Damn, whatever the hell was going on in these mountains was about to get ugly. If he wasn’t mistaken, Scheme Tallant and Tanner Reynolds were mated.
The scent of it had filled the air like a soft, intoxicating brew. It was subtle, barely there, but unmistakable. She was Tanner’s mate. And mated Breeds were lethal. They were a hell of a lot more dangerous than unmated ones; he had reason to know.
Shit was getting deep. Dog prayed he could keep himself from getting stuck in the quagmire here. He fancied holding on to his balls if it was all the same to everyone else. And his boss wouldn’t have a problem whatsoever cutting them free of his body if anything happened to that girl. No problem at all. His boss, Bollen, wasn’t exactly a man you wanted to displease. And Bollen’s boss, Jonas Wyatt, was even more dangerous. Damn. Shit was just getting too deep lately. Way too deep.
CHAPTER 17
Tanner didn’t bother to lead her through the forest. The minute Dog turned his back on them, he flipped her over his shoulder and began to move. She didn’t dare scream or cry out. She could feel the tension emanating from both men, the air of danger and lethal violence. So she held the required protests back until they entered the small cave that held the cover stone to the tunnels.
Why Dog had just let them escape even she couldn’t guess at. She was in shock over that one. Dog never showed mercy, and he never failed a mission. Ever. Until now. He had just let them go without a gun at his head.
“Not a fucking word,” Tanner hissed as he set her on her feet, his nose nearly touching hers, his golden eyes burning with subdued flames. She swore there were veins of red flickering in his eyes.
She nodded slowly, eyes wide, almost holding her breath at the unusual phenomenon. No one, period, had ever returned to the Council with a report of seeing Tanner enraged. Playfully murderous, if there was such a thing. And with Tanner she was certain there was. But never truly angry. Never enraged.
He was enraged now.
Snarling, he turned, snagging her wrist to drag her to the open entrance.
“Down.” He pointed into the hole.
With pleasure. He didn’t have to tell her twice.
Scheme plopped down on her butt, swung her legs into the hole to find the ladder with her feet, and she was gone.
“Oh my God!” She screeched like a frightened little mouse when she came face-to-face with the hard, savage expression of someone she didn’t know.
She knew all the Breeds.
Jerking back, the back of her heel caught on the edge of the ladder, taking her off balance and throwing her against the wall.
A second later freaking Catman dropped into the tunnel, crouched, snarling. The sound of it sent chills up her spine.
“Whoa there, big boy.” The man stepped back, his hands held carefully in front of him. “I was just here to make sure she didn’t fall.”
“I know how to climb down,” she snapped. “Tanner, where the hell’s the flashlight? I can’t see.”
She was seriously afraid that whoever the hell the other man was, his existence was definitely in question if the sounds coming from Tanner’s throat were any indication.
He was still growling. A dangerous, not-so-comfortable sort of sound that had her stomach cramping in fear. Not for herself.
He whirled on her, his eyes practically glowing in the dim light as he stared down at her.
“You’re seriously starting to piss me—Oomph.”
Before she could say anything more, he lifted her. He didn’t jerk her or drag her; he lifted her into his arms before snarling over his shoulder at the surprised stranger.
Or at least he was a stranger to her.
“I’ll just, uh, put the stone back in place.” The other man cleared his throat. “You go ahead and just do whatever. I’ll wait here for Cabal.”
Tanner’s body tensed further.
“Stop it.” She slapped his chest sharply. “That sound is really starting to get on my nerves. I don’t like it.”
Surprised, he stared back at her.
“The growly thing when you’re getting hot and wild is one thing. This let’s-kill-somebody rumble really makes me ill. I’m going to throw up on you if it doesn’t stop.”
There was a snort of laughter from behind Tanner. She threw a frown over his shoulder before bringing her gaze back to the dangerous Bengal Breed.
His lips were curved, maybe into a smile. Well, at least he wasn’t snarling anymore. Not that the smile on his face was much more comforting. It was a bit hard, calculating, laced with a fair amount of anger.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” she asked, flattening her hands on his chest as she stared up at him. “How much?”
“Plenty.”
She licked her lips nervously.
“I have a very good explanation.”
“No, you don’t.” With his arm around her waist, he picked her up off her feet, just that easy, and began moving down the tunnel.
“I can walk.”
“So I saw,” he growled. It wasn’t the growly, but it wasn’t the death-is-coming sound either.
“I really do have a good explanation.” She cleared her throat, wondering just how bad this was going to get.
“There were Coyote soldiers breaching the tunnels?” he asked.
“Umm, no.”
“Of course, how stupid of me,” he snapped. “You wouldn’t have reached the cover stone if there had been. One way in, one way out.”
“That’s rather foolish of you,” she pointed out. “Anything could happen. A secondary escape route is always advisable.”
That might not have been the best thing to point out. A second later she found herself pressed firmly against a wall, her feet still dangling above the floor, staring into fierce, gleaming eyes.
