Stygian's Honor

CHAPTER 24

The terror chasing inside her was killing him, it was killing her, and he wouldn’t allow it.

“The same way Callan stopped them,” he promised her, his hands cupping her face, drawing her lips to his for a precious, though far too short kiss. “The same way, Honor. But instead of telling the world, you’ll tell the Breed Cabinet. Who you are. The experiments and the secrets the Council is so desperate to hide. You’ll tell them all of it. And you’ll weaken them as they’ve never been weakened before.”

She shook her head again, slowly, the terror only growing in her eyes. “It’s not that easy.”

“It will be—”

“You don’t understand,” she cried out, her agony searing his senses. “It’s not just me. I don’t have all the information. We were a team, Stygian. Me, Fawn, Judd and Gideon. We were a team and you only have me. Fawn won’t remember until she dies,” she sobbed as Stygian felt his soul freeze, felt fury tear through him. “And I won’t tell you where she is. I won’t, Stygian. I won’t trade her life for my own—or God help me, even for Amber’s. I won’t do it.”

“You can’t know this.” Gripping her shoulders, he gave her a little shake, desperate to make her listen, to make her understand. “Sweetheart, listen to me. If we know who she is, where she is, we can and we will protect her. I swear to you—”

“And Judd, can you find him? What about Gideon?” Anger was building in her now even as the pain kept her tears falling. “He’ll kill her, just as he swore he would kill me and Judd. He’ll see us all dead, Stygian, and trust me, Gideon is strong enough to do it. And he’s crazy enough. He won’t stop until he steals our last breath.”

“Why?” Stygian raged, fury tearing at him and enraging the animal inside him into a feral frenzy. “Why, Honor? Why would he want to see any of you dead?”

“Because Judd and Fawn forced him to live,” she rasped desperately. “They wouldn’t let him escape into death and, without me, they didn’t have the key to take his pain away when they transfused him with Fawn’s blood that night. We’re a team. We made certain of it, believing the Genetics Council couldn’t kill us if they needed all of us. We destroyed ourselves and didn’t even know it.” She stared up at him, tortured, the scent of her pain tearing at his soul. “We never imagined, Stygian, that one of us would ever want to kill another of us. Let alone, all of us.”

Fighting back her tears, Liza fought to hold on to enough control not to collapse into complete, heartrending sobs.

She’d spent twelve years—she’d believed she’d spent her life—with a loving family, far away from the Genetics Council and the danger they represented.

She’d left a loving family, though. A father who risked his and his wife’s life to help her find Orrin Martinez. A mother who had risked forever losing the child she had dreamed of for so many years and the husband she loved with all her heart.

Her parents had been dedicated to each other and to her.

“I was two when I was diagnosed with leukemia.” She couldn’t sit still. “It was a particularly resistant, fatal leukemia.”

Moving quickly to her feet, she pushed her fingers through her hair, wanting to rip the carefully highlighted, medicinally colored strands from her scalp.

Behind her, Stygian moved to his feet, watching her intently.

She could feel his gaze—feel the worry and concern directed toward her, wrapping around her.

Just as his arms would be around her if she allowed it.

She wanted it.

She needed him to hold her with an intensity akin to pure desperation—and she couldn’t allow it.

“You’re still here,” he said behind her.

Yes, she was still here.

“My parents loved me.” Her breathing hitched painfully as she turned back to him. “They loved me so much that when my father was offered a place within the Genetics Council Experimental Genetics Division, he accepted eagerly. You see, he knew about Brandenmore. And he’d heard the rumors of the project he was working on.” She could feel the rage, the pain, streaking through her, threatening to send her screaming into pure madness.

“He knew about the Omega Project?” His voice was carefully level.

Liza could feel the effort it took for him to hold back. A distant part of her realized she was sensing it, and realized why.

The why was tearing her apart.

“I was placed in Brandenmore’s labs two weeks before the doctors predicted my body would be consumed by the leukemia.” She turned back to him, fighting and failing to hold back her tears. “I was there for ten years. Ten years so hellish I prayed to die nearly every night that I existed in that hell. I begged my parents to let me die and I begged every scientist, tech and soldier I could speak to.”

Crossing her arms desperately over her stomach, she bent over with the remembered horror of the hell she’d existed within and fought to remain on her feet.

She didn’t have to fight for long. Within a heartbeat his arms were around her, his broad chest catching her tears as he held her to him.

“They tortured them,” she sobbed, grief tearing through her as their screams echoed through her memories. “I would beg them to stop. I would scream and threaten and still I had to listen to their screams.”

