“But you could kill friends now,” she whispered urgently. “I have the confinement cell ready. You have to let me test—”
Ria had had enough.
“Have you lost possession of your senses, Dr. Morrey?” she asked the other woman. “A confinement cell? For what reason?”
“Because small, closed-in places will force me further into feral displacement if its already begun,” Mercury said, his voice cold, emotionless. “It won’t ease. In the labs, it kept me in a state of rage, and allowed them to research the phenomenon and create a drug for it.”
“It’s the only way, Mercury.” The doctor’s voice hitched and broke.
“I think perhaps your good doctor needs to be confined instead,” Ria stated. “I’m ready to leave now.”
She started forward.
“Damn you!” Ely stepped forward, rage contorting her face now. “You’re the reason it’s happening. I warned Jonas it would happen. That increased exposure to whatever pheromone is in your system would cause this. If he kills, the guilt lies on your shoulders.”
Mercury snarled and stepped between them. “Back off, Ely. You don’t want the confrontation this is going to turn into.”
Her expression twisted, anger and fear warring in her eyes as she stared back at Mercury.
“You know you’ll destroy Sanctuary if the feral qualities in your adrenaline continue to strengthen and you end up killing.” Ely’s voice roughened, became harsh and growling. “I thought better of you, Mercury. I thought you cared more for your people than this. And I thought Callan did as well.”
“Do you think Callan can force me into that cell, Ely?” Mercury asked her, the guttural sound of his voice causing the doctor and Ria to flinch. “There aren’t enough Breeds in this compound to force me back into that cell. You’d have to kill me first.”
Ria watched the doctor’s expression. She watched the maddening fear glitter bright and hot in Ely’s eyes.
“I’m petitioning the Ruling Cabinet when they convene,” she told Mercury then. “You deserve to know that, Mercury. You have to see these tests through. It’s the only way to save us all. As a member of that cabinet, it’s my place to tell you you are no longer permitted off the boundaries of Sanctuary.”
Ria froze. She reached out slowly, her hand gripping Mercury’s arm as danger seemed to sizzle around him.
“Council-trained, weren’t you, Ely?” he sneered. “Have you noticed how easily you fall back on Council tactics when you don’t get your way?”
Ely paled.
“And according to Breed Law, you cannot order me confined anywhere without due cause.”
“Initial tests show due cause.” Ely’s voice trembled as tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t want to do this, Mercury.”
Ria tightened her grip on Mercury’s wrist. The tension filling him now was incredible, the anger and fury building inside his muscles.
“Initial tests are not enough, Ely.”
They swung around to face Callan, Kane and Jonas where they stood at the end of the hallway.
In her peripheral vision Ria watched Ely’s face. It tightened into a mask of pained betrayal as she faced her pride leader.
“Respectfully, Pride Leader Lyons, you can’t make that determination.”
“No,” Jonas answered for him. “Breed Law has made that determination. As a member of the Ruling Cabinet, Ely, it’s your place to uphold ‘due process,’ not to accuse or attempt to confine one of our own. Until Mercury shows the inability to control his anger or otherwise destructive behavior, then he cannot and will not be held against his will, nor will he be ordered to undergo any testing until he’s deemed a danger to Breeds or humans. The Ruling Cabinet will be convening, Ely, and a protest against your abuse of your position will be lodged instead.”
“You and your rules,” Ely sneered. “We both know, don’t we, Jonas, exactly what you think of Breed Law. You use it to suit your own means and purposes. How will the Ruling Cabinet feel to learn how far you’ll go to manipulate us all to get your way?”
Jonas smiled at that. “Ely, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Do you think you know anything that could harm me or my job? If you do, you’re welcome to list it in your petition of complaints.”
His voice was smooth. There was no warning, no sense of worry or nerves. It was like watching Dane work. Of course, Jonas had enough secrets to sink Sanctuary, the Breeds and himself. But like his brother, he would never give one person enough information to do more than irritate him if it were ever revealed.
