected the line before punching in Sharone’s number.

“Yes, Coya?” Sharone answered warily.

“Get one of the soldiers,” she ordered her. “I need a message out to Armani that I need to see her.

Quickly.”

“I can’t,” Sharone answered her regretfully. “Brim contacted me earlier. I can’t take any orders from you that involve anything outside Base, without going through the alpha first.”

Anya turned slowly as the door opened and Del-Rey stood naked, aroused, in the doorway.

“Need to see Armani?” He lifted a brow in amusement.

“Let me know when you’re ready, I’ll take you there myself. I’d like to discuss a few issues concerning your mating heat with her.”

Anya hung up the phone and gaped at him.

Oh Lord. His erection was huge, heavily veined, the crown flared and damp, and the sight of it had her entire body weakening for precious seconds. She had to force strength into her legs. Had to force herself to straighten and jerk her gaze from his cock to his face. And the bastard was smirking.

Standing there, all hard and bronzed flesh, a cock that made her mouth water, and those sexy lips tilted into a half smile. She felt her sex grow more heated, her juices gathering between her thighs.

“It’s none of your business,” she informed him through gritted teeth. “And you do not need to talk to Armani about my body.”

“Of course I do,” he told her, his tone mildly curious. “It’s obvious you need further hormonal treatments to control the mating heat. You were flowing over me like honey on a comb, Anya. I have a few things I have to do first, but I’ll be ready in three hours. Meet me in the community room.”

He stepped back and slammed the door closed as she picked up the wood paperweight on her desk and hurled it at his head.

It bounced off the door, and she knew, knew, she heard his laughter echoing from the other room.

Be ready her ass. She wasn’t going anywhere with that snide, smirking, too damned sexy for her own good Coyote.

Damn him. Let him go by himself.

She pushed her hands into her hair with a snarl of outrage before dragging them through the strands. And it felt too much like that damned dream that wasn’t a dream. Del-Rey’s fingers in her hair, tugging at it, sending sharp, burning little sensations of pleasure racing through her.

She shivered at the remembrance. Oh man, she was in so much trouble here. He was right, she needed to see Armani, because the heat was building again and she had a feeling she couldn’t control it this time.

It had changed. It was insidious, growing by small measures, burning inside her when she least expected it and leaving her aching for his touch, even though she knew the culmination of that touch was cold, lonely emptiness.

She sat down on her bed and breathed out with a small, strangled groan. She so didn’t need this right now. Of all things she didn’t need, it was the mating heat returning.

An hour after Del-Rey had heard the paperweight strike his mate’s door, he was sitting in his office beside Command and staring across his desk at the three Coyote females his packs had adopted.

He’d darkened the windows as they stepped inside, ensuring that his little mate couldn’t wander into Command and see him talking to her bodyguards.

Sharone Bryce stood tallest, military straight as she stared at the wall above his head, her expression composed. She hadn’t even shifted during the minutes she had stood there. Her dark brunette hair was pulled back into a fussy little braid that worked its way down her head. French braid, he thought he’d heard it called. Her hazel green eyes were cool, but he could detect the flicker of wariness in them.

Emma Truing was standing similarly. Still and straight, her lighter brown hair cut short and framing her pretty face. There was the slightest crook to her nose where it had been broken in her teens. Her lips were firm, her gray eyes steady.

Ashley Truing was a whole other ball game. Del-Rey liked to tease her that she was a true Coyote: lazy, shiftless, too charming for her own damned good, cunning as hell and filled with fun.

She was a genius. A stone-cold killer standing before him with lightened hair, nearly blond, her gray eyes twinkling back at him, though he knew they could fill with crocodile tears at any moment. And she wasn’t even trying to hide the fact that she was chewing gum between those perfect teeth of hers. She wasn’t standing straight; one hip was cocked and she was on the edge of looking bored.

“Okay already, chew my ass out. I told you I have to get my nails fixed today. And there’s this shoe party that Young Leaders of America or some bullshit is throwing. I’m gonna be late, Alpha.” She pouted back at him. “Come on, we weren’t totally bad. Right? We got her to you.”

He’d known Ashley would break first. Emma winced. Sharone closed her eyes for a brief, irritated second. He would have chuckled if the lives of his mate and these three women weren’t so important to him.

“And if you hadn’t gotten her to me, Ashley?” he asked, a warning growl in his throat. “If the four of you had died on that mountain, what then?”

Her eyes widened. “They didn’t have a prayer,” she scoffed.

“Come on, Alpha, I knew you’d be looking for her the minute we left on ‘no comm.’ I figured you’d catch up with us sooner than you did. I mean, come on, you’re totally hot for her. She’s not going to be out of your sight that long when you don’t know precisely where she is.”

Cunning, manipulative, charming and too intuitive—because she was fucking right.

“That’s not the point.” He leaned forward in his chair. “What would have happened if that bullet had struck you at the top of that trail and left you dead?”

She stared back at him blankly. “Umm. The coya would cry. I’d be dead. And if that had happened, I would hope you would dress me really fine and give me one of those cool funerals, you know? Like real people have. And roses.”

She was utterly serious. Like real people. His chest clenched at the words, as though in her soul she believed she wasn’t ‘real people’.

