Tanner's Scheme (41 page)

“Mums thaword,” she slurred. “Tell David mum.”

And the curtain swept over her. It wasn’t dark, frightening or smothering. Just a gentle silken veil that covered her and eased her from the pain and the worry.

She would deal with David later.

“Ely?” Tanner whispered as he smoothed Scheme’s long hair back from her forehead and watched her worriedly.

“A week, she’ll be good as new.” Ely shrugged. “The hormones will rush to heal her body first. It will delay the symptoms of the mating heat to allow the body enough time to strengthen for it. Ain’t Mother Nature great?”

Tanner sighed in relief. He couldn’t bear to have to take her in the shape she was in. It would have destroyed him.

“She’s strong,” Ely said. “I was listening to Jonas debrief David as the nurse checked him out. He said she fought to get him out of there, to get him away from Tamber. Then she traded herself for him, claiming she had information no one else had.”

Tanner narrowed his eyes on her. “And Tamber believed her?”

Ely shrugged, but Tanner could detect the scent of her concern. She was bothered by this, more than she should have been.

“And David didn’t know what it was about?” Tanner asked her.

She shook her head. “He said he didn’t.” The scent of nervous fear was a subtle fragrance now. She didn’t believe him, and neither did Tanner.

If Scheme was still holding secrets, then she would never be safe from Cyrus Tallant. Not that she was anyway.

“How long will she be out like this?” he asked, staring at her face, his chest aching with the bruises that marred her creamy flesh.

“She’ll be in and out for a few days,” Ely told him. “She’s hurt, Tanner, not dying.”

“I want her in her own bed.” He smoothed her hair back, feeling the silkiness of it even as he pulled free several more twigs. “I want her comfortable.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Ely said softly. “She’s going to be okay, Tanner. I promise.”

“This time,” he whispered. “This time.”

He wiped his hands over his face, breathing out wearily. Tallant wouldn’t stop. He would never let Scheme go. Not until she was dead.

“Once the mating heat stills, Tanner, we need to do a CAT on her ovaries and fallopian tubes. She has the same concentrations of an unknown hormone in her system that Sherra showed when her body was repairing the tubal. We need to check on that.” Ely’s voice was still soft, compassionate.

A child. Her body could be preparing to conceive. It most likely was preparing to conceive. Many of the hormones associated with Breed mating heat hadn’t been completely identified. The research into it was slower due to the extreme need to keep the facts of the heat hidden from the world.

God help him, another attack like this, during pregnancy, would be disastrous. He couldn’t let it happen again. But God help him if he knew how to stop it.

Shaking his head, he looked around the small medical room. On the other side of a curtain was Jolian Brandeau. She hadn’t survived the surge of electricity Tamber had slammed into her brain with the tazer. She had died instantly, no doubt as Tamber had intended.

Cabal was behind the curtain with her, and the scent of his regret and pain washed over Tanner. They hadn’t trusted Scheme where the girl was concerned, and now they would all pay for that. Cabal more so than others, Tanner suspected. They had all known Jolian fancied herself in love with Cabal. She was pathetically shy around him, yet the scent of her pleasure when he was near was like summer itself. But the smell of deception that centered around her had always thrown them off. The deception was the love she believed she had kept secret.

Ely’s gaze followed Tanner’s to that curtain, grief twisting her expression as she turned back to him.

“She was a good kid,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Tanner breathed out roughly. “She was a good kid. Take care of Cabal for me, Doc.”

Ely looked at him in surprise. “He’ll be fine, Tanner. The two of you have your mate—”

“Scheme isn’t Cabal’s mate,” he revealed, staring down at the woman he loved beyond life. “She’s mine. Just completely, all mine.”

Ely blinked at him in shock. “We can smell the scent on him, Tanner,” she suddenly whispered. “Is it possible—” She looked back to the curtain. “Dear God. Was
she
his mate?”

Tanner shook his head. “It wasn’t her, Ely. And it’s not Scheme.”

“Then what?”

“Twins.” Tanner’s smile was sad. “He was almost Scheme’s mate. Trust me, that’s a hell of a place to be. It’s hell, period. Now, help me get her to our room. I need to hold my mate.”

