Scorpio Sons 4: Chase: (SF/Shifter Romance) (11 page)

Helpless to control the feral part of herself, she was stunned when she began tearing at Chase’s tie and collar, trying to get to the skin beneath. Then the tie was gone and buttons were flying everywhere. She could hear Chase’s harsh breaths between kisses and the way his hands shook as they held her against him.

It wasn’t enough, her out-of-control cat told her. She needed something that had no name. Something she had no true understanding of. When the bare skin beneath the white shirt was finally revealed, Anna’s cat pounced, burying her sharp canines into his shoulder where it joined his neck. It was the very spot that Chase had bitten her the day before.

For a long moment after her teeth sank into flesh, Anna was too shocked to take in what was happening. Then, every sense went into overdrive. She could taste his exquisite blood on her tongue, hear his moans and feel the way he trembled beneath her. His skin seemed so hot and smelled wonderful, like the forest back home – rich and earthy, and yet distinctly Chase.

“God, oh God...I can’t...” His cry was one of pleasure and desperation. In the next moment his body was shuddering forcefully in the very familiar throws of orgasm. But though she recognised what had happened, she felt no revulsion. If anything, her own sexual desires ratcheted up a little more.

This mindless instinctual drive was the most powerful and intoxicating feeling of her life. The pleasure she’d experienced when he bit her were nothing compared to this. Because this time she was in control. The power was hers;
he
was totally hers. The pleasure he felt, which had pushed him so suddenly over the edge, had been because of her. And though she was small and weak in comparison to him, she held him in place as if he was helpless to do anything to stop her.

She had no idea how long they stayed like that, wrapped in each other’s arms, her mouth pressed to his neck, holding him in place as they both panted and revelled in the glorious connection being forged between them. But finally her neck began to hurt from the angle she held it at, and the wave of desire began to ebb. When she removed her teeth and automatically licked closed the wound she’d created, she was amazed to see the small pin-pricks disappear completely.

She dropped down onto her tiptoes and drew back a little, even though Chase seemed unwilling to let her go. His eyes were closed and his expression was as close to bliss as she could ever imagine. It softened his hard features and filled her with an intense need to nurture and care for this overburdened male. It didn’t matter that he didn’t want her. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t good enough for him, or that she was damaged beyond repair. All that mattered was this surge of nurturing love she felt for him in this moment.

When he opened his eyes and looked down at her, his gaze was confused, as if he had no idea what had happened; as if he was waking from a dream and wasn’t sure where he was.

“My god, that was like nothing I’ve ever experienced before,” he said almost reverently, rubbing his hands up and down her arms as if assuring himself of her reality. “I’ll have to change. I haven’t come in my pants like that since early puberty. I’m never like that.”

She laughed softly. “Did I hurt you?”

His head tossed from side to side vigorously. “Far from it. But if you don’t let me go this is going to go in a direction you don’t want. I’m hard again, even though I must have had at least three orgasms during that bite. God, I’ve heard what it was like, but nothing, absolutely nothing, could have prepared me... No wonder my brothers say having a mate is worth the hassles. No wonder!”

The little bubble of pride in what she’d wrought grew inside her. “Maybe you should give me windows more often then.”

Chase laughed; a deep, wholehearted belly laugh. “If I get that kind of pleasure every time you bite me, then I’ll have to knock down a wall or two so I can extend and put in more windows. How many do you want, ten, twenty? I might have to have them built especially. But now we have the prototype...”

It was her turn to laugh at his childlike enthusiasm, so unlike the man she had come to know since yesterday. He could have been a kid planning a trip to Disneyland.

“I don’t need any more windows, Chase. This one will do just fine.”

“But I want more bites,” he said, almost sulkily.

“You can have them. You don’t have to give me windows to get me to do that. The trouble is, it wasn’t me who did it. My cat just took over. I’m not sure how to get her to do it again, on demand.”

Chase studied her with mischief in his eyes. “I know one sure way, but you aren’t going to want to go there. I’m sure we can find other ways to let your cat out of the bag again, though.”

She grinned at the saying. It did feel like she was letting her cat out. And after the initial shock of losing control, it was a heady sensation to let her take the lead. Heady and powerful, something that had been in short supply in the life she had known so far.

The urge to stay to help Anna sort out the bedroom had been too much to withstand. If not for the meeting with members of the Résistance upstairs, masquerading as a business gathering, he would have stayed at Anna’s side until the room was as she wanted it. Instead, he had to leave her to it once they’d lugged in the beds and furniture.

Wanting to stay with her wasn’t just because he’d just had the best sex in his life, without actually having sex. It was because of the bubbly, affectionate transformation that had come over his mate. Before she threw herself into his arms and then covered his face with kisses, he would have called her reserved and stiff. The soft, spontaneous, and delightful young woman who reacted to the window was a different person altogether.

Maybe this girl was the person Anna would have been if not for the horror of her early teens. Was it possible to coax that girl to stay, or would she go back into hiding behind the safe wall Anna had erected to keep the dangerous world at bay?

