by Lora Leigh
Piece by piece they were gaining answers to their questions about their own biology and the mysteries surrounding their creation and their abilities to procreate. They couldn’t afford to lose what little research hadn’t been destroyed because they hadn’t realized the danger it could later represent.
And Creed couldn’t afford to lose the only woman who had made him feel. Who made him realize he was more than just a Breed. She made him realize there might be a chance, however small, that he could be a man as well.
THREE
She managed to slip away from him.
A growl slipped past his throat as one of his human partners gave a loud, exaggerated cough before turning to stare at him in shock. They were standing in the center of Kita’s bedroom as her father braced his arms on her opened balcony door.
“I paid you to keep this from happening.” Horace Engalls turned on them as though it were their fault she had escaped. “You were to protect her.”
“We were hired to keep anyone from getting to her. You didn’t inform us she would end up running away,” Creed pointed out.
“She’s always slipping out,” Horace snarled back at him, his brown eyes flickering with red rage. “You knew that.”
“And we’ve always been aware of the nights that was happening,” Creed replied with far more calm than he felt. “She’s obviously far quieter than her friends have been when they’ve picked her up.”
When it came to stealth, those women were like children in a candy store. All big eyes, giggles, and feminine charm.
“She’s been taken then.” A tremor vibrated through Horace’s voice as he wiped his hands over his face. “God, they’ve taken her.” He lifted his head, his eyes damp now with a father’s tears. “Who could have taken her?”
To feel pity for this man went against everything Creed knew of him. Yet, the pity was there. In Horace Engalls’s face, his eyes, his scent, there was only love and fear for his child.
“We’ll find out,” he promised, knowing she hadn’t been taken. She had run.
The slap to her face the day before, two years of seclusion and fear, and she had had enough.
It would no doubt relieve Horace’s mind to know this, but Creed had a far different agenda than bringing her home.
“How will you find out?” Horace swallowed tightly, visibly shaking now as the fear began to coalesce inside him. “There’s no ransom note. There’s nothing.”
“But there will be,” Creed assured him. He turned to the two men working with him. “Stay here, put a tap on the phone. I’ll see what I can find out and report back.” Turning back to Horace, he hardened his expression and his voice. “Stay here by the phones. Someone will call, and I doubt it will take long. The moment you hear something, one of my men will contact me.”
He turned his back on the father and moved quickly down the hall to his own small suite and the leather bag he kept packed for emergencies.
A change of clothes, weapons, ammo, and a small medical kit were included. Pulling leather riding pants, a black long-sleeve shirt, and a leather jacket out of the closet, he tossed them on the bed before reaching for the black riding boots.
He was dressed and moving down the steps in five minutes flat. He ignored the three men walking into the study: Horace and the two human enforcers assigned to Covert Operations with the Bureau of Breed Affairs.
The lethal black, specially designed motorcycle sat innocently in the drive. Its frame was based on one of the less powerful touring cycles, but every aspect of its functionality had been adapted with Breed technology. Straddling it quickly, Creed pulled the full-face helmet over his head, strapped it beneath his chin, then started the ignition with a flick of his fingers.
Before pulling from the drive, he set the helmet to full security mode and then spoke into the voice-activated controls.
“Activate Engalls, Kita, tracking protocol on all tags.”
The digital display came up on the inside of the visor as the computer answered. “All vehicles presently accounted for, and all but one deactivated and located in the main garage. Vehicle three is being tracked through both automotive tracking as well as electronic tag detected in Engalls, Kita wallet. Location currently identified and highlighted on your screen.”
The digital display reconfigured to show the small red dot identified as Kita’s vehicle at approximately five hours ahead of him.
“Computer, display routes to intersect in quickest possible time.”
The map reconfigured once again. He could shave two hours off his time and catch up with her well before evening.
“Onboard navigation detected in vehicle,” the computer spoke unexpectedly. “GPS programmed and displaying onboard directions to destination.”
God love her heart, Creed almost smiled. Kita liked to say she was directionally challenged. She loved that GPS, which was the reason he had tied the trackers into the navigation on each vehicle her father owned.
The computer came back seconds later with the address of her destination, and this time, he couldn’t help but smile. She was driving right into the thick of Breed territory and didn’t even know it.
He loved it. He couldn’t have asked for a better destination himself.
“Call Wyatt,” he ordered the computer as he turned onto the interstate and began heading out of New York toward Virginia. The coordinates the computer laid out would have him arriving at her location before she did. A small Tennessee community that barely numbered in the hundreds during the tourist off season. And it was definitely not tourist season for that area right now.