“Dog kills: over three dozen reported. Mercy level: zero. Proficiency level: off the fucking charts. Your father’s senior blood soldier.” His voice deepened, roughened, became savage as he spoke of the Coyote. “Do you have any fucking idea the danger you were in?”
Well, duh! She had seen the bastard kill. Her heart had nearly stopped at the sight of the Coyote. Right now, he looked a shade more understanding than Tanner.
She licked her lips. “Pretty much.”
She ran her hands from his chest to his shoulders, softened against him and bit her lip at the warning growl that rumbled in his chest.
“Pretty much?” he snarled, furious. “Pretty much?”
His hands tightened on her hips as she stared back at him, wondering if she wouldn’t have been better off facing Dog than Tanner at the moment.
She licked her lips again and let her knees lift, bending to brace on his hips as his body jerked, nearly slamming against her.
He was hard. Thick and hard, his cock driving against her pussy, shifting, stroking over the velvet lounging bottoms and the silk of her panties. And it felt really good.
Even if she was just a bit concerned. Tanner really looked just a shade pissed.
“I missed you.” And she had. Like chocolate, like coffee. The farther she had gotten away from the caverns, the more she had been certain she was making a terrible mistake.
And she had been.
His gaze flared, sexual heat burning with the anger now.
“You ran from me,” he rasped. “You nearly got your ass killed, Scheme. He could have taken you, so easily.”
“You wouldn’t have let him.” Her fingernails scraped over his shoulders to his neck, pushing beneath the collar of his shirt as the muscles in his jaw bunched.
His fingers flexed at her hips again as he lifted her, rubbing her against the erection behind his jeans. And he was really filling out those jeans.
“I might not have been able to stop him!” he bit out, his voice rough, violent. “He reached you first, Scheme. He could have killed you as easily as he let you go. Do you understand that?”
“More so than you,” she cried out. “I’ve seen him kill.”
“And you dared to fucking leave the safety of the goddamned caves?” he roared.
Damn. Whoa.
Scheme blinked back at him. Maybe he was a little bit more than pissed.
“You wouldn’t let me go,” she whispered as she gripped the collar of his shirt and jerked at it.
“I can’t let you go,” he grated, one hand moving to her hair, tangling in it and holding, pulling her head back roughly. “Even for your sake, I can’t fucking let you go.”
His lips came down on hers in starving demand. As though he had to have the taste of her. And she had to have the taste of him. To live. To breathe. To go on for another second she had to taste him, hold him. She had to be a part of him.
She had nearly walked away from this. From the one thing she had believed she could never have. And yet the one thing she had always craved. Deep down inside, where she hid the hopes and dreams, the needs that festered within a wound that never healed. This was what she craved.
“I can’t lose you,” he muttered against her lips, and her heart tripped, speeding up, nearly smothering her with the excitement racing through her as he nipped at her lips. “I can’t, Scheme. Not now. I can’t lose you.”
He was dying inside. Her kiss was every fantasy he had ever dared let himself imagine, and a few he hadn’t. Her hands in his hair, her tongue meeting his, licking, rubbing against it. Rubbing against a damned tongue whose mating glands were dormant, normal, and refused to swell with the mating hormone that would mark her as his forever.
What the hell was he going to do? How was he going to survive letting her go to another man?
He knew his kisses were desperate. As his lips slanted over hers, hunger clawed at his guts, his balls. The need to mark her was so overwhelming that when he found his teeth opening over her shoulder, it sent a surge of shock tearing through him.
Not his mate.
Fighting for control, he dropped his forehead against the silken flesh instead and closed his eyes. Instantly, his sense of touch and smell sharpened. He could feel her need for him, smell her arousal, but something was different.
Scheme never relaxed against him until those minutes after her orgasm when she had no other choice. She was wary, always cautious, always on guard. Until now.
“I knew I shouldn’t have left even before I saw Dog,” she whispered at his ear. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
A part of his soul was dying at her admission. Trust. He could feel her beginning to trust him, and he was going to have to let her go. He couldn’t ignore the truth any longer. There were no mating signs. She wasn’t his mate.
He pressed his lips to her neck though he stepped back, forcing her legs to release him as he found the courage to lift his head and stare down at her.
“We’ll talk later.” He scowled at the effort it took to force his hands to release her hips and allow her to stand on her own.
“I don’t want to talk later, Tanner. I have to tell you—”
His fingers covered her lips. He could sense what she wanted to say. The sweet spice of the emotional storm brewing within her would rip his soul out. If she whispered the words, he would never survive what he had to do.
“Later,” he whispered, feeling the words tear from him. “Come on, Cabal will be here in a few minutes.”
“Cabal?” Confusion filled her eyes.
“That mountain out there is a fucking war zone, Scheme.” He grabbed her wrist and began to pull her through the tunnel. “You’re damned lucky you didn’t run into more trouble than just Dog.”
He had to push the thought back. He had to force himself to do what had to be done here. He had never shirked his responsibilities; he had never tried to hide from the truth of his life, no matter how much it had sucked at times.
Right now, he wanted nothing more than to hide. To find a place outside of reality where he and Scheme could exist together forever.
