Mercury's War (48 page)

    “Don’t leave. Don’t move,” she ordered them. “Stay here until you hear only silence.”

    Pale, shaking in shock, the two scientists did as they were told, huddling in the little room as Anya slid the secured door closed and rushed to the exits that led to the cold, desolate land above ground.

    “Anya, get out of here.” Sofia Ivanova, one of the administrative assistants gripped her arm and dragged her down another hall. “Go that way.” She pointed to the stairs. “They’re free. I’ll cover you.”

    Cover her? Anya stared behind her as doctors raced from labs with weapons drawn. They were firing on personnel? Shock rushed through her, tore through her mind. She knew those men and women. Knew them well. And they were firing on the personnel attempting to escape?

    “Run damn you!” Sofia pushed her to the exit. “Get out of here before I have to shoot you.”

    Anya ran. As she ran, fury fed the fear and the shock coursing through her adrenaline-laced mind. This was the exact plan she had given Del-Rey for the rescue. Had he not trusted her? He had attacked only hours after her return, giving her no time to ensure her father and cousins weren’t here?

    No, it had to be something else, she decided in desperation as she raced up the stairs. She gripped an older woman’s arm, one of the secretaries, and pushed her ahead.

    “Hurry, Marie,” Anya urged the other woman as she sobbed and nearly fell. “We must hurry.”

    Other personnel were racing past them as Anya grabbed Marie’s arm and all but dragged her up the steps. Marie had children, grandchildren. A husband that was ill. She was needed. And besides, she always brought the Breeds cookies. She was kind and gentle.

    The door was broken from its hinges above, lying on its side as security forces were waving personnel through, urging them to hurry, to rush. Masks covered their faces to protect them from the cold. It was bitterly cold outside, and Marie had no jacket, no coat to wear.

    “Run for the barracks,” she told the other woman. “It will be warm there and safer. We’ll hide there.”

    She ran into the cold, aware of the gunfire, the yelling voices, the clash of forces. Then she was only aware of the hard arm that wrapped around her waist, jerked her against a broad chest and the knife that lay at her throat.

    She could feel the cold blade pressing into her throat, pinching the flesh, within a breath of actually cutting her skin.

    “Kobrin, I have your daughter.”

    Loud, echoing through the valley, she knew that voice, knew the growl that sounded in it and felt the sob that tore from her throat.

    Betrayal. He had betrayed her.

    Agony tore through her with such pain she could only gasp at the reality of it.

    The sound of gunfire faded away. Personnel were no longer rushing through the doors. She could hear them at the entrance though, feel the tension that thickened the air.

    Del-Rey. She felt the first tear fall. Oh God, she had trusted him. She had trusted him so much.

    “We’re lowering our weapons,” her father called out. “Take the Breeds. Go. We’ll not stand in your way, but let Anya go.”

    She stared back at her father’s pale face, at her cousins moving with him. All four of her cousins were on duty tonight. Her friends were here, those who would have helped her had she asked, but she hadn’t.

    A shot fired out and her first cousin fell, gripping his leg and screaming out in pain. Three more shots in rapid succession had the other three writhing on the ground.

    “Stop it!” She screamed, her hands clawing at the arm wrapped around her waist. “No. No. Don’t do this.”

    Fury and pain gripped her. She stared back at her father miserably, sobbing with the shame of what she had done.

    “Transport’s landing in sixty seconds, boss.” That was the one Del-Rey called Brim. Sometimes he had called him Brimstone.

    They had all betrayed her. The small team of men she had become friends with, that she had trusted her father’s and her cousins’ lives to.

    “How can you do this?” She sobbed. “Damn you, how can you do this?”

    “Anya, be still child,” her father cried out. “Remember your control, daughter. Your cousins live.”

    “For now,” Del-Rey called back in a lazy drawl. “Tell me, Kobrin, you’ve been here since the first Breed was created, did you ever think to aid them?”

    “They live,” her father called back. “I have killed none. This was not a slaughter house.”