Fawn wouldn’t be able to talk for days after the treatments.

Gideon would growl like a feral cat while his eyes would glow that eerie, predatory amber.

Judd would stare up at the ceiling, refusing or unable to sleep until his body could function once again.

“What did they do to you?” His broad, warm hand cupped the back of her head, holding her to him as she held on to his shoulders, her nails digging into the material of his shirt as she fought to just hold on to her sanity.

Her memory was so incredibly accurate that any moment she could pull the most minute detail from even the darkest, most agonizing second of those years there.

Shaking her head, her fingers clenching in his shirt, Honor felt as though she was sinking into a pool of pure emotional acid. There was nothing but pain in the past, and she had realized why each day of her life after she became Liza Johnson.

“Tell me.”

The primal creature that helped create him echoed in his voice. Man and animal existed in such harmony inside him that there were times she could actually forget he was a Breed. If she wanted to. But, Honor realized, she wanted always to know exactly who and what he was.

“I would pray to die.”

The growl that vibrated in his throat was so similar to those Gideon and Judd would emit whenever they were forced to care for her and Fawn after the treatments.

“I was the only one they showed any kindness to. Father couldn’t even force them to show Fawn mercy, and he tried. He tried so hard.” She stared back at him, shaking her head as she fought and failed to hold back her sobs. “He did everything he could. He bribed them, he begged them, and still, they didn’t care when she screamed and screamed in pain.”

Her father had raged at the scientists, he had even gone above their heads and petitioned the Council itself for mercy.

And they had refused.

“She was so tiny, Stygian.” Her voice broke as she felt her heart breaking for the child Fawn had been. “She was so delicate that sometimes I wondered how she held her head on her shoulders. Yet she always did. She would turn her back on us and I could see her shoulders shaking as she sobbed silently. As she wrapped her tiny arms across her stomach and rocked, silently begging for comfort. And it was only Gideon that could force the scientists to let him go to her. It was always Gideon that held her, that rocked her, and sometimes, he even sang to her.”

And how envious she had been as she had watched the young man rock her friend. As she watched him lift his head and stare at the bars above the cages they were forced to exist within as the scientists watched the bonds growing between the four of them.

“Once the experiments drew to a close, I thought we were all being released. My parents came for me, took me home, and I tried so hard to acclimate to being free, even though a part of me knew I would never be free. Two years later, someone from the Council arrived, though, and they demanded Father return me to the labs. I was the only one left, they told him. Judd, Gideon and Fawn had died in an escape attempt.”

Honor remembered the agony that had knifed through her when she’d heard her friends were gone, and with them the information that had been amassed over the years.

“But you knew better,” he encouraged her to continue.

Honor shook her head. “Not at first. The Council’s messenger was telling Father how they knew about our photographic memories, and how they needed whatever I had seen to begin the project once again because Gideon and Judd had destroyed the files and data in the escape attempt. That was when I knew that they were alive. Gideon would never have allowed Fawn to die. Just as Fawn wouldn’t have allowed Gideon to die. That night, Father put in place the escape plan he’d already mapped out for me. He managed to find someone he knew could hide me. This man contacted me within hours of Father telling the messenger he needed a few days to arrange everything. My father then made certain I was in a place where his contact could slip me away. A few weeks later I was reunited with Fawn and Judd. We ran continually.” She tried to dry the tears that continued to fall. “We never had any peace. Then, one night, they found us before we could run. They crashed into the room just like they did tonight. And before we could think, Fawn, Judd and I were shooting. We were shooting to kill rather than wound, fighting for our lives because we knew they would kill us with the tests if we had to suffer them again. We managed to get away just as the man that helped me escape arrived with another and drove us to where two girls were dying in the desert.”

“And then you became Liza Johnson,” he whispered.

He was dying inside with her. The pain searing her soul was ripping his to shreds as well. The agony of the blood she had been forced to shed that night, the lives she had been forced to take, no matter the reason, would always haunt her now. It would torment her, just as the knowledge that it had been another girl’s death that had been her only escape from certain hell.

Laying her head against his chest, concentrating on the steady beat of his heart, she nodded wearily. “And then I became Liza Johnson.”

“Claire Martinez is Fawn, isn’t she?” he asked her then. “Liza and Fawn both died in that wreck, didn’t they, Honor?”

She shook her head. “They took Fawn away.”

And they had.

She had to be careful. So very, very careful to keep him from sensing the lie she knew she had to tell.