“Coyotes would have gone to war,” he stated clearly, powerfully. “None of those hunters would have escaped. I let them go, all but one last night, Ashley, to track where they went. Had you, your sister or Sharone died on that mountain, nearly a hundred Coyote soldiers would have broken Breed Law and descended on Advert with the full fury of killing rage.”

She blinked back at him. “Why?” She looked to Emma and Sharone’s surprised faces. “We’re just Coyotes, Alpha. We were born to die.” She flashed him that fucking fearless smile that tied his guts into knots.

“Your allowance has been pulled for the next four weeks.” He rose from his chair, his hands braced on the desk as he glared at her, fury beating at his temple. “In four weeks you will come to me and tell me why, Ashley, that Coyotes would have shed blood in that amount for your life.”

True distress filled her eyes. He suspected true tears.

“My allowance?” she whispered fearfully. “Oh please, Del-Rey, just like, knock it down. Don’t take my allowance.” She spread her fingers out. “Look at my damned nails. I need my allowance.”

“If a single Breed—Coyote, Feline or Wolf—pays for those fucking nails,” he stabbed his finger at her hands, “then I’ll make damned certain he pays for it in ways he doesn’t even want to imagine. Are we clear?”

The tears cleared; the lips trembled; her gaze shuttered.

“I don’t know what your deal is.” Her voice was perfectly composed. “If the coya were hurt or killed, you’d take out my throat. Fine. I’d expect it. She’s my damned coya too, so you really don’t have to play up any loyalty here. And fuck the nails, I don’t need your allowance.”

He growled, a low, lethal sound that had her flinching.

“Four weeks,” he told her. “One more smart-assed remark and we’ll go for six. Would you like to chance that?”

She crossed her arms over her breasts, hip cocked, and glared back at him.

He turned to Emma. “Why would I have gone to war over your death, Emma?”

She cleared her throat. “We’re pack?” she suggested.

He glared back at her. “I hope you enjoy kitchen duty for the next two weeks.”

She gasped.

“Two weeks?” Ashley bit out defiantly. “You’re punishing me for four.”

“Six!” he snarled back at her as she jerked back and stared at him, horrified.

“Sharone?” He was all but yelling. He was fucking pissed off, and realizing that only made him madder. “If you died? Why the fucking hell do you think I’d go to war?”

She blinked quickly. “Because . . .” She swallowed. “Do you love us, Alpha?”

He sat down in his chair and breathed out roughly as he stared at the three women. “The three of you, Marcy and Chanda, who are presently charming the hell out of the Felines, are the females of our packs and are the same as sisters to me. You are more to me than any man in this base.”

He could feel the anger churning in him. “Because I love you, I would have gone to war.” He turned to Sharone. “What would I have done if my coya had been captured or killed? My mate, Sharone. The other half of everything I am. What would I have done?”

Her eyes were wide as she shook her head slowly. “I can’t imagine anything worse, Alpha, than going to war.”

“Worse is having my soul ripped from my body,” he told her. “We, who are told we have no soul.

I found mine nearly seven years ago when a kid walked into the roughest, dirtiest, meanest bar I know of, to save her friends. If I lose her, I lose who and what I am.” He rose threateningly again. “And if you tell your coya I said that, then all three of you, no matter which one spills her guts, will be separated from the coya’s security detail for six months. Are we clear?”

They nodded slowly, fearfully. They had never been separated from Anya. The four of them were like kids together, learning how to be free, how to play. They were playmates, perhaps even sisters.

“Alpha?” Ashley asked. “May I ask a question?”

“Will it piss me off?” he growled.

“Yes. Probably.”

That was his Ashley. She didn’t balk. Shaking his head, he sat back down and stared back at her.

“What?”

“Why would you love us? You didn’t raise us. You’ve known us only as long as you’ve known your coya. Why do you care?”

He wiped his hand over his face wearily. “I’ve known you for nearly seven years, Ash,” he sighed. “Your coya talked of little else but five young girls that were her best friends. Her confidantes. Her family. In those years, she made me love you as fiercely perhaps as she does.”

He shook his head. “You are Coyote Breeds. You are not simply coyotes. You are not unfeeling animals, and you’re worth more than a fucking funeral. Are we clear on this?”

She bit her lip. “Can I have my allowance back?”

“No!”

She pouted, but she wasn’t hard, she hadn’t fallen back on her training to show her displeasure.

“The three of you will ensure, from here on out, that if your coya even thinks of leaving these caverns without me at her side, I’m notified. If she wants to train, I as well as a backup team will oversee it. If she wants to fucking pick flowers, she will have a backup detail and I will oversee it. If she just wants to step outside the fucking door and breathe in the mountain air, what will you do?”

“Notify you, Alpha,” they snapped at once.

“Emma, you’re on kitchen duty when you’re not with your coya outside Base. Ashley, you better hope you’ve saved back enough to fix those nails. They look like shit. Sharone, you’re assigned to Brim for two weeks when you’re not needed by your coya. He’ll let you know what he needs.”

He could have sworn Sharone whimpered. Brim enjoyed the hell out of the girls and loved every chance he had to torment them. It was his hobby, his fun. Like the older brother he had never been.

“Dismissed.” He waved to the door, waited until they filed out, and as the door closed behind him, he smiled and shook his head. Damn, if this was any indication of what human men dealt with when it came to daughters, then he was damned glad he was a Coyote.