Rule Breaker: A Novel of the Breeds (28 page)

CHAPTER 18

There was too much energy.

It surged inside her. It laid waste to any concept of controlling the need to move, to undulate in sensual abandon. Her body was a mass of electrical stimulation with no place to discharge.

And it was driving her insane.

The underground club, Caine’s, was a country-pop-rock free-for-all where dirty dancing was almost required and the things that happened in the corners of the rooms weren’t dared to be mentioned in polite society. It was a club she rarely came to. But tonight, a Coyote group was headed there. A group that promised to hold the key to some much-needed information.

A year before she’d overheard a Coyote soldier discussing a lab in the western United States and hinted that it was still in operation, carefully hidden, fully funded and still experimenting on both Breeds and humans. The soldiers heading to the club now were rumored to be coming off duty rotation there before heading to another assignment.

This was the information her contact had been trying to get to her the week before when he’d been forced to abort the exchange of information. She could have had advance notice. She could have eliminated the mistake she’d made by going to Rule’s bed, and already had plans in place and questions prepared that would draw out the information she needed.

Now, she was working without plans, without backup and without the careful control she’d always depended upon to ensure that the suspicious, scent-sensitive Coyotes never picked up on the fact that each question, each smile, each flirtatious comment was no more than a careful deception.

Until her much-sought-after Coyote team arrived, though, she was going to dance.

Her lashes lowered over her eyes as Ashley, Emma, and Sharone danced with her, Gypsy sipped at the beer she’d carried onto the dance floor with her and fought back tears. She’d been fighting back tears since she’d left that damned hotel the night before.

“Hey.” She turned quickly to Ashley rather than allow a lone teardrop to fall. “Cassie couldn’t come with you?”

Her gaze lacking the sparkling excitement it once held, Ashley still managed to give her a slight smile. “Jonas has her on lockdown for some reason,” she called back over the music, the hint of Russian in her voice giving it a mocking undertone.

“Let’s go rescue her,” Gypsy suggested, ignoring the amused, mocking horror that flashed in the Coyote female’s gaze while her sister stared back in pure fear.

“We don’t fuck with Wyatt, Gypsy.” Emma shook her head, shoulder-length dark hair flowing around her face as the Russian accent crept into her voice as well. “He’s damned scary.”

Gypsy snorted at the description. “He can’t kill us.”

“He can make us wish we were dead once he gets finished telling the alpha all our dirty little secrets,” Ashley informed her, leaning close, her gaze intent. “We do not let the alpha know all our dirty little secrets.”

They tiptoed around their alpha as anyone else would a rabid animal.

“I can’t believe the three of you are scared of your alpha,” she laughed back at them.

“Two,” Sharone informed her. “Those two”—she pointed to Ashley and Emma—“are terrified of their alpha because they know damned good and well he would have nightmares for weeks if he knew what they were doing. And he would ensure they did it no more.”

“Sharone’s the good little Coyote soldier,” Ashley smirked, a hint of her former self in the sudden sparkle of merriment in her gaze. “She never gets into trouble.”

Sharone merely rolled her eyes, but Gypsy could see the concern in the other woman’s gaze as it drifted around the room.

She might be a stick in the mud, as Ashley and Emma called her, but she was intuitive, cautious and rumored to be a stone-cold killer whose efficiency, lack of emotion and attention to detail was nearly unparalleled among the female Breeds.

Despite the hard, fast pace of the music, the driving tempo and the perspiration that poured from her body and dampened the black cami top she wore, Gypsy was still burning inside. She could feel the moisture collecting on her bare skin, running in small rivulets here and there. It was a caress that drove her crazy, that made her ache for Rule’s touch.

That ache was becoming deeper, hotter. She moved with the music and found herself drifting, remembering his touch. His lips at her throat, her need to feel his teeth raking against her flesh.

As his lips had caressed her shoulder, she’d waited. Ached. Needed to feel his teeth there.

His touch was an addiction.

She was seeing that now.

What they called Mating Heat was a compulsive, overpowering drug. One taste. One kiss, and she’d become something, someone she wasn’t.

