Enthralled

In loving memory of the greatest aunt a niece could have. Dorothy “Sugar Babe” Few Lucas. You are missed. Not just for your laughter, your witty replies, and generous spirit. You are missed, just because you were you.

I love you, Aunt Sugie.

There was Death, and she faded into the shadows.

There was Slaughter, and he disappeared as dust into the wind.

There was the Lyon, who sought vengeance in the darkness, then found the light of love.

There was the Jaguar, who was the darkness, but found the heart that saved his soul.

There were so many.

There were all who knew vengeance, who knew retribution, and they succumbed to the greatest weakness man or beast could ever know.

They succumbed to the hearts they should have never possessed.

And now, the forces of man’s greatest ally and his most cherished creator have looked down upon a heart that all have claimed to be black, to be without mercy or compassion, and felt Himself soften.

For mercy resides in quantities that are vast while compassion slices His soul with each act of justice he’s forced to mete out.

The one they call “Devil.” The one they say is the darkest of all Breeds created.

The one his creator has guided to ensure his hand had dealt the blow of justice needed to ensure the existence of the Breeds. The one for whom his creator has planned the most cherished of all gifts.

The Lyon now guides his Pride.

Slaughter now slays only the demons that risk his love.

The Jaguar now prowls only the darkness of his own lair while the bogeyman of the Breeds, the warrior Warrant, is the champion of love.

Each has received the truest gift of all, that gift of love.

Now the Devil will receive his as well.

The creator lifted his hand, his smile gentle, compassion and mercy guiding his actions as he brought revelations, hid from the Devil’s enemies those secrets that would have harmed the coming gift, and laid in place each emotion, each hunger, each separate hormone and cell, the qualities needed to ensure a match none could have expected.

A mating.

A priceless, unending love.

It’s now time to give the Devil his due.

PROLOGUE

Barrett O’Sullivan stared at the tiny—too, too tiny—form of the child that his best friend had followed him into hell to save.

So tiny.

A little scrap of flesh and bones that was all of nine years of age, but he swore she could be barely four if she was a day.

Now Jorn Langer, the friend who had uncovered the secret of these labs, the secret of this child, lay on the cement floor next to her, his blood staining the icy stone below.

God, it was so cold.

Barrett could feel the chill surrounding him seeping into his soul, into that place within his heart, within his consciousness, that brought the realization that once again, his life was changing.

Surrounded by that cold, his naked child lay, her skin nearly blue. The wealth of long, Irish red ringlets cascaded on the floor around her to mix with the blood of her rescuer. Irish cream flesh shadowed by the tint of freezing blue glistened beneath the ringlets.

Echoing screams, shouted orders, bestial growls and animalistic snarls were like a hellish symphony invading the lab where Jorn’s greatest battle had been fought. The battle to save the child Barrett hadn’t even known existed until days before.

“Fuck me, Bar,” Jorn whispered weakly, his accent thickened by pain as thick Norse white blond lashes lifted to stare up at Barrett blearily. “I’m gonna die, lad. Helluva way to go.”

“The hell you are.” Kneeling quickly, Barrett checked the wound to his chest and knew his friend wasn’t lying. He was dying.

God help him. This man was as much his brother as any blood could be, and he was dying.

“Don’t you die on me, Jorn,” he whispered, suddenly desperate.

All their lives it had been Jorn who had gotten Barrett’s ass out of trouble, and who had gotten his ass into trouble. This was the man who had watched over him, laughed with him, fought with him.

“Got no choice, boyo,” Jorn wheezed, his ruddy face pale now, the blood spilling too quickly from his chest.

“Your daughter, Bar.” Jorn nodded to the child next to him.

Her breathing was slow and easy, but she was so stiff with cold.

Barrett all but tore his jacket off and quickly wrapped it around the girl’s nude body, wondering why he hadn’t done so the moment he stepped into the room.

She lay against Jorn’s bleeding chest, her weight so slight she couldn’t have increased the rate of blood loss, but still, Barrett moved to lift her from her resting place.

“No!” Jorn’s arm tightened around her slight form. “Not yet. Let me hold this little angel for a moment. She reminds me of Khileen. My sweet, little Khileen.”

His daughter. She was barely five, and she was the light of Jorn’s life.

They both stared at the fall of hair. There was so much hair and so little child.

“Hide her,” Jorn whispered, turning back to Barrett. “Remember the file I found, Bar. Don’t let anyone know. They can’t know she’s yours and Kella’s. Swear it, Bar.”

“I swear it.”

No one could know. It would mean more than just his and his wife, Kella’s, life. It could mean their child’s as well. A child created from the sperm and ova he and his wife had given at a fertility clinic in the hopes of a child that Kella would carry. A child she would nurture within her body and one they would raise from first birth.

Yet, as he stared at the child Jorn held close, Barrett realized no love could be greater than the love he felt for this child, at this moment.

Damn, his hands were shaking, he realized as he reached out to brush her hair back from her face.

Blinking fiercely at the tears that would have fallen, his gaze moved to Jorn’s once again.

“Kella’s lass,” Jorn whispered, his accent thicker now as death neared. “She’s her wee miniature, Bar.”

“How do I hide her child?” Desperation began to fill him. “Fuck you, Bar. Don’t you leave me to protect this child and Khileen alone. Don’t you do this to me.”

Jorn’s rakish smile tugged at his pale lips. “I wish . . .”

“No, God, Jorn, don’t you do this.” How the fuck was he supposed to do what he had to do without Jorn’s help?

“Stick closest to the truth,” Jorn was wheezing now. “Found her here. Contact Lyons in the US. Virginia. Meet. Show him the truth. He’ll give you the care of her.”

The other man struggled for breath as a trail of blood began to seep from his nostrils. “Tell no one but Lyons.”

Jorn suddenly gripped the sleeve of Barrett’s jacket. “Swear it. Not even Kella can know. None but Lyons can know the truth.”

“None but Lyons,” Barrett agreed, knowing it was a secret he would have to break. There were no secrets from Kella, from his heart. What he knew, his Kella always knew.

“What Kella knows, she’ll tell my lovely Jess. Jess will tell her momma—” He began coughing, blood spraying from between his parted lips.

“I’ll hold the secret, Jorn. No one will threaten my child.”

“My Khi,” Jorn wheezed again, his blue eyes desperate and filled with such aching sadness and fury that for a moment, Barrett was certain sheer will would hold his friend to earth.

Then his eyes closed.

“I swear Khileen as well, Jorn. I’ll protect her as I would protect my own. I swear it.”

A tear slipped free—how could it not, now?—this was his dearest friend, the brother he’d never known until Jorn came into his life.

A peaceful expression filled Jorn’s face then. “Aye then, I can go now,” he whispered. “I can go.”

“Jorn, please God, not yet—”

And just that quickly—

Barrett clenched his teeth, baring them in a snarl of naked agony before quickly gathering his daughter to his chest and rising to his feet.

He and Jorn had practiced this escape a million times over the past days. Getting in, getting the child, then getting out. They’d practiced getting out together, and they’d practiced escaping alone.

Had Jorn somehow known they’d never escape together?

Holding his daughter close to the warmth of his body, Barrett ran quickly for the other side of the room and the steel wall. Once there, he quickly pressed his hand against the Genetics Council symbol emblazoned on the wall and waited impatiently for the entire wall to move and reveal the hidden exit.

Sliding through the narrow opening, he pressed his hand against the matching emblem on the other side, waited for the door to close, then rushed through the hidden tunnel.

All the while, the child he carried slept deeply, untouched by the horror that echoed in blood-curdling screams on the other side of the room. Or the snarls and animalistic fury that caused them. All that mattered was getting his child out of there, and hiding her. Hiding her secret.

A recessive Wolf Breed.

Perfect human looks, straight, perfectly human canines, her animal genetics so deeply recessed that even the most advanced genetic testing hadn’t picked up the fact that she was a creature of science rather than of nature.

The files Jorn had found had been stamped TOP SECRET, SINGLE COPY. There were no duplicates. Hopefully, there were truly no other copies, no other information to label her as a Breed rather than a human.

As far as the world would know, she was the daughter of Kella’s cousin. Orphaned, alone in the world, and now adopted by the O’Sullivans.

His child.

His and Kella’s.

Rushing into the dreary rain and fog that surrounded the underground labs, Barrett ran to the ground-hugging all-terrain vehicle he and Jorn had hidden the night before.

The armored Sergeants Dragoon sat low to the ground. It was built for speed and agility, with minimal onboard weapons. It was parked exactly where they had left it, buried beneath the natural hearty evergreen boughs of the Lawson’s Cypress they’d covered it with.

Throwing open the back passenger door and hurriedly lifting the seat to reveal the padded hiding space beneath, Barrett placed his daughter inside before replacing the cover. Closing the door quietly, he moved to the driver’s seat, slid inside and started the vehicle.

Before pulling out, his gaze slid to the hidden back entrance of the labs and for the briefest moment, he could have sworn he saw Jorn.

Just as quickly, the shadow of his friend was gone, the fog parting to reveal the straggled growth of a bare tree instead.

It wasn’t Jorn.

His boyhood friend was gone forever.

They escaped.”

The young woman standing next to him bore most of his weight, her strength all that kept him on his feet.

“I’m dyin’, lass. Let me go in peace,” he whispered, regret piercing him as he stared into the wild neon color of those incredible amber eyes. This wee lass who had risked her own life, her own secrets, to tell him of the child they had ordered to be terminated. The child of the man he owed so much to.

And now he’d done gone and done it, as his wee Khileen was wont to say. Aye, he’d done gone and done it. For good this time.

God, the pain was hell. His chest felt as though it were split open, his heart exposed, a raw gaping wound and now exposed to air.

“I can’t do that,” she whispered, all but dragging him along a worn path until he stumbled, nearly taking her to the ground with him.

Suddenly, stronger, broader hands caught him, dragging him into a sheltering darkness before laying him out on a padded floor.

Jorn stared around at the Breeds—he knew they were Breeds. Breeds unlike any he’d ever seen before. These Breeds, they were the stuff of rumor, of horrifying tales of slow, agonizing deaths. They were the ones whose genetics had never fully progressed past the animal state.

“Nephilim,” he whispered.

Men who were animals.

Animals who were men.

There was no true description of these men. The myth of the Breed Nephilim was that they were the product of experiments gone awry that the Genetics Council had studied, experimented upon, then lost control of.

They were crouched around him as he felt whatever they had dragged him into suddenly moving. Lifting?

“Why?” he whispered, directing his question to the one he knew was the leader. There were such legends of these creatures. Greater even than those of the winged breeds in the Americas that groups of soldiers and scientists hunted with such dedication.

One of the creatures gripped his arm, turned it palm outward, while another pushed an old-fashioned syringe into the vein. He could feel the burn of whatever medication was shot into his system as it began to speed through his veins. He tracked it. Through his arm, his shoulder—

“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” he rasped, directing his question to the leader as he crouched at Jorn’s side.

Nephilim, he thought again. The true terror of the Breeds.

In Europe, the Nephilim were spoken of with the same fear as vampires and werewolves had been in centuries past.

Pale, his face marked with the stripes of a white tiger, his white blond hair flowing to his shoulders, their leader gave a mocking snort as he nodded to Jorn’s side. “She would leave me no peace should I allow you to die.”

Jorn turned his head slowly to the wee lass that had dragged him from the labs.

Barely five three, tawny brown hair, long, thick matching lashes with sharp cheekbones, lips formed nearly like a cat’s, and her eyes—

Cat’s eyes.

And so young. So tiny. Surely no more in age than his wee Khileen.

“Why?” he asked her now as he felt himself drifting, lifting, becoming light as air.

“Because I’m yours,” she whispered, her eyes glowing like amber fire. “And you are all I can claim as mine. How could I allow death to take you in such a way?”

What could she possibly mean? God, he needed to know what she meant. He needed to know—

Agony pierced his chest, his guts. It lifted his body as a scream tore from him as the jagged, serrated teeth of death’s demon bit deep and shredded his insides like a dog shredded meat from a bone. The pain was horrifying. Brutal.

Darkness closed around him.

He prayed death took him.

Katie at 16

She was all wild Irish red hair, big emerald eyes and soft peaches-and-cream skin.

Many Irish girls were now freckled, as their American counterparts were. The world was much smaller than it had ever been, and pure Irish blood was all but nonexistent.

As Devil Black watched Katie Sullivan maneuver through the obstacles set up on the training course, admiration surged through him.

Sixteen years old and pure human, yet she could outrun, outclimb and outlast a third of the young Breed females on the course with her.

Mary Katherine “Katie” O’Sullivan was the reason he’d been called to the Breed Protection Network’s training center by the center’s operator, Gilliam Finneghea. A former American special forces soldier and United Nations undercover intelligence officer, Gilliam had not just trained some of the top covert agents the United Nations have ever employed, but he had also gone against some of the best, and had come out of each battle alive.

Sometimes only barely living, but alive.

Jonas would have sworn nothing could really impress Gilliam, because the man had already seen the best.

Until Katie O’Sullivan had entered the network.

“You’re certain she’s not recessed?” Devil asked, the Ireland showing in his accent. It only happened when he stepped out on Irish soil; no matter how he tried, the Irish blood he’d begun with couldn’t be hidden.

Gilliam snorted. “She’s adopted on Irish soil, Devil. Do ya think she’s recessed and got away with it? This ain’t America, my friend.”

Testing in Europe, Ireland and Scotland was far more in-depth and done far more often on adopted children and adults than in any other countries. With the tests becoming more painful every year after the age of twenty-five, many adopted adults were opting to move to countries with less stringent testing laws. Some of Europe’s Breeds continued to hide or escape the European countries to avoid the required one-to-five-year testing requirements for all Breeds, no matter how recessed their genetics were. Many of the Breeds forced into the testing facilities were so radically different, with no scientific reason for the change once they were released, that questions were beginning to be asked.

This girl was tested yearly as well. During the last genetic screening she had been forced to do, it was reported that she had punched one of the techs when he had been too rough drawing the genetic sample from her liver and spleen.

She was tough as hell, but she looked as delicate as a red rose.

Crossing one arm over his chest and propping his elbow on his forearm, Devil stroked his jaw thoughtfully. He was there to watch the girl go through training maneuvers. He would be there tomorrow to watch her in the control room of the underground command center the network had established a decade before.

It had been hidden at first, to protect the Breeds from the labs they escaped from. If they could make it to a predestined pickup point without being spotted or followed, then they were taken to a safe house overnight. Eventually, several days, underground tunnels and church basements later, they made it here.

“Okay, so she’s not a Breed.” Devil scratched at his jaw, his eyes narrowed, his body more tense than it should have been as he watched her go through the network’s bruising maneuvers.

“Yeah, she’s not a Breed,” Gilliam retorted, a question in his voice as he watched Devil. “You act like it’s news.”

Devil shrugged. She had all the qualities of a Breed female. Beautiful. A delicate, fragile appearance.

An underlying strength.

“Okay then, I’m interested.” Giving a decisive nod without looking away from the girl, Devil made his decision quickly. “I’ll let Tiberian know and we’ll check her out in five years.”

In five years she would be twenty-one and beyond the requirement that the network reveal any underage workers. And at twenty-one, her body would be mature enough, strong enough, to train for the Bureau of Breed Affairs as a human agent.

The Bureau had been built from the ground up by Breeds, and only in the past years had they begun accepting humans into their ranks. But it was Devil’s hope that rather than joining the Bureau, she would instead join Lobo Reever’s security team in the New Mexico desert.

As he watched, he couldn’t help but allow his curiosity to grow. A human that moved like a Breed. He was always of the opinion . . .

If it looked like . . .

If it acted like . . .

If it sounded like . . .

He wasn’t a great believer in coincidences either.

At that moment, her head lifted from where she watched another trainee slipping around the form of a deserted building. Their eyes met. And in that brief moment, in that connection, Devil swore he saw a hell of a lot more than a human.

Yet, she wasn’t a Breed?

ONE

Katie—8 years later

Mary Kathleen O’Sullivan, Katie to friends and family, had no idea so many reporters could exist in one place.

Standing behind one of the protective filters that now covered each of her windows, she stared at the crowd of journalists vying for position, watching her home closely, microphones and notepads held ready.

“The guardians of the masses,” her father had once called journalists. He now called them “those sons of bitches,” despite the fact that they were doing no more now than they had been when he’d made the first comment.

“Katie, please come away from the window,” her mother requested, her soft, lilting voice heavy with concern.

Katie, her parents had always called her. She guessed it beat “Fido,” or “Precious,” as several tabloids’ writers had dubbed her.

Turning, she did as her mother asked, glancing at the other woman from beneath the veil of her lashes.

Kella O’Sullivan had aged a bit in the past weeks. There were fine worry lines now etched in her once smooth forehead, while her emerald green eyes reflected a fear that hadn’t been there before.

Her long, red gold ringlets were caught at her nape with a heavy silver clasp, displaying the family pearls she wore at her neck.

Katie had often reflected on how alike she and her mother looked. The high cheekbones and slightly tilted eyes. Small, though sensually curved lips and the thick, unusually long red gold lashes that framed their deep green eyes. Eyes that Katie had never seen so clouded with worry and fear.

Or had they been?

Katie had always sensed the well-hidden concern that rode her parents, though she’d never truly believed she was the root of it. She’d always assumed the stress came from her father’s job as assistant chief constable of Northern Ireland, rather than from the freak of science their daughter was.