“I’m your mate,” he said then, his lips at her ear, his voice so soft she had to strain to make out the words. “My first loyalty is to you, and let me tell you, you reek of that lie, sweetheart. If you want to hide her, protect her until those memories return, then you’re going to have to let me help you. Without your trust, mate, I can do nothing. I am nothing.”

She pulled back to stare into eyes the color of the darkest blue.

Could she trust him?

Did she dare?

God help her, did she really have a choice?

“It was a ritual,” she whispered. “The medicine chiefs did it. They gave us Liza and Claire’s lives and completely took the memories from us of who and what we were until the time came to remember. One would have their memories returned in a night filled with chaos, the other…” She swallowed tightly. “The other with her death.”

“And you don’t know which is which?”

A strained, mirthless laugh escaped her lips. “I’d pretty much say tonight was chaos. And I know none of the bastards died.” A sob escaped as more tears fell. “That leaves Fawn’s death.” Shaking her head, she tightened her grip on his shoulders, fear and desperation building inside her again. “That leaves her death, Stygian. I swore I’d protect her. I swore—oh God.” Her fingers fisted in his shirt as she shook with the pain and fear tearing through her. “Oh God, Stygian, even as Claire Martinez she’s not known any peace. She’s not had a moment to be happy because Ray can’t forgive her,” she sobbed. “He won’t forgive her because Claire died and she lived, and there’s no way she could make up for it. And I broke all my promises to her, because I promised to protect her.”

He could do nothing but hold her. Hold her. Rock her. All he could do was try to comfort her, because the pain inside her was killing him. To feel her shaking so violently, to feel the pain racking her slender body and to feel her sense of failure as though it were his own, was more a hell than the twenty years he’d spent in those fucking labs.

And he’d be damned if he’d allow her to fail in this, because losing the young woman she’d always fought to help protect would kill her.

“We’ll protect her, Liza—”

The door between the rooms swung open.

Jerking around, Liza stared back at Jonas in terror.

He knew.

She could see it in those liquid silver eyes.

He knew.

Somehow, he’d heard it all.

Stygian snarled in raging fury, his muscles bunching as he moved to tear away from her, to jump for Jonas as the other man lifted the small electronic device she knew had somehow allowed him to hear everything that was said.

“We’ll all protect her.” An animalistic, primal rasp so rough and terrifying it seemed to scrape across her nerve endings came from his throat.

“No.” She tried to jerk from Stygian’s grip, suddenly terrified of what Wyatt would do to gain the answers he needed to protect his daughter.

She couldn’t stop sobbing.

Fighting to be free of Stygian, she only wanted to escape, to get to Fawn, to hide her—

“For God’s sake, the melodramatics are driving me insane.” The door slammed behind him with a crack of steel against steel that reverberated through the room. Rage glittered in his liquid mercury gaze, as did disgust and irritation.

“You’ll destroy her,” she cried.

“Get serious.” Exasperation filled his voice as well as his expression. “No matter the stories mothers tell their children about the bogeyman of the Breeds, I am not a cruel person, Ms.—” He paused, his head tilting to the side before his expression tightened and a savage determination filled his gaze. “Ms. Johnson. And I am well aware of the ritual that overlaid your memories with those of the two girls who died twelve years ago. Forcing those memories was never my goal. I merely hoped mating would instead allow the memories free. I have always known your secrets.”

“You couldn’t have known.” There was no way. No one present that night would ever have spoken of it.

Crossing his arms over his chest, he stared back at her confidently. “My dear, sometimes one has to learn how to maneuver those he cares for into completing their destinies rather than meeting death,” he sighed. “I knew Honor and Fawn were in Window Rock. I knew somehow your father and the president of the Nation were involved. That led me to suspect that, perhaps, the accident their daughters were in at the time of Honor’s and Fawn’s disappearance may have been fatal. That would have allowed the two young girls the ultimate escape if Liza Johnson’s and Claire Martinez’s deaths were never revealed. What was a mere suspicion when this began has, over the weeks, been confirmed. That is beside the fact, as wondrous as such a miracle is, as adept as the earth is at obeying the requests of men such as Orrin Martinez and Joseph Redwolf, still, the scent of the genetics left inside you after those experiments is still there if a Breed knew what he was looking for. And I knew what I was looking for, my dear.”

She was barely aware of the fact that her nails were now biting into Stygian’s arm.

“If you figured it out,” she whispered, “then Gideon will as well.”

Jonas snorted skeptically. “My dear, do not imagine Gideon Cross has yet to figure any of this out. And if he has”—the smile that tugged at his lips was definitely amused this time—“if he does, then trust me, the last thing he’ll do, once I’m finished with him, is want to kill.”