She wasn’t a lover. She’d known that since the day she’d been told she couldn’t have one and still avenge her brother’s murder.

Hips swaying, her body moving sensually as languid need burned ever hotter inside her, Gypsy railed at herself for her decision that night.

She’d given to him, given him everything only to learn that everything was either too much or not enough.

“We should go.” Ashley’s suggestion had her eyes opening as she lifted the beer to her lips and sipped at it lazily, her gaze raking over the club.

“Why?” The Coyotes weren’t here yet. She still had information to get.

If the Unknown didn’t want it, then she knew many, many groups still involved in routing out the hidden labs who would want it.

Hell, Jonas would want it.

She could just work for him.

The thought was almost amusing.

“Because it’s nearly dawn?” Ashley drawled, her tone amused, her eyes flat and hard.

Gypsy let her gaze wander over the club again, her skin suddenly prickling with a latent warning of danger. She could feel it stroking against her flesh with an icy stroke.

“Bye-bye.” She waved back at the three girls as they seemed to share a concerned look. “Catch you at the next party.”

She wasn’t going anywhere.

Sleeping with Rule wasn’t nearly the compensation she would have imagined for giving up her entire life. What the hell had made her do something so irrational to begin with?

Mating Heat should be outlawed anyway. It made a woman’s heart do things that her head knew was inadvisable. Things that hurt worse than facing the loneliness.

The music shifted, pounding harder, faster. Turning from the three girls, Gypsy opened her eyes once again and found herself confronted with a broad, male chest.

It wasn’t Rule’s chest.

Her gaze lifted.

Lifted.

Wow, now this dude was fucking tall.

And he was pissed.

Six feet six if he was an inch, super long black hair pulled back in a low ponytail and Celtic green eyes. Eyes so bright, so lacking in warmth or mercy that they were like a frozen sea.

“You are becoming a nuisance, Ms. McQuade.” And his voice was like serrated gravel, rough and sharp with a deadly baritone.

“Oh God, we’re dead.” That was Sharone behind her.

“Will we get that lucky?” Emma sounded completely terrified.

“We’re screwed. He’ll tell the alpha . . .” Ashley was actually whispering in the sudden silence of the club.

“Stop already!” Gypsy turned on the three girls with a furious hiss before turning back to the guy with freaky-as-hell too-green eyes. “Who the hell are you anyway?”

“Their worst nightmare if you don’t leave this establishment this moment,” he stated firmly, frozen sea green eyes gleaming icily back at her.

“Go now,” Ashley gripped her arm.

The pain.

It struck at her with a suddenness that had her jerking from the female Coyote violently, causing all three of them to jump back as Gypsy swung away in a graceful pivot. She cleared not just the female Coyotes, but also tall, dark, and who-the-hell-ever.

They stared back at her, shocked, four gazes each going slowly to the military-perfect, well-trained stance she had taken.

And in that second, Gypsy realized that this man knew things about her that even Rule couldn’t suspect yet.

The music was pounding again, loud and hard, the beat racing through her bloodstream and thankfully covering from others’ gazes the perfect stealth maneuver that had swung her away from Ashley as well as the male attempting to reach out for her.

The Breed grinned, displaying strong, white, wickedly sharp canines at the side of his mouth.

“Breed,” she muttered, eyes narrowing.

“You have no idea.” Emma was shaking her head as Gypsy read her lips.

“Go!” Eerie green eyes shifted color and became more frozen as he made the demand.

She didn’t have to hear the tone to know the order in it.

“No.”

He stared back at her with an intensity that was almost frightening. She had to admit, that was one damned freaky look.

Still, she turned her back on him, flipped back her hair and made her way to the bar. She ignored the looks. She ignored Ashley’s nervous calling of her name behind her.

Her friends might be scared of Mr. Freaky, but she wasn’t.

Tonight, she would be damned if she was scared of anyone.

Not Mr. Freaky, and not some half-assed Breed mate who thought she should be waiting whenever he decided to get around to claiming what he’d thrown away to begin with.

