Mercury's War (32 page)

    Rye didn’t bother to get out and enter the back through a door. He slid over the seat positioned behind the driver’s area and stared back at Dane in surprise.

    “There’s a lot of fucking lions out there,” he commented uncomfortably.

    They were screaming into the night now, spurred by the animal Dane could swear he could feel heading this way.

    Another animal stepped in. A lioness, her scream echoing through the night as the lions surrounded the cabin.

    A dozen fully grown, enraged creatures, following one simple command. To protect Mercury’s mate.

    Dane let a smile tip his lips as he opened the small bar set in the center of the seat and pulled free the whiskey and glasses.

    “Looks like the night just got interesting, my friends,” he drawled, pouring the alcohol. “I say we enjoy the show while we can.”

    Ria’s mate was coming for her. He had feared the mating was for the bitch that arrived that night, and his instincts had been infuriated by that. He’d have to call the Leo back.

    He saluted his companions as another lion appeared. Damn, those bastards were big.

    “I say, when Mercury arrives, we just pretend we’re not here.” Lawe tipped back his whiskey and swallowed in a single drink. “Stay real quiet. Don’t make eye contact.”

    They all nodded.

    “Damned good idea,” Rule muttered as one lion roared a challenge to the limo. “Yeah. Damned good idea.”

CHAPTER 19

    As Alaiya’s lips pressed against his, Mercury froze. He went completely still, completely silent, all his energy, all his consciousness focused on the animal that broke free of the mental chains he now realized had held it, roaring out in rage.

    The sensation was like having a piece of his brain ripped from his skull. Animal instinct poured into him, breaking through his consciousness with the force of a blast ripping through concrete. It disintegrated the chains Mercury hadn’t been aware of.

    He felt power pouring into him, strength surging through his body and the adrenaline they called feral displacement overtaking him with such violent force that even the Breeds watching him growled at the threat he could become.

    He was a threat. At the moment he was pure power and rage, man and beast, and the beast was strong. It was screaming out, roaring, and from his own throat came the rumble of danger. Of death.

    He could smell Ria, Dane. Another man was taking his mate from his presence. Another male’s scent surrounded her now, that male enclosing her in his strength. Only one thing was saving Dane Vanderale. There was no lust in his scent. Only protectiveness. Only pain. But he was taking Mercury’s mate, and for that he would have to pay.

    And Mercury felt the animal. It was free. Adrenaline was spiking through him now in crashing waves, the feral displacement threatening as the animal clawed at his mind in rage.

    He felt his muscles thicken, blood pumping into them. He felt the strength he had once known pouring into him. His senses became sharper, brighter. Suddenly, Mercury knew every shift of every body around him, each individual smell, each ounce of anger that was filling the hallway. And the suspicion, the knowledge, that the woman that pressed herself so tightly against him was no more than an elite player.

    Calculating. Manipulating. A woman who was there for much more than what she claimed.

    As Alaiya’s lips pressed harder to his, her tongue against the closed seam of his lips, his hand released her arm, shot out and gripped the wrist of another hand nearing him. He tightened his hold on Alaiya’s other arm and peeled her from him easily, despite her struggles.

    She had been attempting to gain access to the hormone filling his tongue now, his mouth. The hormone that had begun racing through him as he danced with his mate earlier, the scent of her panic and fear jerking at the animal until it stretched, paced and reached for her.

    That had been the first moment Mercury knew his animal wasn’t dead. The first moment he had known that everything his soul had told him was true. Ria was his mate.

    He drew Alaiya away, ignoring the scent of her desperation, the scent of her anger, and turned his head to see Jonas, the extraction vial in one hand, the determination to take blood filling his silver eyes. But there was no threat-only concern, only a need to know.

    He stared into the other man’s eyes, swirling silver with power, and knew the reasons why he would attempt to take rather than ask. Because they knew the animal screaming inside him now. Jonas knew. And he might not fear it, but he did fear for it.

    Mercury smiled. A baring of canines as he took the vial, shoved the needle in his vein and watched the blood, brilliant red, fill the small attached canister.

