Stygian's Honor (8 page)

Liza’s eyes widened.

“Don’t leave the hotel.” He lowered his head and the rasp of the day-old beard against the sensitive shell of her ear had her eyes closing in desperate need.

“I can’t stay here. Why would I want to?”

“To stay with me?” he suggested, his lips touching just beneath her ear, sending tingles of incredible sensation rushing along her nerve endings.

To stay with him?

God, she wanted to stay with him.

She didn’t know him, she only knew of him. She’d watched him for weeks as he moved about the periphery of her life, always surprised when she saw him though always expecting his presence.

“This won’t work.”

“Won’t it?” As he nuzzled against her ear, heat and searing need flashed through her senses. “Then why are you holding on to me as though you’ll never let go?”

Her nails were biting into the fabric of his shirt as though desperate to reach his flesh.

The sensual side of her
was
desperate to get to bare skin, to feel him against her, the warmth of him, the pleasure of him stroking her.

“Why did you manhandle me against the wall?” she accused back, but once again there was no anger to her tone, nothing to really impress him with the fact that she meant it.

If she did mean it.

“I want you, Liza,” he rasped at her ear then. “From the moment I saw you the night your friend approached Malachi, I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted you bad.”

The words affected her more for the sheer simplicity of the statement than the roughness of his tone.

“You want to draw me in.” That was her fear, her certainty. “Whatever Wyatt thinks he can use me for, you want to convince me to allow.”

The knowledge of that hurt.

It ached deep inside her but did nothing to change the power of the arousal building between her thighs.

“Is that what you really think?” Anger colored his tone as his head lifted, the blue in his eyes brighter, nearly overtaking the black as he glared down at her.

The anger couldn’t overshadow the hunger in his gaze. It was there: clear, bright and unapologetic.

“Don’t do this to me, Stygian,” she whispered rather than answering the question. “Don’t destroy my life.”

“I could complete it.”

But something warned her that completing it could also destroy it, and that destruction terrified a dark, hidden core of her that she rarely allowed herself to dwell upon.

She was certain she would have had an argument, that she could have come up with one if the elevator hadn’t given a small jerk and resumed its journey downward.

Her feet were settling on the floor and Stygian stepping back from her as the doors slid open to the hotel lobby. A half dozen Breeds were waiting to step inside.

They moved back, their expressions inscrutable, gazes shuttered as they flicked between her and Stygian.

“Excuse me.” Ducking her head, Liza rushed from the elevator and headed for the exit.

“Slow down,” Stygian murmured as he came to her side, keeping pace with her as he placed his palm at the middle of her bare back.

“Why?” Pushing through the doors and striding to the side of the entrance patio, she turned in frustration as she planted her hands on her hips and confronted him. “Why should I? They all knew,” she bit out between clenched teeth. “They all knew we were—” Her lips clamped shut.

Stygian’s lips quirked into a half smile of pure male appreciation as he stared down at her.

“That we wanted each other? Honey, it wouldn’t take Breed senses to figure that out when those doors opened. Anyone with a knowledge of lust would have known it in a microsecond.”

Just what she needed. A reaction to a man that anyone could see in a microsecond.

“Take me home, now.” She had to get away from him.

Oh God, had the link been active?

She hadn’t heard it disconnect after it had reactivated in the suite, seconds after the mass of Breeds had moved away from her.

She didn’t need this.

Raking the fringes of hair that had fallen forward across her face, she turned and stared around the entrance to the hotel.

“Do you have a ride here, or am I walking?” Turning back to him, she swore she could feel the caress of his gaze as it touched her breasts before sliding slowly back to her face.

“We have a ride.” He shrugged before lifting his hand, never taking his eyes off her, and giving a quick backward wave of his fingers.

She couldn’t tear her gaze from his.

She didn’t want to.

As his hand lowered, Liza realized there was something unsettling, yet something so secure in the depths of those black-and-blue eyes.

She was all too aware of the vehicle moving up beside them though and coming to a slow stop.

“Our ride.” Opening the back passenger door, he watched her expectantly.

The SUV was all luxury: black, pure leather seats and a gentle rush of cool air.

Taking the hand he extended her, Liza stepped into the vehicle, settled into the seat and gave a small flinch as the door closed gently.

A second later Stygian was sliding into the front passenger seat and giving the dark Breed behind the wheel the order to drive.

There was something almost surreal about the ride.

Sitting in the leather comfort of the luxurious vehicle, Liza closed her eyes and tried to tell herself this was going to work out. Everything was going to be okay.

Her assurances were quickly wiped away by another flash of an image.

A limo, the seats luxurious and soft, the couple sitting across from her grief-stricken.

