Tempting the Beast

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

They stayed buried in the house for two days while Callan paced the floors and checked the hidden email account he had. Everyone had checked in. They were secure but two of the messages had his instincts raring in self-defense. The first from Dayan, swearing Kane and the Tyler men were seen meeting with the soldiers, coordinating a search for Callan that covered every inch of the mountains. The other from Sherra, informing him that she and a relative were desperately searching for them to relay information. He cursed violently when that email came through. He told her to stay put, to put off the meeting with Kane Tyler. Why had she taken this into her own hands? And who was lying? Sherra or Dayan? For the first time since their births Callan began to question the loyalty of the Pride.

“Is everything okay?” Merinus stood between the kitchen and the living room, watching him in concern.

Her hair was tangled around her face, drowsiness still flushed her skin. He had left her sleeping in the bed hours before after another bout of sex that damned near left him drained.

She was dressed in one of his T-shirts. The hem of the blue cotton covered her thighs and hung on her slender shoulders. The intimacy of her wearing his clothing left a gut punch of desire that he couldn’t deny. Possession, raw and hot flared in him. His woman.

“Everything’s fine,” he assured her quietly, unwilling to worry her further.

He saw the concern in her eyes though, and knew he hadn’t fooled her. Their lives were hanging by a thread now, the dangers inherent in the situation terrified him. Merinus had no scope of the evil that inhabited the Council and he prayed she never learned.

“We need to contact Kane, Callan,” she broached the one subject he wasn’t willing to discuss yet. “He’s going to be worried out of his mind. That’s not a good thing, either.”

He could see her absolute belief in her brother reflected in her expression. She thought of her family before she thought of herself. She trusted them when she could trust no one else, especially that damned soldier brother of hers.

“I have to be certain he didn’t betray us first, Merinus.” He shook his head, staring back at Sherra’s email.

He could assume the betrayal came from Kane, or from one of his own. Which was more likely to want to see him and Merinus captured or dead?

“Kane wouldn’t betray me, Callan,” she told him quietly.

There was no anger in her tone, no doubt. She trusted her brother implicitly.

“How can you be so certain, Merinus?” He sighed roughly. “The attack came hours after your call to him.”

“I know because I know Kane.” She shook her head, moving further into the room.

She went to the couch near him, sat down and regarded him solemnly.

“Kane went ape shit when Dad showed him the box your mother had sent to him on her death,” she revealed. “I don’t know why, but I know he was hurt. Hurt and angry, but not at you. He spent months gathering evidence, working to reveal the Council members. He has a list from your shoulder to your elbow and a stack of proof against them that would terrify you.”

Callan narrowed his eyes on her.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he asked her.

“I tried to tell you, but you never wanted to hear it.” She rolled her eyes at his abrupt question. “I told you we had everything taken care of. Did you think I would lie to you?”

“The hell if I knew what to think then, or now,” he grunted, shutting down the email program and pacing the floor. “I know we’ve been betrayed by someone close to us, and accusing your brother is a hell of a lot easier than the alternative.” Better than believing that one of his own would do it.

He couldn’t get the thought out of his head that one of his own had betrayed him, or the memory of that scent in the caves, lingering on the flesh of the soldier.

“Who is the alternative?” Merinus asked him carefully. “Callan, Kane didn’t know we had mated, or whatever this is. He wasn’t even certain we were having sex. He suspected it, but he didn’t know it was anything deeper.”

“He would have known.” Callan frowned. He knew Kane had at least suspected that his sister was too emotionally involved with her lover to leave. The Council would have suspected the rest based on that.

Merinus sighed. “Maybe he would have, but he wouldn’t have betrayed me or you. He’s put too much into this, taken too many risks himself.”

“Why?” Callan snapped. “Why would he do this, just for a story? He didn’t need anything more than the proof Maria had to run it.”

Merinus bit her lip thoughtfully.