“You think so little of me?” Ely was staring back at him, hurt. The conflicting emotions surging through her were reflected in her expression, and in her scent, Ria assumed.
The Breeds were all tense, watching her closely, the smallest hint of confusion in their eyes.
“I think something’s wrong, Ely,” Jonas finally said gently. “I believe perhaps we’ve allowed you to be under too much stress, or you’ve overstressed yourself. I think you need to rest, and think about the steps you’re taking. How many Breeds will ever trust you should the knowledge of what you’re attempting to do become known?”
“You think you’re so damned smart.” Her hands slid from the pockets of her lab coat, the fingers clenched in fury as a flush rose to her cheekbones. “You’re risking everything. Not just Sanctuary and the Breeds, but Mercury himself, and you know it.”
“Enough, Ely.” Callan’s voice was as sharp, as demanding, as the lash of a whip, causing the doctor to flinch in response. “Return to your office or to your quarters. That’s an order.”
“Pride Leader—”
“That’s an order, Ely!” His voice never rose, but something in it, some primal growl, had the doctor jerking in reaction.
Ely shuddered then turned on her heel and stalked past them, moving through the hall and away from them as something rumbled in Mercury’s throat.
He turned back to Callan. “There’s something wrong here,” he finally admitted. “That’s not the Ely I know.”
Jonas shook his head, watching the doorway the doctor had slipped through. “It’s not the Ely I know either, but just as with you, until we can deem her a hazard, we can’t force her into testing.”
“Why try to force her?” Ria asked. “Do to her as she did to Mercury. Trick her.”
“We would first need a scientist with the ability to run the tests.”
Ria crossed her arms over her breasts. “You kidnapped a Council scientist just last month, didn’t you? Jeffery Amburg? He was never released from your custody despite repeated attempts by several governments to learn what happened to him.”
Jonas’s brow lifted. “We released him. We have proof of it. What happened to him after he left Sanctuary isn’t our concern.”
Ria stared back at him mockingly. “Give that line to someone who doesn’t know better. I know about the cells beneath the labs here, and I’m betting Amburg is resting quite uncomfortably there. Put his ass to work.”
“And ensure the safety of this facility, how?” Callan asked her coldly. “He’s a Council scientist, Ms. Rodriquez, not an ally.”
Mercury watched the exchange quietly before turning to Jonas.
“Put Blade on him. Blade has enough medical experience and strong enough senses to keep an eye on him. If Ely’s sincere, then she’ll agree to her own testing first. Tell her if she’ll do it, then I’ll submit to one more round of samples taken.”
He felt Ria’s shock, watched Jonas’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure you want to do that, Mercury?” he asked.
No, he wasn’t.
“Something isn’t right here, Jonas. Ely’s not a traitor. I’ll take the risk if she will.”
“And what makes either of you think Ely needs testing?” Kane bit out. “She’s scared. She’s running scared and panicking.”
The head of Sanctuary security was less trusting than most Breeds when it came to the internal security of the estate.
“We can’t lock her in
her rooms, Kane,” Jonas growled. “Ely’s emotions are raging too strong beneath the surface, and her scent is altered just enough to concern me.”
It was something Mercury had caught as well, though he’d kept silent. His sense of smell was growing marginally stronger, and the proof of that concerned even him. He’d lost those senses when the feral displacement had been “cured” in the labs. That it was returning was further proof that he had cause to keep a careful check on his anger and his emotions.
“Is there any way she could have been compromised?” Mercury asked then.
Jonas shook his head. “The Council never managed to develop a drug that could control us, Mercury, not to that extent. Even the one used on you for the feral displacement didn’t completely control you. And one of us would have scented any biological or chemical imbalance in Ely by now.”
“Have her restricted to quarters for twenty-four hours,” Callan ordered. “We can’t risk her confronting Mercury during the party tonight.”