The tears had stopped.

Stygian could almost, almost forgive Jonas his games for the simple fact that Liza—hell, Honor—was no longer crying.

His mate. He couldn’t bear her tears or her pain.

It didn’t matter her name, it didn’t matter who she thought she was or who she had been. She was the other half of his soul.

“What do you mean?”

For a second, gentleness flashed in his gaze before it shifted to calculating amusement. “Gideon is a man driven mad by his inability to do as the animal inside him demanded. To protect. To ensure the safety of those he was bound to. The animal is tearing him apart, clawing at the man’s subconscious and creating a madness that only one thing will cure.”

Honor shook her head. “There’s a cure?”

“Of course there is,” he assured her, his lips quirking briefly as he crossed his arms over his chest, tilted his head to the side and watched her with eyes the color of living silver. “All he has to do is listen to the animal inside him. All he has to do is find his mate, and protect her.”

She blinked back at him. “Who is his mate?”

“Fawn,” Stygian said softly behind her. “Son of a bitch, that’s why he’s so enraged. She’s his mate. The bastard isn’t feral, he’s in mating heat.”

“Fawn was a young woman when she forced that transfusion on him without the knowledge or the medication the scientists had been using to control what they believed was the feral fever that came from it. But the animal inside Gideon also knew she was still too young to mate without consequences,” Jonas explained. “That’s why the animal inside him went crazy when it happened. The opposing parts of his psyche were suddenly coming together, doing whatever it would take to force back the mating heat until she was old enough, strong enough to endure mating a Breed. Now, I just have to maneuver him into the right place at the right time, to ensure he realizes it. Once he does, then the animal tearing him apart inside, now that the woman is old enough to handle the mating, will settle and the mate will emerge.”

“Do you know where he’s hiding?” she whispered, feeling Stygian’s arms tightening around her, holding her closer, sheltering her.

“Gideon never hides,” he sighed then. “He’s here, right beneath our noses, somehow. Watching, waiting, hoping to pounce when we lead him to you and Fawn. Just as the Council soldiers are. Which is why we’re not going to let anyone know that you’ve remembered anything. As far as everyone involved is concerned, you’re still Liza Johnson and Claire Martinez is exactly who she seems to be.”

“How?” she whispered. “Any Breed that comes close to me will smell the deception. Every time anyone calls me Liza. Anytime I pretend to be her, that scent will be there.”

He stared back at her for long, thoughtful seconds. Long enough that Stygian finally growled in warning.

“Where’s Judd? Who is he?” he asked with a faint glimmer of amusement in his gaze as he glanced over her shoulder at her mate.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Jonas, and that’s the truth. I haven’t seen him since the night of the ritual, and not because I forgot who he was either. Judd never came around me again.”

But she knew he was close.

“Don’t hold information from me, Liza.” Jonas sighed as he prowled closer, his gaze intent. “Tell me, as I stare at you now I can smell the truth of what you’re saying, but I can also smell your lie.”

“Then any Breed can,” she whispered, fighting back the tears gathering again.

“Not in this lifetime,” he growled, turning to Stygian. “Do you smell her lie?”

Liza stared up at her mate, watching as confusion flashed across his face.

He inhaled slowly then narrowed his gaze on her and inhaled again. “All I smell is her truth. She’s never seen him.”

“But her subconscious knows she has,” Jonas all but whispered. “That’s my gift, Stygian. You and your mate now know what no one but my own mate has been given the secret of. Even the scientists who knew died by my hand. I don’t give a damn what you believe. I can sense, and even smell, what only your subconscious knows.”

Liza shook her head. “I have a photographic memory stronger than you can even realize,” she informed him, her voice scratchy, so hoarse from her tears she didn’t sound human herself. “I would know if I had seen him.”

“Only if your subconscious wants you to know,” he stated deliberately. “And the added complication of your Breed genetics makes that part of you much stronger. Stronger even than that extraordinary memory of yours.”

Shock had Stygian tightening his arms around her when Liza would have jerked away from him.

“He’s crazy,” she cried out. “I’m no Breed.”

Stygian shook his head, staring down at her as though he were only just realizing it. “That’s why the mating heat was so different. It’s the reason why your ability to fight is so extraordinary. And why your scent took me aback as I rushed into the room. Breed genetics.”

She was shaking her head as he spoke. “It’s not possible,” she whispered numbly.

