by Lora Leigh
oon set on her. She dared him to find a decent cook that he could tolerate. He ended up with a full kitchen staff. Humans. He would have shuddered at the thought, but they were damned good cooks and he never had to worry about finding his coya stacking the damned dishwasher.
She did nothing more strenuous than carry her PDA or e-pad. The girls made certain of it. If she tried to do more, they called him.
She distracted his thoughts as she stretched beneath him, causing a groan to tear from him at the pleasure in the heat still wrapped around him.
Finally, long minutes later, he eased back.
“I’ll move later,” she murmured. “After I sleep.”
He smiled. She made him smile. She made him warm. She made him happy and made him look forward to each day and the surprises she had in store for him.
Shaking his head, he moved to the bathroom, washed up, then carried a damp cloth and towel to the bedroom. Despite her grumbling, he cleaned his seed from her, kissed a pale buttock, then patted her rear gently before crawling into the bed beside her.
Immediately, she was curling into him. They shifted and tussled for position for long minutes, until finally he was curled around her, her head pillowed on his arm, his cheek against her hair.
Sleep came easily. It came with a sense of security. It came with warmth.
“I love you, Del-Rey,” she whispered sleepily. “With all my soul.”
“I love you, Anya,” he said. “You are my soul.”
EPILOGUE
The bride wore a long gown of white lace and satin with the traditional one hundred pearl buttons running down the back. She looked like a fairy-tale princess as she walked up the rose-strewn aisle.
The groom was dressed in black. It suited him.
The bride’s father, tall, proud, still broad and strong at forty-two, wore black as well, a good contrast to his dark red, nearly auburn hair.
A spring snowstorm couldn’t cancel this ceremony; weather-equipped heli-jets were parked for miles outside Haven, and the underground sports facility at Haven was packed to capacity with Breeds and humans alike who were there to witness the joining of the Coyote alpha, Del-Rey Delgado, and his mate, Anya Kobrin.
Vows were spoken. Those were important. Rings were exchanged. It was said that the groom, or alpha, had had the rings specially made by a master jeweler in Russia. It was said that there was an inscription inside each: Let the past not be forgotten. Let the lessons not be in vain.
It was the wedding of the year. Journalists from around the world were in attendance, and when it came time for the bride to go to her knees and swear her loyalty to the alpha of the pack she had just married into, the alpha shocked them all.
He went to his knees. His hands clasped hers.
“You proved your loyalty, countless times over. As a child fighting for your friends’ freedom. As a woman fighting for her mate’s heart. As coya fighting for the peace we all dream of. I pledge myself, Alpha Del-Rey Delgado, to my mate, my wife, my coya, Anya Kobrin Delgado. May our future be filled with promise and may your smile always light my way.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, as a reporter, Cassa Hawkins, even checked to be sure. Well, maybe there was one dry eye in the house, besides hers. The large Breed that stood in the shadows across the room. His eyes were, like hers, scanning the crowd, watching, as though he were waiting, hunting.
What, my beautiful Bengal, are you hunting?
Unfortunately, despite her wicked, wicked fantasies, she had a feeling he wasn’t hunting her. Too bad. She heard he was a wild man in bed; she’d never had a wild man in her bed.
She almost snorted at that thought. It had been a long damned time since she had had any man in her bed.
Her attention was drawn back to the ceremony as howls and roars, cheers of goodwill and laughter echoed through the cavernous underground arena.
Del-Rey and Anya had turned, hands clasped, to face the crowd watching them while the priest that officiated over the ceremony pronounced them man and wife.
It really was a beautiful affair.
What made Cassa’s heart clench, though, was when Del-Rey turned his bride back to him, lowered his head and took her lips in a kiss that looked more like a promise.
As Anya Delgado arched in his arms, Cassa’s brows lifted at the small, rounded mound of her tummy as it became visible. Was it possible? Was this mate actually pregnant? She looked closer.
“You don’t want to put that in your little article.”
She jerked, her eyes widening at the voice in her ear. Her head swung to the side. Oddly striped gold and black hair met her cheek. It grew long around his face, silken, tempting to touch. His eyes were green, jungle green and flecked with gold. His scent wrapped around her, spicy and male, and tempted her to lick her lips.
“Meaning?” she drawled as she felt his hand touch her hip, his head move closer until his lips were at her ear.
“The suspicion I see in those pretty gray eyes,” he murmured. “Any additional announcement will come when the time is right. You can be a part of the group allowed into that announcement, or you can be strangely uninvited to that one as well as many others.”
She sighed. Okay, no telling about that intriguing little bulge.
“I want an exclusive,” she demanded. “Someone else will beat me to the punch. You’ll owe me.”
His chuckle stroked over her senses. “You might get more than you bargained for.”
