Lawe's Justice

*CHAPTER 8*

THREE DAYS LATER

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

Gideon watched the window of the hotel room carefully through the scope of the rifle. The gold jewelry that Scott had been kind enough to keep in the safe had purchased the sniper rifle and highly sensitive scope from the black market contact he’d made years before, during one of his brief escapes from Brandenmore’s labs.

It was an old-fashioned weapon, one powered by the ammunition loaded into it, rather than the kind that used a laser box for power before each shot.

The soft sizzle of the box powering up the laser rifles were easily detectable to most Breeds if they were within a certain distance. But even easier for them to discern were the two tiny pin lights at the side of the box. Those pin lights could be seen from miles away by a Breed’s sensitive eyes.

This weapon, though, with its dull steel and the shaded glass of the scope, was all but undetectable to Breeds or humans.

Until it was fired.

This weapon, unlike the laser-powered variety, was loud enough to alert even the densest of the human population that violence was being committed.

It couldn’t be powered back to wound rather than kill or to burn rather than pierce. It couldn’t be deflected by the reflector glass or comparable material. There were few things that could stand between a man and a bullet.

Or a woman and a bullet.

At the moment, the woman in question was sitting comfortably in the chair she had moved to the side of the bed, directly in front of the window. The curtains were open and gave him a clear line of fire as she propped slender, jean-clad legs on the low table in front of her. Scuffed boots looked worn and comfortable, as did the faded jeans and the sleeveless, snug camisole she wore.

And she was staring straight back at him, her gaze meeting his in the scope of the rifle, daring him to fire.

Gideon had to smile.

He was almost becoming fond of this woman after the past three months.

She had a backbone, a daring no other adversary he’d known possessed. She was bold, confrontational, and mysterious. And she was damned intelligent.

Intelligent enough to know she was being followed and cunning enough that she had almost lost him more than once. Gideon had never come so close to losing prey as he had this woman since he’d begun following her.

She was a damned fine adversary, and he had no doubt she would make some worthy man a damned fine lover.

If she survived the little game they were playing at the moment.

He almost envied the man that would share her bed. No doubt it would be the Breed whose scent he’d detected on her clothes when he slipped into her bedroom earlier.

That Breed would have a woman most men could only dream of having. A woman that would be his partner. She was one who would go into battle with him, soothe his soul, mend his wounds, and drive him crazy in bed once the danger was over.

She couldn’t cook worth a damn, he’d heard one of her men say, but she commanded four powerful, territorial, less-than-courteous bastards who lived for war. Three of them followed her willingly, loyally.

The one who wasn’t completely loyal still lived because Gideon had only managed to identify him in the past twenty-four hours. If he were still traveling with her, then Gideon would have already killed him. This woman deserved more than the traitor who had sold her to her uncle’s enemies, she deserved more than the supposedly careless accidents used as attempts to get rid of her. Someone wanted her out of the game. They wanted to keep her from aiding her sister’s mate in protecting her sister and her sister’s child. According to the rumors swirling, now that she was so firmly aligned with the Breeds, someone wanted to ensure that if Colt Broen ever resurfaced there would be no one he could reach out to for assistance.

Someone was very frightened of the combination Diane Broen and her uncle represented. So frightened that once they realized she either didn’t know where he or the Leo’s home base was located, or was strong enough to keep her secrets, decided they were better off with her dead.

Alive, she represented a threat. A threat someone wasn’t willing to take.

Gideon doubted she realized how often three of those men stood between her and laser fire. If any of them were there now, he had no doubt they would be standing between her and his rifle. As her uncle and her ex-lover had tried to stand between her and the enemies that followed. And they had paid for their efforts in blood.

She was alone now. She had left her men behind, just as he had suggested she do in the letter he had left for her in Argentina. At the time, Gideon hadn’t yet uncovered the identity of the traitor on her team.

Now, he knew. He knew who had been the cause of her lover’s death, who had betrayed her uncle, and who had betrayed her.

For what? For a secret her parents had taken to the grave with them. The secret of the location of the Lion’s Den, the home of the first Leo.

She had sent them all home, three of them wounded by Gideon’s bullets. At the time, there had been only one Gideon was certain she could trust. It was only in the past twenty-four hours that the traitor had shown his hand and Gideon had identified him. That one was a danger to her. The bullets Gideon had used to take the three he suspected out of the game had been a warning to each that they had struck, and it was one the bastard had best heed. Neither man nor Breed could serve two masters, and that one was making the possibly fatal mistake of attempting to do so.

Still, she intrigued him.

She’d surprised him with the answer she’d left him in reply to his warning in Argentina.Come out and prove my enemy is near. Stalking me is only pissing me off. I much prefer to talk rather than continue looking over my shoulder. If what I suspect is true, we’re working toward the same goal. Combining our efforts would be far more effective.