But whichever it would be, he had other responsibilities. There was no time to draw out that other girl and keep her at his side. He had only one imperative: build the Scorpio Sons into a force to be reckoned with, so they could destroy the Guild and everything they stood for. Nothing else mattered.

After the meeting that had run for two tense hours, his father held him back to talk.

Scanlan was a tall, athletic man in his late forties. His sandy coloured hair was peppered with grey, and deep wrinkles etched his handsome face, although in no other way did he show signs that he was aging. He was as vital and energetic today as he had ever been, giving the same 110% to the Cause he’d served since his youth.

Standing together, they looked like father and son. And biologically, Scanlan was as close to a father as any of the Sons would ever get. It was his core DNA that the rest of their genetic cocktail was engineered onto. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that Scanlan was the much older twin of him and his brothers. No human female had contributed to the Sons’ gene pool.

“Chase, can I have a word?” The impeccably dressed man undid his jacket and perched on the edge of the conference table.

Chase was packing up his laptop and continued to do so as he nodded. “What can I do for you?”

“Scuttlebutt has it that you’ve found a mate. I’d like to meet her. Who is she?”

Chase sighed heavily, knowing it had only been a matter of time before his father found out about Anna. The man kept his finger on the pulse of all things Sons related, even though it was technically outside his remit. But Chase had needed his father’s help in the early days, and that help had continued unsolicited ever since.

“Her name is Anna Jarvis. She wrote a fan letter to Alyssa, which set off alarm bells for us. I went to investigate and, before I realized what was happening, my cat had claimed her. I had no other choice but to bring her back with me.”

Scanlan frowned and shook his head. “I hope you aren’t going to turn into another one of the Sons joined at the hip to his mate. You know your work doesn’t allow for that kind of commitment.”

Anger surged to the surface and his cat came with it. Luckily, the conference room was now empty, except for father and son. He watched through slitted pupils as the older version of himself edged back in shock.

“Don’t bother lecturing me,” Chase growled out. “I know where my responsibilities lie. I have since I was eighteen. The situation is in hand.”

He knew how much courage it took for someone to face down an angry cat, but Scanlan did it with poise. “I want to meet her. Bring her to dinner at the house tomorrow night. It’s been a long time since we did anything as a family.”

Chase’s cat took the offer as a threat to his mate. He growled again and edged in closer, nose to nose with the man who had raised him.

“So you can interrogate her? I don’t think so.”

“Chase, be reasonable. The board members want to see you married and settled down. You keep such a low profile these days that there’s even talk your sexual leanings are so aberrant they have to be kept on the down-low. If this girl is your mate then she needs to take up her role by your side. It’s only good business.”

With an exasperated huff, Chase spun away before his cat got violent. He knew his father only had the best interest of the Résistance at heart, just as he did. But an ex-child-sex-slave turned hotel maid would hardly meet his father’s stringent standards. And because of it, Anna would be hurt. His cat wouldn’t let that happen. Ever.

“Anna has a lot to get her head around right now. We’re total strangers. When I feel the time is right, I’ll bring her around for dinner. But not until she’s settled in.”

“Don’t tell me she’s another of the unsuitable females who usually catch your eye. She has to be a fitting partner to a man with your responsibilities, Chase. Your mother, for all her faults, was always the perfect hostess.”

His cat screamed, and he was on the man in a flash, pressing him backwards until he was flat on the table, held in place by a fist full of shirt. “All
her
faults? What about all
your
faults?
You
were the one who promised her love, but reneged.
You
were the one who drove her to drink and ultimately death, from neglect. Her only
fault,
as far as I can see, was loving you!”

Chase was saved from further confrontation by his buzzing phone. Backing off, he drew it impatiently from his pocket and moved away from his frightened and indignant gene-donor.

“Got a problem,” Caleb said as soon as Chase put the phone to his ear. “Get down here now.”

“Anna? Is Anna okay?” he demanded, fear rising as quickly as the anger of moments before.

“Sure...Sure. This has nothing to do with her. This is something else completely. Now, Chase. Your meeting can wait.”

Caleb had never been one to observe rank. Rebellious trailer-trash from South Carolina, he’d been in trouble since the moment he could walk, and was arrested at thirteen for hacking a local bank and stealing $100,000.

Chase had tracked Caleb down fairly quickly from blood-work still in the system from his time in Juvie. By then Caleb had been out of Juvenile Detention for a year, living on unemployment like the rest of his adoptive family, and banned from using computers as part of his parole conditions. Not that he stuck to that condition, but his education inside had taught him to be a hell of a lot cleverer about
how
he broke the law than he’d been as a naive child just into puberty.

Chase still wondered how those red-necks who had raised Caleb could have been part of the Résistance. They’d have been more suited to the Klu Klux Klan than anything else.

Surly, smart-mouthed and anti-authority, only the knowledge that Chase had a cat as strong, if not stronger than his own, had brought Caleb to heel. Like any Alpha, Chase had to prove himself before the Southerner accepted him. When Caleb realised he’d be given control of an IT system that rivalled that of the CIA or Homeland Security his willingness to tow the line had increased tenfold. He’d been in geek heaven ever since.

