weaknesses, just as she did the Coyote Breeds.
“You fucking whore,” he snarled, his teeth clenched, as a muscle throbbed in rapid reaction to the tightening of his teeth.
“I win, we walk away,” she demanded as she kept her eyes on Malcolm.
“I’ll kill you first,” Malcolm charged, his face reddening further as the flames of fury burned beneath his flesh.
“Take the challenge or walk away,” Dog snapped. “We won’t take her without the fight.”
Liza couldn’t believe this. “They’re betting my safety on a fucking fight?” she muttered incredulously, knowing Cullen was there, and praying he would have an explanation that would make sense.
“We got this,” Cullen promised as Liza fought to breathe. “Bureau Breeds have all of you covered. Just be ready to roll when they pull you out. We’ll capture one of the Coyotes coming in behind this mess when this is over and interrogate him.”
The mess being the less-than-bloodthirsty Coyotes ranged around her. They looked mean enough, heartless enough, yet Liza detected the flash of laughter in Dog’s gaze once again as she met his eyes.
Liza stared at the tableau around her, wondering just how often Breeds turned danger into a joke.
She didn’t particularly like it.
Dog’s smiled was clearly anticipatory, but he nodded easily. “Whip his ass and you walk. He whips yours—you run. How’s that?”
Diane gave a sharp, firm nod as she smiled at Malcolm. “It’s a bet.”
As Diane accepted the terms, the enforcers for the Bureau of Breed Affairs stepped from the cover of the trees and surrounded them.
Liza was still trying to get a head count when one of the few couples she knew, Megan Fields Arness and her husband, Braden Arness, stepped up to her and gripped her arm.
Megan muttered, “Let’s go,” at her ear.
She didn’t want to leave.
Liza had to force herself to hold back the involuntary protest. She wanted to stay. She needed to stay. The fight that was about to commence would no doubt display a variety of skillful moves she had yet to learn by attempting to watch the agents from the Bureau spar from a distance.
Grimacing, she followed Megan, knowing that convincing the other woman and her mate to allow her to stay wasn’t going to happen.
The link in her ear was silent, which was standard operating procedure whenever Control knew another Breed was within hearing distance.
The acute hearing and exceptional sense of smell were only two of the extraordinary senses they possessed. So much as a sizzle of static and any Breed within feet of her would sense it.
“Well, look who’s joining the party, boys,” Dog drawled as Megan and Braden hurried her away. “Looks like the bet’s off.”
“The hell it is.” The last thing she heard was Diane’s lover stepping into the fray, his voice a hard, animalistic growl.
That growl, its raw fury, brought on a flash of another memory threatening to intrude, to overcome reality as Liza was hustled quickly to safety.
They were occurring more frequently since the Breeds had arrived in Window Rock, bringing with them a disconcerting fear that Liza hurriedly pushed back.
Show no weakness.
Show no fear.
Show no mercy.
Show no remorse.
Those were the first things they were taught when they were accepted into the Navajo’s Breed Underground Network.
A Breed’s ability to sense those specific emotions was too well honed to allow any of those working with the network to go out without first being trained—rigorously—to hide them.
And now, that training was coming in damned handy.
Hell, it had been coming in handy for nearly two months now.
And now, Liza was nearly accosted by Breeds on a morning run designed to learn exactly why the Genetics Council had arrived on the tail of the Bureau of Breed Affairs.
The Bureau wasn’t telling the truth about what they were after; the deception had been detected and confirmed by its own sources. Unfortunately, those sources had no idea exactly what the Breeds were after either.
CHAPTER 1
Watching Diane Broen entering into a fight while the Breeds around her were taking bets on who would win, who would lose and how many blows it would take to do them in seemed fascinating. Still, Megan and Braden were forcing her away from the fray.
Actually, it was insanity.
The very Breeds who at first appeared intent on abducting her and the human enforcer, Diane Broen, now seemed to be working on the Bureau Breeds’ side. They had even encouraged the betting with the promise that if Diane won, they would walk away without the prize they had been paid to collect.
Namely, Liza herself.
She watched until she was pushed into a Dragoon and couldn’t see anything more. Damn them, she wasn’t a child anymore, yet that was exactly how she was being treated.
As the scene vanished from view, she turned and faced forward, her arms crossed beneath her breasts as she remained silent.