And now, she was giving him the perfect opportunity to discuss whatever he pleased with her. She had given him similar opportunities after running from the Breed who was determined to claim her.

Too bad he wanted only to use her, just as the traitor within her group did. He had no intention of identifying himself to her. He would only follow her to the prize for which she searched, and he would ensure he possessed it before she could take possession of it.

None of that changed the fact that Diane Broen confused the hell out of him though.

She was an enigma to Gideon, but she wasn’t a fascination. It wasn’t this woman who hardened his dick when he thought of her. The Breed whose dick she did harden would be here soon, though.

Gideon knew he was only perhaps hours ahead of the Breed following her. And that Breed was pissed. Lawe Justice had roared his rage the second he’d left the Bureau of Breed Affairs and stomped to the black SUV awaiting him outside the Bureau.

Gideon had watched him from the shadows across the street, and his gaze narrowed, wondering if he should chance a grin as the Breed stopped and stared toward the area where Gideon had hidden himself.

As though Commander Justice knew he was watched. Knew, and knew the direction from which it came. Like the woman, he would make a fine adversary, but a much more dangerous one if Gideon dared to attempt to harm her.

Unfortunately, they just may become enemies if she threatened to step between him and his quarry, rather than leading him to her. Gideon couldn’t allow that. And he had a feeling the Breed wouldn’t be able to keep her from doing it.

It was regrettable that Gideon needed her to draw Judd, Fawn, and Honor from their chosen identities.

Unfortunately for the Enforcer, though, he’d been delayed in his quest for a while. A flat on the SUV before he cleared the block. That was a stroke of genius and luck, Gideon thought. The nail that had pierced the tire had been put in place the moment the call came down to the garage for the SUV.

Gideon had taken the call, prepared the vehicle, then slipped out to prepare the area for the small projectile.

He’d found it incredibly amusing that he’d been able to slip into the garage of the Bureau so easily. He’d not been able to get any farther, into the bureau’s offices, nor had he been able to sneak a weapon inside. The sensors were too sensitive and impervious to sabotage.

But he had gotten close enough to determine the vehicle Lawe Justice had called down for. Close enough that the garage attendant had tossed him the keys, believing him to be a fill-in for the Breed who’d called in ill.

Duplicating the security badge had been a bitch. It had taken more than twelve hours straight to prepare one that would fool the sensors as well as the guards and the garage attendant.

Luck.

Luck had been on his side for a minute.

The young woman centered in the scope arched her brow curiously as though questioning his inattention to her. His delay in pulling the trigger.

Daring him.

When she dared her mate in the same way, she would learn the consequences of such impulsive foolishness, he thought with an edge of regret. A shame, really, that she had already been marked by the Breed’s scent.

If times were different, if he were the Breed he had been at nineteen, or hell, even twenty-seven when he had been recaptured by the soldiers from the Brandenmore labs. Even then, he’d had hope; he’d remembered what it was like to laugh, to lust, to dream of freedom.

If he were still that Breed, then he would see if a mate could be charmed from her mate.

Once, he could have accomplished that goal, he thought. Or he would have at least had a chance. He would have given it a hell of a try, and had a considerable amount of fun in the attempt.

The woman in the view yawned as though bored and tired of waiting. She gave a little shake of her head and a chiding smile, as though she were berating him for merely watching her rather than confronting her.

What made her believe he would ever confront her?

What made her imagine he would pull the trigger?

He caressed it. His finger stroking over it as he would a lovers flesh as her lips quirked just a bit at the corner as though in a grin.

“Live by the sword and you’ll die by the sword, my uncle always said,” she had commented with a laugh as she had walked with her men days before from the airport in D.C. The Swede who walked with her had shaken his head at her response to his advice that she should proceed with care once they met with Director Wyatt.

She hadn’t heeded his advice. Instead, she had sworn to him that she would find the three they had been sent to collect and she would regret her actions later. This job, she had claimed, was too important. Her niece was too important for her to fail.

She would find all of them once she found Ms. Roberts. They would be with her, Gideon knew, and this woman would attempt to take them back to the Breeds to perform more tests. More brutal treatments.

A knife slicing through flesh just to see what hurt the most.

Gideon knew what they would see, though. He wouldn’t allow it. He hated the woman he was after more than he hated any scientists he had encountered. But even for her crimes, admittedly, a crime a child had committed. As terrible as it had been though, he wouldn’t allow that brutality to happen to her.

Ms. Broen was moving into the area where his prey was suspected to be located. Moving in to take from him the vengeance he’d lived and breathed for far too many years.

He couldn’t allow it.

He wouldn’t allow it.

He’d waited too long, fought for too long. And he wouldn’t be cheated of it now that the end was so near.

His sanity depended on keeping the vow he had made to himself so long ago.

He knew the general area where they were, and he’d given this woman the location. She would get there before he did, but, he would be close, and he would be watching. And once she found the prey, he would be there to steal it from her. If he remembered Judd, and he did, then he knew that the girls would be very well hidden. Very well protected.

