Tanner's Scheme (25 page)

He was losing his mind now.

He paused at the exit of the caves, drew in a deep, hard breath and stared up at the cliffs that sheltered the narrow valley.

The mountains in Sandy Hook were littered with cliffs and caves and hidden pockets of tunnels. Callan’s scientist mother had played in the cliffs and caverns as a child, and had used them several times to hide Callan. But it was Callan who’d found the small, narrow tunnel beneath the main caverns, and the caverns connected to it.

They were completely hidden, even from the satellites in orbit equipped to see beyond the surface.

Tanner stared up at the jagged overhangs, through the pine, oak and locust trees that filled the area. Inhaling deeply, he fought a battle within himself, one he wasn’t certain he would win. The animal he fought to keep hidden roared in outrage, clawing at his mind, his flesh, demanding his return.

That he take what was his.
His
.

His jaw clenched as he shook his head with a quick jerk, fighting back an impulse so primal, so bestial, it shocked him.

A growl rumbled in his chest as his lips pulled back from his teeth and he fought an enraged roar. It was a battle he almost lost.

His woman
.

The primitive declaration raced through his head.

His woman
.

His to touch, to hold, to take.

He had watched over her for ten years. Had been forced to watch other men take her, control her sexuality. He had watched another man take her, hating himself, hating her, forcing himself to steer clear of her despite the hunger that beat at him.

And because of it she had been tortured. Nearly killed more than once. The man who should have protected her, her father, had fucked with her sanity and her life. It was a wonder she had survived intact.

And Tanner had never known the hell she was going through. He had ignored every demand that he kidnap her, that he take her out of the games being played between the Council and the Breeds. He had let himself believe she was a monster, the same as her father was. And he had known better. Just as he knew better now. And yet still he was walking away.

He had paid his dues, for what? To give her to Cabal? To let go of the only woman he had ever—He stopped, clenched his eyes closed and snarled with primal anger.

He loved her.

Cabal didn’t know her. He hadn’t watched her all those years. He hadn’t seen the loneliness on her face as she lay down to sleep each night, or the dissatisfaction and desperation each time another man had touched her.

Cabal hadn’t watched her cry into her pillow. Not often, only a handful of times, but Tanner had watched her cry, and he had ached with her, for her.

He rose to his feet, determined to stalk from the caverns, to find a bar and get just as damned drunk as he could get before returning.

But he couldn’t move. He willed his feet to walk, but the animal screamed out inside him, outraged.

His woman
.

He breathed in roughly. He could still smell the scent of her on his flesh, the taste of her kiss on his tongue. His skin itched with the need to feel her again, to hold her beneath him, to take her, to fucking mark her.

He hadn’t mated her. She wasn’t his mate. She had to be Cabal’s. But he loved her. God, he loved her.

Before he could regain the control the animal inside him had stolen, he turned and moved through the caves once again, fighting the growl emanating from his chest, the rage building inside him.

He had never let the animal free, not since his escape from the labs. He had fought it, caged it, imprisoned it at all costs. Until now.

He could feel it breaking free of the bonds he had placed on it.

My mate,
the animal screamed.

She couldn’t be his woman, his mate. His steps increased. It didn’t fucking matter. She belonged to him. Fuck the mating heat, she was his woman, and he would defy any attempt to take her from him. He would kill the man or the Breed that attempted to take her, to harm her.

Reaching the hidden access, Tanner jumped back into the tunnel. He had to reach her before Cabal took her. Because God as his witness, if he took her, Tanner just might have to kill him.

———

Scheme stared at the entrance to the tunnel Tanner had taken as he stalked from the room, feeling the coils of panic gathering in her gut. Cabal St. Laurents watched her curiously.

Her lips trembled as she inhaled slowly, deeply, her skin suddenly crawling with an impending sense of doom. The same feeling she always had when her father smiled at her.

Cabal was smiling now. A small quirk to his lips, his green eyes probing as she glanced at him.

Tanner hadn’t said a word; he’d just left. She wouldn’t have known he was going if Cabal hadn’t bidden him a rather sarcastic farewell.

