Styx's Storm

CHAPTER 17

"Well, it looks like the little bitch is finally awake."

Storme stared back at the faces watching her, and wondered why she should even bother with shock or surprise at this point.

Or betrayal.

Still, it was betrayal she felt as she stared back at the other woman, the one person in the world that she had once believed to be a friend.

Fear was a terrible, destructive sense. It was a panic attack in the darkest hours of the night. It was smothering, feeling the breath leave the body, unable to catch it back quickly at the sight of the monsters facing her.

The monsters that were human as well as Breed.

These were the eyes watching her through the darkness of her nightmares. Eyes that might not have glowed red in the low light, but they might as well have. She could still feel the danger, the merciless intent. She could still feel and remember the death that came with them, as well as the recrimination and the consequences that would come when Styx caught up with her. If he caught up with her.

If he was even out there. How could he be though? Marx and Gena had taken her from Haven so easily. She remembered bits and pieces. Being thrown over Marx's shoulder and toted through the night like a sack of potatoes while it seemed that Haven was burning down behind her.

They'd thrown her in the trunk of a car, where she'd blacked out again, and when she awoke, she was in the home she had known before her mother's death, years before her father had taken her to the Andes.

A home she had believed no one else could have known about. Evidently, they had known though. She shifted painfully in the thickly cushioned chair they had dumped her in, lifted her hand to her head and, as she brought her fingers down, stared at the blood that seeped at her temple.

That was why she felt so dizzy and sick to her stomach.

"Get her some water, Coyote," Gena ordered the Breed, using the degrading version of his species name to address him.

Marx didn't seem to mind. He moved to the kitchen and returned moments later with a bottle of cold water.

He pushed it into her hands then moved back to the leather couch where Gena sat, his brown eyes stone hard, emotionless. They weren't cold. Cold denoted hidden emotions. There was just simply no emotion there.

Lightning flashed in the forested night behind her, the jagged bolts of light illuminating Gena and Marx's faces. There was no mercy in their expressions, nothing but determination and chilling death.

Damn. Storme guessed she should have wondered before now why Gena had managed to keep from being killed all these years by the Coyotes that chased her. Everyone else that had tried to befriend Storme had suffered for it, if not given their lives for it. Yet Gena had always managed to remain unscathed.

Because she was a part of them. A part of the Council, the scientists and the monsters chasing after the information Storme's father had managed to steal.

Damn, maybe she should have just given Styx the ring to begin with rather than waiting.

Storme sipped at the water, desperate to delay the inevitable even as she found herself praying silently that Styx had survived.

The memory of him lying in the dirt, unconscious, all that fierce challenge that was so much a part of him silenced, sent terror racing through her.

If they could defeat Styx, then what chance did she have against them?

"You ruined a hell of a plan," Gena drawled as a smirk, similar to Marx's, twisted her thin lips. "Hell, we had no idea you were there. When you disappeared, I simply assumed someone had finally managed to kill you."

So cold and matter-of-fact, as though Storme's life, or her death, meant nothing.

"And what plan was that?" Her throat hurt from the smoke and debris she had breathed in during the explosions.

"The plan to kidnap the Wolf Breed princess, Cassandra Sinclair, and the Feline heir, David Lyons. If we could have snagged a nice little alpha mate, or killed one of the alpha leaders, that would have been an added bonus." Gena smiled as she spoke, crossing one leg over the opposite knee and smoothing a hand down a leather-clad leg as she continued. "Instead, the Sinclairs escaped in a waiting heli-jet and some black-clad bastards melted out of the night and snagged the alpha mates and their little brats right out of our gasp."

Storme almost closed her eyes in thankfulness. They were okay. Hope was still with Wolfe, Merinus Lyons was still with her handsome Lion Breed husband, Callan.

"How did you manage it?" She shook her head in confusion. "There had to have been more involved."

"Of course there was," Gena snorted. "Sanctuary isn't the only Breed stronghold with spies. The spies we have in Haven are just better at what they do. That simple."

Gena had a problem with ego. Storme was surprised she had forgotten about that.

Spiked dark blond hair looked more disheveled than normal, and soot marred her face. She hadn't had as easy a time getting out of Haven as she would pretend.