Perhaps even sharing his bed.

He had to force back a roar of rage as he focused on the woman once again. Focused on what he knew rather than what he suspected.

He knew once Commander Justice arrived, Justice would be distracted by the past that would haunt him there in the form of the family his birth mother had been taken from.

The same family that had aided Judd and Fawn after Gideon had disappeared into the darkness on the night of their escape.

Terran Martinez had arrived, just as Judd had said he would. An arrangement Scott Connelly appeared to have been a part of. Because Fawn was his daughter.

His teeth clenched as a growl escaped before he could bite it back. He wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t accept it.

He frowned and glared through the scope as the woman arched her brow imperiously.

Oh yes, she knew he was there. Watching. Waiting. She wasn’t daring him to pull the trigger, she was daring him to take what they were both after.

“Good night.” Did she speak the words or simply allow her lips to form the shape of them?

Regardless, she rose from the chair and strode to the curtains, which she pulled closed with a jerk, shutting out his view of her and leaving nothing to chance. She tucked the bottom edges of the curtains into the window frame, ensured there were no cracks an assassin could use to target her, then turned off the lights to the room.

Gideon sighed at the loss. There were times in the past three days as he followed her, that he hadn’t felt so alone in this quest. He had felt that someone, who might even understand his desperation, was there with him. Her battle to save her niece was a noble one. And one he understood. Unfortunately, it was also one she could possibly lose.

She was unique, even to him, and learning more about her would be imperative before he struck to take the prize she would find for him. He didn’t kill innocents.

Even the medical assistants in the Brandenmore labs had been spared. He hadn’t held them responsible for the horrors suffered there. They had fought on many occasions to ease the agony or delay the tests, to allow him a chance to recover before they were repeated.

Several had conspired to aid his escape more than once, only to fail. One had died in the attempt. Another had died when they were caught attempting to ease Judd’s pain. It was their lives or the orders they were given. Gideon never held it against them when they reluctantly followed those orders.

Diane Broen, like those assistants, was innocent of the crimes he found punishable. There was no cruelty in her. Unlike many, though, there was a fierce, burning need to survive and to protect those she loved. Though there were very few she loved. Her sister, her niece. Of the four men she fought with, he saw loyalty from her; he didn’t see love.

With the Swede, though, he saw friendship, respect. Yet, he knew she would die to protect any of them. They were her responsibility, and therefore, under her protection.

Sighing briefly, he lowered the weapon and waited, carefully gauging the darkness and the shadows before moving. There had been other eyes watching her until he’d put a stop to it. The Coyote Breeds employed by the research scientists still attempting to carry on the Brandenmore legacy had tracked her as far as Tennessee before he’d had enough and cut their throats.

They had sent a two-man team to follow her. Their orders were, when and if she found the Bengal who had escaped nearly twelve years before or the two girls, they were to take them before the Bureau of Breed Affairs could move in to protect them.

Gideon had taken care of them instead. This woman he would allow to live, but those Coyotes had deserved only death.

He would allow no other adversary to track or to attempt to harm his prey or the warrior woman tracking them. That was his prerogative alone.

His teeth bared at the thought of it.

The memory of copper-rich blood flowing over his hands sharpened his senses and had a growl threatening to rumble in his throat.

Not yet, he told himself as he broke the weapon down to its individual parts and stored it in the case next to him. Then he donned the hat he had worn earlier. A beaten, stained cowboy hat that shadowed the mark on his face and went with the scuffed-up boots he’d stolen along with it. The scent on the clothing would keep any Breeds from accidentally figuring out that the individual they might pass had no scent of his own.

It was becoming a hassle, that lack of scent. It was an immediate alarm to any Breed who detected it. It required Gideon steal used, worn clothing rather than the nice, new clothing he would have preferred.

His prey would pay for that as well, he promised himself as he picked up the case and began moving quickly to the path that led down from the rise across from the hotel and back to the parking lot.

He was moving past the pickup he had bought days before when he almost stiffened, almost gave himself away. The vehicle pulling in and crossing his path was far too familiar for him to be comfortable.

Keeping his pace, he moved across the blacktop to the metal stairs that led to the third floor and the room he’d taken two doors down from Ms. Broen’s. He’d actually taken two rooms: the one he entered and the one that sat between him and his quarry.

The rooms, connecting as they were by two inner doors, had made it possible for him to slip into her room and position the three electronic listening devices he’d put together leaving D.C. He wasn’t seen entering her room from the cameras outside, nor by anyone who may have slipped by his notice to watch her.

Two of those devices, she had found immediately. He had to give her credit for it because he had actually attempted to keep that from happening this time. The third, he believed, would remain hidden, undetectable by either the Breed detectors or the ones John Thorsson, the man the woman called Thor, tinkered with to pick up the homemade or “silent” listening devices, which could record in deactivated mode for short periods of time.