“Tanner.” She raced for the exit. “Tanner, don’t you leave me here with him.”

She skidded to a halt as Cabal moved in front of her, blocking the exit, his arms held easily at his side, his body prepared.

He was going to stop her. He wouldn’t let her leave.

She backed up slowly, her breathing harsh in the stillness of the cabin as she stared back at Cabal.

“Where is he going?” She continued to back away, only to stop abruptly as her rear met the back of the couch.

His smile deepened as his green eyes gleamed back at her in amusement.

“He decided to give us some time alone.”

Scheme swallowed tightly, her fists clenching at her side as anger began to churn inside her. She had been here before, she thought with a sense of building shame. Chaz had done this to her. He had informed her that an associate would be joining them in their bed, teased her, dared her, then shared her.

She couldn’t even remember his name. She fought the memory of the act. It hadn’t been horribly unpleasant, but the hollow shame that followed her afterward still haunted her.

“We don’t need any time alone.” She stared back at the exit, feeling betrayed on a level that made no sense to her.

Tanner had made no commitments to her. Quite the contrary. They wouldn’t matter if he had. There was no doubt he was her father’s spy. Why else would he believe she would agree to this?

And why did it hurt? As though some part of her had hoped he wasn’t that spy. Some too-stupid-to-live part of her that even her father hadn’t been able to kill. The part that dreamed of a white knight when she slept, that continued to believe that somewhere there was hope.

She blinked back her tears. She would not cry in front of this man. This Breed.

“Unfortunately, we do need time together,” he said softly, moving toward her as she sidled to the edge of the couch.

“For what reason?” she snapped back, not bothering to tamp down the anger or the fear.

She had been strong for so long, far longer than she had imagined she would survive when she first began working with Jonas. She had survived far longer than she could have ever guessed.

Cabal sighed again, tilting his head to watch her inch around the couch. Yeah, so, he could jump and take her at any moment; that didn’t mean she had to make it easy for him.

“We need to talk, Scheme.” His voice hardened. “Jonas has been waging quite a battle to find you this week. Why?”

She fought to breathe, but the fear was pounding in her head, through her bloodstream. And she wanted Tanner back. If one of them had to kill her, why couldn’t it be Tanner? Surely he would do it without hurting her.

“Tanner!” She screamed his name as a dry sob tore from her throat.

“Tanner left,” he drawled. “Come on, let’s do this the easy way.” Now where had she heard that before?

“The easy way?” she snapped, her breathing rough, panic edging through her.

She was so stupid. Stupid. She was actually shocked that Tanner had walked away and left her to die by another’s hand. She should have ceased to be shocked by anything years before.

“Why the hell should I make this easy for either of you?” she hissed, glaring back at him as he watched her with calculated interest.

“Why is Jonas sweating over your disappearance, Scheme?” he asked her again. “Could it be that you’re the spy enabling him to track Tallant’s movements so accurately? Is that why your father sent an assassin after you?”

“Why do you care?” she asked, edging back farther, knowing she would run out of room soon. “Afraid of something, Breed?”

His lips quirked.

“You know, I remember seeing you in person once, years ago.” His eyes narrowed on her. “You were standing with your assassin boyfriend, the breeze carrying the scent of you to me. You were pregnant.”

“Don’t.” She shook her head. She couldn’t bear this.

“Does Tanner know you had a child aborted, Scheme?”

She shook her head desperately. “I didn’t,” she moaned. “I wouldn’t.”

“Then where is the child?”

“You son of a bitch.” Her control was shredded. She wouldn’t be tortured like this. “Do you think you’re torturing me?” she sneered. “You don’t know what torture is. Go ahead and kill me, Cabal. Stop fucking with me.”

His eyes widened. “You think I’m going to kill you?” he asked in amusement. “Not unless you can expire from orgasm.”

“You think you’re going to fuck me first?” she sneered back at him. “Does rape fall into your list of talents? Because that’s the only way you’ll have me.”

He stopped, no more than a few feet from her as the wall stopped her backward retreat.

“Tanner didn’t mate you,” he said then. “That leaves me, sweetheart. Might as well get used to it.”