“It’s not only possible, it’s a fact,” Jonas assured her. “Now, we just have to figure out how to use it to keep Honor Roberts hidden until we can find the others.” His gaze flashed dangerously then. “I know who Fawn is, Liza. I know Claire Martinez is the girl that escaped those labs with you, but I must know any weakness she has, as well as her strengths. If we’re going to save her and Gideon, then I have to know who and what I’m facing. And I have to know where I can find Judd.”

Liza felt numb inside. Everything she had believed weeks before was a lie. The life she had lived, the parents she cherished, the friends she thought she had grown up with. It was all a farce. A farce that had kept her alive for the past twelve years and one she now had to uphold to save the only sister she had ever known.

She shook her head as she stared back at Jonas.

“Fawn was always so tiny. Judd and Gideon used to call her the little fairy. Every year on Claire’s birthday, a fairy is left where she can find it. And they’re always very, very expensive. She keeps them in a secured storage center in town where she can go look at them whenever she wants to.”

Jonas nodded. “That would suit Fawn.” Then his gaze sharpened on her. “And what about you?”

“I must amuse him somehow, he’s always leaving me knives. And I’ve learned how to use every one he’s sent.” Her breathing hitched painfully. “But I don’t know who leaves them or how they do it.”

He didn’t leave girly little knives either. They were always lethal and always intended for one thing and one thing only: spilling blood.

“Where do we go from here, Jonas?” Stygian asked from behind her. “Don’t play games with me where she’s concerned. The time for your manipulations where Liza and I are concerned is over.”

Liza. She had to stay Liza, not Honor. At least for a little while longer.

“Now, we’re tracking her assailants.” His expression tightened once again. “Once we have them in custody and we learn how much the Genetics Council knows concerning them, I’ll handle that end. Until then, what you do remember of those years and the serum you were given, I must know.” Agony flashed in his gaze. “If I lose my daughter, Ms. Johnson, then it won’t matter the battle we’re fighting or the need to move with caution. I promise you, there won’t be a scientist or an individual associated with that organization that I will allow to continue breathing. That, I promise you.”

That promise Liza felt to the bottom of her soul.

“I still don’t remember everything.” She was holding on to Stygian as though he were a lifeline, terrified she was going to sink into the fears tearing through her now. “But—” She lifted her hands from Stygian to rub at the ache in her temples. “Jonas.” She stared back at him miserably. “There were so many injections, and only Gideon knew what each one was. I was assigned to the scientists that worked with the blood transfusions and who analyzed the data on the blood tests and the different hormones that showed in them. Fawn worked with the techs that coded the information, and Judd was with the group that created and administered the medications for the different side effects. Gideon was with Brandenmore and his scientists as they created the serums for the different groups and administered them.”

“There was more than your group?” Jonas growled.

“Unfortunately.” She had to bite back the sobs that still ached in her chest as more tears fell. “I don’t know how many, or what they were focused on. Only Gideon knew.”

Jonas’s jaw clenched tight as his gaze flashed with a brutal fury.

“Then we’ll just have to ensure we draw Judd and Gideon in. Until then,” he continued. “No one outside a very select group, chosen by me, will know that you are now aware of your identity or that we’re aware you’re anyone other than Liza Johnson. Not even your parents will know. Claire Martinez, especially, will be kept in the dark.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked as Stygian’s arms wrapped around her once again.

He’d remained quiet, but it was as though she could feel him, sense the careful calculation and the plans he was working on himself as she and Jonas spoke.

Dropping his arms from his chest, he slid them instead into the pockets of his slacks as his lips quirked mockingly once again. “Why, Ms. Johnson, I’m going to do exactly what I’ve been doing for the past months. I’m going to pull in the final two pieces. Once I have the four of you together, then I pray to God, I’ll have the key to saving my child.”

With that, he moved to the door, calmly, carefully opened it and stepped into the sitting area of the suite. The door closed behind him almost silently as chills raced up Liza’s spine.

“Will he keep her safe?” she whispered.

“As a mate in her lover’s arms,” he sighed as his arms wrapped around her and pulled her against the warmth of his chest. “She just might not enjoy the experience.”

Turning to him, exhausted, still torn and filled with doubts, she allowed his arms to surround her, to wrap her in the comfort and the warmth she’d always ached for.

“I wouldn’t have missed it,” she told him, feeling his lips at her temple, the beat of his heart beneath her ear.

“Missed what, baby?” he asked gently, as though he didn’t know.

He had to know.

Tilting her head back, she stared up at him, her eyes filling with tears, but this time, tears of thankfulness, of joy.

“You.” Her voice was thick with that emotion. “I wouldn’t have missed what we have, Stygian. Not for anything.”