“Ms. McQuade.” The deep drawl directly behind her had Gypsy turning again as she reached the bar, anger flaring in her at the sight of the tall Breed towering over her.

“What the hell do you want? And who are you anyway?” she practically yelled at him as the music rose in volume, thundering through the crowd filling the club.

“If you aren’t willing to leave for your own safety, perhaps you’ll leave for Commander Breaker’s.” His head lowered to allow her to hear him over the music. “He should be pulling into the parking lot at any moment—”

She didn’t wait around to hear anything more.

A curse sizzled from her lips, causing the Breed to draw himself stiffly erect as she turned and moved quickly for the entrance.

Dammit, he shouldn’t have been able to find her so fast. She’d spent the day laying a false trail to other locations before choosing this bar to dance away the pain throbbing inside her soul. She’d been here less than an hour, not even enough time to drive the aching hurt from her chest let alone the restless anger burning inside her. All she’d wanted to do was dance it away for a while until the Coyote unit she’d heard about arrived. Then she could have immersed herself in the game of extracting the information she needed, listening and getting to know the Coyotes.

As she rushed from the exit, intent now on getting to her motorcycle and finding somewhere else to hide, it took a second to realize that a hard, muscled arm had manacled her waist before she was able to react.

There was no pain.

There was no panic.

That didn’t mean she intended to allow him to take her wherever he was suddenly all but dragging her.

“Let me go!” Fury erupted inside her as the heat of him, the strength and pleasure from his touch began sinking inside her.

“The hell I will,” Rule snarled, holding her securely despite her struggles and attempts to escape.

She could see the Desert Dragoon he was driving, still running, the driver’s-side door thrown open as bright light pierced the darkness at the side of the building. There were Breeds standing around, hard-eyed, without mercy, without compassion and heavily armed as they watched the area closely.

“I’m going to kick your ass.” The cry was torn from her as the sudden hunger to feel his lips against hers ached with near-debilitating hunger.

As though his sudden nearness, his touch, just the fact that he was there were enough to remind her of the pleasure he could give her with a strength that had her sex rippling, clenching with the need to be filled again.

“Fine, kick my ass. Do whatever you have to, sweetheart, because I’ll be damned if I’ll let you go now.”

She was pushed into the Dragoon before she could brace herself against the frame to hold herself back. She tried to grab on to the steering wheel to give herself leverage, but somehow he managed to brush her hands aside.

She was in the passenger seat before she really understood exactly how he’d managed to get her into it.

Reaching for the door handle, Gypsy gave a furious growl that would have easily rivaled any Breed’s as she felt Rule’s broad hand curve around the nape of her neck to grip her securely. The other grasped her chin, turned her to him as he tilted her head back and stole the kiss she lied and swore she would never have given him willingly.

Chocolate and peppermint.

Just a hint of the candies he enjoyed teased her senses before the heated sweetness suddenly overwhelmed her. Hunger rose like a ravenous beast, no longer that irritating fire simmering inside her. It was now a full-fledged blaze, burning through her body, tightening her womb and parting her lips to accept his kiss.

Rather than fighting, she was demanding more with a suddenness she found herself helpless against.

Her hands were in his hair, clenching, pulling him to her as she felt the fiery lick of his tongue against hers.

Peppermint and chocolate.

Once more, it simply teased her senses. Tempted her as his tongue rubbed against hers, his lips moving sensually over hers.

She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop the need for more of him, more of that intriguing taste.

Her tongue rubbed against his, the unique taste of his kiss becoming more heated as tongues caressed and lips devoured each other in a hunger she was helpless to avoid or fight.

Why couldn’t she fight him?

She’d had no defenses against him from the very beginning and it didn’t make sense.

This need.

This hunger.

It speared inside her, ripped away any lies she would have told herself and refused to allow her to hide from the hunger that built daily inside her.

“No . . .” Her moan was weak, the protest filled with the confusion that had kept her off balance since that first night she’d seen him.

Laying his forehead against hers, he stared back at her, his blue eyes appearing lighter than before, pinpricks of black appearing to flicker in the pale blue background.