Her lips twitched. “And you might be biting off more than you can chew.”
The newly wedded couple turned, clasped hands, but stared into each other’s eyes. Black eyes met perfect blue, and Del-Rey knew that in this woman he had found peace.
Now, if only peace could be assured in the world they were fighting to belong within.
Turn the page for an exclusive look at
the next title in the Feline Breeds series
by Lora Leigh
BENGAL’S HEART
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
WOLF MOUNTAIN , COLORADO WOLF BREED BASE, HAVEN
Cassa Hawkins slipped silently through the shadows of Haven as she tried to ignore the misty rain falling and her own feelings of anticipation. She felt like a ghost, like a shadow, unseen, unheard. It was a heady sensation as she slipped past Breed after Breed, undetected.
The chill night air wrapped around her and penetrated the black clothing she wore. Even the snug black cap that covered her hair did little to keep out the cold or the dampness. It added to the thrill, to the sense of danger. She was insane, creeping around like this, and she knew it. She couldn’t get far. It wasn’t possible that a drug had actually been created that could fool the Breed senses and allow her to sneak past the sentries posted throughout Haven.
Someone was playing with her, allowing her to get only so far. That was the only explanation for the distance she had gained between the cabin where she was staying and the main offices of the compound without being caught. The Breed guards had an incredible sense of smell. They were chosen for their positions simply because they were impossible to pass.
It wasn’t possible that such a drug could have been created—was it?
According the anonymous emails she had received and the small bottle of round white pills that had arrived at her apartment the week before, it was definitely possible. And she had been crazy enough tonight to actually take one. To slip it onto her tongue, to allow it to dissolve and enter her system before she left her cabin.
Her own recklessness had concerned her, but only for a moment. As many of her fellow reporters knew, Cassa had often been known to dare death. It was one of her faults, many said. She considered it one of her strengths. After all, her days were numbered and she knew it. She may as well get away with as much as possible until the day of reckoning arrived.
In this case, intuition had spurred her on though. The pictures of bloody bodies, the emails that had warned her that a rogue Breed was taking vengeance for some
unknown crimes, and the pills that arrived with a message stating that the past always returned and wouldn’t she like to know the truth before it knocked on her door had pushed her into this choice.
The past was always hovering at her shoulder and now she had a feeling that someone might possibly know the secret she had fought to hide for so long.
The truth. The truth was, Cassa had spilled blood herself. The truth was, once her secrets were revealed, she would die. The Breeds would never allow her to live once they knew the truth.
She slipped past yet another Breed guard. Mordecai. One of their best trackers, rumored to be one of their most merciless Coyote Breeds. On silent feet she moved slowly through the shadows, along the wet ground, heart racing, mouth dry until she was a safe distance from him.
The chilly winter air gave no hint that spring was just around the corner. The cold penetrated flesh and bone, but nothing could still the excitement racing through her now. It was working. They hadn’t scented her; they hadn’t scented her.
God, this couldn’t be possible.
Pressing her back tight to the thick trunk of a pine, she stared up at the moonless sky and whispered a silent prayer that at least one of the Breeds patrolling the area would scent her.
A drug like this could be deadly, just as her source had warned her it was.
Pushing away from the tree, Cassa skirted around several maples bare of leaves and dripping a chilly rain as she slid through the night.
There was a whisper of voices ahead, the sound of soft footfalls coming nearer. Ducking behind the evergreen shrubs that grew around an enclosed picnic area, she waited for them to pass.
“Are you certain of your information?” Jonas Wyatt’s voice came through the night clearly as the pair grew closer.
“Five dead, Jonas, that’s hard to mistake. Each one was rumored to be part of a twelve man hunting party that came together several times a year to hunt down escaped Breeds. Each one was killed in the same manner, using the same pattern. There’s no mistake.”
The voice that answered had Cassa’s heart tripping, then speeding up in awareness. She fought back the response, bit her lip and prayed that little miracle pill would cover the scent of arousal as well.
Cabal St. Laurents had a voice that made women want to melt to the floor in a puddle of orgasmic bliss. It rasped over the senses with a velvet cadence Cassa had never been able to ignore.
“Hell.” Jonas paused, no more than four feet from where she crouched.
As bad as she wanted to peek over the border of shrubs, she didn’t dare. The scent of her body may be masked, but there would be no way in hell it would affect the men’s exceptional eyesight.
“That’s a good description of what we’re facing,” Cabal answered the curse. “It’s not over. The hunters are becoming the prey, and if the first five are any indication, we could be looking at some pretty high-profile individuals. The former mayor that was killed last week was a well-known individual throughout the nation. We’re looking at a PR nightmare here.”
“PR is your brother’s area,” Jonas growled. “I’ll let Tanner worry about the sugar coating. I want the killer caught, Cabal. That’s your job.”