Maintaining her poise, she returned to the wingback chair beside the gas fireplace her father had just installed in the three-story home she’d lived in all her life. That chair had been turned to face their “guests,” rather like an interviewee’s chair would face some emissary of power, such as the men sitting across from her.

Callan Lyons, the Feline Breed Pride leader, was accompanied by Jonas Wyatt, the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, Wolfe Gunnar and Dash Sinclair, the Wolf Breed Pack leaders, Del-Rey Delgado, the Coyote Breed Pack leader, as well as the often elusive Dylan Killato, the European Wolf Pack leader determined to pull the hidden Breeds on his side of the world together, watched her, as she imagined the scientists that created her most likely had watched her: with detached curiosity.

“Katie, I know you’re frightened.” Dylan leaned forward, the shifting silver and amber colors of his gaze cool and calculating as the heavy Scots brogue offered to wrap her in a false sense of security. “And I hope you know our only concerns at this time are for your safety and security.”

Katie could have rolled her eyes. Killato used his dark, savage good looks, the old-fashioned brogue and unusual color of his eyes to full advantage whenever he needed to.

The American emissaries still sat quiet, watchful, offering neither advice nor countering Killato’s claims.

“You’re becoming a sensation among the paparazzi as well as the scientists tasked by many countries to break the hidden genetic codes the Council scientists used to create us. You’re both a weakness as well as a possible answer for the Breed communities as a whole. This makes you a highly sought-after prize by many opponents as well as proponents of the Breed community.”

Katie turned her gaze to the still silent American group. “Do the Breeds have proponents?” she asked as her gaze connected with that of Jonas Wyatt.

One black brow lifted over a silver mercury eye. “Not in that group,” he assured her as he nodded to the door and the crowds outside.

Killato shot the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs a chilling look that had Katie wondering at the animosity she could sense emanating from him.

“I can understand why you’re here, Mr. Killato,” she assured the European leader. “Building and pulling together the European Packs is a daunting task, I realize.” She turned back to his American counterparts. “But why are the rest of you here? How can I profit or aid the American Breeds?”

“Katie,” her father scolded her gently. “They could be concerned with your welfare, lass.”

Katie shook her head. “I find that very hard to believe, Da. Why risk their lives as well as their very busy schedules over just another Breed that the world has learned of?”

“But you’re not just another Breed, Mary Katherine,” Jonas assured her, a hint of mocking amusement filling his gaze as he leaned forward slightly, his arms crossing and bracing on the table between them. “Unlike Pack Leader Killato, I’m not going to assure you that nothing more than your safety matters. That’s not true of any Breed. We’re all a danger to ourselves as well as our Packs and Prides. But you are more so for the very fact that your genetics were so well hidden until this past year. With the surge of your Breed genetics coupled with the fact that your grandfather was one of the most notorious lab overseers in Europe, it makes you a sensation. Breed opponents want you silenced before scientists can use your genetics to possibly hide other Breeds among society, while proponents hope you can do the opposite; and both sides admit to the very high profitability of either answer. You are quite literally worth your weight in gold.”

“I wouldn’t be quite so extreme,” Killato argued.

“Dylan, you know damned good and well that her father’s position as Ireland’s assistant chief constable, her grandfather’s secrets into the Genetics Council, as well as her own genetics make her a prize that scientists from among the Breeds, as well as the more acceptable scientific societies assigned to research the Breed genetics, would kill to claim. Even if it meant killing her,” Dash Sinclair argued, the gleam of worry in his eyes as he glanced at her rather surprising.

“So then?” she asked Sinclair. “How do I profit the American Breeds?”

“You ensure that you’re not taken by the wrong groups and used against us.” It was Sinclair’s young daughter, Cassandra, who spoke from her position in the far corner of the room, rather than her father, who answered that question.

“That’s a bit harsh, Ms. Sinclair,” Killato growled, his gaze filled with a latent sexual intensity as he turned and glared at her.

Cassandra rose to her full height from the chair she sat in, a very false height of five-eight, thanks to the heels she wore. Elegantly graceful, dressed in white slacks and a white vest-style blouse that revealed a hint of cleavage, she moved closer to the group, entirely comfortable in the five-inch heels she wore.

Cassandra gave a small, lilting laugh. “Your greed doesn’t become you, Dylan,” she murmured as she walked to stand beside her father. “Neither does your need to use Ms. O’Sullivan and her family to your own ends.”

“Something the lot of you have no intention of doing?” Killato bared his teeth at her in an obvious display of primal superiority.

That display gained him no less than three harsh warning glares in his direction.

“What would it gain us?” Cassandra shrugged her delicate shoulders. “As assistant chief constable, Mr. O’Sullivan has nothing that could benefit either Packs or Prides in America. His connections don’t affect us. Our teams were the ones responsible for capturing her grandfather, Walter O’Sullivan, the overseer responsible for many of the labs here in Europe, when he disappeared after the news broke of his true identity, so we have no need to use her to that end. And our laws forbid, in every way, the forced induction of any Breed into a scientific study, something your European laws do not ban. It’s no wonder the Breeds that have scattered across Britain, Scotland and Ireland refuse to heed your demands to reveal themselves.”

It was Katie’s nightmare. Already her father had had to file countless stays of the Breed scientific mandates that would have forced her into a facility of Breed study for a period not less than one year, but no more than five.

When Breeds disappeared behind the walls of those facilities, they were rarely the same once they exited, she’d read.

“How do I benefit you then?” Katie asked her, more inclined to believe this young woman than any of the men seated in front of her.

“By ensuring we’re not forced to rescue you from one of those facilities as we have been forced to rescue others,” she stated without hesitation, her brilliant blue eyes glowing in the peaches-and-cream complexion surrounding them. “The Bureau of Breed Affairs is already dealing with more than a dozen official demands of restitution as well as extradition of Breeds who have fled Europe or been rescued from scientific facilities whose inhumane experiments your country claims to have no knowledge of despite the fact that they fund them.”

It was no more than the truth. Her father, Barrett O’Sullivan, had closed down two such facilities and had been summarily berated publicly as well as professionally for not doing more to track down and identify Breeds hiding in Ireland, and enforcing the mandatory one year of research imposed on Breeds in Europe several years before.

Even Dylan couldn’t counter Cassandra’s statement, though Katie could glimpse his furious need to do so.

“Katie, they won’t let you alone,” Cassandra promised softly as she nodded to the door and the murmur of the journalists on the street beyond. “Your father’s position can’t save you from the mandatory testing, and no matter Dylan’s claims, he can’t hide you from the testing. In less than forty-eight hours you’ve become a worldwide sensation for the very fact that despite the advanced testing for Breeds, you passed each stage of that testing that the European countries have ordered conducted on all adopted children, no matter their age. You passed each test with not so much as a blip on the DNA screenings from the age of nine until your genetics kicked in last month.”

“Kicked in.” Now, there was a phrase.

Her genetics had kicked her ass. A fever of one hundred and seven should have killed her. She’d lain nearly comatose for twenty-four hours before she’d begun convulsing so violently that her fiancé had rushed her to the ER, where the doctors there realized they were dealing with a phenomenon only spoken of in the fifteen years since the revelation of the Breeds.

Genetic Flaming. A sudden, “flaming” awakening of once hidden Breed genetics after a lifetime of the Breed DNA she possessed lying dormant.

Well, they weren’t dormant any longer.

“The Feline Breed community of Sanctuary, as well as the Wolf Breed communities of Haven and Avalon, and Del-Rey’s Coyote Packs of the Citadel offer you haven, Ms. Sullivan,” Dash Sinclair spoke again, his gaze once again holding hers with the compassion and integrity all four of these men were known for.

“Their protection far exceeds what I can offer you, Katie,” Dylan sighed, frustration evident in his voice. “Until Europe’s Breeds become the force America’s have, then we simply don’t have the strength. But I offer what little we have, and I would protect you and your right to freedom with my life,” Killato swore sincerely.

In that moment, she knew he would do just that. For whatever reason, whether selfish or selfless, Dylan would have done all he could to hide her. If he couldn’t hide her, then he would have died to defend her.

Katie lifted her gaze to Cassandra’s once again.

“I’m scared,” she finally admitted, forced to fight back the tears and the horror building inside her.

From the corner of her eye she glimpsed the tears slipping from her mother’s own eyes as she hurriedly tried to cover them. She watched her strong, prideful Da’s throat work convulsively as he stared up at the ceiling, blinking furiously at her admission.

She could feel her skin crawling, her muscles tensing and bunching as though battling themselves. Sensations were too extreme, others’ emotions sometimes bombarded her, and the sense of betrayal she felt that her parents had kept this horrifying secret from her was tearing her apart inside.

She’d always wondered why she couldn’t remember her life before she’d awakened in her “adoptive” parents’ home. The amnesia was the result of a drug she had been given the day the labs she was in had been attacked. The nurse that had given it to her had done so in case the Breed child she was responsible for was rescued. It was a common practice among the European labs, she had learned, to inject the children of possible rescues with the amnesia drug that had often caused older Breeds to revert to a primal state. The genetics scientists had hoped to ensure that those Breed youths would have less of a chance of being adopted into human homes.

“Katie, lass,” her father whispered as her mother covered her trembling lips with her fingers. “I’d give my life for your forgiveness if I weren’t terrified that you would have need of me later.”

“And you think that’s what I want, Da?” she demanded, the anger and tears trapped in her chest as she stared back at him desperately.

She hated the anger inside her. Hated the sense of dread and betrayal assailing her. “How much worse could my existence become if I ever felt you or Mother had done such a thing?”

He shook his dark, graying head as her mother’s fingers tightened on his arm resting against his leg.

“We were terrified for you,” her mother protested.

“So you hid what I was, even from me, no matter how often I asked you about a childhood I couldn’t remember,” she reminded them both. “The one person who should have been prepared for it was the one most surprised. Had I known, Mam, I would have never allowed Douglas to take me to the ER. I would have called you or Da the moment I felt ill and I wouldn’t feel as though everyone I ever trusted cared more for the secrets they carried than they cared for the welfare of the secret itself.”

She couldn’t remain here. She couldn’t stare into her father’s pain-filled eyes or watch the tears fill her mother’s gaze one more time.

Each time she did, that battle raging through her body seemed to intensify to the point that she wanted to tear into her flesh and rip from her bones the very muscles that clenched and spasmed beneath her skin as though trying to reform, or to somehow burrow from beneath her skin.

She rose slowly to her feet, her gaze locking with Dash Sinclair’s.

“Mr. Sinclair—”

“Get down!” Cassie suddenly screamed.

Breeds were reacting before the words were even fully formed.

Dash Sinclair jerked his daughter from behind the chair and shoved her beneath the table as he followed her to the floor. Jonas Wyatt rolled across the table so quickly he was a blur before toppling Katie to the floor, while Wolfe Gunnar and Dylan Killato did likewise with her parents. A volley of automatic gunfire shattered the windows and tore chunks of wood and plaster from the ancient home that had been in her father’s family for nearly five hundred years.

Sirens were wailing in the distance, and the gunfire sliced through the room again while cries of shock and fear could be heard from the journalists outside.

“Is this what you want?” Jonas suddenly hissed at her ear. “No matter where you go or what you do, unless you leave Europe, your father will remain at your back until he takes a bullet for you. And I promise you, it will come sooner rather than later. Now, stay put.”

He suddenly jumped from her, pushed her toward Dylan and her parents as he ignored his Pride leader’s furious snarl of his name and rushed from the room.

“Bastard’s going to get himself killed,” Dylan snapped as they all huddled beneath the large dining room table her mother’s family had kept pristine since the eleven hundreds.

It was now riddled with deep gouges in the wood, no doubt from the bullets that had skipped across the top of it.

“More than likely, someone’s going to be missing a throat instead,” Callan sighed. “It’s not Jonas I’m worried about, it’s the prey he’s chasing.” Amber eyes locked with hers. “Get ready, we’re about to be hustled out of here.”

Even as he spoke, the door to the room flew open and Breeds began pouring in.

American Breeds.

Strong, silent, there were no shouted orders or codes being barked around her. She was lifted from the floor, her arms shoved into a heavy, protective vest while the bodies surrounding her rushed her from her father’s house and into a waiting vehicle in her mother’s precious back garden.

The fence surrounding the back of the house had simply been mowed down by the half-dozen vehicles surrounding it. Armed, hard-eyed, savage-faced Breeds stood tense and prepared, weapons held ready.

They were but a blur to Katie as she was pushed into the back floorboard of an armored Dragoon Elite, a low-slung SUV built for speed and agility in more populated areas. Rather distantly she remembered it had replaced the Sergeants model Dragoon that her father kept in a garage on the O’Sullivan estate on the outskirts of Dublin.

“Carrier three en route.” Quiet, assured and confident, the unfamiliar dark voice above her had her craning her neck to try to identify it.

Unfortunately, he was all but reclined on top of her, which kept her from maneuvering enough to see much of anything.

“Carrier three affirmative,” a voice responded. “Heli-jet is prepped and running. ETA thirty.”

ETA thirty what? Minutes? Hours? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“Carrier three now in blackout. Update at thirteen hundred.”

Thirteen hundred hours?

“Get off!” she demanded, trying to drive her elbow upward. “You’re smothering me!”

“Beats the alternative.” The male grunt above her wasn’t comforting.

It was harsh, almost broken. His voice was low, deep, sending shivers racing up her back as the too-active muscles beneath her skin bunched harder, tighter, determined to tear past her bones, push through her flesh, and relish the heat above her.

The response was immediate, frightening and painful.

Geez, if she got any hotter, she was going to melt into the floor of the Dragoon.

The vehicle was supposed to be temperature controlled to more than fifty feet below water. At the moment, it was sweltering, however.

The heat wasn’t coming from the floor though. It was coming from the male Breed above her. It sank into her flesh, washed through her system and clenched her teeth with an arousal so white-hot and sudden she could barely control the need.

The sexual need.

The need to have those hard, broad hands push her dress over her ass, grip her hips and push inside her with a heavy, deep, bruising thrust.

She wanted all of him at once.

Her vagina clenched, rippling with hunger. It ached, flushed with heat and demanded his possession.

She wanted him.

She wanted to be touched.

Taken.

Oh God, she wanted him fucking her and she wanted it now before she was forced to scream with a need so painful it terrified her.

Horrified her.

Because she was going to demand it. Her lips were parting, a cry building in her throat when he suddenly lifted just enough to flip her to her back before wedging his thighs between hers, the hard length of his cock pressing against her sex as his fingers covered her lips.

“We are not alone,” he mouthed as her eyes widened in dawning terror. “And this isn’t the time for this.”

Of course it wasn’t.

The time would never come.

He was the Devil. The Grim Reaper of the Breeds and he’d come to drag her away and make certain she never became a danger to the species again.

Everyone had lied to her. She was a liability. A secret they didn’t want to risk. She knew that now.

She knew it, because the Breed pinning her to the floor with the strength of his hips and his very aroused cock was not a potential lover.

He was a killer.

He was the Devil, and he would have no other reason to be there other than—

To kill her.

TWO

Terror.

Anger.

Injustice.

Fascination.

So many emotions.

Katie couldn’t seem to settle on just one, or to figure which was uppermost. But the resounding regret, she finally realized, was the emotion that seemed to beat harder at her brain.

Why did her body pick this moment, this man, to become sexual? She was twenty-three years old and she’d berated her sexuality as well as her heart for so many years for being unable to react to the opposite sex as other women did.

She had dated. She’d tried to force a need, an arousal for some of the more appealing prospects she’d known as potential lovers, yet she’d never been able to work up enough interest to actually join one in bed. Even Douglas, the fiancé who had informed her that he had no intention of allowing Breed genetics into any children he would eventually bring into the world. And besides, he’d sneered, he’d never been into fucking animals.

He’d slipped the engagement ring off her finger while she was too weak to fight, even had she wanted to, and he had walked away without even saying good-bye. But in his gaze she had glimpsed the pure disgust he’d felt at the thought of her.

Now, in the middle of attempting to escape a situation she didn’t understand, that sexuality had kicked into overdrive with the Breed known for being seen only when someone was such a liability to the Breed community that they were marked for termination.

Termination.

As though she weren’t human—

Oh yeah, she wasn’t human, she thought half hysterically.

She wasn’t human, she wasn’t an animal. She was a Breed.

She was something in-between, and that wasn’t something she had expected.

Why had the Breed leaders, the very same ones that had sat in her father’s living room such a short time ago and appeared so compassionate, marked her for death?

“Why?” she whispered, needing to know, to understand why she had to die by this man’s hand when she would so much prefer to be stroked by it.

The hard, savage smile that pulled at his lips was accompanied by a flash of white-hot lust in the odd, amber-speckled eyes staring down at her.

“Orders, baby.” A shiver raced through her at the hard rasp of his voice.

Orders? Just because of orders?

He was going to kill her despite the fact that he was iron hard and hot between her thighs, the erect length of his cock pressing firmly against her sex.

He was going to kill her despite the fact that he was the only man she’d ever felt her body grow hot and moist for?

“Damn,” she whispered. “This really sucks.”

Why the hell did she think he was there? Devil questioned silently. Hell, wasn’t she the one that requested asylum while her grandfather Walter O’Sullivan was under investigation for having overseen one of the most notorious Breed labs in Ireland? Hell, it was even the Breeds who had managed to track him down. Then, once he disappeared, it was Breeds that found him once again, and took him into custody.

It wasn’t as though he had volunteered.