His hand lifted, brushed back the hair at her temple then cupped the side of her head as his lowered to hers. “Neither would I, mate. Not for the world, or the safety of anyone in it, would I have missed a single moment we’ve had, or all the moments to come.

She wouldn’t have missed it for anything; now she just prayed the past she had managed to escape for twelve years didn’t find a way to turn around and destroy them. Then she didn’t think, regret or fear. As his lips slid over hers, his tongue stroking against them, parting them and sending brilliant forks of sizzling pleasure to race through her body, Liza knew there was nothing on the face of the earth that could have convinced her to miss this moment, this life and this man.

The taste of the mating heat filled her senses, washing through her, sensitizing her nerve endings and leaving her wet, needy, wanting his touch, his hold as she had never needed anything before.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she held on to him, feeling the heat and incredible hardness of his body as he lifted her closer. As he gripped her hips, lifting her and bearing her back on the bed as he came over her, Liza felt a sensual, feminine weakness sweeping over her.

This was the most incredible pleasure. Watching him come over her as he leaned close, the fingers of one hand moving for the buttons of the light cotton blouse she wore and slowly loosening them.

Her heart rate jumped as the backs of his fingers brushed against the mounds of her breasts. A moan whispered past her lips as he flicked open the front clasp of her bra and eased the cups from the swollen breasts.

“Stygian, yes.” Her hands moved from his shoulders to his hair, reaching for the thin strip of leather that held the silken strands back from his face.

“Not yet.” Catching her wrists, he pulled them back over her head, anchoring them to the mattress with one hand as his lips lowered to the hard tips of her nipples.

Arching, straining against his hold, she whimpered as the heat of his tongue licked over the pebble-hard tip and his free hand slid along her hip before moving to the small metal tabs of her jeans.

Her legs shifting, thighs tightening as heat began building in her vagina, her moisture easing along the swollen folds, she toed her sneakers off, desperate to do whatever it took to get as naked as possible, as fast as possible.

As her shoes hit the floor, the last tab slipped free at the same moment, and Stygian’s lips parted and covered the desperately swollen bud of her nipple.

“Oh God.” Liza arched as he sucked the tip into his mouth, his tongue lashing at it as he began pushing at the denim and her silk panties. Working them over her hips as she lifted for him, pushing the jeans to her thighs, then to her knees until Liza could work them free of her legs, he rumbled a growl of approval in his chest at her anticipation.

His hand stroked from her knee, moving slowly upward, the calloused pads caressing up her inner thigh as her legs parted for the intimate touch. His fingers moved to the slick, bare folds of her pussy, easing between the swollen flesh to stroke against the clenched, snug entrance as pleasure bombarded her and searing flashes of heated sensation raced over her nerve endings.

Her juices eased from her inner flesh, meeting his fingertips to heat and slicken them as she arched against him, feeling the electric arc of pleasure/pain that struck her womb as his mouth tightened on her nipple, his tongue burning it as he lashed at it.

Lifting his head from the tight, throbbing peak of one nipple, he moved his lips to the other, sucked it inside and licked it, tormenting it. His teeth gripped the tender bundle of nerves, drawing a startled cry of pleasure from her as she tried to lift her hands, tried to touch him.

His head lifted.

The blue in his eyes obliterated the dark irises, gleaming between his thick lashes as he stared down at her, watching her face as his fingers stroked from the tight opening of her vagina to the swollen, throbbing bud of her clit.

“Stygian,” she moaned, arching to him, her hips lifting as she became desperate for a deeper, harder touch. “Please, don’t tease me.”

“Tease you?” The rasp of his voice stroked against her senses, adding to the sensations. “Oh, mate, teasing isn’t what I had in mind.”

His fingers circled her clitoris, easing along the slick, hot cleft and following the wet heat that spilled from her pussy and eased lower to heat the forbidden entrance to her rear.

Her entire body was heating. Sensations were tearing through her, blazing through her senses and tearing at her control as Stygian’s head lowered and his lips covered hers. As he released her wrists, Liza lifted her arms, wrapping them around his neck, holding on to him as his tongue stroked against hers, teased it, flickered against her lips until they closed on it and suckled at it hungrily as the taste and heat of the mating hormone began to speed through her system.

The arousal built, tearing at her, making her desperate for more, for his cock fucking inside her, stroking into the clenched depths of her vagina.

Their moans began to fill the room, desperate and filled with torment as the hunger began to burn through their system and lash at Liza’s senses.