The older woman held her hand: her incredibly small, pale, childlike hand.

Liza jerked her eyes open, her head turning to stare through the dark window as the vehicle made its way toward her home.

What was she seeing, and where were those images, those memories, coming from? Why were they suddenly flashing through her head?

What was happening to her?

Gideon watched.

He was an excellent watcher.

It was one of the things he had been trained to do as a child, but it was also an inherent part of his genetics.

Concealed in the upper thickly needled branches of a towering fir tree, he watched the suite Jonas and his family resided in.

They’d found most of the bugs he’d had put in place. Getting them into the room to begin with had been a pure bitch.

There were two left.

One was concealed in the electronics of the video and television screen—thank goodness, he could still see and hear most of what went on—and one in the connecting living suite.

That one, he refused to engage just yet. The babe was there. The babe and her mother, and during this phase of the serum’s effect on her little body…his lips tightened.

He couldn’t bear to hear her pain.

There were too many memories there.

Too many dark images of another child who stared up at him, tears in her eyes as she valiantly fought to be brave.

He didn’t blink.

His eyes didn’t fill with tears.

But his throat tightened with an emotion that came only when those dark memories intruded once again. Emotions he refused to let in again, regrets he refused to revisit.

“Her shadows have evaporated. Their location was deserted by the time our teams arrived.”

Gideon wasn’t certain of the face that went with the voice. He didn’t dare risk activating the video portion of the bug at the moment.

“Then we have no idea who they are, or what she’s a part of,” Jonas growled.

“Not yet,” the Breed answered. “We’re working on it.”

“Let me know the minute you have news,” Jonas ordered.

A second later, the sound of a door closing was heard then silence filled the room.

Gideon risked checking the vid-device strapped on his wrist then.

The picture came through: the image of Jonas standing at the glass sliding doors, his back to the vid-screen, hands propped arrogantly on his hips.

He was a worthy if challenging adversary.

There were days Gideon wondered…

Jonas turned, his gaze centering on the screen as his lips quirked.

“Fucking Peeping Tom,” he said, his tone icy. “Come out, Gideon, I dare you.”

Deactivating the monitor, Gideon grimaced.

Hell, he hadn’t expected that.

Somehow, Jonas had known that bug was there.

Gideon couldn’t trust any of the information he’d gained in the past few hours now. Not that much had really come through.

Liza Johnson knew nothing, and the Alphas of the Breed communities were all in one location.

Not a fucking sliver of information was worth using now.

It was almost amusing.

He had been butting heads with Jonas Wyatt in one way or another for two years now. They were pretty even actually, when it came to wins and losses against each other.

He thought Jonas might see it another way.

Gideon had information Jonas wanted, information he thought he needed.

Gideon could tell him there was nothing anyone knew—even Honor and Fawn and Judd—that could help him.

Brandenmore had injected the child, there was no doubt about that. The little girl Jonas had taken as his own had become an experiment and had never stepped into a lab.

“Come on, Gideon.” The audio link was still activated. “I know you still have a link in here. Face me. Face me with what you have and I’ll help you with what you need.”

Gideon deactivated the link.

He didn’t want to hear the dares, the challenges or the child’s whimpering cries.

Jonas Wyatt had nothing he wanted—

Yet.

CHAPTER 4

Maneuvering the classic Harley through the crowded parking lot of the Desert Rose, Stygian let a grimace twist his lips at the thought of entering the building.

He was a solitary sort of Breed. He had rarely worked with more than a four-man team until joining the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

He didn’t like crowds and he didn’t like the press of dozens or more human bodies bearing down on him, as they seemed to do in nightclubs and bars.

But tonight, Liza was in there.

His mate.

Son of a bitch, he hadn’t expected to find his mate in this sunbaked land.

Hell, he hadn’t expected to find his mate at all, actually.

Parking the Harley and engaging the anti-theft security, he stepped from the motorcycle, all too aware of the gazes locked on him.

Customers had spilled from the bar, some to socialize, a few to make their way to their vehicles, while two couples in the shadows had been making out with heated lust. Hell, if he had Liza stretched out in the back of a pickup, the last thing he’d have on his mind was some mangy Breed who had just pulled in.

Pushing back the long strands of hair that had fallen over his forehead, he made his way to the entrance and stepped inside. Narrowing his gaze, he searched the interior until he found her.

A growl rumbled in his throat at the sight of the four men she was sitting with.

Deputy Cullen Maverick, a former Special Forces demolitions expert; Steven Jacobs and his brother, a communications expert on the same team, Reever Jacobs. Next to them was a man even the Breeds hadn’t managed to pull information up on yet. The one they had all agreed had to be the Bengal Judd, Klah Hunter.