It sure as hell wasn’t as though he wanted to be right here, right now, his body strung so tight, his dick so hard, that he was amazed he could still breathe.

Or could he?

He felt lightheaded, as though he couldn’t quite pull in enough oxygen, couldn’t convince his body that he was drawing in air.

What the hell was she doing.

Trying to push him away?

Before she could push against his chest with her dainty little hands, he caught both her wrists, pulled them above her head and pressed them into the floorboard firmly.

Hell no she wasn’t pushing him off her. He liked the position they were in just fine. With her pretty legs spread, her thighs gripping his hips as though she had no intention of ever letting him go, and all the while her hot little pussy was pressed just as tight against his cock as possible.

Damn, she was pretty too. The pictures he’d seen the night before hadn’t done her justice.

Forget pretty, she was fucking gorgeous.

Pure creamy flesh with the lightest scattering of freckles over those high, aristocratic cheekbones. Emerald eyes blinked up at him in confusion and in pain. Irish eyes. Damned pretty Irish eyes. The prettiest he’d ever seen in his life.

And he’d seen a lot of Irish eyes.

“You don’t have to . . .” her breath caught, lashes fluttering as he chose that moment to grind himself against her, to feel the moist heat through the barrier of her panties and his denim.

He was going to end up fucking her here and now if she wasn’t careful, despite the fact that their driver, Flint McCain, would hear every hungry, pleading gasp he’d draw from her.

“Orders. It’s all your own fault, dammit.” Her fault he was hornier than he’d ever been in his life, and it was her fault he was less than a breath from screwing them both into ecstasy.

“My fault?” Feminine outrage and hunger scented the air around him. “How is it my fault?”

She was acting as though she had never made the damned request of the Breed Protection Network to help her escape from Ireland and find a secure place to hide until the furor had died down a little.

“Well it’s sure as hell not my fault,” Devil growled down at her, wondering if he could pull back if he actually allowed himself to lower his head and kiss those pretty, pouty lips. Because he really did want to kiss them.

“Well you’re the one doing it!” Petite nostrils flared, and the hint of those cute dimples he’d seen in her pictures completely disappeared as she frowned up at him.

She’d had dimples in the pictures he’d seen.

“You’re the one that asked for it,” he snarled down at her, unable to resist using his free hand to slide beneath her body, grip the rounded curve of her ass and hold her to him.

“Me?” She stared back at him in surprise for a second before comprehension slowly dawned. “Wait, you’re with the Breed Protection Network?”

Had Lobo sent him to rescue a madwoman?

He was beginning to think the other man might have done just that, because she was now staring up at him as though she’d believed something entirely different to this point.

“Why the hell did you think I was here?”

She blinked back at him before those bright emerald eyes as they darkened with uncertainty. “You’re the Devil. You only come after Breeds marked to die. Right?”

Hell.

Sometimes, having a killer reputation could be a hell of an inconvenience.

“I’m not going to kill you.” Unless he ended up fucking them both to death.

As long as she wasn’t a threat, personally, to the Reevers—or to those he’d sworn to protect. He doubted she represented much of a threat to anything or anyone, let alone the family he’d sworn his loyalty to.

She glanced down their bodies, her breath catching as her gaze locked at where they were all but joined.

Her scent wrapped around him. A hint of fascination, wariness, but there was also something more—something he didn’t like at all.

The scent of pure, exquisite, lust-filled arousal and feminine liquid heat spilling from her body.

Sweet, with a hint of spice. Clean, with a tempting freshness that made him wonder if she had ever been touched by another man in any way.

Of course, there was no such thing as a virgin Breed female of this age. Unfortunately, most of their females had lost that innocence before they were even old enough to understand what it was.

At that thought, he realized she hadn’t responded to his statement that he had no intention of killing her. Instead, her gaze was focused on his lips, much as his was on hers. The emerald color darkened, her pupils dilating as his head lowered, his lips moving slowly closer to hers.

He was going to kiss her.

Katie could feel it coming.

Adrenaline was racing through her body, the urge to rub her hips against his, to feel the roughness of denim scratching against the lace of her panties was overwhelming.

And she wanted his kiss. She wanted it so desperately that the wild, stormy taste she imagined it held began to tease her senses relentlessly.

“Boss, we’re heading to the primary pick up point and the heli-jet’s landing,” the Breed racing the SUV toward that “primary” point, wherever that may be, informed Devil imperatively. “We still have two vehicles on our asses and plenty of cameras hanging out the windows.”

Devil grimaced as smoldering anger flashed in his gaze.

“Get us as close to the entrance as possible,” he growled, lifting his head to glare at the Breed who dared to interrupt them.

Then he was moving. Ignoring her sharp intake of air as he lifted himself from her body before quickly pulling her into a sitting position on the floor of the vehicle.

“Get ready to move.” Restrained, clipped and cold, his voice did nothing to dilute the arousal raging through her.

Get ready to move?

She stared ahead of them at the huge black raptor-looking heli-jet settling on the ground ahead of them as the Dragoon raced toward it. Turning to glance behind them, she winced at the sight of the quickly moving SUVs following them.

If they made it before the rapidly focusing cameras mounted on the roof of the SUVs that were controlled by the photographers inside, then they’d be damned lucky.

“Put it on.” Black material was suddenly shoved over her head.

“What are you doing?” For a second, the world was black until Devil quickly righted the fabric and pulled the narrow eye slits into position.

Her hair was shoved down the back of her dress, black material draping over her shoulders as she stared up at the black mask he now wore as well.

“Three vehicles left at the same time and were picked up in a heli-jet in three different locations, while all occupants were masked before disappearing into the jets.” His lips curved beneath the silky material. “You’re about to lose your tails, cupcake. Get ready to run.”

Brace!” Flint called back as he lifted one hand from the wheel long enough to jerk his mask from the top of his head into place.

Devil wrapped one arm around his charge, his free hand clenched on the brace bar above him as the Breed suddenly threw the vehicle into a slight turn, skidding sideways until the passenger side of the vehicle was almost kissing the heli-jet awaiting them.

The doors were thrown open by the Breeds rushing from the craft, and as he lifted Mary Katherine O’Sullivan and pushed her quickly into their waiting grasp, he wondered just exactly what he was supposed to do now.

She was the sweetest heat he’d ever scented. The purest hunger he’d ever been touched by. Equally sweet and tempting, she called to him on a level he had never known existed. A level so fucking primal he wanted nothing more than to mark her.

To mark her delicate body with his touch, to claim the sweet heat of her pussy. To push himself inside her, hard, deep, full length until she was crying for mercy. Until she was screaming in orgasm.

And, he realized, there was actually very little that existed beyond that.

Which made her excessively dangerous as well.

Reever Ranch

Cassandra Sinclair glanced up from the stack of papers she was slowly committing to memory and stared around the room. What had disturbed her? Rarely could anything pull her from her research into Breed Law, especially when confronted with the questions that the mating laws never failed to cause. If she didn’t prepare just the right argument, using just the right phrasing, then some smart-ass lawyer, likely female, would end up ripping her apart at some point. The Breeds depended on her to rationalize and explain the Breed law, even as she justified actions that arose from mating heat, without actually letting anyone suspect that it was mating heat. Ah yes, the trials and tribulations of completing the language begun within the Rights of Breed Freedoms that had originally been signed into law. And now, something was making it even more difficult than normal to form those arguments. Rising from her chair, she moved to the balcony doors, opened them, then stepped outside.

That’s what it was.

Pausing, she looked around slowly, silently marveling over the beauty of the desert landscape before her. Then her gaze stopped on the butte rising from the land in the distance.

Spears of stone that looked as though they had been shoved through the desert floor came together and reached into the sky. It was there that the problem hid.

He was there, hiding. Waiting.

She could feel him.

He was there watching her, waiting for her, certain his time would come.

Shadowed, broad and high, the stone wasn’t quite a mountain, but still, it was more than a hill, as she’d heard it been called. It was there that he hid.

The sights of his rifle were trained on her, though he never took them from her face.

She could feel his eyes watching her, baiting her. He had every intention of coming for her. Soon. Just not yet.

She could feel his intent though. It hung heavy in the air around her, assuring her that he was still there.

He had been with her for more than a year now. No matter where she traveled, no matter how she tried to hide, she could feel him there somewhere, if not watching her, then searching for her. Since the day she had dared him to pull that infernal trigger, he had followed her. As though the very fact that she would defy him had somehow made him pause in pulling the trigger, made him take the time to figure something out about her instead.

What?

And always, it was the sights of his gun she felt caressing her face.

Would he kill her? Was this the reason why he watched, waited, why he kept the sights of his gun trained upon her?

“Cassandra, my dear, you stare into the evening sky as though awaiting a lover.”

She jerked to the side, her eyes widening as Dane Vanderale, the hybrid Breed offspring of the one they called the First Leo, leaned his back against the adobe wall of the balcony, lifted a slim cigar to his lips, then lit it lazily, his gaze trained on her face, assessing, always curious.

For the barest second, the light from the match shadowed the hard, savage contours of his expression and caused the emerald green of his gaze to flare with pinpoints of reddened light.

He was a Lion Breed among a small Pack of Wolves hiding in the New Mexico desert, and seemed just as comfortably at ease as he did in the drawing room of his parents’ estate in the sheltered jungles of the Congo.

“Dane, you sneak around far too much,” she told him as he gave a quick jerk of his wrist to extinguish the match.

“Those of us who hide in the shadows to watch those who prefer to hide as well, learn well the value of the ability to slip in and out of the light so effectively,” he told her quietly. “I do wonder though, why, my dear, do you tempt the gun sights that even I can feel caressing your very pretty head?”

He may question it, but he didn’t seem overly concerned by the thought. Actually, he seemed rather amused by it.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you always so amused by the idiosyncrasies of the rest of these mortals, or just me?” There wasn’t so much as a quiver in her voice, she made certain of it. She turned completely to rest her back against the railing that surrounded her balcony.

“I spread my amusement around,” he informed her. “I seem forever tempted by the actions of those of you who admit to mortality though. I really can’t seem to help it. Now, why not amuse me further and satisfy my curiosity?”

She shrugged. She liked Dane, despite his sarcasm and apparent cynicism.

“Who says I’m frightened of him?” she inquired rather than answering him. “Do I appear concerned?”

She may be many things, but at the moment, frightened wasn’t one of them.

“Ah, you await him.” Dane nodded slowly then, as though serious. Anyone who didn’t know him wouldn’t have caught the pure mockery that almost tugged at his lips. “If this is so, then why doesn’t he come to you?”

And now he was baiting her.

“I don’t know. Nor do I care.” Frustration filled her voice now. The bastard was driving her crazy.

“Perhaps he knows he’s not good enough for you.” He stared into the darkness himself as his voice lowered, the South African accent most women found so charming making little impact on her.

“Why would he? Remember, it’s his gun sights I feel, Dane, not the stroke of his hand. He doesn’t make sense.”

She rather doubted he felt the need to touch her anyway. After all, he’d simply watched her, took pictures occasionally, yet never really attempted to harm her.

“Ah, my dear, for all their simplicity, men can be the most complicated of animals.”

“And here I thought it was us women who held that distinction,” she contradicted him easily.

“Women are the most complicated of all creatures, no matter their race or species,” he retorted. “Breed males though, and their human counterparts, are the most complicated of animals. I would never dare to call one so lovely as you an animal.”

“Even if I were a creature rather than an animal, it wouldn’t make sense to watch me as he does.”

To kill her?

Or did he have other plans? Plans Cassie feared would destroy her, her family, or the Breeds she fought to protect.

“Come, my dear,” Dane urged her. “Back inside, before the shadows trap you within them and hold you forever.”

Hold her forever? She rather doubted that.

She could only get so lucky. “Dane, do you ever wonder if perhaps not all Breeds really have a mate chosen for them?” she asked him as he escorted her back into her room, pausing as he closed the balcony doors and then turned to her slowly.

He really was quite handsome, she thought. Far older than he appeared; at least sixty, she’d heard whispered in the past few years, though he refused to tell anyone his true age.

His dark blond head tilted to the side, dark green eyes with tiny specks of amber that were rarely visible, now glinting within the iris. “I believe there’s a mate perfectly suited to each and every Breed, whether they were born or created,” he finally answered softly as he leaned indolently against the wall, sliding his hands into the pockets of the dun-colored slacks he wore. “What would make you ask such a question, Cassie?”

She shrugged. It wasn’t always easy to explain her own feelings, her own fears.

She was a Breed, a tri-species, she’d heard herself called.

Human, Wolf, and the still feared Coyote. The Coyote DNA was the one she feared the most, just, she suspected, as her parents did. As many of the Breeds did. They all seemed to. She could sense it, feel it. At times, God, she could even smell their fear.

“Surely you’re not frightened that there’s no such future for yourself?” The South African accent was almost mesmerizing. Cassie often found herself concentrating on the cadence of it, rather than the meaning behind whatever questions he was asking her.

“It could prove difficult.” Tucking her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, she wandered to the wide, shaded glass of the bay window on the far side of her room and stared at the place where she knew her assassin hid. “I’m not human, nor am I a Wolf Breed or Coyote. So far, no Breed has mated outside his or her own species with the exception of the human pairings. Wouldn’t that make it rather hard for me to find a mate?”

He watched her closely. Too closely.

He had that habit. Dane wasn’t a man one could often hide things from. Nor was he man that anyone would want to try to lie to or in any way deceive.

He could be a brutal enemy.

“What do your guides tell you, Cassie?” he asked her softly, the question causing her to freeze as a hard chill raked down her spine.

Dane was the only one to have ever, at any time, acknowledged that more than just intuition had guided her throughout the years.

How could he know? Could he know? Could he sense that the beautiful, once comforting presence that had followed her throughout her life had now deserted her?

She turned to him slowly, their gazes locking as she stared back at a Breed that none could read, not even the most intuitive of their species. Even she, the one who seemed to draw the inner demons and broken spirits of the Breeds from their hiding places, had never convinced the protective spirit that always hovered close to him to reveal itself. Or to reveal his secrets.

“She doesn’t visit as often as she once did,” Cassie finally admitted softly.

“And you’re not yet confident enough in yourself to use what she taught you.” He nodded.

Cassie could only shake her head. Her father had asked her that same question.

Perhaps she just hadn’t been smart enough to learn.

As she considered the subject, a brief knock at her door had her turning away from the hybrid to glance at the barrier before turning back to Dane.

A grin tugged at her lips.

Just that quickly, Dane was gone.

Back to his own room, no doubt, where she had no hesitation in guessing he was plotting world dominion. And if he were, he would succeed.

Breathing out wearily, she answered the summons with a brief, “Yes?”

The door opened several inches as one of the Reevers’ maids peered around the door. “Ma’am, your father and Mr. Reever asked that I let you know Mr. Reever is putting steaks and ribs on the grill for the evening meal. He says you’re especially fond of them.”

The tall, buxom brunette watched her warily. The scent of the other woman’s fear caused only regret to shift through Cassie’s senses. It didn’t hurt as it once had.

“I’ll be there soon,” she informed the other woman.

The maid nodded, and closed the door, and Cassie could sense her moving slowly away from the room. If she closed her eyes, Cassie thought, then she would sense much more than that from the maid. Not just her fears, but her hatreds, her self-importance, her pride—

Cassie didn’t close her eyes. She just didn’t want to know.

THREE

Katie hadn’t expected to get so lucky as to be reunited with her dearest friend, and within hours had realized why. She and Khileen had never failed to find adventure and excitement in Ireland together. It was one of the reasons Katie’s father had worried about their friendship so often.

When Khileen’s mother, Jessica, had met and married Lobo Reever, it had seemed Breeds in general had drawn an easier breath though. Lobo was considered a lone Wolf, one that too many independent Wolves had longed to follow.

Lobo had no alliance pacts, had sworn no loyalties nor had he professed any. Yet, he had banded with more than two dozen of the strongest, darkest, most exactingly created Wolf Breeds that the Genetics Council had kept files on.

It was rumored there were another half dozen the Council hadn’t even recorded that followed the Lobo.

With his marriage, or “mating” as she’d heard it called several times, and Reever’s move to the American deserts, the Breeds’ fears that Lobo would somehow upset the balance of Packs and Prides had eased.

They were a strange and often difficult lot on the best of days, but never more so than when they felt threatened.

“Cassandra Sinclair flew in last night,” Khileen Langer said, her voice low as they walked through the stables several days after Devil Black had brought her to the Reever Ranch.

“What do you think she wants?” Katie frowned as they stopped at one of the stalls to pet one of Lobo Reever’s prized mares.

Having Cassie Sinclair in residence couldn’t be comfortable. Katie had heard quite a bit about the young woman, and couldn’t imagine being comfortable around her.

“I’m not certain.” Khileen shook her head, her expression concerned. “I know Lobo’s been in negotiations with the Packs and Prides, but I’m not certain why.”

“I thought Tiberian was his negotiator? How are any negotiations being discussed without him?”

Tiberian was Lobo’s younger brother and, Katie knew, one of the Breeds the Council had destroyed records of.

Khileen looked away. “Tiberian left the night of Mother’s death. I’ve not seen him since.”

Jessica Reever’s death six months before in a fall from her horse had devastated the family. She knew it had devastated Khileen.

Tiberian’s disappearance was interesting though.