Gideon was counting on that listening device to give him the current identity of the young woman he was searching for as well as the Breed protecting her. He would have to work past the Bengal Breed he had only known as Judd to gain his revenge.

They were the same age, he and Judd. They had, for a short time, shared the same cells, the same tests, the same hell.

Then, the termination order had come through on them all. They had escaped during transport to the termination facility. Somehow, Judd had managed to free himself before Gideon had and overpowered the guard in the back of the van. Gideon had gone after the driver, but the bastard had managed to flip the van, causing the incisions from an exploratory entrance into Gideon’s side to reopen and begin spilling blood.

He could have died then. He’d prayed for death often enough that he hadn’t cared if he died. Hell, he would have welcomed it with open arms.

She had cared though.

Gritting his teeth, Gideon fought back the memory. She had cared to see him living, to see him tortured further. To see his hell extended in ways none of them could have envisioned.

He found it strange that Judd hadn’t told him who had aided them by slipping the other Breed the keys to his chains. Gideon had always wondered how Judd had managed to gain his freedom, but his injuries and the result of Judd and the girl’s attempts to save him hadn’t allowed for a question-and-answer session.

Gideon’s fists clenched as he moved to the window, standing to the side to gaze through the narrow crack at the side of the curtain. There he watched as the doors swung open on the black SUV and Lawe Justice and his brother, Rule Breaker, stepped from the interior to gaze up at the room Ms. Broen had taken.

Two other vehicles pulled in on each side, both similar to the one Justice and his brother were in. There were three Enforcers in each of those vehicles, a total of six to complete the eight-man team commanded by Justice and his brother.

Ms. Broen’s Breed was taking no chances with her safety. Seeing them, though, recognizing the threat they represented forced a growl from his throat. He’d known they would arrive soon, but the complication and the animal that threatened to overtake him sent a punch of adrenaline and feral fury surging through him.

They dared to attempt to get in his way? To attempt to steal the only solace he had, the only hope he had of finding the girl and gaining his vengeance? He wouldn’t allow it.

He would kill them all before he would allow them to steal all he had worked for or the only chance he would ever have at finding peace.

Lawe moved up the steps while Rule held back, staying close to the SUV. Gideon stepped to the table where the small receiver and headphones were set up.

The commander, Lawe Justice, was known to be the right hand of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs. If the director knew something, then Commander Justice knew it. He was curious as to what information could be gleaned in this meeting. Or if the woman inside the room would kick the Breed out as quickly as he had entered.

He’d known Justice would follow the little female mercenary. There was a scent on her that he had left. It wasn’t mating heat, and it wasn’t that brand of ownership male Breeds placed on their mated females. Still, though, it was a scent that warned other male Breeds away. One that lingered on her and assured a Breed that touching her would be territorial invasion.

The primal genetics that were so much a part of Gideon had drawn back in discomfort, uncertain about nearing the female any farther than he had when he’d brushed against her at the airport the other night.

Justice hadn’t mated her.

He’d done something far, far more primal.

Lawe Justice had somehow managed to mark her with just enough of his scent to ensure that any other Breed recognized his intent to mate her. She belonged to a powerful, dangerous primal being.

A Breed who would kill to keep what he had marked as his.

Lawe unlocked the door and eased it open. Slowly, he stepped into the hotel room Diane had taken for the night and glanced around the small room.

The sound of the shower running and the soft scent of her wafting from the bathroom assured him she was currently standing beneath the running water rather than watching from some shadowy corner, waiting to spring a trap.

She was actually damned good at that. She was as quiet as any Breed, just as capable and, when needed, just as merciless. She lacked only their strength. Their strength and their ability to call upon the DNA that added the extra surge of power, the rush of adrenaline infused with a feral hormone, which added to their strength and their lack of mercy.

The scent of her, beyond the artificial soy and almond scent of her soap and shampoos, reached out to him, causing him to close his eyes as a grimace of hunger pulsed in the engorged iron-hard length of his dick.

God, he swore her scent was that of peace, of solace. Whenever she was near he could feel those qualities attempting to slip past his guard.

The scent of her was like a beacon. She smelled of a spring rain and summer heat, which pierced him with a bolt of pure lust that tightened his balls and filled his cock with a furious, burning sexual need.

She smelled of promises, and only God knew how he figured that one. It was a scent he couldn’t pin down, one that filled with warmth that went beyond lust and had his arms aching to hold her.

Just hold her.

To find and give comfort.

Comfort was another quality he’d never truly known and had no idea how he managed to identify it.

As he turned the dead bolt on the door, the bathroom door opened and a rush of steam spilled into the room. Before Lawe could draw in a breath, Diane stepped out and for a few precious seconds stole any chance he had of breathing.