    Del-Rey chuckled behind her. “I think I will take your daughter with me, Kobrin. Insurance, I believe. You will not notify your Russian air force; you will notify no one of what has happened here for six hours. Or she will die. Are we understood?”

    “Leave her here,” her father called out desperately. “I swear to you no one will follow you.”

    Del-Rey laughed. “No, they won’t follow me. I have the prize of the Genetics Council’s young protйgйs. Your daughter, Kobrin. Don’t make me kill her.”

    Another shot fired and her father stumbled, falling as Anya screamed out for him. Her hands reach out, her fingers curling as she was lifted off her feet and the sound of a heli-transport arriving could be heard.

    She screamed out for her father, clawed and slapped at the arm securing her. She kicked, she cursed, and she sobbed.

    Rage ate her insides as the betrayal that filled her burned into her mind. He had lied. From the first moment, he had lied, and she would never forgive him.

    “Move out!” Del-Rey ordered as he raced into the back of the transport behind the other men that converged on the huge black craft. “Cavalier, get this bastard off the ground.”

    Cavalier. She had arranged his transport the year before. How many others were here? How many of those she had trusted had betrayed her?

    “Stop fighting me, Anya.” Del-Rey held her in place as he settled onto the metal bench, holding her secure, and the transport lifted off.

    She couldn’t see outside it. She had lost sight of her father. Lost sight of her family.

    “You bastard!” she screamed, struggling harder as her fists struck back at his face. “You son of a bitch. You fucking bastard. How could you? How could you?”

    “How could they?” He snarled, jerking her around to face him, his black eyes blazing in fury as his lips drew back from his lethal canines. “How dared they leave a child to arrange this? How dare they endanger you as they have? They have a bullet in their legs rather than their heads. They should be fucking thankful.”

    She slapped his face. Her hand slammed into his cheek with enough force to burn her palm before she slapped him again. Furious, enraged screams were strangled in her throat as he jerked her arms to her sides, holding her in place as a growl tore from his throat.

    Then his lips pressed into hers. She tried to scream again, but he stole the opportunity to push his tongue past her lips. Spice filled her mouth. She swallowed and sobbed into the kiss, because it was good. Because his lips stroked over hers as she had always imagined they would. Because he tasted like warmth and passion, and because he had lied to her. He had betrayed her. And now he was stealing her mind.

    She was still sobbing as his head lifted and his arms locked her to his chest. His hand covered her head, holding her against him as her fists clenched and beat at his shoulders.

    She hated him. She hated him. Oh God, she hated him. And she loved him. And she felt as though her soul had been shredded. Her Coyote warrior had betrayed her. He had lied, over and over again, betrayed every vow he had made to her. He had stolen her innocence before he ever kissed her, and she wondered if she could ever forgive him for that.

    Del-Rey stared over her head at the Coyotes that now joined him. Breeds, their gazes flat and hard as they watched him. They were a threat, he could smell it in the air; his men could feel it as they surrounded him.

    “Mine,” he told them all, his voice cold, commanding. “This woman is mine.”

    The five female Coyotes stared back at him. They were the most dangerous he thought, especially the oldest, Sharone.

    Her gaze flicked to Anya’s sobbing form.

    “You were wrong,” she told him flatly. “You should have left her family alone.”

    “They put her in danger. They are lucky they live.”

    “No, my friend.” She shook her head. “You will be lucky if you live. You betrayed her, and she won’t forget it. She won’t forgive it. We see the wisdom of what you did. The retribution we all felt was needed. But we stayed our hand, because she’s ours as well.” She indicated the Breeds that had come out of the underground facilities. “And what you have done this night, she will make certain you pay for.”

    Tender Anya? She would rage, might hate for a while, but he had left her family alive. He would make her understand.

    “Stay out of my way,” he told her, and he meant all of them. “You swore loyalty to me and to my packs. Not to this girl. Where she’s concerned, you will not interfere.”

    “Then you will ensure she is not harmed, in any way,” Sharone told him fiercely. “We follow you, Alpha, but that one”-she nodded to Anya-“that one, is one of us. Mistreat her, and you mistreat us all. Remember that.”