The fact that Cassandra Sinclair, a young mixed-Breed female becoming known as the Breeds’ highest legal advisor, was at the ranch at the same time that their negotiator was missing was bad enough. Adding that to the rumors that a rogue Bengal Breed was in the area searching for a young female the Genetics Council had experimented on. The situation was causing havoc with the Navajo nation, and must have Lobo pulling his hair out by the roots.

“And with all this, he offered his protection to me?” Leaning against the side of the stall, she stared back at Khileen in surprise.

Khileen shrugged, disrupting the long black, spiral curls that had fallen over her shoulder as her bright blue eyes dimmed for a moment.

“I saw the news report when your grandfather’s estate was seized,” she revealed. “I know you, Katie. You would have needed to run. You would have felt it was the only way to protect your family. I asked Lobo to check with the Network to see if you had sent out a request and if you did, if he would help.”

“They’re threatening to investigate Da as well,” Katie revealed. “He and Mam are destroyed by the revelations. They didn’t know Grandfather had overseen those labs or had even been involved with them.”

Her parents had gone to a fertility clinic to attempt to conceive the child they wanted so desperately, only to be told that their initial tests revealed a rare genetic incompatibility between them. The clinic had decided there was no way to help them and had claimed to have disposed of the samples they’d taken.

Those samples had then been sent to the Genetics Council, which funded the clinic, and Katie had been “created.” A Wolf Breed, created to seduce and kill. The genetics her parents possessed had been exceptional, her files had stated. The potential ability to excel in numerous areas they considered fundamentally essential in the army they were building had marked her as a prized specimen.

They’d never known how her grandfather had maneuvered to ensure Barrett’s best friend, Jorn Langer, Khileen’s father, had learned of the labs. Once Jorn had found the lab, he’d learned that the overseer had acquired samples from the fertility clinic the O’Sullivan’s had gone to in order to create a Breed. Then it had been as simple as ensuring Jorn was contacted by a group of Breeds he’d aided in escaping from several labs he’d overseen.

From there, her rescue by her father and his best friend had been planned to the last detail. Her parents had then adopted her after procuring birth records “proving” she was adopted from a recently widowed cousin of Kella O’Sullivan’s.

Katie hadn’t known how she was found by her father and Jorn. She hadn’t known how she had been rescued or the calculated risks her family had taken to attempt to hide her, until she’d become ill, just before her grandfather’s arrest. Later, when Walter O’Sullivan had escaped the Breeds and shown up at the O’Sullivan estate where she and her family had initially gone to attempt to figure out what to do, they had learned how her grandfather had used that position to ensure his son had the child he and his wife had longed for.

The genetic incompatibility had been eradicated, but only with the introduction of the Breed DNA.

All of his maneuvering had been in vain, but because of his position, he’d ensured his son had his child and that she was rescued before her Breed training had begun in earnest.

“Lobo highly respects your father, though I know he never cared for your grandfather.” Khileen stepped from the stall before looking around silently for a long moment.

When her gaze returned to Katie’s, the amusement in it should have warned her what was coming.

“So,” Khileen drawled. “What did you think of Devil?”

There was the blush.

Katie felt it surfacing beneath her flesh, filling her face and revealing, she feared, far more interest than she wanted Khileen to realize.

“Oh, you definitely like him.” Khileen laughed. “I knew there was something there when I heard him raging to Lobo over you.”

“Raging?” Oh, that was just wrong. “What could he have to rage over? I didn’t do anything.”

Irritation flared through her at the thought of him doing such a thing. It wasn’t as though she had thrown him in a vehicle, plastered him to the floorboards and held him there, teasing him with the press of her body against his.

“Devil can rage over everything, never mention your name, yet make it excessively clear that you’re the object of his displeasure.” Khileen rolled her expressive eyes as she propped her hands on her hips, then faced Katie curiously. “I have to say though, I’ve never heard Devil rage over a woman simply to be raging. They usually have to actually do something to him personally. What did you do to him?”

“Not a damned thing.” The nerve of him!

Unclenching her fists slowly as she realized what she was doing, Katie shoved her hands into the pockets of the gauzy skirt she’d worn with a thin, sleeveless silk top and sandals.

Her body heated immediately at the thought though. All she’d actually done was let him know exactly how turned on she had been. Was she supposed to hide it?

Hiding it would have been impossible. Her senses had flared too bright, too receptive to his touch. Even now, her nipples were already tightly beaded, her clit throbbing in anticipation.

She’d been on the Reever ranch three days now. The two nights she’d spent in the guest room tossing and turning, her body aching for him, had been miserable. It had taken hours to fall asleep.

“Come on, Katie.” Dropping her arms from her hips, Khileen chided her with friendly disbelief. “Something happened. I know Devil. He’s followed Lobo as long as I’ve known him. He doesn’t get upset over nothing.”

“He had no reason whatsoever to be upset with me,” Katie repeated as a flare of anger lit her senses. “I didn’t even attempt to bother him, Khi.”

Damn him. It wasn’t her fault she’d wanted him. He was the one that had been rubbing his hard cock between her thighs and making her ache for him.

She didn’t know what the hell his problem was, but she intended to find out. She refused to allow him to spoil the haven she’d found on the Reever ranch. If he wanted to bitch about her to others, then he could begin with telling her what his bitch was, exactly.

“Wow, you’re as defensive over him as he was over you when Lobo questioned him at his irritation. What’s up with you two?” Khileen moved quickly to draw beside her as Katie headed for the house.

“There’s absolutely nothing up with us,” Katie bit out furiously before giving a muttered little “yet.”

Why was Devil Black so determined to get rid of her? He was one of Lobo Reever’s most trusted men, second only to the missing Tiberian, which now made him the most influential of those surrounding Lobo. If he told Lobo she was a danger to have here, then he may well have her removed.

She couldn’t afford to be sent away. If she were, then the Irish authorities could well send a team to have her collected and forced into testing.

There was a reason why Breeds hid in Europe now. A reason why they were loath to allow their government to know who they were, or where they were.

Because there were those who had come out of the facilities so changed, so traumatized that they simply were not the same. And none of them could remember what had caused the trauma to their minds, or why they may have forgotten certain passages of time during their stay.

That was what awaited her if Devil had her removed from Lobo’s protection. She would be without resources, and unable to reach her family. A sitting duck, so to speak, for those determined to destroy her.

“No, Katie, I’m certain Devil doesn’t mean any harm,” Khileen argued behind her as they reached the house. “Maybe he just likes you. I bet as a little Breed he pulled the pretty little Breed girls’ ponytails just to get their attention.”

“Stop defending him,” Katie demanded. “I’ll deal with him myself rather than following his example by going to others.”

“He’s in his study. I saw him go there earlier,” Khileen informed her with all apparent helpfulness as she headed into the house. “He might have mentioned paperwork at breakfast this morning.”

She had missed breakfast, Katie thought furiously, because she’d been up half the night aching for a man who didn’t even care that she had no place else to run to.

“Well, be careful,” Khileen advised as Katie strode angrily toward the hall leading to Devil and Reever’s offices. “He has a mean bite, I hear.”

“Well so do I.” Especially since she’d begun allowing her fangs to grow and shape correctly after the news of her genetics had been revealed.

She was only barely aware of Khileen stepping back as she neared Devil’s office. She’d finished focusing on her friend. Nothing mattered now but the man who was becoming a threat to her existence and the need burning inside her that was threatening her control.

This couldn’t continue. She could easily stay the hell away from him if her arousal offended him. It would hurt, but her family’s safety was more important. If she were taken and forced into the testing facilities, then her parents would do anything to have her released. No matter what it did to their lives or their safety.

And that she simply couldn’t allow.

Her own safety aside, she refused to see her family threatened because some damned Breed male was offended by her lust for him.

A lust he caused.

She wouldn’t have it.

How did it go?” Cassandra Sinclair opened the door to her guest suite to allow Khileen Langer into the room.

She was one of the few women Cassie had met that she actually identified with. Perhaps it was the black hair, blue eyes and similar features.

They could have passed for family members.

Khileen was also generous natured and loving, though, attributes Cassie found she herself didn’t possess in quite the same quantity.

“Just as you said it would.” Smiling, Khileen propped her delicate hands on her hips as she braced her legs apart.

Dressed in jodhpurs, a cool white sleeveless top and riding boots, the other girl looked ready to enjoy a day riding across the desert. In no way did she look the part she played so often, that of Cassie’s confidante, and one of a few rare friends. But, Cassie had found, Khileen tended to give in to the same lovingly placed manipulations and gentle nudges that Cassie herself often found hard to resist.

“Excellent.” Cassie moved to her desk where she shifted through several papers until she found the small wireless mic and receiver she’d hidden there earlier.

Flipping the antenna down to connect with her father, she waited until he answered the call.

“Cassie?” There was concern in his voice. It was rare that he didn’t worry whenever Cassie convinced him to accompany her on one of her little “adventures.”

“When is your meeting with Mr. Reever?” she asked him.

“I’m waiting outside on the patio attached to his office,” he answered her, the growl in his tone attesting to his irritation.

“Keep him out of the office. Ms. O’Sullivan is at the Devil’s doorstep at the moment.”

“You have to be related to Jonas Wyatt,” he all but snarled.

“Well, he did help a bit in raising me,” she reminded him with a fond smile. “And you know, I’m prone to adapt to certain instruction quite well.”

There were many instances when she’d been forced to stay at the Lion Breed compound in Virginia while her parents fought to ensure her and her brother’s safety over the years.

“Don’t remind me,” he retorted, though she could both hear and feel the love he held for her. “Lobo isn’t so happy at the moment, either, that we’re questioning his protection of this girl.”

“As long as we get the desired results, then he’ll be okay with it later,” she promised.

If they didn’t accomplish what she had come here to do, then there would be problems. It was those problems that had convinced her father to do as she asked.

“Let’s hope,” he grunted. “I have to go, he’s stepping into the office.”

They disconnected.

Turning back to Khileen, she saw the other girl watching her, a frown tugging at her brow.

“Do you ever get tired, Cassie?” she asked softly, with far more compassion than Cassie thought she had the right to.

“Tired?”

“Of trying so hard to hide from what you’re trying to hide from?”

“And what do you think I’m trying to hide from?” She had to force the amusement and unconcern into her tone. What had this woman seen that no other ever had?

“Yourself,” Khileen answered softly, surprising her. “You’re hiding from yourself, Cassie. I was just wondering if you were tired of it yet.”

Khileen turned and left the room then, not bothering to wait for an answer. It was a good thing, Cassie thought, because she didn’t have one.

FOUR

Devil narrowed his eyes on the young woman that stepped into his office before closing the door with careful emphasis behind her.

The long spiral red curls that fell around her head and down her lithe, toned body should have reminded him far too much of Lobo’s stepdaughter for the reaction that immediately knifed through his body.

He’d never had a sexual interest in Khileen, no matter her harmless flirtation at times. If only he could feel the same brotherly affection toward her Irish friend.

Emerald eyes flashed with fiery anger, immediately rousing the animal instincts that surged through him. As though all the human and animal dominant qualities he possessed were immediately awakened, his body tightened, tautened until he was all but jumping from his chair and dragging her to the floor to fuck them both into exhaustion.

And doing so wouldn’t take a lot of effort. Push the gauzy little skirt she wore over her hips, tear what was sure to be sexy, silken panties from her body—all could be accomplished in less than a second. In the next heartbeat, he could be buried, full length, inside her.

“Why do you dislike me?” Delicate hands curved over her hips defiantly as she glared across the room at him. “What have I ever done to you to make you want to see me dead?”

His brow lifted. “Little girl, if I wanted to see you dead, it would be easy enough to accomplish,” he informed her.

Dead wasn’t exactly what he wanted, and that was what pissed him off.

“Little girl?” her eyes widened then narrowed suspiciously. “Are you so terrified of seeing me as a woman that you can’t even acknowledge the fact that I am one?”

Bingo. Give the girl a prize for getting the answer on the first try.

But he snorted instead before resuming his seat behind the wide desk scattered with files and reports.

“Why don’t you go plan a party or a shopping trip with Khileen,” he suggested, injecting just enough mockery in his tone to piss her off further. “The adults on this ranch have to actually work.”

That was a little low, he admitted, but God help him, he had to get her out of his office before his cock managed to burst past his zipper and the instincts driving him to possess her overcame his determination not to.

Shifting the files around, he picked one from the desk, any one, he wasn’t even certain what he was staring at, waiting for her to leave.

Instead, her scent moved closer.

“Why are you allowing Lobo Reever to know that you’re displeased over his decision to allow me to stay here?”

She stomped to the desk, but she didn’t stop at the front of it as she should have. Hell no, she moved right beside it.

Her pretty hands braced against the top of the desk within his sight, her delicate, oval nails drawing his gaze.

“You haven’t answered me,” she reminded him.

“I don’t owe you any answers.” But he laid the file aside before leaning back in his chair and staring back up at her. “You should leave this office now.”

“Should I?” she snapped. “Not before I know what your problem is.”

She wanted to know what his problem was? Did she really want to know?”

Before he could stop himself, before she could avoid him, he came out of his chair in a surge of motion, gripped her arm and jerked her to him before wrapping his arm below her ass and lifting her to the table.

In the space of a second he had her legs spread, the denim covered length of his cock pressing against her sex as he leaned closer, and he was slowly forcing her to lean back on the desk.

“This is why,” he snapped, staring into her widening, darkening gaze. “Because all I can think about is fucking you. That makes you a danger to this ranch and everyone in it.”

“No, it makes you a danger.” She had to force the words past her lips.

“But I’m not just visiting,” he reminded her. “You are.”

Her lips parted to argue, to say more; rather than allowing her to do so, he shut her up in the only manner at his disposal.

His lips covered hers.

His tongue pushed past her lips, tangled with hers, and the swollen heat that filled it began to throb, pulse and fill both of them with a heady, spicy taste.

What the fuck—

It was supposed to be a rumor.

The swollen tongue and the earthy spice of a mating aphrodisiac that filled the kiss—

The inability to stay away, to resist the taste he could give them both, the pleasure that could be had—

Fuck.

Shock filled him, wrapped around his senses, but did little to dim the flames searing his flesh and the hunger raging between them. Nothing else mattered. Nothing mattered but touching her, feeling her, holding her to him with his hands and the addictive taste of his kiss.

And she did like that taste of their kiss.

Her lips surrounded his tongue with each stroke between them as he mimicked the act he was desperate for.

Groaning under his kiss, crying out with each taste of the mating hormone spilling onto her tongue, she met his hunger with her own, then forced the flames higher.

And only then, as his tongue pressed against hers, daring her to take a deeper taste of him, did he realize that the addictive taste of spicy heat wasn’t just coming from him, but from this too delicate, far too tempting little Breed as well.

Leaning into her, feeling her slender knees grip his hips, nothing began to matter but touching more of her. Of jerking her top over her head and ridding her soft flesh of it.

Tasting her again, and tasting more of her. Kissing her deeper, harder, locking her to him in ways that would ensure she never attempted to escape.

As though reading his intent, her arms lifted from his shoulders just long enough for him to pull the top over her head and toss it somewhere beyond them.

God, was he really going to fuck her here? On his desk?

Could he think of any better place and time than here and now?

Jerking back from her, breaking the rising hunger of his kiss, Devil stared down at her, shocked at his own actions, his own thoughts.

He’d never, not at any time, taken a woman without first ensuring both their comfort and their pleasure.

“Please.” The soft plea that fell from her lips stopped him from pulling away from her.

Breathing roughly, forcefully, Devil stared into the darkening green of her eyes and her flushed, pleasure-filled expression before he allowed his gaze to drop to the lace-covered, hard-tipped curves of her breasts.

God, what was he doing?

Smoothing along the side of her body, his hand moved to where her skirt had fallen back from her flesh to pool at her hips. Once there, he did the unthinkable. Did exactly what he was certain he could keep himself from doing.

His fingers curled into the lace band of her panties and pulled them down her thighs.

The scent of her feminine flesh tore past his veil of control and left him helpless against the hunger clouding his brain.

Easing his body back, forcing his hips from the soft flesh of her pussy, he pulled the panties from her legs before dropping them to the floor. He hooked his arm beneath her back and eased her upward into his embrace.

“You shouldn’t have come here.” The groan surprised him, the words tearing unbidden from him.

Loosening the snap of the bra at her back, he eased the straps down her arms before dropping it, forgotten, to the floor as well.

“This is why you want me to leave,” she accused him, staring back at him with hurt, emerald eyes.

God yes, this was exactly why he wanted her to leave. Because he couldn’t keep his damned hands off her.

“Fucking dangerous,” he groaned, lowering his lips to her shoulder and licking the fragrant flesh there.

Damn, she tasted good. So fucking good.

It was all he could do to keep from raking his teeth across that tender flesh, from marking it, staking his claim in a way no man or Breed could mistake.

Licking, kissing his way down as he laid her back along the desk, Devil came to the firm, rising mounds of her breasts, to the ripe, pebble-hard tips of her nipples.

He couldn’t resist them.

He didn’t want to resist them.

And he was within a second of tasting them—

“Hey, Devil, you in there?”

Katie froze.

Her eyes flew open, her gaze meeting Devil’s as horror began to wash over her.

What was she doing?

“Just a minute, Graeme,” he called back, his body taut, tight with lust as he seemed poised on an edge of control and teetering her way.

“This is important, Dev,” the faceless Graeme called back. “One of the mares is acting freaky and there’s some dude out here asking about some Irish girl. Have you seen an Irish girl?” Just enough mockery filled his voice to assure them that Graeme had denied knowledge of her but was concerned.

