“What if you took a mate? One from the Breed.”
Her head snapped up at that. To hear him suggest it pricked at her, even if it was a reasonable question.
“Never,” she said, appalled by the very idea. “How could I expect someone to share my life when I can’t be certain I won’t end up hurting them? Or worse?”
He ran his fingers down the side of her arm, his eyes searching hers. “Wouldn’t a blood bond with a Breed male help you cope? I’m no expert on that, but I understand the bond strengthens both of the individuals it connects.”
“And if it doesn’t in my case? The blood bond didn’t make the Ancients less monstrous. It didn’t keep some of the worst of their kind from killing their mates.” She vehemently shook her head. “I tried to tell you, Zael. I’m alone for a reason. By my own choice.”
His hand came up to cup her cheek. “You didn’t hurt me tonight.”
She gave him a wry look. “Only because you hit me with a dose of Atlantean electric shock treatment before I had the chance.”
He didn’t as much as smile at her attempt at levity. “I shouldn’t have done it. Using my power like that was a risk I never should’ve taken.” He stared at her, his expression serious. “And if I hurt you, Brynne—”
“You didn’t.” She pressed her hand to his cheek. “You didn’t hurt me. You helped me.”
His frown eased only a degree. “That’s all I wanted. I could see you were hurting, and I had to help you through it if I could.” He reached around her and cut off the water. “I wasn’t going to leave your side.”
She stared into his brilliant blue eyes, struck by his tender words and his patient care with her. How was he able to exasperate her with his overbearing cockiness and refusal to leave her alone, yet make her heart twist with yearning at the same time?
Now that the noise of the shower was silenced, she was achingly aware of the fast, heavy pound of her pulse. Standing so close to Zael, she heard his heartbeat too. She couldn’t resist placing her hand against the bronze-skinned, corded strength of his chest.
He touched her, too, brushing his fingertips over one nipple, then the other, his caress light, undemanding. A rush of arousal streaked through her, and he responded with a low, approving growl in the back of his throat.
His cock had been erect since he’d entered the shower with her, but now it surged even harder in the narrow space between their naked bodies.
“I’m afraid, Zael.” It was apparently a night for first admissions, because these were further words she had never said to anyone before in her life. “You scare me. You have from the very first day I saw you.”
He lifted her chin, holding her gaze as he lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss seared her senses, despite its gentleness. It answered all of her fears, more than any words could.
She’d never had someone take care of her the way he had tonight. She didn’t know she could enjoy someone’s touch like this, or need someone’s comfort so profoundly.
No, not just someone.
Just this man.
Only Zael.
And, yes, that scared her.
It terrified her, how deeply she was beginning to care for him.
He cupped her face in his broad hand and she turned into his palm, pressing her lips to the center of it, the spot that had been glowing earlier tonight. Her tongue darted out to taste him and he growled, low and deep and primal.
It was all the warning he gave her before he swept her off her feet and up into his arms.
With her hair dripping and their bodies still wet from the shower, he strode into the bedroom with her.
CHAPTER 23
Brynne was light in his arms, her face nestled against his chest as Zael carried her out to the bedroom. He held her close, hoping she couldn’t feel the fury that was coursing through him after hearing what she had suffered at the hands of the man who made her.
He seethed over those other things she didn’t say.
Abuse so heinous she didn’t—or could not—put it into words. But it had been evident enough on her tormented face. Whatever had been done to her physically had left no traces on her body. Her advanced metabolism would have taken care of that. It was the other scars she carried inside that had obviously wounded her far worse.
Zael wanted to roar with his rage over what she had endured.
Never again. Not so long as he was alive to stop it would she ever know pain or mistreatment.
She would never have to be alone, locked in a prison of her own making because of fear for what she was.
It was a ridiculous promise for him to make even to himself—and all the more so when he knew his actions in the alley may have jeopardized everything. Using his power in the open as he had was tantamount to broadcasting his location to every Atlantean around the globe. His kind were all connected by the light within them. It was their strength as a people, but for fugitives like Zael, it was also a weakness that could have led his enemies right to him tonight.
But the need to help Brynne had eclipsed any risk to himself.
They had made it out of the city despite his carelessness, and she was safe.
So long as he drew breath, she would always be safe. He swore it with every fiber of his being as he brought her to the edge of the bed and carefully placed her there.
He thought she would lie back, but instead she came up on her knees in front of him as he stood at the edge of the bed. Unable to keep from touching her, from kissing her, he cupped the back of her neck beneath the tendrils of her damp hair and brought her mouth up to meet his.
She tasted even sweeter tonight, her vulnerability twining with the sexy strength that had attracted him to her from the start.
That she had trusted him with her past humbled him. It made the connection he felt toward her deepen, despite old habits that not so long ago would have urged him to get out while he could.
Too late for that and he knew it. He was in deep with this woman. And the baffling thing was, he couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be.
