Grayson's Gamble

Chapter Four

As they scoured the mountains in their changed forms throughout the day and into the night, Bas did his best not to think about Gray. He’d taken the east side of the hill and Gray the west, and he kept telling himself he wanted the distance. Not talking to the arrogant bastard for the past two days served him right. Who the fuck was Grayson Belle to look down on him?

Top of his class in college and the FBI Academy, a decorated agent who always accomplished his mission, Bas had never been out of his element until he’d been kidnapped and forced to become something less than human. But even his time as a Circ had been measured with success. He took to the lifestyle, embracing his beast and the change while others turned rogue, mutant, or plain crazy. Not ruled by his beast, Bas controlled his actions. Or at least, he had.

He scowled and used his senses to guide him through the trees. The snow didn’t bother his bare feet. When changed, his skin was inured to extremes in temperature and surface. The claws on his hands and toes helped him with traction, and though he wore loose trousers and a sweater, he didn’t actually need the clothing to protect him from the weather.

In one hand he held a Circ2000 fit with a silencer. The weapon could pierce Circ flesh and bone without a problem. Attached to his belt was the radio Gray insisted he take with him. As if Bas didn’t know better than to go on a mission without a means of communication. The bastard.

Arrogant, controlling son of a bitch. Like I need him to play nursemaid. He’s lucky I answer to him at all—

The swipe of claws toward his face preceded the sudden smell of decaying flesh. Out of nowhere, a rogue in the process of turning mutant had appeared and roared at him. Bas avoided his jagged claws, and the thing took another swipe.

He’d seen pictures of mutants, but this was the first Circ he’d seen midtransformation, face-to-face. The rogue had hardened skin, dark and weathered, but black stripes highlighted his mutation. His fangs and claws were overly large, and his eyes, once normal for a Circ, now had black orbs striated with red, no pupil to be seen. The creature’s scent came and went, as if the thing had a faulty Off switch.

When it roared, it conveyed such a sense of unhappiness, pain, and fury that Bas wanted to kill it if only to put the creature out of its misery.

“You Ross?” he asked it as he dodged another blow.

“Need to feed. Hungry.”

It wore nothing but the hardened scales of interlocking flesh that made up its external armor. Bas could see its physical arousal all too clearly. To his disgust, the thing’s cock had spikes and seemed to grow under his study.

“Ah, right. Sure. You’re hungry.” Bas knew Gray wanted him to call the minute he had any trouble. But tired of listening to Mr. Perfect, Bas decided to handle this guy on his own. He looked like a monster, but Bas could handle him.

Unleashing the strength he normally held in check when he dealt with Gray, Bas let loose a torrent of frustration. They battled with claws, bites, and sheer strength, but in the end, Bas won. He pinned the thing to the ground with his weight and leaned hard on its neck.

“Gimme your name, and you can live.” He just had to confirm Ross’s identity before killing it; then he and Gray could leave this place. Bas loved the mountains, but he could do without all the monster battles. Or the relationship drama, as he now regarded his questionable interlude with Gray. He needed to return home and lick his wounds, then decide what to do about his stubborn, sexy, know-it-all partner.

“Need her. Want her,” the thing under his elbow croaked.

“Are you Al Ross? Answer the fucking question.”

The pathetic yearning on the rogue’s face tore at Bas’s heart, but he had to know.

“Not Ross. Want Ross. Mine.”

Not Ross, and thus not Bas’s problem. Despite the things he’d been ordered to do for his country, Bas wasn’t a murderer. They’d been trying to reform some of the rogues, and depending upon how far gone this one was, it—he, he reminded himself—might be capable of rehabilitation.

Bas planned to knock the rogue unconscious and call for backup when another rogue knocked into him and shoved him aside. He swore and rolled to a crouched position, ready to attack, when he noticed not one or two but four rogues looking at him with keen desire. For blood or sex, he couldn’t tell. And from the looks on their faces, neither could they.

Two of them looked like him. Normal Circs who’d gone rogue. The other two resembled freakish half mutants.

Let them have it, his beast demanded. And Bas did, because he knew the danger to him was real. With a hurried press to the radio, he shouted for help as the rogues attacked en masse. A coordinated effort he wouldn’t have credited these monsters.

Slashes to his midsection and back hurt, but he quickly healed. Unfortunately, the half mutants seemed to be playing with him. Shit. Gray was right. They were barely manageable one at a time. In a pack…deadly.

“Pretty.” One of them licked its lips, and a black forked tongue flickered before disappearing into its mouth.

Another growled, “But not her.”

“Who cares?” the other half mutant answered. “Smells good. Hungry.”