Who the hell was Graeme?

Devil jerked away from her as though it had taken the last measure of strength he had. And in the next breath he was lifting her from the desk.

“Get dressed,” he ordered, his voice low. “Get to your room. Don’t let anyone outside the house see you and don’t make any calls until I find you.”

Katie nodded, though she doubted he saw her as he quickly straightened his clothes before striding to the door.

Jerking it open, Devil stepped into the hall, opening the door no farther than necessary as she quickly dressed. Seconds later, Katie slipped out as well and raced to the guest room she’d been given.

Stepping inside, she could see that the curtains had been drawn, blocking so much as a hint of the late afternoon sun or anyone brave enough, or lucky enough, to get a view.

Closing the door behind her, Katie curled into the large wingback chair next to the door, wrapped her arms across her breasts and stared into the darkness of the room.

Would this be her life from now on? Running? Hiding? Always searching for safety and never being certain it existed?

She couldn’t imagine such a life for herself. Because that life would mean leaving the Reever ranch and leaving the Breed whose eyes seemed to stare straight to her soul and whose touch could make her forget everything but her need for him.

She’d never known a connection to another person as she felt with this Breed. She had never wanted to be with another person, not just sexually, but just near him, as she did with Devil.

For the first time since she’d learned exactly what she was and how she had come to be, Katie began to regret it. Because the very fact of her creation could very well be exactly why Devil was fighting the desire between them so hard.

Perhaps he simply didn’t want a woman whose life, whose very existence came with the kind of problems that hers would come with. He could want a nice, normal woman who would present no problems and no additional dangers to his own existence.

She could understand that.

The hell she could.

No nice, normal woman could ever tolerate a Breed male. They were arrogant, dominant, forceful, and so damned aggravating they made a woman want to kill at times. She knew exactly what they were like. She’d been dealing with them since she was sixteen years old during her first training year with the Breed Security Network.

Breed males were always certain they were right. They rarely, no, they never, at any time accepted that a woman, whether she was Breed or human, could survive without a male’s protection, and they were prone to prove it in a variety of ways.

They were peculiar, particular and perverse.

And she had a very bad feeling she might well be falling in love with one.

Graeme, secure the grounds,” Devil ordered quietly as he watched the Jeep rumble from view, the high-range camera mounted on the top pointing back at the grounds.

It had been pointing forward when the vehicle stopped at the gates.

“They’re secured,” he answered, and Devil knew if Graeme said they were secured, then they were damned well secured.

The Lion Breed was one of the few recessive Breeds Devil had known with actual Breed traits. He’d arrived six months before with nothing more than a change of clothes in a small pack, a knife and a sense of security weaknesses that had immediately found favor on the estate.

Tall, broad, laid-back and rarely displaying a temper, Devil was beginning to rely on the exacting precision in which the Breed did everything he set out to do.

“The girl’s still in her room,” Graeme reported as he consulted the wireless electronic security monitor he carried. “She left your office just after you and went straight to her bedroom.”

Devil glanced at the other man briefly. “You knew she was there.”

“It would be damned hard to miss the smell of her need,” Graeme agreed. “I have no doubt Mr. Reever and Mr. Sinclair were well aware of her presence there as well. Speaking of, Mr. Reever has requested a report immediately. I’d be prepared for questions regarding your activities in your office if I were you.”

Devil came to an abrupt stop, not really surprised that Graeme managed to stop the instant he did as well.

“Do you have a problem with the activities in my office, Graeme?” he asked the other Breed, knowing that the continued mention of it meant that Breed likely did have a problem with it.

Impassive, his expressive gaze showed little-to-no emotion at the best of times, were it not for the glitter of life in the dark brown of his eyes.

“I have no problems with them at all, Mr. Black,” Graeme assured him. “But, I’d expect questions from Mr. Reever as well as Mr. Sinclair, because they definitely seemed to have an opinion on it before the reporters showed up.”

Great, just what he needed, not just Lobo questioning, but also Dash Sinclair.

Lobo was bad enough.

“I’ll deal with Lobo and Sinclair,” he growled. “You deal with security and we’ll continue to get along, Graeme. Otherwise, your nosiness may cause you quite a bit of trouble.”

More than the feline would want to deal with, and Devil would make damned certain of it.

But first, he needed to deal with Lobo and Sinclair. Because any dealings he had with the sumptuous Ms. O’Sullivan was his business and no one else’s.

No one else’s at all.

FIVE

Stepping from a cold shower, and it wasn’t the first she had taken in the past twenty-four hours, Katie quickly dried the water from her body before donning a loose robe and belting it in irritation.

She had no idea what was wrong with her.

She was too young for hot flashes, right?

She didn’t have flu symptoms. She wasn’t running a fever. But she was too warm, her body aching, and the remembered taste of Devil’s kiss teased her senses with the persistence of an addiction. Or at least, what she’d always heard an addiction could be like.

But, it wasn’t really possible to be addicted to a kiss, was it?

To the wild, heated taste of a man’s lips on hers, his tongue stroking against hers as flames swept through her body and tension pounded at her clitoris and the clenched, untried depths of her sex.

Her breasts were swollen, her nipples hard and tortured, dragging an irritated moan from her lips as she stomped back into her bedroom, only to come to a sudden stop.

She hadn’t heard him enter the room. She hadn’t even suspected he would be there, and she could normally anticipate most people’s actions.

“Did you get rid of the reporters?” she asked before clearing her throat while drawing the edges of the robe above her breasts tightly together.

Narrowed, intense, his gaze swept over her body.

“For the time being,” he assured her. “But I’d like for you to stay within the inner grounds for a few days; the walls surrounding the house are equipped with special diffusers to ensure no cameras or other tracking equipment can penetrate it.”

She nodded nervously, watching as he moved to the windows and slid the curtains back several inches to catch the rays of the setting sun.

“The windows are also specially made to diffuse images in any optical equipment. As long as you keep them closed you’ll be safe with the curtains open.”

“I didn’t close them,” she said, wincing at the slight nervous quiver she couldn’t halt. “They were closed when I came into my room.”

He nodded before turning back. “It was probably one of the maids. They’re unaware of the windows’ properties, and we like to keep knowledge of it limited. It helps during those times when we key the electronics built into the windows to show the images we want seen. If everyone knew about it, then it would be less effective.”

Then why tell her? She wasn’t exactly a member of the family.

“How did you know the problem was reporters?” he asked her then.

“It really wasn’t that hard,” she told him, her expression pulled tight with the fear that glittered in her eyes. “There was, after all, a camera mounted on top of the vehicle they drove. I glimpsed that much as I peeked from my curtains.”

Katie twisted her hands together to keep from reaching out to touch him again as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her with a frown. “What I’d like to know is how they managed to find you here?” he growled. “I’ve sent one of my men out to learn as much as possible. Though, with those bastards, it’s hard telling.”

She had to agree with him on that one, of course. But that didn’t explain the question uppermost in her mind at the moment.

“Why are you here, in my room, Devil?” she asked instead. “You didn’t seem particularly upset that you were drawn away earlier.”

“Taking a virgin on my desk wouldn’t exactly be a testament to my maturity and experience either.” The rumble of a growl was accompanied by a flash of pure lust in his black and amber eyes.

“And you’ve decided I’m a virgin, how?”

She was, but it wasn’t exactly something she advertised.

“How the hell you made it to twenty-four years of age without taking a lover I haven’t figured out yet.” The low pitch of the rumbled words rasped over her senses as he began moving slowly toward her. “Tell me, Katie, were the men in Ireland completely stupid?”

“I was completely not interested,” she corrected him, though speaking past the harsh beat of her heart wasn’t exactly easy.

“You were engaged,” he reminded her, his expression shifting, tightening as though the knowledge displeased him in some way. “How could you be ‘uninterested’ in sex and be contemplating marriage?”

How could she be?

“He wasn’t exactly interested himself,” she sighed, regretting the friend she had lost when the news of her genetics had been revealed. “And I was tired of being alone and questioned regarding the fact that I had no lover or lovers. I was beginning to feel somehow inferior to others because that desire wasn’t there.”

Until him.

Now, she couldn’t seem to get rid of the need.

“And now you’re interested. Doesn’t that confuse you a bit? Perhaps cause you to question why it’s happened so suddenly?” Stopping in front of her, he reached out, his fingers circling her wrist and drawing her hand slowly from the material of her robe.

“Should I?” Her senses were in shambles as he smoothed the edges of the robe over the swell of her breasts, the calloused tips stroking against her skin and causing her to draw in a hard, sharp breath.

She didn’t want to question anything except why he wasn’t kissing her yet.

“You’re going to hate me later,” he told her, his head lowering, his lips brushing against hers sensually.

“Of course I will.” There was no denying that. He was too powerful, too dominant to ever understand the value of dealing with her in a straightforward manner. He was a man she could trust with her life, but not with her heart.

Unfortunately, her heart may have already made the choice.

“You know you’ll hate me?” He paused, his lips still within a breath of hers.

“I think it was destined,” she sighed. “But if you don’t kiss me, I’m going to hate you now rather than later. How’s that?”

His lips almost twitched.

Was lightning actually going to strike? Katie had sworn it would before Devil Black actually smiled.

Whether he intended to or not, before he could, his lips settled on hers, parted them, as he drew her close, showed her exactly how little she had known about kissing.

For instance, as his tongue pressed between her lips, Katie had never imagined the spicy taste of his kiss would have her lips closing around it, drawing around it as it pressed in, pulled back, thrusting against her as a sweet heat began to infuse her senses.

Katie was only barely aware of the belt of her robe loosening, falling from her shoulders to the floor a second before he pulled back just enough to jerk his shirt over his head and toss it to the floor as well.

Then his lips were on hers again, taking hard, forceful kisses as he swung her into his arms and turned to the bed.

Had she imagined she would feel like this?

That pleasure would rush through her body like wildfire, burning across her flesh and searing her senses with so many sensations that she could barely breathe for the heat and rapid fire bursts of hunger exploding inside her?

Had she ever suspected that a man’s touch could do what Devil’s was doing to her?

God, she hadn’t.

His hands stroked over her arms, moved to her waist, her breasts as he spread those insanely heated kisses from her lips, down her neck and shoulder, then on a blazing path to the peaked tips of her breasts.

Her nipples throbbed. They were so tightly swollen they ached with the need to be touched. Then his lips were covering them, drawing them into the heat of his mouth and wringing a cry from her lips.

Oh God, the rasp of his tongue was too much. Brutal, ecstatic as he licked against the agonized tip, his teeth rasping over it as her nails bit into the bare warmth of his shoulders. Each touch, each heated lick and caress was like a shard of sensation racing to her womb and exploding into fiery fingers of heat that surrounded her clit and exploded in the depths of her pussy.

And she had no idea how to control it.

Katie couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t fight the hunger raging through her for the taste, the touch of this Breed. She had no idea how to process each sensation or how to survive the destructive results.

“God! Katie.” His hand stroked over her hip, parted her thighs.

Calloused, excitingly roughened, his palm stroked up her inner thigh, the tips of his fingers finding the naturally bare flesh between her thighs.

A Breed female had no curls to shelter her there. Nothing to filter the heat and pleasure from her lover’s caress or to hide the slick response of her arousal. Her mother had told her it was simply a genetic trait she’d inherited from a distant grandparent.

God, she should have known better, but at the moment, all she could do was revel in the exquisite sensations it allowed her to experience as his touch stroked over the sensitized flesh.

Lifting her hips to him, her fingers clenching in the sheets beneath her, she fought to breathe as his kisses moved from her breasts to the skin beneath. Each lick, each press of his lips against her flesh stoking the excitement and pleasure higher.

She needed . . .

“Please, Dev.” Arching to him, feeling the stroke of his fingers against the slick flesh between her thighs, Katie fought back a scream of agonizing need. “Please touch me.”

Yet, he was touching her.

Touching her in so many ways, stroking not just her flesh but also a part of her she didn’t know existed. A need she hadn’t known filled her.

God help him.

Devil fought for strength, for just the smallest measure of control as his lips moved unerringly to the sweet flesh between Katie’s thighs.

Never in his life had he ached to taste a woman as he did this one. Never had hunger, need, protectiveness and overwhelming emotion surged through him in such waves of uncontrolled impulses as they did now.

Pressing her thighs farther apart with one hand and brushing his lips against the petal-soft flesh between her thighs, there was no holding back another growl—a demand.

Her hips lifted to him.

Sheened with moisture, slick and tempting, the little bud of her clit peeked from between her folds, drawing his tongue and his hunger.

Sweet virgin.

How had he, the Devil of the Breeds, ever deserved a woman untouched, untutored and so hungry for him. It wasn’t just touch or sex, desire or release she ached for. She ached for him.

She was his.

From this moment on, tied not just by the emotions that would have arisen in time but were now flooding both their senses in overwhelming waves, but also by a heat neither of them could ever resist.

A sensual, sexual heat—a bond of ever-increasing pleasure—

For a moment, just a moment, Katie was certain she was finding a pace with the pleasure that she could process. Riding the waves of sensations, forcing air into her lungs, out again, she was able to actually make sense of some of the emotions tearing through her.

She could feel her heart racing, adrenaline infusing it as some hidden part of her senses seemed to open and reach out to him.

She’d never done that. She’d never opened herself to anyone but her parents. And never in her life had she opened herself as she was now. Reaching out to another and feeling him. She could feel him. Not just physically, not just his touch, his kiss, the lick of his tongue over her hip.

She could feel the darkness inside him struggling with a compassion and a hunger that so matched the hunger she’d known herself for years. A need to know another to the very depths of their soul.

A hunger to touch another’s soul as she was touching his now.

Then, his lips moved from her hip, down the bend of her thigh. They brushed against her mound, his breath feathering over the swollen, desperately aching bud of her clit.

Following the brush of air, his tongue sent her reeling.

Pressing between the plump folds of her flesh, it curled around the bud, stroked it, then his lips were drawing it inside and the thought of anything but surrendering to the crashing waves of fiery pleasure, rising emotions, and sheer desperation was a thing of the past.

“Look at me, Kate.” The demand was a harsh, primal growl that brought her eyes open, instantly meeting his as he stared up at her from between her thighs.

He hadn’t called her Katie, just Kate. Staring into his eyes, she realized that where others may not see or acknowledge the woman she was, this Breed could, at the very least, sense it.

She hadn’t been Katie, at least in her own mind, for a very long time.

As their eyes met, white-hot sensation lanced her clit, dragging her back from any personal revelations to a place where only the pleasure mattered.

His tongue licked as his cheeks hollowed, suckling it deeper inside his mouth as he seemed to find just the right spot with his tongue where the slightest stroke and just the right pressure began to amplify the tension now pouring through her body.

The pleasure was agonizing.

It drew her body tight, shortened her breath. Each pulse of sensation throbbed through her clit, intensifying the pleasure and the rising need. It tore through her. It stroked across sensitive nerve endings, tightened in her vagina, burned through her senses, then suddenly imploded through her in a surge of such exquisite, ecstatic pleasure that she became lost in the sensations.

She became lost in her Devil.

As she reached the pinnacle of sensation and began easing back, Kate became aware of him rising between her thighs and coming over her as the heated width of his cock pressed into the swollen folds of her sex.

The intensity of her orgasm had been shocking enough, but as the crest of his erection pressed inside her, a sudden spurt of heat moisture ejaculating from him into the clenched depths of her pussy had her lashes opening wide, her gaze meeting his. And if she was surprised at the feel of it, then the shock in his gaze assured her he was even more so.

“Did you finish?” she whispered, suddenly terrified he had.

If he’d finished, how then would she ease the painful need clenching at her flesh?

“Fuck. No, babe . . .” He tightened, a hard grimace pulling at his expression as it happened again, though this time, it seemed hotter, her inner flesh more sensitive to the sudden pulse of . . . whatever it was.

His jaw clenched, his eyes glowing with his own pleasure as he eased back, then forward again, rocking his hips between her thighs, stroking her in slow, stretching degrees.

“Dev.” Gripping his tight biceps, desperate for some part of him to hold on to as she watched the amber in his eyes burn as the next spurt of pre-cum was like a stroke of near ecstasy inside her.

The tension she believed had to have evaporated with the orgasm that washed through her was ratcheting higher with a suddenness that left her reeling.

The aching demand that centered in the depths of her sex became unbearable, the need to be filled, to be taken, overriding everything in the space of a heartbeat.

“I have you, Kate.” His lips brushed across hers, his voice gentle despite the primal rasp that filled it and sent a frisson of sensation racing down her spine. “Just hold on to me, mate. Hold me.”

His lips brushed against hers again, settled and pressed hers open as the pressure, the stretching pleasure-pain and amplified desperation increased as the head of his cock worked past her once untouched entrance.

“God, Kate.” Lifting his lips, panting for air he stared down at her once again. “Ah, mate. I can’t wait.”

Had she asked him to wait?

“Then don’t.” She could barely breathe, let alone speak.

Lifting her head, moving against him, she relished each sharp sensation tightening the tension in the clenched muscles of her pussy.

“Don’t want to hurt you.” His teeth were clenched, the restraint he was using evident on his savage features.

Hurt her? It simply wasn’t possible that pain could penetrate the hunger raging through her.

Lifting her hips higher, feeling the thick weight lodge deeper, she smiled up at him, arched more firmly into the penetration and whispered, “Take me, Devil. Just like you want to.”

It was that smile.