"Your boyfriend was much easier to kill though," Gena said and smiled maliciously. "Amazing how effective a bullet can be when faced with a Breed. It takes all the fight right out of the little mutants."

No. He wasn't dead. She fought back the agony streaking through her. She hadn't seen blood. She was positive he had been breathing, just shallowly. He wasn't dead. He wouldn't allow something this evil and malicious to kill him.

"They're here," she whispered, her index finger rubbing at the sapphire stone that held exactly what everyone wanted from her. "You can't escape them that easily, Gena. They're out there, I promise you that."

Even Styx. He had wanted one thing, and he had done what he believed would ensure her cooperation. He had taken her to his bed, given her his warmth, a sense of security in his arms, and at the same time demanded she give over secrets she was terrified to allow anyone to have. Secrets she found herself wanting to give him.

It didn't matter why he had taken her to his bed. It didn't matter what would happen once she gave him the data chip. He would have it. He had given her what no one else had ever attempted to allow her. Security. Warmth. A sense of caring when the darkness of the nightmares chiseled at her confidence.

"It really doesn't matter if they are." Gena shrugged. "Before I leave, they'll believe you simply handed the information over and that you betrayed him as easily as Marx did." She shot Marx a chilling smile over her shoulder. One he returned before lowering his hand to her shoulder and caressing it, with gentleness, before he leaned down and kissed her lips as though he . . . loved her?

"Gross," Storme muttered. "How can you kiss that mouth? He eats people's blood, Gena."

Her smile was filled with relish as she stared back at Storme. "And I share it with him whenever I get the chance."

"I think I need to hurl." She swallowed tightly as she caught the glitter of anger in the other woman's eyes.

Gena was always calm, no matter the situation, and in the past six years, there had been plenty of situations. Tattooed, pierced, easygoing but as tough as nails, the blonde biker rarely seemed ruffled. Until Storme insulted the killer Breed behind her.

"At least I'm honest in my enjoyment of him," Gena drawled. "Tell me, Storme, did you enjoy fucking your Wolf near as much?" She leaned forward, her elbows propped on her knees as her nose wrinkled in a grimace. "Styx Mackenzie is a dirty little dog that pretends to be better than what he is. He was forced to eat as a pup just as the rest of them were."

Storme arched her brow mockingly, knowingly. She knew better. Styx Mackenzie hadn't been trained as the other Breeds had been. From birth he had been personally reared by the man who considered himself Styx's grandfather.

Evidently, Gena didn't know nearly as much about the individual Breeds as she thought she did.

"Let's stop wasting time now." Gena sat back and lifted the weapon lying at her side.

The light but powerful laser-powered handgun was pointed directly at Storme's chest. "The data chip, if you please. This is the only place he could have stashed the damned thing and we're tired of searching for it. Retrieve it, Storme, before I have to kill you."

"It's been ten years," Storme mused quietly. "You of all people should know I don't have what the Council wants."

She had fought this battle for so long. For too long.

God why hadn't she just given in to Styx and Jonas while she had been at Haven. There would have been no need for this then, no need for Gena and Marx to believe that kidnapping her would get them what they wanted.

"You didn't give it to the Breeds." Gena frowned at the thought. "Some of those Breeds gossip to one another like old women. If you had given Jonas Wyatt what he wanted, then Marx would have heard about it."

"Would he have?" Storme glanced at the Coyote as he glared back at her. "Why should they? Jonas Wyatt wouldn't have given that information to anyone any more than he would have given out the location of Brandenmore's grave site."

The pure blood societies believed Brandenmore was dead. It was something Storme knew wasn't the truth. She had seen the truth when Jonas stared at her as she threw the accusation in his face that he was keeping Brandenmore alive.

"Where is it?" Marx nearly came over the back of the couch, his eyes glittering now with bloodthirsty excitement.

"She doesn't know where it's at, moron," Gena drawled in amusement as Storme stared back at her. "Wyatt would have never trusted her with that information."

"I didn't say I knew where it was." Storme shrugged. "I said he wouldn't have gossiped about the chip any more than they were gossiping about Brandenmore. It's that simple."

Gena laughed. A harsh sound that grated against Storme's ears.