The earbud, all but hidden in her ear canal, was silent, deactivated at Cullen’s end. It wouldn’t be activated again until they arrived wherever she was being taken, or until the network’s agents following her lost sight of her.
Until then, she was on her own.
Swallowing tightly, she tried to put another inch of distance between herself and the big Breed sitting next to her.
Stygian Black. He was a bit of a lone Wolf according to the information Cullen had managed to acquire. A Wolf Breed who worked exclusively on missing cases that involved hidden Breed labs and/or missing Breeds or their mates.
He wasn’t a Breed who worked well with others, the report said. And he was one that would just as soon kill a man, or a Breed, who got in his way as he was to look at him. Yet, he’d been working with the Bureau of Breed Affairs for years, and he did so without killing anyone.
Was it a testament to Jonas Wyatt’s skill as a commander or simply his control over the animal genetics that were so much a part of the Breeds he commanded? Whichever it was, she could do nothing but admire his ability to work with a man whose animal was as close to the surface as this one’s was.
His gaze turned on her every few seconds as though to be certain she was still sitting there. Black eyes gleamed with amusement each time she caught him watching her. Each time she caught him, he would deliberately allow his eyes to flick to the upper mounds of her breasts where they rose above the exercise bra.
As she felt his gaze pin her once again, she turned her head and glared up at him through the veil of her lashes. The fact that she could tell when he was staring down at her, and all that had moved were his eyes, was distinctly disconcerting. Bothering her even more was the fact that her nipples were hardening further with each look. Having such a response to a man, any man, wasn’t a situation she wanted to deal with, especially with a Breed.
“Are you comfortable?” his voice rumbled with a primal, erotic rasp that sent a shiver of sensation racing up her spine.
“Not really,” she muttered.
She was distinctly uncomfortable with the warmth traveling across her nerve endings as the sensitive flesh of her clit tingled in interest.
As far as she was concerned, this was the wrong man, or Breed, and the wrong time for such an attraction.
“You could sit on my lap,” he suggested with a slow smile as he patted a hard, well-muscled thigh. “There’s plenty of room.”
Oh, hell—
The real problem where that question was concerned was that she was way, way too tempted.
“No, thank you.” Jerking her head forward, she stared between the front seats to the road beyond.
“I’d be more than happy to accommodate you.” Leaning closer, he all but whispered the words in her ear.
Oh, she just bet he would.
“No.” She didn’t have the breath to put that “thank you” in there a second time.
Chills w
ere racing over her skin, tearing up her spine and, she swore, sizzling in her lower stomach. Her flesh was warming, her nipples sensitive and the need for touch was like an ache just under her flesh. An ache she had no idea how to assuage because she was damned if she thought it was completely advisable to sleep with him.
But, yes, she did want to sleep with him. She wanted him to touch her, to hold her, to give her what she had so far managed to deny herself. To share a bed with a man, or with a Breed, and to learn all the things sexually that she hadn’t really had an interest in until now.
And why now?
Never had she ever had a reaction like this to any man, let alone a Breed.
As he sat back in his seat, she peeked up at him, swallowing deeply at the impression of pure raw power that surrounded him like an invisible mantle.
Dark-skinned, more so than any other Breed she had seen before, he was rumored to have the DNA of a rogue black Wolf and a voodoo priestess, and the dark bronze tone of his skin reflected both.
His eyes were as black as midnight with what appeared at times to be small pinpoints of blue. His jaw was so hard, so arrogant and savagely hewn she knew he would be as stubborn as hell.
High cheekbones, strong, arched brows, and such long thick black lashes, they simply made her jealous.
His skin fascinated her. Darker than the strongest tan, but it wasn’t black. It was simply such a dark, dark earth tone that she wondered if it held the warmth and vibrancy of the earth it so reminded her of.
The name, Stygian Black; the name suited him.
The black eyes, the nut brown flesh, the air of power and strength.
Damn, she could feel him watching her again. Her shoulders were tingling.
Narrowing her eyes, she glanced up, glared—
She could do without another once-over, if he didn’t mind. If she became much more interested in the fact that he was glancing at the upper curves of her breasts—
The sound of Braden clearing his throat from the driver’s seat as he slid the driver’s-side window down an inch or so had a flush of raging embarrassment staining her face. It was probably staining her entire body, damn it.