———

Cabal heard the door close, felt the absence of others and slowly sat down beside the cot that held Jolian’s pale, lifeless form. The vibrancy, hope and shy quest for happiness that had always bloomed in her face was gone now. It now held frozen regret, as though she had known the moment she felt that shock hit her head that she would never awaken again.

I wouldn’t hurt your mate, Cabal,
she had told him tearfully as he interrogated her the day before.
Don’t you know, I would die for your mate. I would give my life to make certain you never suffered again.

Or would you destroy her out of jealousy?
he had questioned her coldly, then watched as a tear trailed down her cheek.

But I’m not jealous
. Her voice had been rough, aching with longing.
Envious maybe, but not jealous. Your happiness is too important for me to ever feel jealousy
—

His throat tightened now as he reached out, his fingertips smoothing back a lock of silky black hair from her forehead.

“I’m sorry, Joley,” he whispered, using the name he had given her rather than the name she had chosen. “I’m so sorry.”

And there he sat, his soul aching with the sudden knowledge that now he was truly alone. Tanner had Scheme, and for a while he had entertained the idea of giving little Jolian a few weeks, maybe a few months in his bed. She was soft. Sweet. And she loved him.

The selfishness of that thought slammed into his head now. She had loved him. He knew she had loved him, and he had waited, waited to see if Tanner’s mate was his as well. Waited because he knew Jolian wasn’t a woman that would ever take to the sexual antics he and Tanner played. Waited to see if his own future was connected to Tanner’s, and if not, then he had Jolian.

And now he no longer had Jolian. He no longer had anyone.

CHAPTER 31

O
NE
W
EEK
L
ATER

Scheme stared in silence at the image on the television screen, her heart aching with regret and a sense of things that had never been. Jonas had offered to let her be a part of the team paired with government authorities sent to arrest her father for crimes against Breed Law, multiple charges of murder against non-Breeds and charges of conspiracy to incite civil unrest.

Cassa Hawkins had been chosen to cover the arrest and been given an exclusive interview with Jonas, Tanner and Scheme on the charges.

One of Cassa’s questions to her had been about closure. Would she receive any closure with her father’s certain conviction and death sentence for the charges against him? Closure, Scheme had realized, had come with her mating with Tanner and her acceptance in Sanctuary. There was no need for closure with a man who had never truly been a father. There was only a sense of sadness, of relief. The monster had been conquered.

“I love you, Princess.” Cyrus Tallant looked tearfully into the camera after he was charged. “Always remember I loved you.”

Tanner growled in fury at the declaration. “Do you have to watch this?”

He paced the floor behind her, his hands shoved into his slacks, his expression creased into a scowl.

“It doesn’t hurt, Tanner,” she told him, not for the first time.

“I hate it when you lie to me, Scheme,” he rasped angrily. “So stop.”

Was she lying? Maybe she was, not just to him but to herself.

“General Tallant, do you have a comment on the allegations by your daughter that you forced an abortion of the child she carried eight years ago?” Cassa asked the general as they stood in his opulent foyer and the officers snapped restraints on his wrists. “Doctors, both Breed as well as conventional, have verified the evidence of abortion as well as a procedure to ensure no future conception. Did you destroy your own grandchild?”

He gazed into the camera, grief-stricken, his eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Princess,” he repeated.

“Guilt,” Scheme said softly. “He thinks he can inspire guilt. He’s already working his defense. Does he know yet that his lawyers have refused to handle the case?”

“I didn’t ask him,” Tanner snarled.

“He’s breaking,” she mused. “He won’t live to see a trial.”

Tanner paused behind her chair. “What makes you think that?”

“He knows too much about the inner council.” She watched Cyrus’s shoulders slump as he was led from his mansion. Behind him, his second in command and heir apparent stood stoically in the background.

“I never guessed he was working with Jonas,” Scheme commented in regards to John Bollen. “He’s a cold bastard.”

“Yes, he is,” Tanner agreed. “He and Jonas must get along famously.”

He still hadn’t forgiven Jonas for allowing her to do the job she had set for herself eight years before.

