t 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.