Flattening her lips, she considered kicking him, but he was wearing those damned black boots Breeds wore with their mission uniforms. She’d read they were so tough that a snakebite couldn’t even penetrate them. She doubted he’d even feel her foot slamming into his shin.
He smiled.
The bastard.
“Leave me alone.” Pushing the words through clenched teeth as she clenched her thighs against those stirrings of arousal, she wondered if there wasn’t some way to get the door open and just push him out of the moving vehicle.
“How am I bothering you?” he murmured with such false innocence that the Breed on the other side of her actually chuckled.
If only she had a few more years’ training on her. That vehicle-tossing thing was something Cullen was really good at; perhaps she could have convinced him to teach it to her.
As it was, in a physical confrontation with a man like Stygian, her only hope was in simply running.
And she had a feeling she couldn’t run far enough or fast enough to get away from this Breed.
If the look in his eyes was any indication, running wouldn’t be an option.
No, a Breed would expect her to mildly stand in place until he gave her the order to do otherwise.
She didn’t think so.
Turning back to stare out the front window, Liza tightened her arms beneath her breasts and gave him something to look at. Or to slobber over, she thought. He was definitely acting like a dog.
Yeah, she knew the sports bra plumped her breasts and left her belly bare. She knew her running pants were a little snug and she wasn’t wearing panties beneath them.
But did he have to act as though he knew it as well?
Because each time his gaze flicked over her, the warmth that suffused her flesh was just irritating. She didn’t need this. This was the last thing she needed. An attraction to a Breed would completely foul up her plans, and she really didn’t need that at the moment.
A hard turn to the right threw her against him before she could brace herself. Instantly, his arm went around her, the powerful, bare flesh of his forearm heating her skin where it touched her lower arm, while his hand quickly gripped her hip.
She had to swallow tight as she held on to the edge of her seat, refusing to look at him.
Breeds had no true body hair, she’d heard. What they had were tiny, almost invisible hairs more closely resembling a fine pelt.
She believed it now.
She could feel it.
Each invisible, silken hair caressed her overly sensitive flesh everywhere they touched.
The Desert Dragoon bounced across the rough terrain until it hit the smoother road leading to the hotel and, thankfully, stopped jostling her against him every other second.
Unfortunately, it did nothing to force him to remove his arm.
If it hadn’t been for that strength wrapped around her and the fingers gripping her hip, however, she would have been thrown into the driver’s seat when the vehicle came to a screeching stop at the back entrance of the hotel.
Breeds piled out. Stygian Black lifted Liza from the vehicle.
Then, surrounded by big, burly bodies, she was pushed through the entrance to an elevator. Within seconds, she stepped out onto the secure fifth floor, which was reserved for Breeds alone.
Would explanations now be forthcoming?
They damned well better be. The last she’d heard, Breeds were not exempt from the legal repercussions of kidnapping. Jonas Wyatt, the goons’ boss, better have some damned answers.
And didn’t it just figure that he wasn’t there?
Instead, a team of Breeds were in place with their electronic bug detectors.
Each member of the team that had brought her in was scanned thoroughly before Stygian took the device from one of the team members and turned to her with a grin.
“Just get it over with,” she ordered, frustration running rampant through her body as she lifted her arms and waited.
And prayed the earbud and skin tags were as undetectable as Cullen was certain they were.
“Testy today, aren’t you?” Stygian grinned before moving the paddle-shaped device over her body.
“You’d think with all the technology you guys have going for you, you wouldn’t be working with such antiquated electronics.” She eyed the twenty-year-old device skeptically.
“Don’t let looks fool you,” he murmured as he ran the wand over her head.
Her heart nearly tripped from her chest as he paused at her ear. A second later the device was moving again, then pausing on the other side as well.
Thank God Cullen had instituted shutting the earbuds down completely when in the presence of Breeds.
Giving her a small, flirtatious little wink, he turned and handed the device over to the Breed next to him before, surprisingly, striding to the door and leaving the suite entirely.
Liza turned to Megan questioningly. “Where’s he going?”
“He’s part of the independent security force,” Megan answered, her dark brown gaze amused. “Trust me, he’ll be back.”
Trust her? At one time, years ago, she had trusted Megan Fields with her life. Now, trust wasn’t so easy. She was a Breed mate, and because she was a Breed mate, her first thought was for the Breed community, rather than friends, and in many areas, even family.
Trust her? Trust any of them?