“Excuse me?” He was crazy. Psychotic didn’t even come close to the insanity this Breed possessed. “I think you know damned good and well I did have sex with Tanner.”

White, sharp incisors flashed at the side of his mouth as he smiled—a wide, amused smile as his green eyes became brilliant with it.

“You had sex,” he agreed. “But you didn’t mate. He’s decided I get to take care of that one.”

“Oh, has he?” She was shaking with fury, with fear. “Are you going to rape me to do it?”

“Do I have to?” The smile was gone. His expression hardened with purpose as he stepped closer. “Are you going to force me into doing it, Scheme, or are you going to make it easy for both of us?”

She shook her head slowly. “I won’t let you rape me.”

“I guess that means you’re going to make it easy for me, then,” he said, the curve of his lips feral now. “Be a good girl then and take your clothes off. We’ll just go ahead and get it over with.”

“No.” She shook her head, feeling the pounding fear and fury filling her head. “I won’t make anything easy for either of you.”

“Mates can’t deny one another,” he said, confusing her further as he stepped closer to her. “I promise, honey, once it starts, you won’t want to deny me.”

His smile was sarcastic now, his body corded and tight as he stalked her.

“You’re crazy,” she accused, fighting to breathe as she stared around the room desperately. There had to be a way out of this. She couldn’t bear it if he touched her, she knew she couldn’t.

“Just close your eyes and pretend I’m Tanner.” His voice gentled. “It won’t be that hard.”

Her heart was beating so fiercely against her breast that she was certain it would burst through. It tightened her throat, made breathing hard, made thought almost impossible.

“I won’t hurt you, Scheme.” He advanced further, moving closer.

She wasn’t going to get out of this, Scheme realized. He was waiting on her to move, to run. He was prepared for it. She wouldn’t make it a single step.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered when he was but a step away. “Please.”

“Why?” His voice held a crooning purr, a dangerous, subtle savagery.

“I don’t want you.” Her voice was thick with the tears she refused to shed. “If you’re going to kill me, just do it and get it over with. Don’t do this.”

“I’ll ask you again. Why? Why shouldn’t I take what Tanner gave me? He wants your protection, nothing else. The only way to protect you against Breed Law is if one of us mates you.”

“What are you talking about?” she cried out angrily. “I’ve spent a damned week in that bed with him. What kind of demented rules do you bastards have for sex anyway?”

His head lifted, his nostrils flaring as his gaze became calculating. “I’m sorry,” he whispered a second before he was on her.

His fingers curled around her arms as his lips moved over hers, his tongue sliding against the seam as she lost the last of her sanity.

Wild. Desperate. She screamed out in rage, kicking, trying to bite, feeling her flesh crawl at his touch as she fought to escape him. She couldn’t bear it. Not after being with Tanner, feeling things she had never thought she would feel with a man, being warm, whole in his arms, even if he was destined to be her executioner.

She couldn’t stand for this man to touch her now. It didn’t matter who he was or what he was to Tanner, he wasn’t Tanner. And it wasn’t his touch she was dying for, bile rising in her throat as pain welled in her soul.

In all the years she had deceived her father, he had never had her raped. And Tanner had walked away and left her alone with a man determined to do just that.

“Tanner!” She was screaming his name as Cabal held her easily, his lips at her ear, touching her, whispering something. Something meant to be soothing, though the words made no sense.

She screamed Tanner’s name again, struggling, fighting to be free from the impossibly hard grip of Cabal’s hands on her arms, the breadth of his chest which kept her pinned to the wall, the force of his powerful legs pinning hers in place.

Panic raced through her system as she shrank from his touch, her sensitive flesh prickling with distaste as he held her to him.

“I don’t want you,” she cried out furiously, bucking against him, fighting his hold. “I don’t want this.”

“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart,” he crooned at her ear, yet he still held her to the wall, touched her, nipped at her ear and had her screaming in rage.

“Son of a bitch!” Desperation lent her strength, but it didn’t help her escape. His hold was unbreakable.

“You’re a wildcat.” His chuckle was soft at her ear. It wasn’t cruel or hard and it was all the more frightening for it.