“I make my own choices,” she reminded him, not for the first time.

“Wrong. You and I make the choices now. Remember that.”

“And if I don’t?” She glanced over her shoulder. Tanner’s tension was so thick now it wrapped around her, tingling across her flesh as she picked up the remote and flipped off the interview. Some things, her mate couldn’t handle. The regrets that filled her at times were perfect examples.

“Then I’ll spank you!”

She leaned into the corner of the chair, aware that the position loosened the front of her robe that had only been quickly tied after her shower, and bared her lotioned legs. Tanner didn’t miss the sight. His gaze sparked with lust as he moved around the chair.

Scheme didn’t give him time to pin her in her seat. She rose to her feet, gripped his shoulders as she turned and pushed him back into the chair.

“What are you up to?” His eyelids drooped in sensual response, and the look seemed to stroke over her body.

“Loving you?” She loosened the black slacks. He was shirtless, his dark bronze chest rising and falling sharply as his hips lifted, allowing her to draw the material from his powerful thighs and down his legs.

“Hmm, very nice.” She gripped the hard rise of his shaft with both hands before leaning forward and licking over the broad crest. “Have I mentioned lately how much I do love you?”

“I could stand to hear it again.” He groaned, his hands threading into her long hair as she filled her mouth with the engorged head, working her tongue over and around it, moaning at the taste of his flesh, the dark lustiness that filled her each time she experienced it.

“I love you very much.” She lifted her head and placed a kiss on the throbbing crown before rising to her feet and shedding the robe slowly.

His golden gaze flared as his hands gripped the arms of the chair, fingers digging into the padded softness as she smiled back at him.

She cupped her breasts, her fingertips thrumming over her nipples as he bared his teeth in arousal.

“I need you,” she whispered.

“I’m yours, pretty girl,” he growled. “Come take me before I have to spank you.”

“It might be worth the spanking,” she drawled as she straddled his lap and began to lower herself to him.

“I’ll spank you anyway,” he promised thickly as he gripped her hips, drew her down, then bit back a curse as the hard crest began to push inside her.

Flames were licking over her flesh even as he leaned forward, his tongue licking over her nipples as her hands gripped his shoulders.

Slowly, so slowly, he took her. Working inside her, stretching her, filling her, reaffirming the fact that she was alive and she loved. She loved and she was loved.

“Oh God, Tanner, it’s so good.” She moved on him, pressing lower, forcing him deeper until he was seated fully inside her and throbbing pulses of heat began to whip through her body.

It was always like this. So intense. So filled with warmth. With the knowledge that she belonged. Finally Scheme Tallant belonged.

“Beautiful,” Tanner breathed out roughly. “So damned beautiful you steal my breath.”

She couldn’t speak; she could only feel. Feel his hands moving up her back, calloused fingertips stroking up her spine as his erection began to stroke inside her. She leaned to him, needing his kiss. The mating heat wasn’t as harsh as it had been before Tamber’s attack and the subsequent kidnapping attempt. But the need for his taste still filled her head.

He was there for her. His tongue licking over her lips, then flickering over her tongue and spilling the stormy taste of the mating hormone into her mouth. Within seconds she was desperate for more, arousal rising sharper, sweeter than ever before, and it had been damned sweet to begin with.

The mating hormone sensitized her further. It seemed to open each nerve ending in her body, allowing deeper sensation, more heat, more pleasure and, finally, an orgasm that tore through her brain with sharp, blinding pleasure and sent her flying.

She was flying. Free. Her cries echoed around her as she felt the barb emerge, felt it lock straight into an area so sensitive, so filled with nerve endings that she exploded again. Over and over, flying higher, her soul opening and taking Tanner in ways she would have never believed possible before the night he kidnapped her.

“I love you.” She tried to scream the words, but they were only gasps. “Tanner. Oh God, Tanner, I love you.”

She collapsed against him, holding tight to him, only barely aware of his incisors locked once again in her shoulder, piercing the mark he had left there countless times before.

It should hurt, she had once thought. Now she knew it would never hurt. It was the proof that she belonged, that she was now a part of a whole rather than drifting along half-alive.