Liza looked around the room, taking in the hard gazes and ready stances of each person in the room.
She really didn’t think so.
Stepping into the connecting room, Stygian glanced at the monitors on the wall, watching as Ms. Liza Johnson shifted uncomfortably and gazed around with a resigned expression.
Turning to Jonas, he was at first taken aback. He always was, whenever he saw the hard-assed, merciless, manipulating director of the
Bureau of Breed Affairs cradling the too-delicate toddler he’d taken as his own.
Amber was curled against his chest, delicate and frail, her normally bright blue eyes closed, her breathing gentle and easy for a change.
It was one of the rare times he hadn’t sensed the baby’s pain when in her presence. For now, despite the hell she’d been through in the past two years, she was at peace.
“Just keep your voice low and you won’t disturb her,” Jonas assured him.
Wiping his hand over the back of his neck, he pushed back his frustration before grimacing. “They attacked, as we knew they would.”
Jonas nodded, thoughtful for a moment before replying.
“Malcolm’s team moved in the minute they thought she was unprotected,” he murmured as Stygian watched him closely. “I was listening to the reports as they came in. Lawe and Diane are fine, by the way. They’re heading back to the hotel now and should show up in the next five minutes.”
“She kicked his ass then?” Stygian asked with a grin as he thought of the cocky, traitorous Malcolm.
“Was there any doubt?” Jonas grinned. “She’s a hell of an addition to the Bureau, though Lawe has definitely bowed out of the assistant director position.”
That wasn’t really a surprise.
“Lawe prefers the field and now he has a mate to share that with,” he agreed as Jonas’s lips tightened.
The director had been certain Lawe Justice would take the position of assistant director.
Those who knew Lawe had known better.
Jonas glanced at the monitor then, watching Liza thoughtfully, before murmuring, “Ms. Johnson wasn’t alone either, was she?”
Stygian grunted at the comment. “That girl is never alone. She had two shadows on her ass and two lying farther back from the minute she left her house, just as she’s had every morning. And they’re damned good. They’re always damned good. And she knew they were there.”
Jonas turned his head, his brows lifting curiously at the information. “Really?”
“Damned straight,” he growled. “To add to it, she has a deactivated earbud tucked completely out of sight in that dainty little ear of hers and three skin tags. One on each hip and one on her left shoulder.”
“Then her shadows are friendly?” Jonas leaned back in his chair carefully, propping one expensively shod foot on the coffee table as he ensured not so much as a shift of movement disturbed his toddler.
She didn’t budge. One little hand lay at his neck, the other beneath her cheek. The soft pink-and-white frilly dress she wore looked at odds against the black shirt and shoulder holster it lay against on Jonas’s chest.
“The shadows are friendly.” Stygian nodded. “Between her and them is the enemy.” He sighed. “The ones I glimpsed the other morning as she went to work are not part of Dog’s team. But we already knew that.”
Jonas nodded slowly as he gently, rhythmically, rubbed his daughter’s back.
She was the reason Jonas was there; the reason he was searching desperately for ghosts.
“What do we have, Stygian?” he asked as he stared out over the tiny head tucked beneath his chin.
The girl’s once-brown locks, still thick with a slight curl, were now tricolored. Golden blond and sunset red streaked the once dark brown strands as though nature hadn’t yet made up her mind what color the child’s hair would be.
“Hell if know.” Stygian breathed out roughly. “She’s important to someone though—damned important. She and her housemates, Claire and Chelsea Martinez.”
“Cousins,” Jonas said softly.
Stygian nodded. “Before the attack on Malachi’s mate, only Liza Johnson and Claire Martinez had these shadows, though. Chelsea picked up hers after her sister’s attack.”
“Liza was bait this morning then,” Jonas suggested.
Stygian nodded. “The earbud was active until Braden and Megan rushed her to the Dragoon. It disconnected before she entered the vehicle and hasn’t reactivated since.”
“You have the frequency locked yet?”
Stygian nodded again. “We managed that before we took the Jammer over it. Their connection should be interrupted for the next few hours.”
“Let’s let her wait for a while then,” Jonas suggested. “See if her shadows come out of the woodwork again. I want an ID on them.”
“You think if we hold her here long enough they’ll make a move?”
That was Jonas, manipulating and calculating as hell when he was after something.
Or someone.
In this case, he was after two women and two Bengal Breeds. The two girls had disappeared