Water beaded on her shoulders. A small rivulet coursed across her collarbone. Beneath the towel, her legs shimmered with a satiny smoothness that bespoke regular visits to salons for exfoliation. There were no razor marks, no redness from waxing. She was particular when it came to her body. She was rounded but toned, healthy but without the current fixation on being skinny.

She was, to the male and to the animal, perfection.

Arousal hit him instantly, throwing his senses into chaos as her soft freshness lanced through his control. He’d never imagined there was a break in the shields that kept emotion from weakening the formidable drive and determination he’d once had to never feel for another being.

In that instant, he learned differently. He felt those emotions tearing through him, rushing his senses and throwing his beliefs to the wind. And for a second—for one unbelievable second—he imagined fighting at her side, sharing their triumphs and hearing her laughter at their successes.

A growl rumbled in his chest, hoarse and unbidden as he fought to keep from crossing the room and jerking her to him. To keep from taking what he so desperately needed her to give him.

Diane froze as she reentered the bedroom. A flush mounted her cheekbones, filled her gaze. She could feel the warmth washing up her face before increasing to pure flaming heat and rushing south to send a surge of sensation burning through her pussy. At the same time, her chest clenched, emotion swamped her and the saddened realization that she could have him or her freedom burned like a blaze through her mind.

Oh Lord. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need the emotion. She didn’t need something else, or someone else, to lose. And with Lawe, there was no other course. She could have the man she longed for, or the freedom that was the same as the air she breathed.

Her thighs clenched as her clit began to ache, her vagina spilling the heated, slick moisture that made her pussy feel swollen, her clit more sensitive.

The arousal that tormented her whenever she thought of him kicked into overdrive.

But she didn’t have to think of him now, her aroused, overheated body screamed. He was here. He was aroused. There for the taking. Ready. Willing.

A silent groan and that tingling urge to rub against him had her juices gathering further, easing past the swollen folds of her pussy to dampen her thighs as well.

Diane could feel her body softening, her thighs weakening. She tightened her grip on the towel. Her fingers clenched in the material between her breasts, holding on to it as though it were all that was holding back that insane need to touch him.

To be touched by him.

How did he do it to her? How did he make her feel so vulnerable and needy? How did he make her want him so desperately when she hadn’t ached for a man in years? She had never ached for anyone like this, she realized. For that “something,” that ethereal promise of “more.” That satisfaction, satiation and pure contentment she’d seen in other women who had mated with Breed males and found their fulfillment.

Her sister. Lyra Jordan. Megan Arness. Merinus Lyons. Faith Arlington, and even Storme McKenzie and Ria Warrant. Strong, vital mates to arrogant, dominant and yet loving Breed males who had accepted their mates were more than vessels to continue the Breed legacy, or porcelain dolls that needed to be smothered with protection.

Here was a really good one. Why the hell was she so willing to throw away her pride and her independence for a momentary pleasure? Why, in that second, did she suddenly wish she were less independent and more like her sister, Rachel, just to please the brooding, somber Breed standing before her.

He made her dream. That small voice, so filled with hope, whispered inside her as the memories of all she had lost over the years rose to torment her.

He made her dream honest-to-God vivid-color dreams of a future colored in more than blood. She had begun dreaming of a man that the woman, the part of her that was a warrior and the part that was still a frightened little girl desperate to find control and freedom, could hold on to. Hold on to and still be herself.

“Why are you here?” she forced the words past her lips, forced herself to ask the question rather than moving to him and begging him to fuck her.

Or to allow her to fuck him.

Whichever could be achieved and her orgasm reached in the quickest amount of time.

Instead, she filled her tone with irritation to add to the unwelcome glare that she forced to crease her expression.

“Why are you here?” he repeated the question with a heavy emphasis on her location. “You were not told to resume this mission.”

The wrong thing to say and he knew it the moment the words passed his lips. Unfortunately, there was no way to call them back.

Diane smiled back at him sweetly as she stepped across the room, and Lawe couldn’t help but watch her warily. She was damned well trained and quick as hell and he knew it.

But she didn’t move for him. Attacking him obviously wasn’t on the agenda tonight. At least, not yet.

Watching him warily Diane moved past the bottom of the bed, keeping her gaze on him, her body tense and ready to run as she moved to the backpack lying on the mattress.

One hand stayed knotted in the towel covering her. If wishes alone could rip it from her body, then it would have already been lying on the ground in shreds.

Nearly holding his breath he watched, his gaze centered where she held the towel securely. He wished it from her body, every muscle in his body tensing as he willed her to drop the material and give him a glimpse of that perfect, beautiful flesh.

The head of his dick throbbed¸ pounding furiously beneath the material of his jeans as he felt his balls drawing tight to the base of the thickened shaft in the need for release. Just beneath the engorged crown of his erection, the flesh seemed to stretch tighter, hotter as it pulsed in need.