She pulled at his shirt, jerking it up his muscular back before flattening her hands and running them to his midriff to push beneath the material.

“Take it off,” she cried out as his lips moved from hers to spread hungry kisses to her jaw, her neck. “Take it off now.”

Levering to his knees, he jerked at the hem, intent on doing just that as she lifted herself as well and began tugging at his belt. Loosening the leather, she pushed it out of her way to jerk at the tabs of his jeans, pulling at the closures to part the material and release the heavy width of his cock.

She didn’t bother to glance up at him. The thick, heavily veined shaft throbbed, pulsing with the need to fill her with his release. To thicken inside her and lock him so intimately inside her that there was no escaping for either of them.

Neither physically or emotionally.

“I want to taste you,” she whispered as a bead of pre-cum eased from the slit at the wide crest.

Bending her head, lifting her gaze to stare up at him, she let her tongue lick over the flared cock head, her inner muscles tightening as need burned through her clit, swelling it further.

“Ah hell, baby.” One hand buried in her hair, tearing it loose from the clip that held it back from her face as her lips parted and slid over the engorged crest. “Ah fuck yes. Wrap your pretty mouth around it.”

She was drunk on excitement now, flying into a super- nova of sensation as Stygian’s fingers clenched her hair, tugging at the strands and creating a pleasure/pain sensation that rocked her to her core. As her lips surrounded his cock head, she stretched them with the same erotic sting as his cock pushing into her pussy. The hunger for him began to overwhelm her.

The thick crest filled her mouth, throbbing in it as she used her tongue to lick and rub at the underside as she tasted the salt and male essence of him and moaned with her need for more.

It was so erotic, so sexually charged that electric fingers of sensation pricked over her flesh, driving her higher into the wicked heat of a hunger she had no will to resist.

Who she was wasn’t who she was. Her friend was someone other than who Liza had believed her to be.

It didn’t matter that they had made the choice to take this destiny. All that mattered was finding herself here and now. With her mate’s dick pushing between her lips, stretching them as a growl rumbled in his chest from the pleasure—that was all that mattered.

The world outside the heavy steel door could go to hell for all she was aware of at the moment.

As her lips sucked, her tongue stroked, Liza pushed at the denim until it was below his thighs, giving her unlimited access to the tight, hairless sac of his balls.

Oh God, she needed more of him.

Stroking the tightly drawn flesh beneath his cock as she worked over the engorged cock head, licking it, sucking at it, she teased the flesh below with her fingers as she stroked and teased it with merciless hunger.

She needed to drive him to that brink of control where nothing mattered but her. Where his only thought was burying himself so deep inside her pussy that they were no longer two entities, but merged into one. That place where pleasure, both physical and emotional, joined and burned them from the inside out, melding them together.

“Sweet Liza.” He groaned above her. “That’s it, baby, suck my dick. Work that pretty mouth over it.”

Her pussy clenched, spilling more of her juices as her clit throbbed desperately and her vagina ached to feel the heavy width burrowing between her thighs.

“Ah, baby, I’m going to die right here if you don’t stop.”

His cock seemed to thicken in her mouth, the head pulsing, pounding at the roof of her mouth as she moaned in excitement, arousal tearing through her at the knowledge that he was close, so close to coming for her.

As that thought flashed through her brain, a heavy spurt of the pre-cum that always filled her as his cock began penetrating her pussy filled her mouth.

She had only a second to recognize the taste of the mating hormone his kiss held. That, and the heated sensation of a taste resembling cinnamon and coffee before he was jerking back from her, his erection pulling from her lips. A second later she found herself flipped to her stomach as his hands gripped her hips and dragged her to him, pushing her knees under her until she was kneeling at the edge of the bed.

The head of his cock slid through the cleft of her ass, paused at the tiny opening there, and as her lips parted on a cry, the heated ejaculation spurted against her rear entrance, penetrating it, and suddenly sending a blinding, fiery flare of sensation tearing through her forbidden flesh.

“Mine,” he groaned above her as one hand shaped the curve of her hip and the other held his cock flush against the clenched entrance to her anus.

Seconds later another hard spurt shot against the opening, penetrating further, relaxing the tight opening and sending a surge of need racing up her spine.

Oh God, she hadn’t expected this, not like this, not this soon. She may have ached for it when his finger pierced her there, but she hadn’t imagined—

“My mate,” he snarled above her again, leaning over her, the naked flesh of his chest against her back as the iron-hard crest pressed, parting the ultratight entrance and stretching it to accommodate the unusually thick width attempting to penetrate it.