“It’s hard to do a job when there’s no evidence to go on, Jonas,” Cabal snapped, his voice irritated. “There’s no DNA left on the scene, and no scent. We were notified within hours of the mayor’s death. When we arrived, you could smell the scent of his terror, but the scent of his killer was no where to be found.”
Cassa felt her mouth go dry. The former mayor that had disappeared recently was David Banks, a proponent of Breed rights. David Banks had gone for his evening walk one night in the little town of Glen Ferris, West Virginia. He hadn’t been seen again. His body hadn’t been found. There was no trace, no clue where he might have gone. Until now. He had argued for Breed Law, and had been known to host several charity parties a year in honor of the Breeds. Now, he was also rumored to have been a member of a group of men that once hunted Breeds?
She could believe it. She had never liked Banks, but she knew his popularity, his smooth, charming smile and his soft voice had fooled more than one journalist.
“Find something, Cabal,” Jonas ordered. “We’re working on borrowed time here. If you don’t find the killer before news of this leaks to the press, then we’re fucked.”
“It looks to me as though we’re fucked either way,” Cabal informed him, his voice cold. “Horace Engalls and Phillip Brandenmore are making certain of that.”
Brandenmore and Engalls. The owners of a pharmaceutical and drug research company were under indictment for the drugging of the Breeds’ doctor, Elyiana Morrey, and for conspiracy to murder in several Breed deaths. They had been caught attempting to buy research conducted by Dr. Morrey from her two assistants and were rumored to be conducting research into an aging phenomena the Breeds and their wives were supposedly experiencing.
There was no supposition to it. Cassa knew the truth of it. The Breeds were experiencing a slow down in the aging process once they went into mating heat. The phenomena was making Breed doctors crazy as they tried to figure it out, and sending the breed ruling cabinet into a frenzy each time the gossip tabloids came up with another angle to tell the story.
So far, it wasn’t being taken seriously. But that couldn’t continue much longer. It had been ten years since the Feline Breed alpha had announced the existence of the breeds. Ten years since he or his wife had aged in any noticeable way.
Cassa was one of the few people who knew the truth, and she knew the consequences of ever writing that story or revealing her knowledge of it. The non-disclosure agreement she had signed in return for special consideration in interviews and breaking Breed stories had been frightening. She may have signed away her soul, her first born child, and her cat’s blood. Or something close.
“Engalls and Brandenmore are being dealt with,” Jonas drawled, his tone one of pure ice. “I’m more concerned with a rogue Breed’s indiscriminate killings. Find him, Cabal, or we could all be up shit creek without a paddle.”
Cabal grunted at that. “I thought we already were.”
“No, at the moment, we have a paddle,” Jonas informed him sarcastically. “Now find that bastard before he kills again. I’ll be damned if I want to try to clean up another mess like Banks. I’m certain there are still pieces of him missing.”
Cassa forced herself to remain silent. She had the pictures of that killing; she was certain she did. That one, and four others. Pictures that had been sent via secured emails, accusing the Breeds of hiding a killer.
She hadn’t doubted the Breeds were capable of it; she just hadn’t imagined that even a Breed could do the damage that had been done in those pictures.
Trepidation built inside her as she felt the sweat that began to trickle down her temple at the thought of being caught now. She knew Breed Law, and she knew the price of eavesdropping on this conversation. Like David Banks, she could disappear and her fate would never be known.
“You’re pissing in the wind, Jonas,” Cabal informed him. “We have nothing to go on here. No suspects, no clues. Until I have one or the other, we’re screwed.”
“Get it.” Jonas voice became dangerous, clipped. “Quickly, Cabal.”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that, Director, just as soon as you tell me who the hell I’m looking for.” Cabal’s voice lowered until it vibrated with suppressed menace. “Until then, there’s not a hell of a lot more I can do.”
“Banks was from Glen Ferris. Get back there; see what you can find out. We’re supposed to be searching for him. Investigate it from that angle.”
“Just what I need, you telling me how to do my fucking job,” Cabal grunted.
“I could be telling you how to find your mate,” Jonas drawled with a hint of amusement. “I’m certain she’s around here somewhere. What do you think?”
A dangerous growl filled the air as Cassa felt her heart sink in her chest. Cabal was mated? No, that co
uldn’t be true. Breeds did not ignore their mates, and they sure as hell didn’t flirt with other women as Cabal had flirted with her earlier in the day during the wedding reception.
He wouldn’t have watched her as he had, nor would he have followed her to her cabin later.
Jonas had to be talking about a mate in general, not one in particular. Such as, seek and ye shall find. A why aren’t you looking for your mate type thing. That had to be it.
“Don’t fuck with me, Jonas,” Cabal warned him. “I’m not in the mood.”