"Such a little liar," she exclaimed. "I know you better than that, Storme. You don't trust Styx, therefore you don't trust Wyatt."

"He mated her, Gena."

That comment caused Gena to pause as she stared back at Storme.

"You told me you couldn't smell the mating scent." She turned and stared back at Marx as though in confusion.

"I didn't, until this evening." The Coyote shrugged. "It's come on slowly. I would say if he wasn't dead, then the next time he saw her it would have been full-blown heat."

"Interesting." Gena turned to stare back at her. "It took long enough."

Storme kept her expression smooth, praying they didn't see or sense her confusion.

"So has the big boy knotted you yet?" Gena questioned her as she stared back at her curiously. "I hear he's hung rather well. One of those big ole canine knots up inside you can't feel pleasant."

"Jealous?" Storme asked archly, correctly interpreting Gena's lascivious interest.

They obviously believed the tabloid stories that printed that trash, she thought. Stories of some hormonal, genetic virus, an animal mating reaction and uncontrollable sexual urges.

The hateful glare the other woman shot her warned Storme that Gena would exact a bit of vengeance before actually killing her.

"I'm tired of wasting my time is what I am," she announced, her voice cold once again. "You have about sixty seconds, Storme, then I start hurting you. Rather badly."

She had been hurt before, Storme assured herself. She carried scars that she hadn't carried when she was fourteen. The scars of attacks by Council Coyotes and soldiers who had been sent to force the information from her.

Gena crossed a slender leg over the opposite knee, crossed her arms over her breasts and stared back at her with a cool expression.

"Then I guess you better get started," Storme stated as she steeled herself for whatever was coming.

Her brother and her father had given their lives for this information, Styx had possibly given his life in his attempt to save her and the other women caught in the attack.

She had promised herself that if she was ever caught, she would be as strong as her father had been.

"She thinks she's so brave," Marx growled then. "Protecting the information Daddy trusted her with. I wonder how she feels knowing Daddy gave her up all those years ago. That he told us exactly who had hidden the chip for him."

They were lying and she knew it. Her father knew where it was hidden, and how he had hidden it. He had died to keep it secret.

"It wouldn't take Einstein to figure out he entrusted me with it." She shrugged easily. "I wasn't there, the chip wasn't there, and one and one equals two. Big deal."

Marx laughed. "And Daddy died begging us for his life and swearing to make you give it up to us. Don't bother lying, sweetie, we know you hid it. Just tell us where it's hid."

Her gaze flicked to Gena, catching the other woman staring suspiciously out the picture window behind Storme's chair.

"They're out there, aren't they?" she asked the other woman softly. "Styx isn't dead, Gena. I'm his mate. He'll never let me go."

She would have laughed at her own statement if they hadn't seem so damned serious about it.

It was beginning to make her wonder. Hell, it might be scaring the hell out of her. Because she knew she wasn't his mate.

Gena's gaze flicked to the windows again.

"Ghost Team," Marx whispered. "They were the ones that came out at us when we tried to grab the felina and her brats."

"They've not found us." False bravado filled Gena's voice now. "We may not have gotten the prized princess or their brats, but we got this little whore. Once we get that chip ..."

Storme shook her head. "Styx has that chip, Gena."

"You're a lying little tramp!" Gena came to her feet in a burst of fury, came across the room and slapped Storme full across the face with all the fury of an enraged demon. "I want that fucking chip!" she screamed.

Storme could hear her ears ringing from the blow as the side of her face burned with a fiery numbness and the taste of blood filled her mouth where her lips had split against her teeth.

Storme blinked against the dizziness that filled her head and fought to hold on to her consciousness.

Swallowing tightly, she focused on Gena as she paced back to Marx, reached up, grabbed a handful of short hair and jerked his head down for a deep, tongue-tangling kiss.

Hell, maybe Storme would get lucky and they'd entertain themselves long enough for her to figure out a way to escape this time.

This was becoming ridiculous. In ten years she had never been captured until Styx had managed it. He had jinxed her or something, she decided. In ten years, she had never been so damned unlucky, and she had always been smarter than to allow herself to be caught the first time.