Pleasure tore through her nerve endings as a cry rasped her throat, her fingers digging into the blankets beneath her as behind her, Stygian began working the width inside her. Each time her muscles clenched at the hard cock head burrowing inside the previously unexplored tissue.

Agonizing ecstasy—there shouldn’t be such a thing, she thought hazily—pierced her anus along with his cock, shooting through the exposed nerve endings until she was screaming into the blankets and backing into the impalement.

“No more hiding from me,” he growled at her ear, his teeth nipping the lobe as his hips pressed against her again, pushing further inside her rear as another spurt of the natural lubricant eased and relaxed her flesh, making way for each shallow thrust that pushed him further inside her.

Liza was lost in a haze of sensations that made no sense. The need for more. Deeper. Harder.

Pain and pleasure combined as ejaculation of the pre-cum inside her heated the inner tissue of her rear, relaxed it, yet sensitized it further and burned her with an agony of pure sensation as his cock eased deeper. Penetrating the tight ring of muscles just inside the entrance, he was suddenly lodged fully inside her, sliding in to the hilt as she screamed out at the piercing heat and near rapture suffusing her.

She couldn’t hold herself up. She was trying, but her arms were shaking as the sensations began to demand her full attention, her full strength. Clenching on the thick penetration, the inner muscles of her rear spasmed around his cock, flexing and shuddering in reaction to the possession as she felt the pillows suddenly being shoved beneath her.

She collapsed against them, her head turning to the side as Stygian’s teeth clenched lightly at the mark he had left on her shoulder and his hips began to move.

Each shallow thrust inside her tender flesh sent a furious surge of heat striking at her senses. Feminine weakness surged through her, a wave of sexual submission opening parts of her mind, her woman’s heart and soul that she never knew existed.

No, she would never hide from him again.

“Mine,” he snarled again before his tongue licked against the mark, sending another bolt of sensation to attack her nerve endings, to push her higher, deeper into the spiraling vortex of pleasure, pain, ecstasy and the dominating force of Stygian’s possession.

Her hips moved into each thrust, pushing back as he entered while cries fell from her lips each time he retreated. Feeling the fucking inside the ultratender depths, stretching the muscles there, burning her alive with a pleasure that built to a critical height, Liza was certain she would never survive it.

As the pleasure began to burn through her nerve endings, the feel of his hand pushing between her thighs, his fingers parting the folds of her pussy, had her stilling in shock. A second later two fingers penetrated the depths of her vagina, stroking inside as he retreated partially from her rear, only to ease back as his hips pushed forward again.

As he synchronized the thrusts of his fingers with the engorged length of his cock, his thrusts became harder, deeper, faster.

Liza was screaming his name, or breathing it, trying to scream out at the agonizing pleasure building inside her, burning through her mind and tearing through her senses. Each thrust into the sensitive entrances only pushed her higher as the electric shock of each stroking thrust began to set fire to her nerve endings.

She was flying out of control. Gasping for air, her chest tight, her body tensing until she was certain she would break, certain she couldn’t bear more—

She exploded with a scream.

Her clitoris raked against the pad of his palm as it pressed against it, her pussy flexed and tightened around his thrusting fingers as she felt the explosive contractions that began attacking her inner flesh. His cock jerked back, leaving only half of the steely shaft buried inside her as she felt the widening of the shaft just outside the entrance.

His release began erupting inside her in hard, fiery spurts, filling her rear as his teeth locked in her neck and Liza began shuddering, jerking beneath him in an ecstasy, a blazing possession of her feminine spirit that she had no hope, no desire to ever retain.

She wanted nothing more than this pleasure. Nothing more than being held by her Breed, her mate. Being held by him, protected by him—

“Oh God, Stygian,” she cried out, unable to hold the ragged words inside any longer. “Oh God, I love you. I love you.” She was sobbing the words, the vows, the promise to always hold to him, to follow him, even if it meant following him into death.

Stygian growled at her shoulder, his hips jerking, pushing the swollen mating knot against her rear cheeks as another fiery blast of release filled her as her pussy tightened on his fingers in yet another clenching shudder of rapture.

She was lost in the pleasure, in the possession, and in the Breed she knew would never leave her aching and lost.

She no longer had to hide, at least not from this man. Here, in his arms, she was who she was, whoever she wanted to be, however she needed to be.

Right here, held to him, she was safe, protected and loved.

She’d suffered hell and then lost herself. Now, in his arms, in his love, she’d found paradise and herself. And she knew he’d protect them both with the same fierce determination and strength of will he’d used to find her.

Forever.

Stygian would hold her forever.