Jonas chuckled. It wasn’t a comfortable or amused sound. It was frankly frightening.
“I’m not the one you have to worry about fucking with you, my friend,” he drawled. “I do believe though that our intrepid little reporter, Ms. Hawkins, could give you lessons in it.”
Cassa felt her lips part in shock. There was a hint of amusement in Jonas’s voice now but none in Cabal’s rumbled snarl. The sound was sexy as hell even as it sent chills racing up Cassa’s spine and a flood of warmth between her thighs.
“Drop it, Jonas,” Cabal warned him.
Yes, Jonas, please drop it, Cassa moaned silently. She was becoming aroused despite her best efforts. She had a feeling that whatever the pill did, it would be little defense against the scent of her need. And she was definitely needy. In the ten years since her husband’s death, she had never been so turned on as she was when she was around Cabal St. Laurents.
“Fine, consider it dropped.” She heard the shrug in Jonas’s voice. “The heli-jet will be ready to fly you to Glen Ferris in the morning. Investigate Banks’s disappearance. We might get lucky and you’ll find a suspect while you’re there.”
“Keep hoping,” Cabal grunted. “Trust me, Jonas, if they’re hiding a feral Breed in their midst, they’re not going to turn him over simply because I ask nicely.”
“You know how to ask nicely?” There was a wealth of sarcasm in Jonas’s voice.
“Go to hell.” There was a wealth of arrogance in Cabal’s.
Cassa wanted to laugh at the confrontation but stifled the impulse.
“I’ll return to hell, you check on our nosy reporter,” Jonas’s voice echoed with command once again as Cassa gave a small start of fear. “She was too jumpy at the reception tonight. Make sure she’s where she’s supposed to be.”
Cassa sensed the hesitation that filled the area on the other side of the shrubs.
“Is she becoming a problem?”
She definitely didn’t like the flat, cold tone Cabal used now.
“She’s always a problem when she’s here or at Sanctuary,” Jonas answered.
Cassa’s eyes narrowed. She was never a problem at Sanctuary. The Feline Breed stronghold was homier, and a damned sight more welcoming to her than the Wolf Breed compound she was in now.
“You don’t know how to handle her,” Cabal injected.
Handle her? No one handled her, period.
“Only with a whip and chair,” Jonas growled. “Callan and Merinus give her much too much freedom in Sanctuary. She thinks she deserves it elsewhere.”
“And this is my problem how?” Cabal argued. “She’s a reporter. You should have known better than to allow the invitation she was given to stay, to stand.”
Bodies shifted. Cassa was dying to look over the top of the shrubs, but leaned to the side instead to try to get a view through the opening in the foliage.
The glimmer of light from a nearby building revealed the two men. Jonas was still dressed in his tuxedo, Cabal though had changed into jeans, a T-shirt, a rain resistant jacket and boots. His black-striped golden blond hair dripped with the misty rain and fell long to his shoulders.
His shoulders were broad, his waist lean, his thighs muscular and his legs long. Standing there in the rain, he looked like the male animal he was. In his prime, ready for action. Sexy as hell. Mouth-wateringly male.
She breathed in slow and easy, and felt the familiar slick warmth between her thighs.
“Just make certain she’s in her cabin and well guarded, if you don’t mind.” Jonas ordered in a drawl heavy with mockery.
“And if I mind?” Cabal asked carefully.
Jonas’s teeth flashed in a hard, cold smile as the chilly rain dripped along his face and saturated his short, clipped hair.
“Then I might make you part of her protection detail rather than sending you to Glen Ferris. Come to think of it, that might be a good idea after all.”
Cabal’s brilliant green eyes narrowed, and Cassa could have sworn she saw the glitter of the amber flecks within the green as he stared back at the other breed.
“I’ll check on her.” The hard fury that echoed in his normally cold voice surprised Cassa and sent a chill racing down her spine.
She had to get back to her cabin before he arrived. If he found her sneaking around in the rain, or God forbid, found her missing from her cabin, she could just imagine the consequences.
She slid back from her position silently. Heart racing, she fought to move slowly, carefully.
She was running out of time anyway. The single pill she had taken only gave her a small amount of time. Two hours, the information had warned. She had spent most of that time testing it against the Breeds patrolling the compound.
Once the time limit was reached, her natural scent would return quickly—that meant she had less than half an hour to get back to the cabin.
She couldn’t let Cabal know she hadn’t been there all along, and she damned sure couldn’t face him while that drug was still in her system.
They continued to discuss her, much to her dismay, as she slowly retreated. She could hear their voices, but not what they were saying. Once she reach a safe distance, she straightened again and moved hastily through the shadows back to her cabin.
She used the heavy trees that grew throughout the compo