She had learned how to hide. She had changed her name several times, her hair. She had worn colored contact lenses and padded her clothing with shape-altering prosthetics. And still, sooner or later, she was always found, but she was never caught.

Through the years, there had been one constant though. No matter who found her, no matter the trouble she was in or how hot the situation, Gena had always managed to pull her ass out of the fire with a smile and a friendly warning to keep her head down.

At least, that was how Gena had made it appear. There had been times Storme couldn't figure out exactly how Gena pulled off some of the things she had pulled off to get Storme out of a tight situation, but now she knew. Because she had been slowly reeling Storme in, gaining her trust, believing Storme would betray her father and tell her best and only friend where the data chip had been hid.

Storme now thanked God that over the years she had never followed through with the urge to confide in the other woman.

"Storme, I will hurt you." Gena turned back to her, raging again. "Trust me, once Marx starts playing with you, you'll be begging me to let you tell me the location of that chip."

Gena's hazel green eyes narrowed, spat in fury and glittered with an almost insane rage. How in the hell had she managed to hide this side of herself from Storme for so long?

Oh yeah, right, they only saw each other a few days at a time, perhaps once a month. Gena had pretended to help her all these years, which likely made controlling it easier.

Storme forced herself to stand, aware of Gena and Marx watching her suspiciously. Pacing back to the glass doors, she stared into the night, watching, waiting.

"The past six years have been nothing but a lie." She turned back to the other woman quickly, but rather than catching any hint of guilt in Gena's expression, she found only mocking amusement mixed with the anger.

"You were eighteen when I found you outside that bar in Dallas," Gena sneered back at her. "Starving, dirty and stinking. Tell me, Storme, did you really think I helped you out of the kindness of my heart?"

There had been those who had tried to help her out of the kindness of their heart, and they had paid for it. Which left Storme staring into the face of the one person she had actually trusted until Styx.

How could she have been so wrong? And did it really matter now?

"It doesn't matter." Storme forced the words past her lips as she rubbed at her arms, feeling lost and alone. Styx wasn't out there, he wasn't going to rescue her or he would have already done so.

How was she going to face life without Styx now? Without the chance of feeling the warmth of his arms.

Rubbing at her arms, she felt the ache centered in the pit of her stomach, and could have sworn she felt the subtle taste of cinnamon in her mouth.

Why had it taken her so long to realize so much? "I trusted you," she whispered to the other woman as she stared into the dark once again and fought the overwhelming grief.

She had tried to assure herself he was okay. The few moments of consciousness before she'd fully awakened, she'd kept expecting that when she finally managed to escape the heavy darkness surrounding her, then Styx would be there.

But he wasn't here.

Gena and Marx had managed to destroy the beauty of the courtyard, as well as the security of Haven. Just as Gena had managed to destroy any security Storme had thought to find in the past years.

Gena's low rasp of laughter raked over her nerve endings.

"You trust too much in human compassion," the other woman informed her censoriously. "There is no such thing as that, just as there is no such thing as Breed mercy. I would have thought you had learned that lesson years ago, Storme. I kept expecting you to get a clue, and you never did."

Storme flinched at the sarcasm in Gena's voice while quickly considering her options, and the best route for escape.

"And the reason the Breeds and Council soldiers and Coyotes kept finding me was because of you." She should have realized that years ago. All the signs had been there, but as Gena had said, she just hadn't gotten a clue.

"Not hardly, sweetheart," Gena grunted. "The last thing I needed was a team of furry Breeds on your ass when the Council grew tired of trying to reason with you. I work for the Genetics Council, not those fucking upstarts that think they deserve some sort of respect." She sneered. "No, Storme, I'm no Breed lover. What I am, is your worst fucking nightmare if you don't tell me where you hid the information your father stole from those labs ten years ago." Her voice slowly rose until she was screaming and Storme turned to face her.

The business end of that damned laser-powered handgun stared back at her as Gena's face twisted with renewed fury and Marx glared at her as though she had actually cut his dick off rather than just wishing she could.

She was so tired. She was tired of running, tired of being hungry, alone, and hurting. And she couldn't forget the few short weeks that she had been safe, warm. When Styx had kissed her, held her. When she had felt as though the next day would bring more than just additional danger.