Wild. Reckless. This was the smile she had used in the photos and vids the Breed Protection Network had on her. Filled with confidence, daring anyone to defy her.

God help him, she’d stolen his heart before he’d ever been called out to pull her out of Ireland.

With the tight heat of her pussy enveloping the head of his cock as he worked himself to the veil of her innocence, Devil could feel not just his physical possession of her, but so much more.

Their gazes were locked. Thickly lashed, sensual, the emerald of her eyes glittered with such arousal and need that it was like staring into pools of pure emotional magic. They glistened and gleamed with wonder, pleasure, hunger.

“It’s not enough.” Her panting whisper had his stomach clenching, his hips gathering to push past the thin barrier. “Please, Dev. Please, take me now.”

“Hold me, Kate,” he urged her again. “Hold me tight, mate.”

His mate.

Sweet God, all his. Created for him. Gifted to him.

His woman.

The surging thrust shocked him.

Devil was unaware of the quick tightening of his hips as he pulled back. It was only as he pushed inside her once again, moving in a quick, rapid push he was unable to halt, that the motion sent him tearing past the thin barrier of her innocence.

Her eyes widened, lips parting on a soundless cry as he thrust his shaft and burrowed hard and fast inside her.

The steady tightening of her slick pussy, the reflexive clench of stretching tissue struggling to adjust to the width filling her, each hard, never-before-felt spurt of the mating pre-cum, then the rush of slick, heated feminine need easing him deeper tore a snarl of pure pleasure from his throat.

Fiery, clenching and fist-tight, her pussy milked over the furiously engorged flesh of his cock. Tugging and stroking, tightening and sucking at the engorged head until nothing mattered but feeling more and more of her. Devil was powerless to halt his own response.

Moving against her, thrusting inside her, his hips worked against her, powering the engorged length of his dick inside the steadily pulsing flesh, he gave himself to the possession of her, only to realize he was being possessed by her.

The heart he believed had withered and died before he even realized what emotion was pounded with a strength and response to her that surprised him. She possessed the soul that had never known the need for another’s touch until her. She possessed the man, his dreams, his hopes, his battles and his failures.

That first stroke of lightning-bright pain gave way to a steadily increasing inferno of pleasure Kate couldn’t fight and had no desire to escape.

Tightening her fingers on his powerful arms, she held on to him, held him. He was her only safety in the cataclysm of white-hot sensations. Each thrust pushed through the depths of her pussy, drove her higher, deeper inside a storm that refused to ease, that only deepened with each touch of his lips as they lowered to the rise of her breasts, each stroke of his tongue as he strung kisses to the tender flesh of her neck.

Katie writhed beneath him, lifting into each stroke, gathering herself for the next. Her knees tightened on his thrusting hips, her head lifted from the pillow to allow her lips to press to his chest, her tongue to stroke against his oversensitive skin.

They were flying. Flying through such pleasure, such a building sense of exquisite sensation, that Kate gave up on attempting to control, or to process. All she could do was fly within it, experience it, relish it.

Each stroke of his cock burying inside her pushed her deeper into the storm. The rake of his teeth at the bend of shoulder and neck had her crying out, the muscles of her vagina tightening, clenching furiously as that gathering tension began to ignite with ecstatic flares of pleasure.

It was rushing around her, through her.

Each stroke of his cock came faster, penetrating her, fucking her with increasing need and hunger until the convergence of sensations barreled headlong into each other and exploded with furious ecstasy.

Her teeth sank into the powerful pectoral muscle beneath her lips as she felt his sharper, longer canines pierce the flesh just beneath her neck, at the bend of her shoulder.

Her tongue, swollen and hot, licked at the slight wound she made, stroking over it madly as her body shuddered and jerked within a release so powerful it exploded within her soul.

The feel of his tongue doing the same at her neck was an additional pleasure, fiery pinpoints of sensations that merged and mixed in a release so intense that at first, she was unaware of the significance of the heavy tightening in her vagina.

Clenched, spasming around the heavy shaft filling her, the inner muscles began struggling to accommodate the heavy width of his cock. Stretching, flaring with sensation that mixed with the crash of her orgasm and began driving her higher, the thickening of his cock at the juncture of the tightening muscles of her vagina shocked her.

Her eyes flared open, meeting his as his head lifted from the bite he’d left at her neck.

“I have you,” he groaned, ecstasy clenching his teeth and tightening his expression as the amber in his eyes burned like fire. “I have you, Kate.”

The rush of pleasure filling her system exploded again, drawing a harsh cry from her lips as she jerked against each rush of rapturous pleasure.

She couldn’t survive it.

The orgasmic explosions were destructive. The waves of shuddering ecstasy crashed through her senses with each tug of the thickened flesh against her inner muscles as he locked inside her.

Heated spurts of his release filled the too sensitive depths of her pussy. More sensation. More pleasure.

It built. Amassed. One ever-deepening release after another charging through her body until the ecstasy exploded in a powerful surge so intense she felt each pinpoint of sensation as it released inside her.

Exhausted, wrung out by the pleasure and the force of a release she could never have imagined, Katie collapsed beneath him, wilting like a flower as the caress of the sun eased into night.

As sleep claimed her, she felt the slow easing of the swollen flesh held captive inside her as Devil gave one last shudder of release. But as he withdrew and rolled from her, it wasn’t to leave her. Rather, he pulled her into his embrace, cushioned her head on his shoulder and allowed sleep to claim her.

A full, deep, blessedly dreamless sleep.

SIX

Devil brushed his mate’s hair back from her face as he finished cleaning the perspiration and remnants of their release from her thighs, along her belly and from her breasts.

It was an act he’d never done for another woman.

The lovers he’d known in the past had always jumped from bed and run straight to the shower as though they were somehow dirty and had to wash the filth from their bodies.

Kate had slipped immediately into sleep instead. Her body completely relaxed, exhausted from the force of pleasure that had exploded between them.

Picking up a long, sun-kissed curl from her shoulder and drawing it to his face, he brushed the silky softness against his cheek and let a smile tug at his lips. Those curls completely fascinated him. It was as though they had a warmth and life of their own as they flowed around her body.

Hell, the woman herself fascinated him. In the week since he’d taken her from Ireland, he’d become so entranced by her that he’d begun to wonder if he was losing his mind.

It wasn’t his mind he was losing. It was his heart—at breakneck speed with no hope of slowing down.

Spurred by a phenomenon known as mating heat—a physical and emotional convergence of hormonal shifts that occurred once a Breed came into contact with his destined mate, the heart he believed he didn’t have was suddenly alive. The one he would have been destined to love had he been born as human.

Unlike humans, though, there was no choice in whether to accept or reject the male or female that perfectly complemented him physically, mentally, and emotionally as well as hormonally.

Once the body, mind and heart established that this person was the one that best fit the hungers and needs inside them, then the animal took over.

Hormones gathered and built beneath the tongue, spilled to that first kiss and established a bond born of a sexual heat so intense that there was no denying it. Speeding through their bodies, spurring their emotions, each response was driven at warp speed to bind the pair together in a mating that the Breed scientists suspected would endure a lifetime.

Mating heat actually existed.

The gossip rags hadn’t printed the insanity of fear-driven drivel as they usually had. For once, they’d at least partially gotten it right.

Returning the curl alongside the others that spilled over her shoulder, Devil pulled the sheet over Kate’s slumbering body before collecting his shirt from the bottom of the bed and pulling it on.

Dressed, he slipped from her room and made his way silently downstairs.

Stepping into the foyer, he stopped as Lobo and Dash Sinclair stepped from the library on the far end of the entryway and headed for the door.

“There you are,” Lobo growled, his dark gaze fierce as savagery flashed in his gaze. “Where’s Graeme?”

“I sent him into town to check on the whereabouts of the reporters that were here,” Devil answered, tensing at the ready violence that hummed around Lobo. “Why?”

“There’s a fucking Bureau agent at the gates with two Irish and American Immigration agents with a warrant to search the premises for Katie. I want to know how the hell they found out she was here.”

“Like hell.” A flash of red filled his vision for the briefest moment before he turned to Dash. “Cassie knows Breed Law; have her send them back to the holes they crawled out of.”

Dash grimaced. “She’s going over the language now, but she doesn’t just pull these arguments out her ass, Dev. She needs time.”

“Then buy her the time she needs,” he demanded. “This isn’t American land, it’s Navajo land.” He turned back to Lobo. “American Immigration has no rights on this land, nor does the Bureau of Breed Affairs. Ignore them.”

“We can’t just ignore them,” Lobo argued, his thumbs hooking in the belt that cinched his hips and held the weapon he carried at all times since his wife’s death. “That’s a Bureau agent out there, Dev. We signed an agreement with the Bureau of Breed Affairs that negates any desire we have to tell them to kiss our asses.”

“They can’t take a mate,” he reminded the other male, suddenly remembering several of the laws he himself had read when he had been given the Breed mandates. “It’s an exception to all other laws. No matter the crime, the act or the situation at hand, no mate can be taken, claimed or incarcerated unless a crime is committed after the mating.”

He’d always wondered about the wording. It was explained that a mating was simply Breed language detailing a committed relationship between a Breed and a lover chosen as a life partner. He knew now exactly what it meant and why the wording had been so precise.

“You’ve mated her?” Dash’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils suddenly flaring as amusement lit his gaze. “That’s why the scent of lust was so strong coming from your office earlier. The mating scent was on you when we met, so I assumed you’d already mated.”

Devil grinned. “Not until that bit of Irish got hold of me. Hell, I met her when she was sixteen and training with the Breed Protection Network in Ireland. I was there to train their agents in computer security. I saw her for a few brief seconds, and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t forget her.” He turned to Dash then. “Now, tell me where we stand.”

“We stand strong.” It was Cassie who answered that question.

Standing at the top of the stairs, her hair pulled tightly from her face and hanging down her back in masses of wicked black curls, she was dressed in a dark gray skirt, silk shell and jacket paired with plain, though obviously expensive, black high heels.

She was no longer the precocious, mischievous young woman Devil had met before being sent to Ireland to rescue Kate. The woman stepping confidently down the curved staircase was superior in every way to each and every one of them, and her very bearing emphasized it.

Cool blue eyes. She wore no makeup, no artifice. In one hand she carried a leather briefcase as the other trailed down the stair bannister.

“The laws are quite clear in this situation,” she stated as she stepped into the foyer to join them. “No matter the situation, the circumstance or any previous laws, mating heat trumps it. Especially in a case of any scientific laws that should be created after Breed Law, demanded or mandated. At no time, and in no way without both mates as well as the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs and three-quarters of the Breed Ruling Cabinet’s express and written agreement can any scientific research, experimentation or study be conducted on a mated pair, no matter the justification, reasoning or country that signed the mandates of Breed Law.” She smiled in triumph. “And the leaders of each section of Europe, including Ireland, signed each and every mandate of the laws presented to them before President Marion took it before the United Nations, where every delegate there signed each mandate as well.” From the leather case she withdrew a folder and handed it to Dash Sinclair. “Father, as a member of the Breed Ruling Cabinet, this is the order of a stay of exemption to be presented to the Immigration officials signed by Director Wyatt and wired to me five minutes ago. Director Wyatt is currently on the line with the Bureau agent outside our gates. He’ll need the signed orders before he and the men with him can force the Immigration officials back to Ireland.”

Devil stared back at Cassie with narrowed suspicion. “Why are they so intent to take her? I’ve lost count of the European Breeds who had escaped to America, and the officials there haven’t sent so much as a protest. Now, they’re sending immigration officials after one lone female?”

“Mary Katherine O’Sullivan was taken from the lab her grandfather is accused of having overseen during his tenure with the Genetics Council until the liberation of that particular lab. One of the scientists that worked there was captured several months ago by MI-6 and revealed Wallace O’Sullivan conspired to have his son’s and daughter-in-law’s samples from a fertility clinic sent to the lab he was in charge of. From there, he had the scientists insert the Wolf Breed genetics into not just the sperm, but also the mother’s ova, before fertilization. A process that was outlawed by the Council itself early in the genetic experimentations, for reasons we’ve yet to find explanations for.”

Devil inhaled slowly, carefully.

“It was outlawed because it allowed the Breeds to conceive. It created Breed males with a mix of both human-compatible as well as Breed-compatible sperm, and in Breed females. In females, the ova could be fertilized by either species with no complications. They allowed one of these births, but terminated the Breed somewhere around twelve years of age for reasons we were unaware of.”

Cassie frowned up at him. “Surely there were rumors why the Breed was terminated.”

Devil stared down at her, remembering those rumors and the concern in the scientists that ran the lab he was assigned to.

“Rumor was that the Breed created by that pairing could not be identified as a Breed by any testing, nor by Breed senses. The animal instincts were so completely merged with the human psyche in cunning and in response that the Breed was so superior that they feared the result of allowing it to live. At twelve, the Breed already had the loyalty of every other Breed in the labs, and the scientists only learned later that an uprising had been only days away from the time they terminated his life.”

“It was a male then?” Cassie asked curiously.

Devil shrugged. “They always referred to the Breed as the ‘specimen,’ ‘project’ or an ‘it.’ I assigned the sex myself out of respect for the life taken, nothing more.”

She nodded thoughtfully before turning to her father. “Director Wyatt should have contacted his agent by now. You and I can take that file—” She stopped.

The instant tension that filled her body had Devil as well as Lobo and Dash instantly on guard as Cassie turned back and looked up the stairs.

Devil didn’t wait to ask questions. Instead, he turned and raced up the stairs, aware of the two Breeds moving quickly behind him. Every animal sense inside his body, honed by years of training, instinct and the shadowed war being fought for Breed survival was screaming in alarm. And it was screaming his mate’s name.

SEVEN

The second the door clicked shut behind Devil, Katie came instantly awake.

Regret at his departure joined the subtle ache for his touch as she rose from the bed and quickly dressed, determined to find Khileen and see if she had heard of anything resembling the pleasure she’d found with Devil.

She knew it wasn’t normal. She’d had friends all her life until the world had found out she was actually a Breed, and those friends had had sex often. With more than one man. Some with women. Never had she heard of anything like the pleasure she had just experienced.

Moving into the bathroom, she quickly tamed the wild mass of curls with a detangling comb before tying it back at the nape of her neck.

As she drew her hands back, she glimpsed the mark Devil had left at the bend of her neck and shoulder. His teeth had pierced the skin, though she’d felt none of the pain she would have expected to feel.

Reaching up, she brushed her fingers over the reddened area, the light caress sending a bold shudder to race over her flesh. A sensation of intense pleasure had her thighs tightening and a sense of amazement filling her.

That was no ordinary hickey.

“Wow,” she breathed out, rather impressed now. “Definitely weird.”

As she considered the sensation, her nose wrinkled at the odd scent that teased at it.

That had been happening more and more often. Scents that were out of place, impressions and instincts she wasn’t familiar with.

Shaking her head, she gave a quick glance at the jeans, sleeveless camisole top and sneakers she’d donned to be sure she looked presentable before turning and leaving the bathroom. Closing the door behind her, she stilled, her head turning quickly to the balcony doors.

“Eh. Let’s not attempt to run,” the tall male standing inside her room aimed the barrel of a laser gun at her chest and smiled coolly. “I’d hate to have to dispose of you. The price on your head isn’t worth nearly as much if you’re not alive.”

Her senses began exploding then. The impression of Devil, Lobo and Dash quickly nearing her room, fury surging through them as they raced for her.

Devil’s scent was clear, sharp and acrid with his rage. Lobo was determined and definitely furious, but his scent was more calculating. Dash Sinclair’s was icy cold, and all three men were intent on murder.

She stood still, and she waited.

“Rather impressive, mating with the Devil,” the dark-haired stranger drawled. “Perhaps you’ve already conceived.”

She shook her head slowly. She would know if she had.

“You’re too soon,” she said softly. “It’s the wrong time of the month. Besides, Wolf Breeds don’t conceive easily. Remember?”

To that, he gave a muted chuckle. “Most don’t. You, on the other hand, as exceptional as you are, can definitely conceive easily, as I hear it. Now, why don’t you just walk on over here, nice and slow, so I can cuff you and catch our ride out of the ranch.”

She could hear the muffled sound of a covert helicopter moving in on the house. No doubt every Breed in the place could hear it as well. It was quiet, she gave him that. Likely completely silent to him. Someone had definitely done their homework in attempting to hide it. But, they hadn’t quite gotten it right.

“I’d rather die than leave with you.” She shrugged as though unconcerned and prepared herself to move. “And what did you say, the price wasn’t nearly as high if I’m dead?”

He frowned back at her. “I hear the Devil’s besotted with you. From that mark on your neck, I can see that he’s mated you. Do you really want to chance leaving him to a life where he can never have another woman, another lover or a family if I kill you? Wouldn’t you prefer to at least give him the chance to rescue you?”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be worth finding.” She smiled then. “Besides, I’m a greedy bitch. I want him to remember me forever.”

That clearly threw him off.

Devil and the others were at the top of the stairs now, racing furiously for her room. She was at the end of the hall. With a running go, Devil would take her door down instantly, surprising her would-be kidnapper and drawing his attention against his will.

Using the force he’d enter with, Devil would evade the shot that may possibly go off, and knowing Lobo and Dash, she’d be anticipating the quick trigger finger with calculating assurance.

At the most, the mirror on the dresser would shatter about one second before Devil took this man’s head off his shoulders.

“Don’t be difficult, bitch,” he snapped out, his brown eyes narrowing furiously.

“But it’s what I live for.”