The barb was there, stretching just enough to assure him of its presence. To assure him that this woman was indeed his mate.

Beneath his tongue the glands that held the mating hormone was swollen as it throbbed, ached. The need to push his tongue into her mouth and demand she engage in the sensual, heated kiss that would spill the hormone to her senses, was overwhelming.

“Stop looking at me like that.” The demand was made as the scent of her arousal began to intoxicate him, to fill his senses and the glands beneath his tongue with the mating hormone.

The confrontation she seemed determined to initiate wasn’t helping, and neither was the fact that those were clothes she was pulling from her bag.

Yoga pants, a T-shirt, panties that were little more than a triangle of silk.

Gripping the clothing in one hand, keeping her death grip on the towel with the other, she moved to skirt around the bottom of the bed and, Lawe knew, to return to the bathroom to dress.

He stepped in her way, blocking her escape as effectively as steel bars as he ensured she would have to make close, personal, intimate contact with his body to get by him.

She stared back at him warily as she paused at the bottom of the bed.

“That’s the hell of it where these little rooms are concerned.” He glanced around the small cheap hotel room as he allowed a rueful grin to tug at his lips. “Two people can’t move around it at the same time without brushing or even stroking against one another. Whereas the more expensive suites that most Breeds prefer have plenty of room to move around and avoid contact, if that’s what they wish.”

As he spoke, he crouched down, one knee on the floor and the other bent as he loosened the laces of the combat ankle boots he wore.

She eyed him warily now, a hint of desperation filling her gaze as he shifted to the other boot, loosened it, then straightened and pulled each off.

“What the hell are you doing?” she gasped out, knowing full well exactly what he was doing. And her body knew. She could feel her sex growing wetter, hotter, flushing the sensitive folds and causing her clit to swell tighter.

“You ran from me, Diane,” he growled as he pulled the thin, black temperature control socks from his feet. Then his hands moved to the utility belt of his pants, his fingers working it loose.

Breeds had different growls for different emotions: irritation, aggravation, an angry growl, a furious growl. And then there was this growl. It rumbled deep with lazy, hungry intent. This one echoed through her nerve endings and caused her vagina to clench as she swore the sound echoed in her tender depths.

“And I’ll run away from you again.” She swallowed tightly as she defied him, nervously, her grip on the towel tightening until her knuckles turned white. “I’m not your puppet, Lawe.”

“You’re my mate.” He heard the growl in his own voice, hated himself for the primal dominance that vibrated in his voice.

“I’m not yours to control nor did you purchase a shining new toy you can sit on the shelf until you decide to play with it.”

If her pussy wasn’t heated, flowing with the sweet, soft juices he was dying to taste, then Lawe might have paid attention to that hint of desperation in her voice. The apparent fear of his touch, of the mating heat, and he would have forced himself to turn away.

It wasn’t fear despite the appearance of it, though. He smelled desperation, hunger, confusion. She wanted him; she ached for him with the same clawing hunger that he ached for her and that was all the animal rising inside him recognized.

They were dying for each other, yet she thought she could run and he wouldn’t give chase?

The animal DNA inside him demanded he do just that. That he give chase. That he become the hunter, the dominant force that would bind her to him.

What made her believe she could place herself in danger and he wouldn’t stand in front of her? That he wouldn’t protect her with every last ounce of strength that he possessed? That he wouldn’t give his life and the life of every Breed ever created to see to her safety, to the continuation of her.

“Placing you on a shelf is the last thing I want to do, sweetheart,” he promised silkily. “But playing with you is definitely in the cards.”

Rather than removing his jeans after the belt loosened, Lawe shrugged the thin jacket from his shoulders, then tugged the black sleeveless shirt from his body and tossed it aside.

Her little tongue, pink and tempting, reached out to flicker over her lips.

The gleam of moisture on the sensual lower curve had his balls clenching, the need to take her pounding through him.

He was so hard he could barely stand to breathe as he unsnapped the metal tabs of the jeans and, as she watched, stripped them from his body.

“Did you think you could run from me without consequences, mate? I’m a fucking Breed. Run and I will give chase. Challenge me, Diane, and I will accept it. Do you see me as some poor castrated animal you can control so easily?”

“Castrated?” Her gaze flickered to his erection. “Not really. But I’ve been assured by Jonas several times that you’re really quite domesticated. Do you purr on command, Lawe? Or does only Jonas have the power to give that order?”

She was insane, Diane decided, certifiable. Her uncle had made that prediction more than once during the years before his death.

He was obviously right. Only a crazy person dared to manipulate a Breed in such a way, no matter how harmless it was.

But both Lawe and Jonas deserved every moment of it.

Jonas for daring to play his games with her, and she knew he had been. She hadn’t figured out how, but she knew him for the calculating, manipulating monster he was when it came to ensuring every capable Breed mated.

And Lawe, for making her feel. For making her want. For refusing to be a partner and a lover.