“Wyatt is currently unavailable,” the computer replied.
“Call Wyatt. Verification pass, tango, seven.”
The computer paused for long seconds before replying. “Verification pass approved, Enforcer Raines. Director Wyatt will be on the line momentarily.”
He didn’t have to wait long.
“Wyatt,” Jonas answered shortly.
“She’s on the run,” Creed informed him immediately.
“The Engalls brat?” Jonas growled. “Do we have a situation?”
“We can make it a situation,” Creed replied before quickly launching into his explanation. He could almost hear Jonas thinking hard and fast on the other line.
“I’ll have him contacted,” the director finally stated thoughtfully. “Keep her incommunicado until further notice. I’ll put the plan in effect and see if we can get Engalls to cooperate.”
Which meant Brandenmore wasn’t cooperating. The deranged CEO of Brandenmore Research had become so twisted, so pure evil and cunning that even as his mind was being eaten away, he was still scheming to destroy the Breeds.
The only hope left was the chance that Engalls could figure out where that research had been hidden. The Breeds had exhaustively searched every known location associated with Brandenmore and Engalls—corporate offices, research sites, private residences—but had found no trace of the research the Breeds knew Brandenmore had developed with Engalls’s help.
“Do you know where she’s headed?” Jonas questioned.
“I have her navigation system tagged as well as her wallet,” Creed answered. “Her location was punched into the nav, and I have it now.”
“Excellent.” The satisfaction in Jonas’s voice had Creed’s lips tightening for a moment. “Keep her out of sight and out of communication, Creed. And pray.” For a moment, the agony Creed knew the other man was going through slipped into his voice. “Pray Engalls cooperates when he suspects the Genetics Council has kidnapped his daughter.”
And he was praying. But, Creed admitted, he had been praying since he learned what Brandenmore had done to the three-month-old infant: injected with the same serum he had injected into himself. The serum that was quickly killing him. And he refused to give the information on it, refused to do more than give them the original serum and demand they learn why it was destroying him and not the child. As though he feared giving the Breeds his research would result
in whatever was needed to save Amber only.
Creed couldn’t swear that wouldn’t be the direction the Breeds took.
Let him die, and Amber would die. By refusing to turn over the research, Brandenmore was ensuring they dug deeper into the ailment destroying his brain. Unfortunately, they weren’t going to find the answers in time to save him from death. And with him dead, the serum he had used, Ely had assured them, would no longer be of use without Brakenmore’s living body to test any cure on.
A double-edged sword that Creed knew was putting not just the child at risk, but the entire Breed community as well.
Jonas had known the only weakness in the Brandenmore and Engalls families was Kita, Horace Engalls’s daughter. He also knew other groups would be aware of that as well. Creed had been sent in to ensure she was safe, and to ensure that when the time was right, the Breeds would have possession of her.
Simply kidnapping her wouldn’t convince her to transfer her loyalty from her father to them, though. Creed had been waiting, waiting, determined to take advantage of the slightest weakness where she was concerned.
If the Breeds had Kita on their side, then they would have Horace.
And Creed now had an ace.
Mating heat.
That twinge of guilt was only growing, though, tightening his chest and pricking at his soul. Because now, he knew her. And he knew, if she ever learned he had deceived her, she might end up being the only woman capable of turning her back on the phenomena.
Now wouldn’t that just suck!
SHE WAS HOME.
Kita stepped into the small house, closed and carefully locked the door behind her, then let out a weary breath. The drive from New York wasn’t overly long, but this time it had seemed to take forever.
Of course, if she had refrained from watching the rearview mirror, it might not have taken near as long, nor seemed so tiring. But she kept expecting to see Creed and that wicked black motorcycle of his riding behind her.
She felt stalked. Like prey. Like a hare running from the wolf and unable to find a hole deep enough to hide within.
She was safe now. She had to be. This hole had to be deep enough, because it was the only place she had left to escape to, the only place no one knew of.
Deep in the mountains of Tennessee, hidden outside a tiny little community of only a few hundred. The house wasn’t in her name; it wasn’t tied to anyone or anything she was associated with.
Her eyes closed, she ignored the sense that she had left something behind, or perhaps that something had followed her. She had been careful, and she had learned how to be careful.
Creed had taught her that over the past year.
She had watched him, she had listened and taken notes, and when she ran, she had remembered everything he’d told her about how to escape a possible enemy.
He wasn’t the enemy, but he might as well be at the moment.