Mercury stared at him in surprise. “I wasn’t assigned to security for the party.”
“No, you’re ordered to attend the party in full dress uniform,” Callan growled. “You and Ms. Rodriquez. Both Engalls and Brandenmore will be in attendance. I want all eyes on them, and I want Ms. Rodriquez there in case any transmissions are suddenly logged as incoming or outgoing. I want this stopped, Mercury. Now. Before I have to ignore Breed Law myself and kill the bastards.”
With that, he turned and stalked from the hallway, leaving Kane and Jonas both to breathe out in surprise.
Callan never disregarded Breed Law. He had helped to fashion it, to lay in the framework for the rules that would govern the Breeds and allow them to work within society. To even hint that he would ignore one of those rules . . .
“I wasn’t anticipating a party.” Ria sighed, but Mercury could hear the acceptance in her voice. “Dane is always doing this to me.”
“Dane didn’t request your presence, I did,” Jonas bit out.
Mercury caught Ria’s smile, though he smothered his own.
“There’s a difference?” she asked with false innocence as she moved past Jonas and headed for the front of the house. “Strange. I haven’t found one yet.”
Ria pulled her coat around her and stepped into the limo, keeping her expression composed until the door closed and the window rose between them and the driver.
“One of these days, someone is going to kill Jonas,” she told Mercury.
Mercury snorted. “Yeah, someone’s been trying for months now. Those windows in his apartment you mentioned when you first arrived?”
“Were shot out.” She nodded. “I can understand the need, I truly can. I wanted to shoot him myself. Why hasn’t he forced Ely’s testing by now? My investigation into her lab files as well as her Sanctuary files doesn’t even hint at the irrationality she’s showing. The woman is obviously on the edge of some sort of breakdown.”
“It isn’t that easy.” Mercury shook his head as he moved to the seat across from her, then leaned forward. “Breed Law, everything in it, every value Callan and Jonas have attempted to see put in effect for Breeds, is based on one simple ideal, Ria. Breed freedom. You wouldn’t force a non-Breed into testing for acting irrational. If we allowed a Breed to be forced into it, then Breed Law would become null and void, and we’d be animals again in the sight of the world.”
Ria crossed her legs and stared back at him, folding her hands carefully in her lap as she let herself consider that.
“Breeds and humans are different sides of the same coin,” she reminded him. “You are not fully human, Mercury. You are extrordinarily human. And you’re still learning what your bodies, your hormones, are capable of. In such instances, there should be a safeguard put in place.”
“There is.” He nodded. “But only if we show ourselves to be a danger to ourselves or to others. It doesn’t matter which side of the coin our humanity places us on, we’re still entitled to the same rights and privileges of freedom. We can’t ignore an anomaly in my case and force testing on Ely in hers.”
Dane would have, easily, even it meant kidnapping the Breed in question. But Ria had disagreed with many of the decisions she knew Dane had made, for whatever reason.
“She’s too focused on you,” she finally told him, concerned at the doctor’s continued erratic behavior. “Fanaticism is possible in Breeds, just as it is in humans. And it’s just as destructive, perhaps more so. She’s intent on pulling you into confinement, no matter what it takes. No matter what she has to do to achieve it.”
Mercury stared back at her, knowing the truth in her words. He knew that was exactly Ely’s aim, and the betrayal that filled him at that thought bothered him.
“Did you smell anything that could indicate she was drugged?” Ria frowned back at him, her gaze direct.
“What makes you think I could smell it if she were?” he asked. “The drugs for the displacement wiped out those senses, remember?”
She regarded him with haughty amusement. “Really, Mercury, you should try a little harder to lie. That one was so easy to see through it may as well have been cellophane.”
His lips twitched.
“I felt you inhaling. Very slowly, very deeply,” she informed him. “What did you scent?”
He finally shook his head. “Anger. Fear. And it was very heightened, more than it should have been. She believes in what she’s saying. She believes the feral displacement is returning, and it’s impossible to control.”