She didn’t want or need either to feel the emotions tearing her apart or to ache with such need for any one man. She hadn’t asked him to step into her life and throw all her beliefs and the life she’d resigned herself to into chaos. And she sure as hell hadn’t asked her brother-in-law to help him. She’d begged Jonas for a way to make Lawe understand how it would never work to pressure her into giving up the life that made her feel valued. Instead, he’d suggested she resign herself to giving it up.

He’d warned her about yanking Lawe’s chain more than once.

He had warned her that Lawe was not a domesticated housecat but a fully trained Lion Breed in his prime.

Just as he had warned her that Lawe didn’t take orders worth a damn and he sure as hell didn’t purr on command.

And the last warning had been that the animal Lawe shared his skin with would one day overcome his determination to hold it back, and it would take the mate it sensed waiting.

If the look on Lawe’s face and his stiff, jutting erection were anything to go by, the animal and the man were pretty much in agreement that it was the time to claim the mate and they were prepared to prove it.

Icy blue eyes flared, then darkened, as his expression tightened and primal dominance suddenly marked it.

This was it.

They had been dancing around each other for more than a year now, deliberately easing in, then pulling back at the slightest hint of emotion, only to be drawn back again.

She’d teased, and she’d forgotten the warnings Jonas had given her.

She’d run from him, fighting to escape what she’d sensed was the inevitable. Jonas had warned her about running. He’d warned her about the predator living inside Lawe, the dominant animal that would move heaven and hell, kill or risk being killed, to possess his mate. And he would give her whatever she needed, whatever he knew instinctively she had to have, just to be happy.

For more than a year he had stayed away. He’d ignored the hunger, just as she had. He had ignored the need and let her run from all the emotions she couldn’t handle, and the knowledge that accepting him meant accepting the cage he would build around her.

Had he somehow sensed the monsters that rose up to slash at her emotions each time she’d fought to escape him, because he’d always let her go. Or had he been concerned with his own monsters and the battle to slip past them instead?

Whichever it was, he’d obviously decided it was time to do something about the hunger clawing through both of them.

Diane exhaled in a breath of surprise as Lawe moved for her, catching her around the waist as she turned to evade him. Gripping her hips, he jerked her back, bringing her ass against the hardened length of his cock as he pressed against her, firm and dominant, the stiff stalk of his erection rubbing against the cleft of her ass.

And she couldn’t keep from pressing back, from feeling him, heated and poker hard. She could feel him against her from her shoulder to her thighs. She could feel the rasp of his flesh, feel those tiny, tiny, almost invisible hairs that covered him from shoulders to ankles like a pelt of roughened silk.

“Living dangerously, baby?” He nipped at the lobe of her ear as her hands fell to his wrists, her grip desperate as she fought to push back the desire, or the fear. She had to let one go because he obviously wasn’t going to allow her to let him go.

The desire wasn’t budging from its position, it was only growing. The fear was holding on with bloody fingernails and faltering further beneath his touch as she felt the incredible, sexual heat sizzling up her spine.

“Scared, little wildcat?” he whispered against her ear, the warmth of his breath a caress against the sensitive shell of her ear.

“Of you?” The bravado in her tone was at odds with the vulnerability she felt, not to mention the inferno of lust building in her womb. “I think you know better than that, Lawe.”

Even as she denied that charge, Diane knew it for the lie it was. A soft exhalation parted her lips as his fingers tightened, his nails rasping over the skin of her hips as he pressed against her more firmly, grinding his cock harder against the cleft of her rear.

Pleasure whipped across her nerve endings, sending sharp flares of sensation rushing through her system.

Fear fell back as the warmth of his body seemed to penetrate the chill that wrapped around her earlier. But it wasn’t gone. She wondered if it would ever go away entirely.

A shudder raced through her with the touch of his tongue, like a roughened rasp against the sensitive flesh just beneath her ear. In that second, the fear was gone and pleasure overshadowed every nightmare that had ever chased her.

Need was a sharp-toothed demon tearing at Lawe’s cock, but even that couldn’t hold back the animal senses that drew in the scent of his mate’s desire, the heat of her need, and the chill of her fears easing away beneath the onslaught of pleasure.

He felt the animal genetics rising to the fore inside him. Each Breed carried the genetics of the animal he possessed. Some carried their animals closer to the skin than others, and for some the animal instincts were impossible to control when mating heat rose and sank its claws deep inside the primal alpha-male core of his psyche.

The need for her was tearing through him. He tried to control it. He fought it. But in that moment, Lawe knew he had lost the battle.

Pulling her around, his fingers burrowed in the back of her hair. Gripping the strands, he tugged her head back and before he could think or consider his actions, his head lowered and his lips covered hers as instinct had him pushing his tongue between her lips and burying it in the heat of her mouth.