She stared at the weapon and knew the end of the road was here. She had run as far as she could run, and at the end of the road she found herself exactly where she had begun at the tender, too innocent age of fourteen.

Alone.

"Look, don't make me have Marx hold you down and rape you, Storme. Styx mated you. You're aware by now that another male's touch is going to be agonizing." She glanced to where Storme was still rubbing at her arms. "It still hurts, even now, hours after he hauled you out of Haven. Imagine how it's going to hurt when he fucks you until you're screaming."

God, she would love to ask Gena what the fuck she was talking about. One thing was for sure, something was wrong with her. Just beneath her skin was a tingle of pain, as though she should be bruised. And that didn't go along with the fact that there were no bruises on her arms, only her face and possibly her ribs.

Storme stared back at the former friend and the weapon she pointed, as she fought to find a way out of this particular mess. She had never entertained the nightmare that Gena could possibly turn on her.

She had been suspicious of everyone else in her life, but never Gena. Gena had found her when she was hurt, hungry, dirty and at the end of a mental rope.

She had been running for four years the night Gena had walked behind that bar and found her cowering in fear. Storme had been panicked, terrified and grappling with her conscience as she fought the need to disobey her father then as well.

If she turned over the information her father had stolen, to either Breed or Council, then the danger would just go away. How many times had the Breeds sworn they would protect her, compensate her, provide any payment she asked in return for the data chip?

"Do what you have to, Gena." She blinked back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes. "I gave Styx that chip. By now, Jonas Wyatt has it. That's why the Breeds haven't come for me, Gena. That's why they don't care if I live or die now."

"Tell me that fucking bitch is lying," Gena turned to scream at Marx.

He was watching Storme carefully, breathing in deep and slow as his brown eyes glittered back at her in anger.

She could only pray she'd learned to lie without that particular response.

"I can't be sure," he growled. "She stinks of fear, pain and Styx. Mating changes the scent too much at first to be able to detect something as subtle as a lie."

If she managed to get her hands on Styx, and she prayed she did, then she was so going to make him hurt for the confusion she was feeling at the moment.

The more they mentioned that damned mating heat, the more it made the tabloid stories sound true rather than the product of a reporter's fanciful imagination.

And all that aside, as she watched Gena's face, she slowly sat back down in the chair and allowed her fingers to slide between the seat cushion and the arm, where she had hidden only one of the many weapons in the house during her last visit.

This was her refuge. The only place she had been able to escape for a few days of peace. She'd used it rarely, but she'd kept the house prepared, just in case.

"Then I say she's lying." Gena decided with a cold, hard smile. "And I've decided she needs to be convinced to tell us the truth."

Storme shook her head slowly. "Don't do this, Gena. It's not going to get you what you want."

Gena's lips curled in furious mockery. "Six years I've had to shadow your skinny ass and pull it out of the fires you were too stupid to keep from walking into." Gena shook her head in disgust. "You won't kill a Breed, even when they're running you to ground like a hound would a hare. Still, you just tuck your little tail and run like the frightened little rabbit you've always been. Well, bitch, your running days are over. I'm so going to enjoy listening to you scream as he rapes your skinny ass."

Storme's fingers curled over the butt of the weapon tucked at the side of the chair cushion. She didn't have much of a chance. It was going to be damned close. And bullets weren't always a good bet against a laser-powered weapon.

"You're not going to beg me to believe you?" Gena tilted her head, the short spikes of her dark blond hair throwing an odd shadow across the room as she advanced on Storme.

Just a little closer, Storme thought. She hadn't anticipated that Gena would be the one to come closer to her. She'd expected Marx. But this was even better.

"Get up, Breed tramp," Gena ordered as she extended the weapon and motioned furiously. "It's time to find out how a Coyote fucks. While I watch." She came closer. "And he follows orders so well. He'll fuck you just like I tell him to."

An inch closer. Gena laughed and pushed the barrel of the weapon into Storme's shoulder.

Storme moved.

Her hand lashed out, gripped Gena's wrist and twisted. The laser-powered weapon discharged harmlessly into the wall as Storme threw all her weight into the surprise move, twisted and slammed the other woman into the wall as she jumped to the back of the chair, covered her face with her arms and launched herself through the window.