“I don’t know why,” she finally admitted. “All I know is that he did. And I know he’s been very upset since this came about, almost obsessed with it. He wouldn’t betray you, not just because of the risk to myself, but because of whatever is driving him as well.”

Callan growled low in his throat.

“That is such a sexy sound.” He turned in surprise at the aroused amusement in her voice.

She was watching him, her body relaxed for a change, her head tilted thoughtfully.

“What is?” he asked her carefully.

“That growl in your voice,” she said, watching him with heavy lidded desire. “It makes me shiver, makes my body want to rub over all yours.”

Her heat wasn’t upon her yet. He smelled the air carefully. The scent of warm, willing woman was there, but not the desperate lust he was used to smelling when she wanted him. Callan watched her carefully, seeing nothing in her expression that would indicate that the chemically induced needs were riding her. There was no smell of it on the air, no desperation or tense muscles showing that would hint at her need.

There was something elusive, though. Like the faintest fragrance of spring. He admitted to being more than a little confused now.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She pushed her fingers through her hair, attempting to restore it to order. She still looked sexy and tousled though, warm and beckoning.

“You want me.” He was more than a little amazed by that fact.

“Well, duh,” she gave him a look that suggested she was beginning to suspect his intelligence. “Just figure that one out, Sherlock?”

Callan frowned.

“Woman, you are a snide creature.” He allowed the rumble in his chest to echo in his voice.

Her face flushed, but her expression showed her knowledge that he was tempting her.

“I’m a bitch.” She was clearly laughing at him. “Ask Kane, he’ll tell you.”

The mention of her brother sobered him. He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans and paced to the window that he kept covered with heavy curtains. He didn’t look out, there was no need to. There was enough wildlife in the area that if he were being stalked here, he would know it. The birds would stop singing, the frogs would ease their early evening serenade.

“Do you have a way of contacting him, other than the cell phone?” he asked her.

She sighed, sobering. She was filled with laughter and hope, despite their circumstances. Her innocence amazed and terrified him.

“No, not really.” He glanced back as she shrugged. “Kane secured the phones we were using before I left so the calls couldn’t be hacked or traced. Both units have an indicator on them, in case the impossible happens and someone locks onto the channel. He took every precaution with them.”

Merinus’ unit was tucked in his pack. He had felt the vibration of it earlier in the morning when he had dug out the ammunition for his pistol.

“Either your brother or mine has betrayed us,” he told her, watching her face go blank with shock. “We’re in trouble here, Merinus. The Council knows I’ve mated with you; they will stop at nothing to take you now. They did everything to breed us while we were in captivity, thinking our children would be easier to control than we were. If they take you, then they have me willingly, and they know that.”

He watched the fear that washed over her face. She swallowed tightly, her hands gripping the material of the shirt at her waist, her fingers turning white with the tension that invaded her body.

“What do we do?” she asked him.

He breathed out roughly. “I have two choices, neither are secure. We could leave the country and disappear, but that’s not a guarantee they won’t find us. We’ll never be truly safe and neither will our children be safe. Or I could trust your family and do as you came to ask me to do, but still, no guarantee. Both choices are rife with danger, Merinus. There will be no peace for us, whichever way we go.”

Hope filled her expression. She had such belief in her brothers and her father that she thought they could solve any problem. He wondered what it would have been like to be raised in such a secure, protective environment. To have such faith in someone other than yourself.

“Kane knows what he’s doing, so do the others, Callan,” she promised him desperately. “I have seven brothers, each one of them has been working on this for over six months now. Gray is with the FBI, Caleb is a private investigator, Kane has all kinds of contacts in the C.I.A. and across seas. They have boxes of proof, but need you to back it up. You can do this, Callan. We can do it together.”

Her expression was beseeching, her eyes wide and so filled with confidence. This time in him. She watched him as though he could solve this problem by his will alone. He wanted to curse her innocence, but found himself desperate to believe in it as well. Surely, it couldn’t be so simple. After years of running, decades of doubt and hopelessness, could it really be so easy? Of course it couldn’t, but what choice did he have left?