“Did you have a nice drive?”
A screech erupted from her throat as her eyes flew open, her hands jerking, scrambling for the doorknob and managing to do no more than turn before he was suddenly there.
Kita cried out in shock as his hand flattened against the door, pushing it closed and pressing her against it.
Full body contact.
In the year he had been in her father’s employ, she had never felt the full effect of his hard, muscular body, or the heated warmth it generated.
Her head jerked back, pressing against the wood, her gaze connecting with his as she breathed in a shocked gasp. Against her stomach, hard and engorged, his cock pressed into her.
“Did you really think I’d let you get away so easily?”
Dark, rough, so sexy she swore her knees weakened.
Kita swallowed tightly. “How did you find me?”
“Maybe I’m just smarter than your average hired gun,” he drawled.
Kita felt her lips. She hated it when that happened around him. That need to be kissed. It was so intense, an ache that quickly struck to other, much more sensitive areas.
“I’m sure you are,” she retorted, but her tone wasn’t snappish or shrewish as she would have wished. It was soft. It was a come-on and she knew it even if it was involuntary. She only wished she could sound like that on demand. “Now, tell me how you managed it.”
The smile that quirked the corner of his lips suddenly had her heart racing, the blood pounding furiously through her veins. It was such a wicked look. Such an extreme bad-boy look.
Her thighs clenched, her clit became hot, swollen, and achy as she pulled her lower lip between her teeth and pressed.
“I could do that better. Every time I see that pretty lip clenched between your teeth, you make me want to take a bite too.”
She felt herself melt. Her juices eased from her pussy, saturating the folds between her thighs as she barely, only barely managed to hold back a whimper.
“You haven’t even nibbled,” she whispered. “And I offered.”
“Did you now?” His hand slid from where it was braced over her head, touched her shoulder, caressed to her elbow, then slid over the thin material of the sweater sleeve and gripped her wrist.
Before Kita could grasp the meaning of what he was doing, he’d gripped both her wrists, pulled them quickly over her head, and secured them in one large hand.
“Creed.” It was a protest. She was certain it was.
It had to be a protest, she told herself. Dominance games really didn’t turn her on. She liked slow, easy touches. Foreplay that lasted forever. Or at least longer than three minutes.
But she couldn’t help but realize her cunt was suddenly so sensitive that even the feel of her moisture easing from it was a caress.
“Are you wet, Kita?” The dark male growl in his voice sent a shiver chasing up her spine.
She realized then why she loved his voice. It was strong, fierce. A dark, heavy sound, like a great jungle cat prowling around her.
Except Creed had a way of making her feel a hell of a lot more than that edge of fear she felt around the big cats. And so much more than the wariness she had felt around several of the Breeds she had come in contact with over the past years.
He made her feel alive. He made her realize she was more sensual, and more alone, than she had ever realized before.
“You’re not answering me.” His head lowered, his lips brushing against her cheek. “Are you wet?”
She shook her head as she fought the mesmerizing cadence of his voice.
“No?” The edge of amusement in his voice had her heart skipping a beat. “So, if I can manage to get my hand inside those snug jeans of yours, I won’t find you slick and hot for me?”
His free hand moved to her waist, then to her hips before his fingers found the snap of her jeans and played with it teasingly.
The backs of his fingers brushed against the bare flesh of her stomach beneath the short hem of her light sweater. The warm caress, as delicate as it was, had her nipples tightening, throbbing as she felt her lashes becoming heavy, a sensual drowsiness stealing over her.
“Why are you doing this?” She needed to think right now. She had decisions to make, a life to build. “Why did you follow me?”
“Why did you run from me?” His head lowered until his cheek was beside hers, his lips at her ear, the warmth of his breath caressing the delicate shell. “Didn’t I warn you not to run from me, Kita?”
He had, she remembered it.
“You’re dangerous to me,” she whimpered. “We both know it, Creed. I can’t handle you.”
He would break her heart. She wasn’t the casual sex type; she’d learned that in college. She needed the commitment, the monogamy. She needed to feel as though she belonged, and she hadn’t found that yet. Or at least, she hadn’t felt it until Creed. From the moment she’d met him, something inside her had clicked, had opened a part of her sensuality that she hadn’t known existed.
“How do you know you can’t handle me?” A gentle, heated nip at her ear caused
her to jerk against him, a breathy little moan leaving her lips as she stared at the wall across from them and fought to steal back just a few of her senses.