They rushed him without warning, and Bas sucked in a breath as two of them threw him into a tree, where he landed hard enough to break a few ribs. Before he could recover, they tore into him. He felt lips and teeth digging into his arms, his shoulder… Oh fuck. His neck.

The blood loss wasn’t as bad as the drugging paralysis invading his system. Fuckers are toxic, he thought as his vision grew hazy. But as one of the stronger ones shoved the others away and raked at Bas’s trousers, no doubt intent on sex, a tantalizing scent froze the group.

“Ross,” a half mutant hissed.

The others agreed as the arousal grew. Like a spring rain, the scent of a female Circ in heat drew Bas from his foggy pain to life once more.

“What is that?”

“Ross. Mine,” another half mutant screeched.

Two of the rogues started fighting with each other before the lead half mutant calmed them with a promise to share the female.

It took Bas a few moments to realize Ross and the female were one and the same. Holy hell, but they’d gotten some really bad intel. So what did the presence of these assholes and their female target mean?

He tried to reason it out, but he soon lost the ability to do more than lust after the woman.

Even the claws at his throat, his thighs, and belly didn’t disturb him.

And then everyone vanished, and she was there.

Dark brown eyes with slit red pupils, her orbs speckled with black, gazed at him with a curious detachment. She blinked as the wind shifted, blowing her dark blonde hair around her face like a silken veil. Full pink lips quirked to reveal small fangs, not what he would have expected of a female turning mutant. The black of her skin seemed to deepen and fade, as if her heartbeat reflected in the dark patches upon the skin of her forearms and neck, areas her thin T-shirt didn’t cover.

“Rogue?” he asked, his word barely audible past his swollen tongue. He tried again. “Ross?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she leaned closer and sniffed his neck. She licked him, and he felt her raspy tongue against the wound at his throat. The scratchy pain faded, and he could feel his skin knit, an amazing recovery that affected his thought processes as well. As if her saliva had an enhanced healing agent, her tongue had brought him back to full consciousness.

Enough that he knew he wanted this female. To mark her as his. To mate her, to share her with… “Hell. Gray.”

The female said nothing, but the dark look on her face warned him to beware. Before he could say anything else, she put her hands around his neck and squeezed. And he knew nothing more.

Ali couldn’t take her eyes from the rogue bleeding like a sieve all over the forest floor. After stepping past the dead bodies of the rogues and mutants she’d shot and killed, she neared her prize. The way they’d been fighting over him had shaken her, remembrances of her time in the labs not as dull a memory as she’d hoped.

She liked when they fought each other, but this seemed different. As did this rogue’s scent. The most delicious waft of chocolate, sex, and mouthwatering need drifted from his pores. She couldn’t resist. Not even when she sensed his own pheromones pulling her closer.

Good Lord, but the taste of him was enough to make her entire body come alive. She didn’t want him to die, but she couldn’t afford to play with him out in the open.

They sent more and more rogues after her lately. Worse, the ones turning mutant were no longer as dull-witted as the first batches sent to retrieve her. Either they’d evolved, or the labs had found a new way to leash their Circs. Oh joy.

With a low growl, she finished choking the male to unconsciousness. Then she hefted him over her shoulder, surprised when she staggered. As a Circ, she grew bigger and stronger than the strongest human men. Yet his size and weight stunned her. A solid male. A breeding male, her beast suggested.

The libido the doctors had tried so hard to start within her suddenly flared to life. And she knew. She’d been waiting all along for this male. She leaned her head closer to his and scented something more, a layered perfume that made her head spin.

She pulled her own scent back in and hurried, as best she was able, back to her cabin. Along the way, she wondered where to stash him. Her bedroom? The storage cellar? The cave nearby? Time to make some of those hard choices. Her intuition kicked in, and her beast increased the flow of blood to her limbs, releasing more oxygen so that she might move faster. She needed to make her choices before someone—or something—made them for her.

Gray didn’t know what to think. He had a terrible feeling about Bas moments before half a dozen humans with guns attacked. The dumb-asses didn’t realize their rounds wouldn’t penetrate his skin. It took him little time to knock them unconscious but not before reading their minds.

A part of the plan to delay him and Bas while they captured Al Ross. The humans were part of a security force combing through the mountains. Apparently the lab that had created Alison Ross wanted her back. A female Circ, hunted by rogues and men out to use her for what they could before she turned completely into the mutant they feared would make her unsuitable to breed.

No wonder the woman didn’t want to be found. But was she amassing a rogue Circ army, or was she a victim? The men didn’t seem to know.