Finding her tongue he rubbed against it, feeling the glands beneath his as they began to swell and throb further, pumping the spicy heat of the mating hormone suddenly spilling from him into the woman the animal inside had chosen as his mate.

Lawe had heard of the animal part of a Breed male taking over. How it rose to the forefront of desire as the mating hormone began spilling from the glands to mix with the adrenaline, the hunger and the lust coursing through him and into his mate.

Now, kissing Diane, touching her, Lawe felt the exquisite bite of a need unlike anything he had ever known in his life. A pleasure he realized he didn’t want to miss, not anymore. That empty hole in his soul had disappeared. That dark, bitter, unknown pain that always lingered inside him had been easing away since the moment he realized what she was to him.

Holding her head in place with one hand, he used the other to caress the soft, heated flesh of her lower back, then along the rise of her buttocks.

Diane lifted against him, arching, a small whimpering moan leaving her throat as he felt her hands press against his chest, her fingers curling, nails rasping.

He was burning for her. The tiny hairs that covered his body seemed so sensitive, so brutally alive as she stroked against him that he swore they were directly attached to his nerve endings.

Hunger clawed at him. A sexual hunger impossible to deny, creating an urgent, intense wave of lust that had him only distantly aware of his actions.

Diane whimpered as the heated, unique taste of him spilled to her tongue, her senses and, she swore, her soul.

Spicy, sweet, like candied pears. The taste of his kiss was spiked with the most addictive elixir. The taste seemed to permeate every corner of her awareness.

And it made her hungrier. Made the need so sharp and intense she could only whimper in distress as it struck repeatedly at her clit, at the tender depths of her pussy.

Jerking his head back with another animalistic growl, Lawe tensed, the hard ridge of his cock throbbing imperatively. Still immersed in his kiss, Diane let her hand travel down his bare chest, his abs, until she was running her palm along the heated ridge of the heavy erection.

“God, Diane.” He palmed the back of her head as she pressed her lips to his chest, allowing herself a taste of the hard flesh that covered the tight, flexing muscle.

“You’re going to push me too far.” His voice was so rough it was animalistic, sending a wave of sensual pleasure rushing through her.

“It’s okay for you to push me?” Diane whispered against his sensitive skin before her tongue licked out to taste him once again.

She had to press her thighs together, the muscles tightening convulsively at the sight of the heavy flesh strained out from his body.

She couldn’t help herself.

She’d fantasized about him for so long. Since the night he had rushed into a Syrian camp where she had been held by her kidnappers, her leg broken, her face swollen, her collarbone fractured from the beatings she had endured.

She had taken one look at the savage features of a Breed she didn’t know from Adam, and for the first time in far too many years, she had been more than a soldier. More than a hired gun.

Bloody, in pain, certain she was going to die, and for one heart-stopping, irrational moment, she had been a woman and had wished she’d met him at time when she had a makeup bag handy.

A nice dress.

Heels.

And she had never worn any of the three since high school. She hadn’t found a chance to.

Now, with her tongue flicking over the salty male flesh, the heavy length of his erection throbbing beneath her fingers as she stroked along the thick shaft, that need was there again.

The need to be a woman.

To be Lawe’s woman.

It had always been there, but as the taste of candied pears filled her system, it amplified, bombarding her system with need.

“Sweet, sweet Diane.” He groaned, his hands fisting in her hair. “I’ve dreamed of touching you. Dreamed of fucking you.”

A moan whispered past her lips.

“I dreamed of having your lips on my dick, watching as I fuck your mouth, stretching your pretty lips.”

Her gaze jerked up, meeting his as his fingers tightened farther and began pushing her down. “Give it to me, baby. Give me your pretty lips. Wrap them around my dick as I’ve dreamed . . .”

Pressing her forward, pushing her to her knees Lawe watched as Diane licked her lips, parted them and leaned forward to take the thickly erect head of his cock between them and into her mouth.

Lawe froze immediately.

His entire body tensed, his fingers flexing in her hair. They tightened as she let herself become accustomed to the heated width filling her mouth, the fierce throb of power and life beneath her tongue.

Holding the base of the shaft with one hand, her fingers were unable to wrap around the thickness as she held the stiff flesh steady for each exploratory lick and stroke of her tongue.

It had been too long. It had been too many years since she had known the strength and heat of a man’s desire. And she had to admit, she’d never known a strength or thickness like the one that filled her mouth.

“Diane. Fuck, yes. Suck it, baby. Give me that sweet mouth.” Strangled, his voice torn, the pleasure in the hoarse, ragged tone of his voice had her tongue lashing beneath the sensitive crest with renewed hunger.

Each stroke was met with a fierce throb, a subtle taste of powerful heat and the male he was. He embodied strength and male hunger, and she found herself becoming intoxicated on it. She was nothing if not adventurous, if not courageous. If not daring.

If not determined to destroy herself by having this man and tempting a possession she knew would destroy her.