“We will wait one more day,” he finally sighed, glancing back at the computer, the emails he had received bothering him more than he wanted to admit. Tanner and Taber had done a copy of theirs to each of the others of the Pride. Sherra had not. The email had come singly and carefully coded. She trusted no one now, except Kane Tyler and himself.

“I believe Dayan has betrayed me,” he finally told her softly. “His scent was in the cave and on the soldiers within it. He knew of the mating and has been furious over it. His instability may have driven him over the edge.”

He hid his rage, his pain. If Dayan had betrayed the Pride, then it would fall to Callan to kill him. Dayan would become the hunted, something Callan swore the others would never be again.

“Callan.” Merinus came to her feet, her expression bleak, filled with pain for him.

He shook his head, moving away from her. He didn’t want her tenderness right now, not while he was filled with this rage.

“I took them out and covered their escapes with the deaths of scientists, soldiers and doctors,” he whispered. “The screams of the dying still echo in my ears, the deaths of the babes incubating in their tubes still tear at my conscience.” He dragged his hands through his hair, fighting the years-old horror and regret.

“You did what you had to do, Callan.” She gave him total acceptance, when he didn’t even have that for himself.

“I swore they would never be hunted again,” he whispered, fighting the ragged wound opening up in his soul. “I would not like to hunt my brother, Merinus. To know that the beast overcame him does not give hope for the rest of us.”

“Are you serious?” Incredulous anger colored her tone. He turned to her in surprise.

Her hands were propped on her hips, her brows drawn into a frown as she stared at him as though he had lost his mind.

“In what way?” he asked her carefully. Damn, she could be mercurial.

“The beast overcoming him?” She snorted in a less than ladylike fashion. He could likely blame Kane for that habit. “More likely his human nature coming out. Dammit, Callan, animals do not betray each other. Check out the Discovery Channel a little more often. You need to research, hon. Only humans sell each other out, only humans kill for no reason. It would say that perhaps Dayan got a little more human coding than the rest of you did.”

She crossed her arms over her breasts, staring him down as though he were a child in need of a lecture. Where was this woman’s fear? Her respect? Even the scientists had shown him greater fear.

He lifted a brow at her. She didn’t understand what the scientists had created, how they had attempted to train them. He could forgive her the ignorance, he decided.

“Oh, look at that brow arching,” she said mockingly. “Lion-O thinks he knows better.”

Callan clenched his teeth.

Merinus threw her hands up in defeat.

“Fine, believe what you want to,” she bit out. “Just like a man, you will anyway. But I’m telling you right now, and you’ll find out I’m right, Callan Lyons, Dayan is a typical psychopath. It’s there in those beady little eyes of his. I never did trust him.”

“There is such a thing as a typical psychopath? Did you see this on the Discovery Channel as well, darling?”

Her eyes widened at the little dig, her head tilting, considering.

“I’m sure it aired and I’m certain I’m right. I have a brother that’s into pop psychology, he would know all about it and I’m sure he would agree with me.”

Figured. Was there anything those brothers of hers didn’t do? And did they ever disagree with the little imp standing across from him? It occurred to him that she might be just a bit spoiled by those brothers of hers.

“So what are you going to do?” There went those hands on those slender hips again.

Her breasts pushed out against the T-shirt, the hard nipples like a beacon to his eyes. How was a man supposed to think when confronted with such a sight?

“I told you, I will decide by tomorrow,” he growled, fighting a lust that had nothing to do with any scent of need coming from her body. For a change, the lava hot scent was barely present. What he detected now though, was much more destructive. A woman irritated, angry, and just plain, pure aroused. His cock throbbed.

“Well, you know what I think. Now I’m going to go take a bath and you can sit here and brood all you want to. Then I’ll fix dinner. I make a great pasta salad.”

She swept from the room before he could snarl. Pasta salad? He didn’t think so.