And Gray didn’t care. He felt Bas’s pain as if his own, then a drugged need to find the scent clouding his mind. The thoughts came like the wind, there and gone. But as Gray raced miles to the eastern side of their perimeter, Bas’s cry came through the radio. Gray put on a burst of speed.

Only to be too late.

Four dead rogues littered one section of the woods. As did a patch of blood that smelled like his partner. Grief and rage brought his beast to the forefront, the notion his mate might be injured or near death intolerable. A loud psychic call to Bas’s mind came back empty. Using his preternatural gifts, Gray followed the barely there scent and subtle markings in the woods to a set of footprints. He followed the tracks that indicated a female, or a male with smaller feet, had taken something heavy with her.

Bas. His beast snarled. The Circ has Bas.

And then the trail just ended. No more scent. No more clues left behind in the woods.

He howled in fury. A warning and a promise to anyone stupid enough to come between him and Bas. Gray felt the vestiges of civilization leave him and gave his beast the head he needed. With another roar, he started a deeper search using his mind. One way or another, he’d find his mate. And death to the one who’d taken him.

Ali was glad she’d taken the time to mask her trail after stashing the rogue in her home. Not the safest place for her to take him, but it had the best security as well as restraints even a mutant couldn’t escape. Instinct told her to keep him close.

If he didn’t bleed out before she returned, she’d do her best to heal him and… Then what? Her beast provided her several detailed pictures of how best to take what she needed, and the heat in Ali’s body swarmed her from her core to the tips of her limbs. The need within her for a Circ overwhelmed, to the point she ached to be near him again. To touch him. She knew she’d eventually have to destroy him, but she could play with him for a bit.

Excited about the prospect, she returned to her home. Night had fallen, and she would make the most of the darkness and the soundproof sanctuary under the cabin her grandfather had left her. Once inside, she forced herself to take her time. No need to rush to the enemy so soon. Ali took a long hot shower and scrubbed the dirt and flecks of mutant blood off her hands. Though she’d shot three of them, she’d been forced to kill the fourth with a blade when the first bullet didn’t take, her bullet not close enough to the spinal cord to sever it the first time.

After lathering her hair with a lavender soap that made her feel at home, she cleaned thoroughly and left no patch of skin untouched. As she washed, her breasts felt heavy, her nipples sensitive. And there, between her legs. She throbbed.

The scent of the male filled her mind, and though she’d shifted back into her human form, her beast quivered at the thought of the strong Circ downstairs.

Ali toweled off and dressed in a loose pair of flannel pajama pants and a shirt, foregoing underclothes. Normally she’d wear a bra at least, but a part of her needed to flaunt her assets before the male, to seek his approval.

The foreign thought stopped her in her tracks. “Seek his approval?”

Angry at her beast for growing soft, she decided to leave him alone until morning. Better for her that he died tonight from his wounds, none of which she’d inflicted. Except she’d heard him call for Gray. Not just a color but a person, apparently. She needed to know if his friend would be joining them anytime soon.

Annoyed, she stomped to the rug covering the floor panel hiding the stairs and tugged on a loop. The rug and panel rose, and she walked down into the shadows and darkness. A few lanterns gave enough light to see into the tunnel that led to the sole room underground. From the room, an escape tunnel had been dug that led up a few hundred yards from the cabin. It too was hidden by a bookcase on the wall. Her last refuge should the bastards find her place.

“Gray?” The low drawl made her shiver. “Ross? That you?” He coughed and groaned, and she heard the rattle of his breath. An infection, most likely.

Her beast yearned to heal him. To taste him again and learn why this particular male smelled so right.

“I’m Alison Ross.” Ali left the corridor and entered the room, bathed in the low glow of the lantern on a nearby table. “Who the hell are you?”

“Sebastian Decker.” He coughed again, no longer a beast but human. The dryness in the air probably irritated his throat. Despite what most people thought when they saw snowcapped mountains, the Cascade Range and Bend weren’t wet. High desert lay to the east. If Ali didn’t drink enough, her feet cracked and her lips chapped something awful.

A glance at Sebastian’s lips showed him hydrated or new to the area. She bet on new.

The breadth of him shocked her. So muscular, even in his man’s form. He had dark brown hair, as rich as the earth in the mountains. Calluses on his hands warned her he wasn’t soft, even if she hadn’t noticed all the muscle on his frame. He had a nice mouth with full lips that would crook when he smiled. Handsome, boy-next-door good-looking, and physically fit. God, was he.

She met his gaze again and flushed. He’d noticed her study and seemed to approve. The bastard lay manacled on a bed, bound by his wrists and ankles. Yet he made her uncomfortable, and she didn’t know why.