But it wasn’t happening. He wasn’t going to let it happen. In the next instant, the snap of her jeans parted.
FOUR
Creed watched her eyes and felt that irritating itch just beneath his tongue as the snap of her jeans parted under his fingertips. His palm flattened against her lower belly, his fingers tucked just above the warm pad of her pussy.
Sweet, feminine heat wafted to his nostrils, intoxicated his senses. She made him almost drunk on the scent of her arousal, on the knowledge of the sweet, feminine hunger that assailed her.
He’d never experienced anything like this. Mating heat was still a relatively mysterious phenomenon to those Breeds who hadn’t yet mated. They recognized the altered scents of mates. There was an awareness of certain unnatural changes, a lack of aging, or at the very least a slowing of the aging process. But the unusually heated scent of mates’ arousal was infused with something so deep, so emotional, the unmated found it impossible to process.
Mated couples made the unmated highly uncomfortable because they exuded a sense of emotion wholly unknown to unmated Breeds, a sentiment that went far beyond loyalty or brotherhood.
As Creed let his fingertips caress the soft flesh of Kita’s stomach, felt her heavy breathing, scented the sweet heat of her pussy, he now understood the deep emotion of the mated.
Over the past year, he had come to know Kita, to sense her, growing ever closer to her, never realizing he was falling in love with her. Until now.
Now, staring into her big brown eyes as his fingers moved slowly lower, aching to touch her slick head, Creed realized that in the past months, he had been placing Kita even above Jonas’s orders.
“Creed.” The whispered plea on her lips tore through his senses as his lashes drifted to half-mast, her features flushing with a delicate pink of needy hunger.
A second later he found the soft, delicate curls just above her clit. They were warm, and lower, God, lower, he swore he could already feel the moisture he knew was gathering on the soft folds.
God, he wanted to kiss her.
His gaze dropped to her soft lips, the way her tongue peeked out and flicked over them. He wanted to take her, taste her hunger and her need. Taste the delicacy of her mouth before running his tongue down her neck, along her breasts, her tight nipples, before finding the luscious heat awaiting him there.
“Kita.” He pressed his forehead against hers, swallowing and tasting the hint of cinnamon that eased from the swollen glands beneath his tongue. “We need to go a little more slowly.”
Yet his fingers were just a breath from her clit, pausing, aching to stroke the tight knot of nerves that hid within the soft curls and tender folds of the woman he held against him.
“Okay,” she breathed, but she didn’t try to pull away. Instead, she pushed against him, her hands tightening on the material of his shirt as though to hold him to her.
She had no idea who he was. She had no idea what he was. A Breed, an enemy of her father, and once he kissed her, there would be no way to hide it.
His fingers slipped farther, touched the hot kernel of her clit, and he lost it.
He was a Breed, he wasn’t a robot. He couldn’t touch her, couldn’t want her with such hunger and not take what was being offered to him so enticingly, so willingly.
“Creed, kiss me.” The plea slipped from her lips and tore past what little control he had left.
“Kita, you don’t know who I am.” He fought to breathe in something more than the hot scent of her.
She moved against him, her clit stroking over his fingertips as he told himself he had to reveal the truth to her. Ordered himself.
“I dream of you,” she whispered then. “Do you know how I fantasize about you, Creed? I touch myself and try to pretend it’s you. I’m tired of pretending. I know you’re the man I hurt for.”
His head turned, his lips lowering to her ear where he nipped at it in sensual retaliation or in approval, he wasn’t certain which.
“It may hurt worse,” he groaned, “if I kiss you.”
“Nothing can hurt worse.”
Her head tipped back as his moved. He told himself he had only wanted to see her face, to move from the too rich scent of her arousal where his had rested, too close to the heavy vein pounding at her neck.
Her lips were there, brushing against his, sending a surge of lust tearing through him and a pulse of the hot, rich elixir held in the glands of his tongue.
Jerking his head to the side, Creed lifted his free hand and quickly jerked the cosmetic disguise from the canines at the sides of his mouth.
If she noticed what he had done, she didn’t give a sign of it. When he returned, his lips covering hers, she gave to him. Her lips parted, a soft moan passed her lips, and Creed took full advantage.
The animal inside, repressed from far too many years of covert work, rose inside him with a savage, internal growl, and he gave her the kiss that a male Breed can only give to his mate.
A dark, wicked, primal kiss intent on binding her, holding her, on mating her in the most savage sense.
KITA HAD NEVER been given a kiss that made her hungrier. She could be aroused. She had been aroused many times, by several men.
Until this