    Mistreat her? He had no intentions of mistreating her. Loving her, perhaps. Easing her from her anger, definitely. Fucking her until they were both screaming with the pleasure, that was a given. She would forgive him. He would ensure it. After all, he hadn’t killed her father or her cousins. They lived. They would merely hurt. A lot. And it was pain they deserved. Much more than they received.

    He smoothed his hand over Anya’s loose hair. Without the braid it hung well past her shoulders. He cupped the back of her head to him and leaned his own against the wall of the transport.

    He was aware of his own men watching him, questioning his decision. They had questioned the wisdom of it when he had first told them what he planned. He has sent half his men six months ago to Colorado to secretly secure the caverns that overlooked Haven, the Wolf Breed compound. They were preparing things there for his arrival. Arriving in secrecy was paramount though. That meant ditching the transport and going in, in small groups. That was easily handled.

    Anya might not be as easily controlled, just as he was finding his own response to her was by far less easy to handle than he had imagined.

    His head lowered again, his lips touching hers. His tongue was burning for the taste of her. Desperate for another of those hot, passionate kisses, the feel of her mouth sucking at him, drawing the tightness from his tongue.

    He was aware of the eyes that watched, yet he couldn’t draw back.

    “They should have protected you better, little one,” he whispered against her lush lips. “They well deserved my vengeance.”

    Her lashes lifted. Her eyes were dark with misery, with pain, as an exhausted sob tore from her throat.

    “You betrayed me. You lied to me,” she cried again. “I’ll never trust you again, Del-Rey. I can never trust you.”

    He stole the words. He couldn’t bear to hear them, couldn’t bear the pain or the anger in her eyes or her voice. He took his kiss. Her lips parted for him helplessly. He could feel her fighting the need, felt her giving in to it even as she cried out in surrender. And even as he kissed her, he realized there was something not quite as it had once been within him. A hunger, a need, a driving inferno of lust building inside him that made no sense, that defied description.

    He needed this woman to survive it though. And Del-Rey always ensured he had what he needed to survive. He blamed it on the Coyote side of his genetics. Blood will tell and so, evidently, would DNA. At least in some part. Maybe he should blame it on the human side, he thought wearily. Anya might have accepted that easier.

THREE DAYS LATER

    Three days. She burned. Flames licked over her flesh. Fury, confusion, betrayal and pain ate at her mind while the most horrible arousal she could have ever imagined ate at her body.

    It had to be the taste of his kiss, she thought. She was craving it. It was killing her, the need for that kiss. And he kept forcing it on her, as though she actually wanted his kiss now.

    She paced the bedroom of the cabin she was locked in. She was dressed in the soft cotton pants and T-shirt Sharone had brought her earlier.

    She had begged Sharone to help her escape. She had it all worked out. All she had to do was get to a town and contact the embassy, they would take care of everything. They would contact her father; she could go home. She could forget Del-Rey Delgado ever existed.

    And Sharone had been going for it. Anya had seen it in her eyes until Del-Rey had stepped into the room, furious, and pulled Sharone from it.

    Now, she was alone. Alone to think, to worry. God, her father was lying in the snow bleeding, her cousins with him. Her cousins had family, children. Who would support them now? Times weren’t good in Russia right now; the economy was weak all over. They would lose their homes. They would be in the cold. Her father.

    She sniffed. Who would bring him his vodka when he was tired and worn from trying to manipulate the Council scientists and members? Who would bandage his leg?

    The tears were flowing from her eyes again. She should have more control than this. Her father had berated her for her loss of control. But that was something he did. She had red hair, he told her often, like her mother. And her mother had learned that holding her temper always helped herself and others more than losing it did.

    She couldn’t control her emotions now. She hadn’t been able to since those shots had been fired. Since Del-Rey had kissed her. Since her world had exploded around her. Since something had exploded within her.

    She pressed her hands into her stomach. Her abdomen rippled and she could feel the pulse of dampness between her thighs. Her nipples were so sensitive the rasp of the T-shirt was torture. Her clitoris was engorged and aching. Even when she had touched herself she had never been this aroused.