Clear blue eyes widened as he stared at her, and it took him some time to look away from her eyes, which never looked human, whether woman or beast. But now his regard shifted to her chest and stayed there.

He licked his lips. “You’re Ross. I was told you were a male. Big mistake, that.”

She couldn’t stop herself from noticing the visible bulge between his legs. He wore different clothes from the standard Circ khaki the rogues normally arrived in. Stretchy material made specifically for men who shifted into larger beings.

Sebastian wore dark, ripped pants with cargo pockets that had been filled with ammunition she’d gladly helped herself to in addition to his pistol. A newer model than the one she had, it looked impressive, and she couldn’t wait to try it out.

After I try him out. Her beast purred in her breast, and Sebastian heard it.

He dragged his gaze from her stiff nipples and looked her in the face once more. “You’re different.”

“So are you.”

“I’m not a rogue.”

“No, but you’re Circ.” She shrugged. “Same difference to me. You come to kill me, I kill you first. Too bad Trenton still doesn’t get the message.”

“Trenton?”

She didn’t want to talk about her dead father’s friend. Prick extraordinaire, Dr. Caleb Trenton. She wanted to… Her attention caught and held on the sluggish drop of blood soaking the neck of his sweater. As much as she wanted to let him lie there aching, some part of her didn’t like him in pain.

“Where does it hurt?”

He let out a laugh, surprising her. “Where doesn’t it hurt?” An awkward pause as they both glanced at his cock that had yet to go down. “Well, there, I guess. God, this is embarrassing. I’ll never live this down.”

“You’ll be lucky to live at all,” she murmured, fascinated with his arousal. Unlike all the others, he smelled healthy, despite his wounds. No trace of infection as she’d thought before. No madness either, just warm, soothing, and sweet male.

“So do that thing and heal me, like you did before.”

She didn’t realize he’d understood what she’d done. “What?”

“When you licked me. You cleared my head and took the pain. Lick me all over, anywhere you want. I won’t mind.” The teasing sparkle in his eyes took her aback. He was erect but didn’t seem overeager to fuck her. Instead he used humor. To disarm her, maybe? Yet he didn’t seem to be anything but genuine. Very, very strange. He didn’t fit the usual mold of her enemy.

“Shut up,” she said, just to say something. He chuckled again but silenced when she flashed inch-long claws at him from her fingers. Dragging her nails against his sweater, she cut through the fabric with ease and pushed and pulled the material from his body. To her odd relief, most of his wounds seemed healed but for the few still healing.

“I’m close but not a hundred percent,” he offered. “Not like you.” His voice deepened. “You look perfect. Not a mark on you.”

He didn’t seem to mind the black streaks that pulsed on her forearms, or the hellish eyes that stared at her anytime she looked in a mirror. “Like feline pupils dipped in blood,” one of the rogues who’d once captured her had remarked. Right before she’d gutted him and run far, far away.

“Can’t say the same for you.” She didn’t like the blood all over him, because though most was his, some belonged to the rogues and mutants from the woods. Ali left him and returned moments later with a pot of hot water from upstairs. Solar panels gave her the luxury of electricity and hot water while keeping her free of a paper trail.

“Where did you go?”

“I’m right here.” Annoyed that she liked him asking after her, she found a clean cloth nearby and washed his chest.

He watched her as she ran the towel over his flesh. “That feels good.”

“Wonderful. I want you to feel great before I kill you.”

“So pleasant. You sure you don’t know Gray?”

“Who?” She frowned when he chuckled, feeling the butt of a joke she didn’t understand.

“You’ll meet him soon enough, I’d say.”

Silence passed as she washed him. She used a clean part of his sweater to dry him off. Then she trailed a hand over his skin, feeling the uneven break of a few ribs that seemed to mend right under her palm.

“Hurts, but it’s hot too. Right where you’re touching me.” Sebastian’s thick voice warned her to back away. “But you’re making it worse too.” He took a deep breath and inhaled, his nostrils quivering. “Oh wow. Alison, tell me what you’re wearing. You smell so good.”

His eyes changed and changed back as she watched him watching her. The urge to lean closer and taste him again tickled.

“Do it.”

She licked her lips, aware he knew her intent because she couldn’t look away from his firm lips. A subtle shove knocked her off balance and over his chest. She righted herself and found her lips an inch from his.

“Kiss me,” he ordered. All tied up, flat on his back, and growling commands.

“I will if I want to.” She paused, wishing she sounded more in charge and less breathless and in lust. “And damn it. I want to, so shut up and lie still.” To her surprise, he did.

But the minute her lips touched his, she knew she’d made the biggest mistake of her life.