She dove for the floor at the same second that Devil exploded against the door.

The shot went off, glass exploded.

Lunging to her feet, Kate jumped for the mercenary, or the Council soldier, whatever he was. The only chance he had of living was if she got to him first.

Shock held him for that extra second she needed to kick the weapon from his hand, ram her knee into his crotch, then slam her elbow into his neck with enough force to knock him to the floor, unconscious, before slamming the balcony door against the sound of the helicopter circling the side of the house to pick the bastard up.

As the door closed she swung around, knelt in front of the fallen soldier and met her mate’s furious scowl as he crouched in front of her, prepared to leap for an enemy that was no longer in position for the killing blow he would have made.

Devil’s black and amber gaze flickered to the unconscious soldier, then to Kate as she stared back at him, determination narrowing her eyes.

“Mate, why are you protecting garbage?” he asked with lazy curiosity as he sensed both Lobo and Dash quickly reassessing the situation and relaxing their primal rush for blood.

“One man’s trash.” She shrugged with a suggestive smile. “Another’s treasure?”

Was that jealousy striking at his brain and bringing the taste of blood to his senses?

“Is he your treasure then?” He nodded to the fallen form.

Katie grimaced. What an awful description.

“Perhaps not him,” she admitted as she rose slowly from her crouch and faced the man she’d been told was her “mate.” “But, the information he might have is something else entirely.”

She looked down at him again, remembering where she had seen him and the significance of the information he may well hold.

“What information could a mercenary possibly hold?” Devil asked as he took the two steps toward her, gripped her arm and unceremoniously dragged her away from the “garbage.”

“I’ve seen him before,” she admitted, turning to stare down at him as well. “Da has a picture of him in his study alongside four other men who were at the labs the night he found me. They were assigned to the labs, and one of them shot Da’s best friend, Jorn Langer. When Da was forced to leave the body to hide me, he then went back during the cleanup phase of the liberation. Jorn’s body was missing and this man as well as his three cohorts were seen dragging the body away.”

“Langer’s alive then?” Lobo questioned, the significance of the information drawing a frown to his brow.

She shook her head. “Da’s certain he was dead. Khileen’s mother had him officially declared dead before your marriage to her, so it wouldn’t affect you or Khileen legally in any way. Da wants to fulfill a promise he and his friend made to each other as young men, a promise to make certain that if one went before the other, the surviving one would ensure the other was buried in their family cemetery in Ireland. And he wants to know why they took his body.” That more than anything tormented her father, Kate knew.

“I couldn’t let you kill him, Dev,” she said softly. “Da’s searched for these men since the night Jorn disappeared. He left him to save me. Jorn died to help Da rescue me before anyone else knew of my existence there. I couldn’t let him die.”

Hell, this woman would probably surprise him until the day he drew his last breath. She was a wonder he had no idea how to decipher, and no way of understanding how he had deserved her.

“Get the garbage out of here,” he ordered Graeme as the other man rushed into the room. He’d clearly not followed Devil’s orders to go into town. “Then find those reporters as I told you to do.”

“I sent Flint to follow the reporters,” Graeme stated, his tone flat with disgust. “I delegate, Devil. There’s too much damned excitement around here for me to be gone for long. Why the hell didn’t you call me before rushing up here? If I hadn’t heard that damned copter, I’d have never known we had trouble.”

Devil’s brow lifted as he stared back at the other man, waiting.

“Do I look stupid today?” the other man demanded arrogantly. “Our heli was in the air instantly, and the team aboard it just reported they’ve taken the pilot into custody.” He tapped the earbud he wore securely in his ear.

Yeah, he was going to have to start using his, Devil decided as he turned back to his mate.

She had turned and rested on her haunches several feet back from the unconscious man, her head tipped sideways as she studied him.

Now he knew exactly why the European Breed Protection Network had so hated losing her. As she stared at the man, senses she wasn’t aware she had, senses that were so much a natural part of her, were assessing him, committing each feature to memory, each scent, and drawing in every bit of knowledge that her primal senses could pick up on.

“Kate?” he questioned her softly.

Not Kate.

Katie was the girl she had been, Kate was the woman who had come to that bed with him and broken down the barriers he’d built to keep her out of his heart. Kate was the mature, instinctive, highly adept Breed female the animal inside him had known she was.

No wonder his own primal instincts had rushed to claim her as soon as possible. The animal part of him had known no other woman could match him as fully as this woman did.

“He hasn’t bathed in several days,” she murmured. “He’s been on the estate, watching and waiting.” She tipped her head to the other side and Devil swore he could feel her assessing things she wasn’t even aware she had the senses to assess.

“He wasn’t alone. I can smell several others’ scents on him. Not just one, so he and the pilot aren’t the extent of the team sent out to capture me. But the other scents aren’t as strong. He’s not been around them in a few days.”

Devil gave Graeme a speaking look, to which the other Breed gave a quick nod.

He wanted those men, each and every one of them. He’d send a message to whoever had sent them out. Kate was his, and the Devil did not tolerate anyone at any time striking against what belonged to him.

Moving to her side, Devil watched her face then, seeing the frown that creased her brow and the look of confusion that filled her gaze. Bending down as well, he drew in the scents that covered the male and tried to find what was confusing her.

As she said, the soldier was working with at least two others. Their scents were too much a part of the soldier, yet not strong enough to indicate that he’d been in their presence for several days. They were likely awaiting him somewhere with transportation to spirit Kate out of the States and back to Europe.

He had definitely been on the estate for several days. The land around them held a unique scent, just as all places did. A combination of the ground, the movement on it and the plants that grew within it. The scent he carried was definitely that of the grounds within the secured stone wall Lobo had erected around four acres that the house sat in the center of.

Then, he found the scent confusing her. It was subtle, so subtle that even he couldn’t filter it enough to identify it, but it was definitely one he’d known before. One that was unique, and teased his senses as one well known.

Known to not just Kate, evidently, but to himself as well.

“Have you figured it out yet?” she asked him softly.

He shook his head. “It’s too weak.”

She nodded, then slowly rose to her feet and moved back as Lobo took her place.

If the scent was well known to Devil, then it was possible, highly possible, it was known to Lobo as well.

“Familiar,” Lobo muttered. “But I can’t get enough of it to identify it.”

“My problem as well.” Devil grimaced before rising and moving to Kate.

His arm went around her possessively, drawing her to his side as he turned to Graeme and gave the other man a nod.

Flicking his fingers to the Breeds behind him, Graeme moved aside to allow them to haul the soldier to his feet as he groaned weakly.

“Lock him in the cells,” Graeme ordered harshly. “I’ll be in later to question him.”

The cells were just as stated. Iron cells, secure and impossible to escape once locked. They were buried beneath the stables with only one way in and only one way out. Once they had him down there, he was at their mercy. And Devil knew there was little, if any, mercy in Graeme for anyone besides himself.

Graeme knew loyalty. He understood compassion. Mercy to the enemy was something else entirely. That didn’t exist in Graeme’s little world. And he sure as hell didn’t apologize for it.

“Call Da, let him know he’s here.”

Devil looked down at her, then back to Graeme, and read the other Breed’s instinctive rejection of the request.

Well, not a request exactly, Devil admitted with a small grain of amusement.

“I’ll call him personally.” It was Lobo who agreed to the demand voiced at the last minute, as a request, Devil thought as he hid his smile and nodded to the man he’d followed since his liberation from the Council lab.

“Lilith, get Jonas out here. Now.” Lobo turned to the small female Breed who had entered the room silently.

Lobo’s personal assistant was a quiet, submissive little Wolf Breed who always seemed rather painfully shy.

Pushing a pair of glasses up her nose, Lilith made a quick note on the small electronic pad she carried.

“And I want a team together now! By God I want to know where that bastard was hiding and why he wasn’t detected before he got into my fucking house.” He stared around the room then, his face darkening. “And find my fucking stepdaughter now.”

The throttled fury that lit his voice had everyone moving. Only Kate remained in place, her hold on Devil’s arm tightening as he moved to search for Khileen.

“She’s in her room,” she stated softly, though Lobo clearly heard her.

He turned back to her slowly. “How do you know where she is? Even I can’t catch her scent from that distance.”

Kate grimaced then before a small smile tugged at her lips.

“I kind of put this in before leaving the bathroom.” She removed the small earbud communication device with a slight shrug. “She just woke up from her nap and activated her side. Give her a minute to figure out something’s going on—”

“Oh my God! And you let me sleep through it? You fucking bitch!” Khileen screeched across the line.

A second later her bedroom door slammed farther up the hall as she came racing to Kate’s room.

She came to a full stop at the doorway, eyes wide, shocked, looking around as though searching for some remnants of whatever she missed.

Then her gaze lit on Kate with Devil’s arm wrapped around her. It dropped to her friend’s neck, her lips parting, eyes narrowing.

“So fucking not fair,” she muttered then.

“Your language is deteriorating, Khi,” Lobo chastised her gently, warningly.

“Yeah, well the Big Bad Wolf’s not exactly here,” she grumbled before turning back to Kate and shaking her head in disappointment. “So not fair, Katie,” she repeated. “You were supposed to tell me if it happened.”

“It happened.” The laughter in Kate’s voice had Devil wanting to smile.

He swore he could feel something akin to, or perhaps far surpassing, happiness, as it exploded inside him.

Kate’s arm tightened around his back as the other moved to circle his hips and hug him close.

“Bitch,” Khileen sighed again before giving Lobo a defiant look.

“While I have you here, could you please do something about the acoustics in this damned place. If it happens outside my bedroom, then it may as well not even be happening,” she accused him with no small amount of anger. “And I simply don’t like it.”

She turned and stalked back to her room. Evidently, this time, she left the door open.

Lobo shook his head. “One of these days, remind me to kill Tiberian. Slowly,” he muttered of his brother. “Very slowly.”

He left the room, throwing his hand up in a silent farewell and heading, Devil knew, for the cells.

Where he was heading himself.

Turning to his mate and lifting her chin with his fingers, he placed a quick kiss to her waiting lips. “I won’t be long,” he promised.

“Better not be,” she warned him. “Because I think I want to bite you again.”

He paused, turning back to her quickly, hunger gleaming in his gaze as Kate stared up at him with definite interest.

“One hour,” he promised.

“You have forty-five minutes,” she decided.

His gaze narrowed.

“Want to try for forty?”

A manly grunt and a snarl, and he was quickly striding from the room, definitely intent on making the most of his forty minutes.

Which was forty minutes longer than she should have had to wait, she decided with a smile as she stared around the destruction littering her bedroom floor. Ah well, it would give her time to move into his bedroom. She liked it better anyway.

EIGHT

There wasn’t much left of the human to question.

The Breed known as Graeme stared down at the bloodied face, split lips, the swollen eyes, and had to force himself not to rip the bastard’s head off.

But, he had the information he wanted.

He’d had the information he wanted hours ago though. It had really taken no more than flexing the feline claws his nails became and raking the sharpened tips, normally hidden in a groove at the top of his finger, over the man’s chest. There were now four bloody furrows that would need stitches soon.

If Graeme decided to allow him to live longer.

The pilot wasn’t in much better shape, though he’d had less information. A fly-by-night pilot that hired his services out for a paltry amount, considering the risk he’d taken this time.

This one, he’d simply turn over to the Bureau of Breed Affairs agent being sent to collect him.

The other, Graeme wanted to keep just a while longer. He had a feeling his friends might come looking for him. Sometimes there was a sense of loyalty among humans that made men do stupid things. Things like attempting to rescue friends who had made decidedly poor choices.

Besides, Devil’s woman wanted certain information for her father. Information Lobo Reever wouldn’t mind having as well. There were several questions regarding his wife’s death that had yet to be answered. Questions he knew the Wolf Breed needed before bringing his brother, Tiberian, back to the States.

Until then, he could simply have fun and take his aggressions out on the human for a while. After all, a Breed that had been driven slowly insane over the years, only to find that sanity rather abruptly once again, needed something to amuse himself with until he had his own plans in place.

“Just kill me,” the soldier pleaded as he struggled to open eyes swollen shut. “Please just kill me.”

The stench of the man’s urine, spilled in weakening terror, offended Graeme’s senses.

“Do you deserve to die?” he asked, flexing then retracting his claws as he fought to keep from giving him exactly what he was begging for. “I don’t think you deserve to die yet. You haven’t given me enough information to pay for such mercy.”

The soldier whimpered as Graeme rolled his eyes in disgust.

Reaching up to rub at his jaw thoughtfully, he pulled back at the last second with a grimace. The last thing he needed was to risk messing up the disguise he’d created. He couldn’t afford to allow his identity to be revealed just yet.

He needed just a little more time before he could shed the Graeme appearance and return to claim what was his.

“I don’t know anything more.” The soldier disturbed Graeme’s thoughts as he sobbed the declaration. “I swear, I don’t know anything more.”

Graeme grunted at the vow. “You stink of a liar.”

Cutting the ropes that bound him to the chair, he dragged the moaning soldier to a cell and tossed him to the cot on the floor. Agony resounded in the human’s moans as he lay completely still.

Maybe he’d cracked a rib, Graeme decided in unconcern. He’d mention it to the medic he’d requested to check the bastard out.

“I was merciful,” he told the man as he locked the cell doors. “Ever been skinned alive? Or dissected alive? I could show you how it feels if you’d like. I know exactly how it’s done.”

And how it felt. How it ripped through the mind because the drugs refused to allow mercy and kept the subject conscious. What it felt like to have some bastard handle his guts with uncaring hands—

He forced the memory back as the killing rage and dark insanity tempted the animal instincts that were far too close to the surface.

The soldier had pissed himself again.

“Damn, son, at least I held my water until they actually began slicing me open,” he muttered. “Show a little courage why don’t you.”

He’d have fared far better had he not screamed like a little girl as Graeme flashed the wicked canines at the side of his mouth in a vicious snarl no more than an inch from his face.

“Medic will be here in a bit,” he called back. “We’ll get you something to eat later, a drink maybe. Then we’ll see what your skin looks like hanging on the wall to dry.”

Hell, how much water was the bastard’s kidneys holding anyway? If he pissed himself much more, then he was going to dehydrate for sure.

“Graeme, stop terrorizing the prisoner,” Lobo ordered as Graeme stepped into the control room and locked the door behind him.

“Boss.” Graeme nodded. “Surprised to see you here.”

Hell, this fucking Wolf was like a ghost or something. He was one of the few men that could slip into the control room and watch him without Graeme sensing his presence.

“Yes, I would imagine you are,” Lobo answered, his hooded gaze watching him carefully. “You know, the Bureau of Breed Affairs has an APB out on a Bengal Breed that was once dissected and skinned alive. Wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

Graeme blinked back at him in surprise. “I don’t know about the Bengal part, but I could produce a Lion Breed that’s been up close and personal with it,” he grunted, biting back his fury. “Fuckers damned near drove me crazy.”

They had stolen his mind. Hell, they might have stolen his soul.

“Still claiming Lion status are you?” Lobo questioned lazily.

“Registered and everything,” Graeme growled back at him. “Do you have a problem with me, boss?”

“No, no problem at all.” Lobo shook his head. “But, perhaps you have a problem with me.”

That one stopped him.

“What kind of problem?” Graeme asked carefully, allowing his suspicion to show rather than hiding it behind a wall of stoicism as he would have before coming to the Reever lands.

“A problem concerning my loyalty to those who give me theirs,” he stated softly. “You’ve proven yourself more than once, and I’ve expressed several times that loyalty goes both ways here. I’m not a man you have to lie to, unless you’re out to deceive me.”

“I’ll spread the word, boss.” Graeme nodded, staring back at Reever as though uncertain where he was going with the chastisement. “I’ll assure each of them, of my own personal belief that you mean every word you’re saying too.”

Yeah, right. This man and Jonas Wyatt were rumored to be thick as fucking thieves. And Wyatt was overturning every fucking stone in New Mexico searching for the Bengal he had that APB on. That would be one stupid fucker if he trusted Lobo with his identity.

Lobo’s lips quirked in amusement. “You do that, Graeme,” he murmured. “You do that.” Then he turned back to the security glass and stared at the prisoner as he crossed his arms over his chest and stroked his jaw thoughtfully. “Have you called the medic?”

“Yep. He’ll be here soon.” Graeme leaned against the wall, his lips curling in amusement as he glanced at the prisoner himself. “I think he’s going to need rehydration soon though. The bastard keeps pissing himself.”

Lobo grunted at that. “Coward.”

“Now, boss, maybe he just doesn’t have very strong kidneys, ya know? What do they call that? Inconsistency or some shit?”

“Incontinence,” Lobo snorted.

“Or something.” He shrugged. “I’ll have the medic strap an IV to his ass and rehydrate him so we can help him relieve himself again.”

“We’re keeping him?” Lobo asked, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with Graeme’s intent.

“Why not,” Graeme drawled. “The boy has friends. Long-association-type friends. Those kinds of friends come looking for you when you’re missing.”

“Loyalty,” Lobo murmured then, still staring at the prisoner.

“Stupidity,” Graeme retorted. “But, I can work with that kind of stupidity if given a chance.”

Lobo nodded. “Very well, see what you can do with it. You have three days to draw his friends out, then I want him stitched up, patched up and ready to fly out to Haven to appear before the Wolf Breed Tribunal for sentencing. He struck against a Wolf Breed and conspired to kidnap one to turn her over to research. That’s a capital offense and only the Tribunal can sentence him for it.”