    “Is this what you need?” He pulled the needle free and looked around.

    He knew Ria was gone, but he could still feel her. Her agony was reaching out to him, causing the animal inside him to roar in rage, to shred his control with the overwhelming fury within it.

    He tipped his head back and roared. Anger was a living, breathing entity inside him now. He was no longer half a Breed; parts of him weren’t even human. More parts of him than ever before.

    He slapped the vial into Jonas’s hand, a small part of him realizing that the community as a whole would need the answers within it. They couldn’t confine him simply because the animal was back. And if they tried, they would die.

    He moved to follow his mate.

    “Mercury, where are you going?” Alaiya was on him again, blocking his path, her body slithering against him as he snarled in distaste.

    “Mercury, she’s safe.” Jonas’s assurances behind him did nothing to ease the fury tearing at him. “Let’s take care of this first. Dane, Lawe and Rule are watching over her. You can go to her soon.”

    “The hell he can.” Alaiya’s hands were digging into his shoulders, her expression twisting in anger. “Do you think I’ll lose you to that weak little human?”

    A hiss of silk at her movements and she rubbed against him as he inhaled her scent. The smell of other men clung to her body, the scent of anger and jealous rage. The smell of a woman who wanted things, simply because they weren’t hers.

    He remembered that about her. He remembered a time when it had been a challenge to him, the thought of taming that part of her. She had pricked the animal’s sense of fairness, and he would have taken her to mate because she was the strongest female, the most defiant and, at the time, the one he felt the most need to fuck once her body matured.

    But that was no longer true. Now her scent was an affront to him. It was nothing compared to the sweet scent of his Ria. With all her little contradictions, her honor and her fears. It didn’t compare to Ria’s warmth, her gentleness or the pleasure he found in each smile that he drew from her.

    The scent of his mate was an elixir. It was nectar to his senses. And the scent wrapping around him now was waste and blood. It was death and disease.

    He allowed her touch. Allowing her, for only moments, to cling to him again, staring down at her, letting her realize there was nothing here for her. Her touch was an abomination to him. And the only way her animal would realize it was to sense the feeling of it.

    Then he gripped her arms, ignoring the discomfort in his palms at touching her. His tongue was thick and swollen, the hormone pumping furiously into his mouth now, and he swallowed. He swallowed and snarled in triumph.

    The animal that had slept, that he had feared would return, was merging with his mind, tearing its way to that cold, empty place that had only been filled when Ria touched him.

    And he realized it was because Ria had allowed the animal to awaken from whatever isolation those drugs had forced it into. That cold, empty place inside his mind had been a result of the drugs, and Ria had saved the animal now filling it.

    “You’re my mate.” Alaiya’s claws dug into his forearms, pricking him with anger rather than with desire, as she refused to acknowledge every instinct he knew she felt, that she was touching something that could kill her for the insult she was dealing to his mate.

    “So where have you been then?” he asked her, his voice dark, fury pouring through him.

    The need to get to Ria twisted inside him. He reined back the animal, just for the moment. Ria’s turn would come, and he would make certain she never walked away from him again.

    Alaiya’s eyes dilated and he felt the lie before it ever passed her lips. He scented it, a dark, acrid smell that offended him.

    “I was kept from you,” she whispered.

    “You lie.” He shrugged from her touch. “You’ve played as you always played. You’ve done as you wished and given little thought to those you left behind in those labs. You were fucking your trainer, Alaiya. I knew it then. You killed him and you escaped, and you hid like the coward you’ve always been. And I ask you again, why come here now?”

    Her lips thinned.

    “You heard of Ria,” he answered for her. “Which means you have ties into Sanctuary. Ties you shouldn’t have.”

    Her gaze flickered over his shoulder, to Jonas.

    “She turned herself into the Bureau six months ago, Mercury,” Jonas told him. “I’ve had her working as an undercover agent in certain sectors since then.”

    That was Jonas. Always making use of a tool, no matter how flawed it was.

    “And you didn’t tell me she had been found?” He didn’t take his eyes off her. He watched her, as he would a snake, while he watched the lies darken and lighten her eyes.