Ely believed he would suddenly lose his mind and destroy the very people he had lived to protect for over eleven years now.
“And what do you think?” She tilted her head and watched him, her gaze soft. There was no fear there, no suspicion, almost as though she had formed her own trust in him, and had no intention of backing down on it.
He reached out and touched her cheek with his fingertips then cupped it with his palm. The need to touch her was overwhelming. As he did so, her fingers curled over his wrist, holding him to her. Trust. Complete trust. Something he had never felt with anyone else. Not even long ago with the Breed that could have been his mate.
“I think I would rip apart anyone who dared harm you,” he finally told her softly. “There would be nothing on the face of this earth, short of death, that could control me.”
Ria stared back at him, seeing the truth in his expression, in the savage light of his hammered gold eyes and the flecks of blue that materialized in them. Whatever that phenomenon was that changed the color of his eyes, that made him appear stronger, more savage, it was only frightening to the enemy.
He wasn’t her enemy. He was her lover, in every sense of the word. In ways no other man had ever been.
“Then it’s under control,” she said softly. “And I have no doubt it will stay there.”
If he hadn’t already lost his heart to her, then Mercury would have sworn he lost it to her then.
“That still leaves a problem, though,” she told him as he pulled her to him, lifting her into his lap even though they were too close to her cabin to do more than just this. Just hold each other.
“There are more problems?” he growled. “They’re piling up here, Ria.”
Her laughter, soft and light—he swore it warmed his soul.
“I forgot to mention how much I absolutely detest parties,” she told him. “And Dane knows it. I might have to kick him for this one. Or tell Leo on him. I don’t think this sort of maneuvering can be fixed with bling.”
His lips kicked up in a grin. His mind was on her hand, though. The one that had pushed beneath his jacket so her fingers could play against his neck.
“I’ll take care of Dane’s maneuverings,” he promised her. “But the party’s a small one.”
“Visiting VIPs and dignitaries? Three hundred at best.”
“Three hundred and fifty.” He smiled as she groaned and buried her face in his chest.
“Too many.”
“No, too m
any is the Christmas party,” he promised. “The guest list, so far, is at a full thousand. They’re predicting snow, and Callan is pulling his hair out as he and Kane work out the logistics of security for the children and mates. Every available Breed is being rescreened for clearance and those that pass are on twenty-four-hour duty shifts. The party is held on the fifteenth. That allows for a private party on Christmas Day. Four hundred, I believe.”
She groaned again and he stroked her hair soothingly as he grinned. She made him grin. She made him happy. She made him want to pick her up and hide her from all eyes, to experience the joy of her with no distractions.
“We could hibernate in the winter,” she finally suggested.
“We’re not bears,” he chuckled, enjoying the play.
“We could go on vacation.” Soft lips kissed his neck; her tongue stroked over it. “I know several secluded beaches. No cold. We could bask in the sun. Lie at the water’s edge and allow the waves to lap over us.”
His cock, already engorged, still hard and eager to pleasure her, throbbed at the thought. Ria naked, her nut brown body laid out on soft white sand as water washed over her and the sun heated her flesh.
If it had the chance to touch her. He’d have a hell of a time allowing to sun to caress her, because he’d be too damned busy touching her himself.
She lifted closer then, her teeth raking over the lobe of his ear, her warm breath caressing his neck. “I want you,” she whispered. “Again. Why am I burning so hot and deep for you after I’ve already had you?”
“Why am I?” He gripped her hair, pulled her head in place and let himself take her kiss.
It wasn’t gentle, and he wanted to be gentle. It was hot and fierce, fiery and consuming, and burned through him with the force of wildfire.
It was pleasure, it was the agony of arousal that was never sated for long, and it was the breath of life. A breath he feared he couldn’t live without now.
CHAPTER 17
Mercury made it into the house with her. He even managed to growl at Lawe and Rule to clear out of the house after they checked it thoroughly. The second the door closed—and locked—he was on her.