“Only if he survives the transfer.” Graeme smiled coldly. “Stupid bastards like that try to escape, get killed and save the Tribunal hours of needless debate and months of protests by humans.”

Lobo chuckled at that. “Yeah, but hell, they like their little amusements as well.” The look he gave Graeme was one he assumed brooked no refusal.

Graeme let him keep thinking that. For the moment.

“Gotcha, save him for Tribunal amusement. Check.” He tipped his fingers to his forehead in a careless salute.

“And you let me know if that Bengal with the APB out on him needs a friend,” Lobo reminded him as he turned to leave. “I make a hell of a friend, Graeme. A bad enemy to make, but a hell of a friend.”

With one last glance over his shoulder, Lobo left the room and closed the door behind him.

Whew.

Now that was what a Breed could consider a damned good close call.

Especially a Breed with an APB out on his ass and a Bureau director determined to reel him in like a fish on a hook.

Graeme had never considered himself reelable. Or hookable.

He grinned at the image before taking his seat and releasing the electronic lock to the door the medic used to access the cells.

“Be careful of that one, Doc,” he spoke into the mic as the medic made his way across the cement floor. “He likes to water his cot a bit.”

“You terrorizing the prisoners again, Graeme?” the Breed chuckled.

It wasn’t their first prisoner, or the first one Graeme had caused to piss himself.

“It’s getting too damned easy to do it, Doc,” he answered. “We need to find prisoners made of sterner stuff. Why don’t you put out a memo to all those weak-assed soldiers the Council keeps sending. We need someone tougher to play with.”

“Right. Memo. Send sterner stuff,” the medic laughed as Graeme opened the cell and watched the medic and two Wolf Breed guards enter the barred enclosure.

“Yeah,” Graeme murmured. “Send sterner stuff. At least give me a fucking challenge.”

He snorted at that.

That wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible because the best they’d had to offer at any given time had already had their playdates with him. He was alive, they were dead. Every last one of them.

Screams echoed in his head, agony sliced through his veins. A scream of rage built in his throat as the memories surged through his head and tempted the beast he’d managed to chain.

His claws flexed and his body tensed to jump from the chair as the insane rage that had festered in him for so many years threatened to slip free once again.

At the last second, he managed one last rational thought.

His lifeline.

Gentle eyes. The scent of moonlight and shy laughter.

“Who are you?” she whispered, her head tilting to the side as the colors of the desert shaded her head and brushed across her shoulders in the silken strands. “If you’re here to kill me, why not just do it and get it over with.”

Oh, he was there to kill her.

The animal could taste her blood, salivated for it as the insanity the man lived within relished the moment.

“What makes you think I’m here to kill you? Can’t I enjoy the night as well? Besides, I was here first. You’re the one that found me, not the other way around.”

He felt her surprise. Hell, it was no less than his own. He imagined the animal snarled at him in complete shock, questioning the seemingly rational tone of voice he used.

“Did I find you?” She smiled. Right there, staring into the shadows where he hid, the faintest little smile as her arms relaxed just a bit where they were crossed over her breasts.

“What do you call it?” he asked her as he leaned against the rough stone of the cliff at his side. “I was standing here minding my own business when you sneaked up on me. I call that finding me.”

What the hell was happening to him?

He could smell her, he knew her for who she was rather than who others thought her to be. Her scent was just as sweet as it had ever been, unmarred by the filth of male possession or the acrid stink of lies and deceptions.

There was just the smell of the woman, the moonlight, regret, a hint of fear, and perhaps, hell, there was the faintest scent of weariness and desire.

She shook her head, her confusion scenting the air between them. “I didn’t even know you were here. I used to come out here all the time just to enjoy the night.”

“So why did you stop? Better yet, why return the minute I decided to enjoy the view here? Maybe I should be scared of you.” How the hell was he so calm? How had he managed to remember what it was like to tease her so gently and watch that shy pleasure as it began to warm her gaze?

“Yeah, I’m really scary.” She rolled her eyes at the thought, her expression betraying her belief that nothing could be further from the truth.

“You could be some kind of assassin. One of those seductresses the Genetics Council sends out to lure innocent male Breeds back to the labs,” he pointed out.

She tipped her head to the side and watched his shadow in interest now.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not a seductress.”

He had her complete attention. It was focused entirely on him and the subtle scent of feminine attraction mixed with something deeper, something stronger that he knew he should recognize but couldn’t.

“Hmm, assassin then?” He let her see a grin, a teasing curve of his lips as he shifted just enough to allow the moonlight to reveal it while keeping the rest of his face hidden. “Are you here to kill me? I’m just a helpless Breed slipping away for a few hours before I have to save the world again.”

That was what Rule Breaker had muttered that morning as he strode through the predawn light to join the team heading into the desert for patrol: Out to save the fucking world again. Give me a break.

“I’m definitely no assassin,” she promised him, that shy little smile teasing him again. “I’m just a secretary that enjoys the night. A chance meeting in the dark, never to be repeated.”

“Never?” The thought of that had forced the animal to step back another pace and allow one more inch of sanity to curl about its neck in restraint. “Don’t tell me that, you may break my heart.”

“I’m no heartbreaker either,” she sighed, stepping back. “I better go.”

“Promise you’ll come back.” Go? She was leaving him alone? Again?

The animal strained against the bonds that were far too weak to hold it if it became insistent.

She paused. “I shouldn’t come back.”

But she wanted to. He could feel it. Taste it on the air around them.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” he promised. “Just for a few minutes. I promise. Just to talk a minute. I won’t keep you long.”

He should be pouncing on her. He should be tasting her terror and her blood as she stared into his eyes and realized she was about to pay for her crimes. Pay for the hell she’d sent him to.

She looked out at the darkened landscape for long moments before giving a resigned little sigh.

“What the hell,” she finally breathed out wearily. “It beats the nightmares.”

She turned and moved away from him, a slight shadow amid the darkness, blending with it for a moment before stepping into the moonlight once again and returning to the safety of the house and the protection of the Breeds she’d slipped away from.

It beat the nightmares.

She had no idea, he realized. Just as the other hadn’t known the past that endangered her, neither did this one.

The only thing left of the person she had been was that slight scent of shy, hungry need. Not a sexual need, at least, not then, all those years ago. But a need for warmth, for caring.

Everything else had changed, and he suddenly wanted to know why.

Why was the girl she had been so overshadowed that even her scent had been altered in ways?

And what was that fucking taste—

It hit him then.

Just enough rational thought had filtered through the fury and insanity to drag the animal back long enough for him to make sense of a lifetime of hell.

Her blood had saved his life, but it had turned him into an enraged animal.

When the soldiers had caught him again, that added quality in his blood had spurred them into experiments so horrendous it had broken what little sanity he’d still possessed.

It had been the blood that had transfused him.

The scent of what the Breeds called mating heat, the taste of it in his mouth, the small glands swelling beneath his tongue each time he came near her.

This was why finding her had driven him that last short step into insanity.

She was his mate and he had finally found her.

That didn’t mean she didn’t have to pay for running from him.

It didn’t mean Judd wouldn’t pay for helping her.

It didn’t mean he was sane by any stretch of the imagination.

But with her, he might have a shot at finding his sanity.

At least enough of it to claim what was his.

He’s stitched up, Graeme,” the medic announced as he left the cell, the guards with him securing the locks as Graeme reached out and secured the electronic safeguards as well.

“Thanks, Doc.” Graeme cleared his throat as he pushed back the memories. “I’ll try to keep him nice and quiet while his scratches heal.”

The medic laughed as he and the guards left the cells and left Graeme to his thoughts.

His fantasies.

NINE

Two weeks later

Devil Black, shame is thy middle name,” Kate laughed in merriment as she stalked into the bedroom, closing the door loudly behind her before locking it securely and facing the Breed that had stolen her heart with merciless intent. Mating heat may have begun it, but his heart had completed it.

“Council didn’t give us middle names, darlin’,” he reminded her as he lounged back on their bed, the hard, corded strength of his naked body displayed to her hungry gaze. “They concentrated their talents on a few more important aspects instead.”

Broad, lean, his hand lowered, long fingers circling the engorged width of his cock.

Ah yes, she had to admit, some enterprising scientist had definitely shown a bit of imagination in programming the DNA of certain aspects of the Wolf Breed’s male form.

Tall, lean and powerful, savagely hewn features emphasized by the unusual amber-striated black eyes and thick lashes.

She couldn’t look at him and not want him.

He was the embodiment of her teenage fantasy, and now he was the lover who never failed to send her flying into ecstasy.

Toeing her sandals slowly from her feet, her fingers flipped the button holding her skirt at her hips. Chiffon and silk slid down her thighs, over her legs to pool carelessly at her feet as she stepped over it.

As a growl rumbled in his chest, Kate moved slowly closer, wearing only white silk bikini panties and the snug black cami covering her breasts.

Braless, she could feel the sensitive, hard tips of her nipples rasping against the fabric, creating a heated ache impossible to ignore for long.

Between her thighs her clit swelled and pulsed in demand, the slick essence of feminine need coating the bare folds of her pussy and dampening her panties as she drew closer to him.

The amber flared in his gaze brighter, hotter as her hand lifted, fingers stroking against the flesh bared between the elastic band of her panties and the hem of the top where it ended just below her navel.

Mating heat was a flame that refused to allow them apart for long, but it was also a key to emotions that a hardened, battle-scarred Breed might never have allowed free. The key to a sensuality that a wary, uncertain Breed female may have fought, at least for a while.

Now, there was no fighting, no hiding, no denying.

Bracing her knee on the mattress, her palms flat against the blankets, Kate lifted herself to the bed, crawling slowly between those long, powerful legs to the male awaiting her.

Watching her move to him, sensuality washing over her expression, flushing her face, tightening her breasts, her nipples, sending the sweet scent of her need to fill his senses.

Long, silken curls fell around her like twining spirals of flames as her green eyes gleamed with emerald hunger between long, sun-kissed lashes.

Damn, his balls were tight, the engorged length of his cock throbbing with steadily increasing hunger as she bypassed it only to straddle his thighs. The silk of her panties, heated and damp from the arousal building in her, pressed against the iron-hard length as her lips brushed against his.

With each passing second the heat building between them rose, overwhelming their senses as the need to touch, to taste, became imperative.

His fingers speared into the curls at the back of her head, holding her in place as his lips covered hers, his tongue licking against them, parting them until she met his kiss with a fiery heat of her own.

Spicy and sweet, the mating hormone spilling from the tiny glands beneath their tongues sent their pulses racing as the need amplified and surged through their systems.

Devil couldn’t imagine a high greater than this. The pleasure of his mate’s kiss, her touch, the hunger and need rising between them like hungry flames licking at their flesh.

Hooking his fingers into the elastic at her hips, it was incredibly easy to snap the stretchy lace from the silk and remove them entirely.

The feel of her flesh, slick and hot against the engorged length of his dick, had every muscle in his body tensing, tightening in a need so primal it was impossible to deny.

Holding her lips to his with his hand behind her head as he wrapped his free arm around her rear to lift her in place, he couldn’t hold back the desperate growl that rumbled from his throat.

He loved to have her ride him. Loved watching her, feeling her take him. But the primal instincts tearing through him now were impossible to deny.

Dev,” Kate protested the suddenly cessation of his kiss as her eyes widened, surprise flaring through her as he suddenly lifted her from his body.

“What—?”

Before she could do more than gasp the question, he had her on her knees, one big hand pressing her shoulders down as he came behind her.

Catching herself on her elbows and swiping her hair back from her eyes, she was suddenly confronted with her own image in the full-length mirror against the wall. Bent before her mate, his hands gripping her hips, lifting her into place as he removed one hand to grip his fierce erection.

She watched him, watched as his gaze narrowed on the point where their bodies met, and felt the wide crest part the swollen lips of her pussy.

That first pulse of silky pre-seminal fluid shot inside her, the unique hormones contained within it instantly sinking, stroking against her flesh and awakening sensations she wouldn’t have known otherwise.

His head fell back as he pressed the flared head inside the clenched entrance until it was lodged fully inside the milking flesh of her vagina.

The next spurt had a moan falling from her lips as she felt his cock head flex, felt the heat of the release inside her. Because she knew within seconds what would happen.

That rush of sharp, fiery sensation as her pussy clenched tight and hard, an involuntary response to the stimulation of the hormones spilling inside her. The sweeping fire clenching her womb, spasming through it with a pleasure-pain that dragged a broken cry from her lips.

A heartbeat later, as tightly as her flesh was gripped around him, flexing and milking the heavy length deeper still, her pussy wept for more. The silky slide of her juices mixed with the next hot spurt of fluid to increase the spikes of building sensation as he pushed deeper inside her.

It was agonizing pleasure, the sweetest pain she could imagine. With each shallow thrust of his hips, each backward glide of the thick erection, the sensations only mounted. And Kate couldn’t help but watch. Just as he watched the penetration of her body.

“Fuck. So good,” he growled, his chest heaving as a trickle of perspiration eased down his temple.

Lifting his now amber gaze, the burning flames that lit the depths dragged a sharp breath of surprise from her.

“So sweet, Kate,” he growled, his gaze moving to where he was pumping in shallow thrusts, his hips moving rhythmically as he fucked deeper, deeper inside her with each movement until in one final surge, he was buried to the hilt.

A final spurt of fluid shot against her inner walls, the thick head pulsing with the release, caressing the sensitive flesh he filled so fully.

“Dev, please.” The desperate cry wailed from her lips as he held her hips in place, refusing to allow her to thrust back against him, to work him inside her until the sharp bursts of painful pleasure eased.

“Let me feel it,” he groaned. “The feel of your sweet pussy gripping me so tight and hot. Fuck, Kate, it’s like fucking electricity surrounding my cock.”

She whimpered at the pleasure that filled his voice as the little bursts of sensation continued to flare through her pussy.

Pleasure and pain.

And it didn’t end. It wouldn’t end until he began moving. Until the broad length of his cock was shafting hard and deep inside her. Until then, the fluid he’d pumped inside her would keep clenching and tightening her flesh while spikes of pleasure demanded more of her heated juices to spill inside her and ease the ecstatic torture.

“Please, Dev.” Breathless, riding a wave of sensation so powerful it was stealing her breath, Kate pleaded with him to ease the clenching demand building between her thighs.

Her clit was throbbing, pulsing in time to each rippling shudder that worked through her pussy, until in desperation she lowered her hand between her thighs, her fingers finding the nerve-rich center and rubbing it with quickening strokes of her fingers.

“Yeah, play with that pretty clit,” he crooned, coming over her, his knees bracing hers apart, his hips moving just enough to cause the head of his cock to stroke the inner muscles, just enough to send screaming shards of pleasure to race through her nerve endings.

“Let me feel you come like this,” he demanded, his gaze meeting hers in the mirror. “Let me feel that hot little pussy tighten, mate. Milk my cock, sweetheart. Suck my release straight out of my—”

A harsh groan filled her ears as his lips moved to the mating mark at her neck.

Because she was tightening around him. Impossibly tight in long, rippling contractions as the clitoral stimulation began electrifying her senses, pushing her closer, driving her harder.

Inside the heat channel, Devil worked the head of his cock, stroking hidden nerve centers as the broad shaft stretched her, seared her flesh. The pulsing throb of his erection stroked each inch of flesh it stretched, burning against the shuddering and clenching muscles wrapped around it.

Her fingers moved faster, a whimpering cry leaving her lips as he found a nipple with the fingers of one hand and gripped the tight point erotically, pulling at it, applying just enough pressure—

Oh God, she was so close.

A sizzle of brutal sensation shot from her nipple to her clit. Her pussy tightened again, clenched, as his hips moved against her rear, faster, the tiny thrusts stroking, rubbing until in one blinding second she spiraled into an ecstasy that consumed her soul.

She screamed as she felt the first spurt of his release jetting inside her. In the next heartbeat, the thickening in his cock locked him in place as his hips began to move against her, tugging at the grip her flesh had on him with each convulsive spurt of his seed inside her.

It was like flying through pure, rich sensation. All she could do was feel the sharp spikes of pleasure driving into not just her body, but also her soul. It wrung a desperate cry from her throat as his teeth pierced the mating mark once again, his tongue licking against it to ease any pain, and filling it with heat and pleasure instead.

Gasping, shuddering with each explosive starburst erupting inside her, she prayed it never ended, but she knew she wouldn’t survive if it wasn’t over soon.

“I love you, Kate,” he suddenly groaned at her ear. “God help me, mate, I’ll love you past death.”

He loved her.

In the two weeks since the flames of mating heat had wrapped them together, he hadn’t spoke the words. She’d given him her love, whispered it nightly, but never with expectation.

She had never thought he would love her. They were mated. He was a man of realism, of practicality. Love wouldn’t fit into the life he saw before him.

But he’d placed love in it.

Holding her close, his release filling her as she gave a final shudder of pleasure, he whispered the words again.

“I love you, mate.”

“I love you, mate,” she whispered in return. “Forever.”

Holding her close, his face buried against her neck, his body shuddering in the aftermath of pure rapture, Devil felt that final barrier inside his soul give way beneath the emotions pounding against it.

He loved her.

With all his heart, with his scarred soul and the darkness that would likely too often return, he loved her.

And he deserved her.

By God, he deserved this woman, this tiny, Irish flame that had burned through his resistance and stolen his heart.

Just as it was whispered around the estate and in the outlying towns. She was the Devil’s due.

The Devil’s soul.

And every dream he’d ever known.