    “She’s not your mate.” He heard the shrug in Jonas’s voice. “Her scent isn’t a part of you, and when I had Ely run the mating tests, they showed nothing. There was no reason to inform you.”

    Mercury nodded slowly. Reining in the fury, pulsing, pounding in his head, wasn’t an easy thing. The animal was roaring in his head, demanding that he go to his mate. His true mate.

    “That isn’t true,” Alaiya snapped. “The mating was there in the labs.”

    Mercury pushed her away. “The need to fuck was in the labs,” he snarled back at her. “The lust was there, for the only female of any strength.”

    “Then explain the tests,” she cried out, fists clenched, jealous fury pouring off her like body odor. “The tests they did. The same ones the tabloids are screaming over. Everyone else may think those rags are full of crap, but I remember the test results, Mercury. I remember them and I remember how possessive you were each time they allowed you near me. It was mating heat. The same as the matings I’ve read about since working with Jonas.”

    He shook his head. “I don’t care about those tests, Alaiya. This heat is for one woman. My mate. For Ria.”

    “Breeds only mate once,” she hissed, her face flushed in anger.

    “We didn’t mate,” he reminded her before turning to Jonas. “I want her secured for further questioning.” His gaze locked with that of his commander. He recognized the animal in Jonas as well now. And he smiled. The secrets Jonas held weren’t that far beneath the skin, and animal sense met animal sense in an acknowledgment of strength.

    Jonas nodded slowly. “I’d already decided that when she arrived tonight claiming to be your mate.”

    The timing was perfect. At the moment, the three strongest Breed males were not at that party. They were distracted, and Mercury was in full feral displacement. He could feel it. Under any other circumstances blood might have flowed.

    But the animal was more experienced now, more mature, more intelligent. And the man knew freedom. A freedom the animal hungered for.

    “Secured?” Alaiya growled. “I will not be secured. I came here for you, Mercury. You went insane when you thought you had lost me. How can you say I don’t matter?”

    He turned back to her, his eyes going over the perfect figure dressed in the perfect clothes, and she didn’t hold a candle to Ria.

    “How do you know what happened in those labs?” he asked her softly. “It’s top-level information, Alaiya. You couldn’t have gotten it unless you had a contact within those labs.”

    The battle to stay sane now was one he was going to lose soon if he didn’t leave her. If he didn’t get to his mate.

    He swallowed, his knees nearly weakening with the taste of the mating hormone. It reminded him of Ria, tasted as though it were infused with her scent, with the sweet desire he’d licked from her body more than once.

    The thought of sharing it with her, of watching her burn with him, was making his cock thicker, harder than it had ever been.

    As he spoke, a Breed unit stepped into the corridor. Four silent Breeds, their eyes on Alaiya, knowledge of their orders in their eyes. They would make certain she was held until she could be questioned.

    He moved to pass Alaiya, nothing more imperative than getting to Ria.

    Damn her, she had dared to walk away from him. To leave her mate with another woman. He’d show her the error of that quickly.

    But even as that thought passed through his mind, still his heart melted for her. She had loved him enough to let him go without recriminations when she thought his mate had returned. When she thought the mating heat Dane had smelled on him was for another woman.

    She was stronger than he. He would have never let her go.

    “Mercury.” Alaiya’s hand gripped his arm, over the material of the jacket he wore. “I never forgot you. Never.”

    He stared down at her, and for once he saw the truth in her eyes. For all her weaknesses, there had been parts of Alaiya that had been funny, intense, that had once given him hope that she would be a worthy mate to walk by his side. But he had found a woman that called to both the animal as well as the man. Ria had saved the most elemental part of him. She had called it forth. And she controlled the beast.

    He pulled his arm from Alaiya’s grip. “Don’t let me catch you in the presence of my mate, ever again,” he warned her. “The pain you dealt her tonight, deliberately, was uncalled for. You touched what you knew, what the animal inside you warned you was not yours to touch. Do it again, Alaiya, harm my mate in such a way, ever again, and what I did in those labs the day when they told me, in exacting detail, how you supposedly died, will look like fun and games. Do we understand each other?”