Ria was so enflamed, so desperate for his touch, that she was tearing at his shirt, clawing at him as he shredded her sweater with those blunted clawlike nails of his and jerked her skirt over her hips.
He didn’t bother with the bedroom, or the couch. He lifted her, shoving her against the wall as she managed to get his pants open and his erection free.
He tore the panties from her hips and in one hard lunge he was buried inside her. Buried so deep inside her he swore he was losing himself in her.
Her legs wrapped around his back; the liquid heat of her sex wrapped around him like a slick, tight fist and had him clenching his teeth. Had him aching for that tight fullness he’d heard filled the tongue when mating heat was devouring a Breed.
He wanted that with her. Wanted it with her until he swore he could feel his tongue itching and a wild subtle taste teasing at his mouth.
His lips took hers, his tongue spearing into her mouth as his thighs bunched and he began moving. His cock ached, throbbed to the point of madness as he tried to fuck her hard enough, deep enough to ease the agonizing pleasure filling him.
Her sheath gripped him, milked him. Her hips writhed against his, her lips moved beneath his, suckling at his tongue, moaning as though the taste of him was as much pleasure as the penetration of her body by his.
“I can’t get enough.” He tore his lips from hers, his head tilting back on his shoulders as he slammed his hips against her.
His hands clenched on her ass, and the needs assailing him were richer, deeper than any he had known before. He wanted to bend her over, take her as he knew she had never been taken. Put his mark on her as irrevocably as possible. Until she knew, beneath her skin, clear to her soul, who she belonged to.
Who belonged to her.
“Harder.” Her hands clawed at his shoulders, her lips were on his neck, her teeth scraping. Biting.
“Ah hell. Fuck yes, Ria. Bite me, baby. Bite me hard.”
But she already was. Her teeth were locked in the tough flesh at the base of the side of his neck, sending fire and ecstatic pleasure racing through him.
His head lowered, his teeth seeking her shoulder. He growled. He snarled. He bit her as he felt her erupting, exploding around him, the tight grip of her vagina increasing, milking his release from him until the snarls coming from his lips were nearly enraged and the ache of the furious blasts of semen jetting from him had him wanting, needing, to roar.
It was exquisite. The agony and the pleasure of filling her, and the rage. Because there was no mating. And yet Mercury knew in his soul she was his mate. This woman. She held on to him, her tears dampening his neck, his knowledge that she felt that missing part of him eating inside him.
As the tremors of release eased and he could think, could find balance again, he held her to him, placed his own back to the wall and slid to the floor.
There, he held her against him, his head still buried against her neck, his eyes closed.
“You’re my mate,” he whispered against her neck, against the mark he hadn’t allowed to heal. Because he kept biting it, kept wounding her in ways that went far beyond those tiny marks at her shoulder.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Mercury.” She lifted her head and stared back at him, causing his heart to tear in half.
There was no recrimination there. Her eyes were damp, but languorous pleasure filled them, and emotion. She was open to him now. He could smell the sweet scent of desire that could renew with his lightest touch, and emotions he hadn’t smelled in so many years. He could sense them now, swirling through him, digging into his soul.
“I love you anyway.” She touched his jaw, smoothed her hand down his neck. “Just as you are, just as we are now. I love you.”
“I love you,” he repeated, the words comfortable, easy on his lips. She wasn’t just his mate, no matter the lack of mating heat. She was his heart.
She laid her head against his shoulder and breathed out with a little sigh of completion, and of weariness.
“We could hibernate tonight,” she finally suggested with a grin he felt against his neck. “Just hide.”
And he chuckled. Despite the pain, the betrayal he felt, by his own genetics and the body that refused to produce the mating heat, he had to laugh at the amusement in her voice.
“You call Dane and I’ll call Callan,” he told her, and he meant it. If she didn’t want to go, they wouldn’t go. It was that simple.