But Caleb still occasionally tried to give orders as if
he
was boss. And this time, because this current situation seemed to warrant it, Chase let him. One of the lessons he’d learned early on, when taking command of men who had almost identical traits to his own, was when to push and when to step back. This was the time to step back, even though his cat was still riled up about his mother.

“Meeting’s over. I’ll be right down.”

Without a backward glance Scanlan’s way, Chase headed for the elevator that would take him down to HQ.

As soon as he walked into the computer room he noticed he wasn’t the only one Caleb had called in. Colt was there, Alyssa welded to his side. So was Charles, who had recently returned to the States after being replaced by Allie as the conduit between Cameron and the Sons. Conrad was the last Son in residence. The IT side of their work was his forte, but he lacked Caleb’s experience in hacking, due to a conservative upbringing. At that moment he was sitting in front of one of the monitors, staring moodily at whatever it was that had caught his attention.

“What?” he demanded, shutting the door after himself, in case whatever was going to be said was private.

“Con has been listening to on-line chatter in his off-time,” Caleb began without preamble. “He’s heard some pretty troubling info about a large Guild project in the Carpathian Mountains.”

“Eastern Europe? Explain.”

Caleb nodded in Conrad’s direction. Sporting a goatee, buzz cut hair and diamond earring, Conrad looked almost demonic as he cracked his knuckles. Only the brothers knew the gesture was a sign of nerves rather than aggression, as Conrad had one of the mildest personalities of their brotherhood.

“’Kay, so the chatter has large shipments heading into the Polish end of the Carpathian Mountains.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s probably a new train line being constructed, or a new housing development –”

“Exodus. The word being bandied around is Exodus.”

Chase frowned. Exodus was a book of the Bible. It described the Israelites departure from Egypt for the Promised Land. Any large evacuation could be called an Exodus. But when it related to the Guild it had only one possible meaning.

“So it’s really happening. Amy was right. The Guild
is
planning to leave Earth in her lifetime.” Chase wasn’t sure if he was relieved that what Coop’s mate had called,
common knowledge amongst the Guild,
was proving accurate; or disappointed that things were speeding up faster than anticipated.

“The rate the ecological disasters on the planet are escalating, I reckon it’s gonna be a lot sooner than that,” Caleb commented gruffly. It took a lot to get the seemingly uncaring Southerner to reveal how much he actually
did
care. He was clearly as spooked as Chase was by this news.

“So who’s funding this initiative?” Chase asked, sitting down so he wasn’t the only one left standing.

“That’s where I’m stumped,” Caleb admitted. “This is big. We’re talking 'Gross National Expenditure of Canada', big. But so far I can’t find where the money’s coming from. It’s well hidden by a geek or geeks almost as good as me. But it’s early days yet. I’ll track it.”

“When I told him what the chatter was hinting at, Charley did a quick recon before coming Stateside,” Conrad told Chase. “I wasn’t certain it was reliable enough to pass on at that stage. There’s so much crap out there that doesn’t mean squat.”

“You should have come forward with any suspicions as soon as they were raised. We’re a team. We don’t go off-book,” Chase reprimanded without heat. He had more important concerns than his brothers taking matters into their own hands.

“Yeah, got it. But unless you understand chatter you really don’t get how useless 99.9% of it is. It was more a hunch than anything else that made me want to follow it up, and Charley was happy to check it out.”

Chase turned to the French Son in their midst. He still wore the disguise he used in England: his scrappy beard and long hair dyed dark brown. He looked like a hippie, artist or homeless person, dressed as he was in tattered jeans and ancient Metallica tee-shirt.

“Oui, I had a bit of spare time, and I wasn’t far away. It was a petite vacation. What I found was too significant to talk about over the phone, so I have just now told Con and Caleb my findings.”

“And they were?” Chase asked, getting impatient and drumming the tabletop with his fingertips.

“A large area of the foothills near
Przemyśl, which is a Polish town on the Ukrainian border, is cordoned off with high barbwire-topped electrical fences
that go on for miles. There are signs everywhere saying, NO TRESPASSING, in multiple languages. But it’s definitely not a government facility.

“There is one well-maintained road in. Security cameras are set up at the gates. I watched several convoys of earth-moving equipment being brought in.

“Nobody in the village nearby knew much about the place, other than it has been there for a long time, but has only recently become busy. Everyone who works on-site lives on-site. From the estimates I heard, anywhere between a hundred and a thousand people might live and work out there. It is suspicious, damn
é
suspicious.”

“Satellite surveillance gives us nothing. They have jamming tech set up to camouflage whatever they’re doing,” Caleb threw in.

“And there’s more,” the Southerner said, reluctantly. “Con’s chatter talks about the
White Mouse
.”

“You flagged that name a couple of months ago,” Chase commented, waiting to hear more.

“Yeah, when I was tracking Guild on a couple of geek forums I came across someone using the tag,
White Mouse
. A hacker, from what I could work out, but one who’s never been identified. I’ve tried tracking him, but he’s good, too damned good. When Con said the White Mouse was mentioned in the chatter connected to the Exodus I started wondering if he’s the one keeping the funding stream on the down-low. Track the White Mouse and maybe we find out more about Exodus.”