When he lifted his head from her lips, she was staring up at him with searching eyes. Although fire simmered within her dark green irises, he saw hesitancy in her gaze.
“You still want me?” Her voice sounded so small and uncertain, it raked at him. “After everything you saw tonight? After everything I told you?”
His lips curved with the arching of his brow. “Isn’t it obvious?”
He could hardly hide how much he wanted her. His arousal had been achingly evident from the moment he first stepped into the shower with her. It had taken all of his self-control to simply comfort and listen to her as he lathered her beautiful body and held her in his embrace. But she had needed his understanding in those moments more than anything else he had to give her.
Now, her smoldering gaze and awakening glyphs told him something different.
“Yes, I want you, Brynne.” He kissed her again, reaching down to stroke her naked breasts. “Nothing you said tonight diminishes that.”
She swallowed hard. “But you saw—”
“Yes, I saw. But when I look at you now, I see a woman who’s been through hell and back and hasn’t broken. What I see when I look at you is the woman I crave more than any other.” He caressed her cheek, brushing his thumb over her parted lips, noting the bright glint of her emerging fangs. “I see you, Brynne. And, hell yes, I want you.”
His name was a jagged sigh on her lips as he reached out and framed her lovely face in his palms. He drew her toward him for a deeper claiming of her mouth. Their tongues tangled, breaths mingling in hot gusts. Her hands roamed his body, tracing the droplets of water that still clung to him from the shower. Her fingernails raked over his skin, turning his already rigid cock to heat-forged steel.
Their mouths still joined in a fevered kiss, he reached down to caress her, too, hungry to feel her naked flesh in his hands. Her nipples were pebbled and hot as he rolled and tweaked them between his fingers. Her belly was firm
and smooth like velvet under his palms as he skimmed lower, nudging her thighs apart when he reached the silkiness of her sex.
She moaned as he delved into the wet cleft of her body. She moved in soft undulations as he stroked her, his fingers slipping between her satiny folds. Her clit was ripe and swollen, a temptation he could not resist. She writhed as he teased and caressed her, her spine arching when he entered her with one finger, then another.
“Zael,” she whispered breathlessly against his mouth as he thrust in and out, his thumb working her clit in a relentless rhythm. “Oh, God.”
He didn’t let up until she came. And when she shuddered and broke with her release, he swallowed her sharp cry with a possessive, claiming kiss.
He wanted to be inside her. His cock was more than eager, engorged and dripping with need for her.
But Brynne had other plans.
Still panting from her climax, she reached down to grasp his heavy shaft. Her fingers slid up and down his length, over the broad crown that was slick with his juices. He hissed with the pleasure of her touch, the firm and steady power of her strokes.
She moved in closer to him, taking one of his nipples into her mouth as she continued to torment him with her hands on him. And then she moved lower, her pink little tongue lapping at stray water droplets on his abdomen and hip before her mouth closed around the head of his cock.
Her lips held him firmly as her tongue flicked along the underside of his shaft with each deep stroke of her mouth. “Fuck, that feels good,” he groaned, coiling her hair around his fist like a rope because he needed something to ground him as she licked and sucked every hard inch of him.
He moaned sharply at the light graze of her teeth and fangs against his flesh—not because it startled him, but because of how badly he wanted to know her bite. Anywhere. Everywhere. He just didn’t want her to stop.
When she glanced up at him, her eyes glowed with hot amber sparks. She was beautiful, even like this. Hell, especially like this.
Fierce.
Carnal.
His.
He held her transformed gaze, needing her to see that he was still with her. Ready to take her as far as she wanted to go.
It stunned him how deeply he felt it.
From the flicker of understanding in her eyes, he saw that it stunned her too.
But while he wasn’t uncertain, she drew back from him, averting her gaze. He refused to let her retreat. And he needed to be inside her.
Catching her shoulders in his hands, he eased her back onto the bed and followed her down, spreading her legs as he positioned himself between them. She closed her eyes as he settled atop her.
“No, Brynne.” He stroked her cheek. “Look at me, love. See me now.”
Her lids flicked open, the glow of her transformed eyes radiating otherworldly heat.
And desire.
Those amber coals surged brighter as he entered her with a slow, filling thrust. He refused to let her look away, holding her gaze as he rocked in and out of her, one arm propped beside her, his free hand stroking the elegant patterns and changeable colors of her dermaglyphs.
God, had he actually been idiot enough to suggest that she take another male as her mate? The idea of her bonding with someone else, in blood or affection, raked at him like daggers.
“You’re mine,” he growled as he drove into her. “Look at me and know it’s true, Brynne.”
A defeated sound slipped past her lips. But she held his gaze with a ferocity that shook him. She knew. Even if she wasn’t prepared to say the words, she knew it in her heart.
She belonged to him.
Zael didn’t know where they were heading together.
Their worlds had never seemed further apart than they had earlier tonight. Now, with their eyes locked on each other as they both tumbled into a staggering release, their lives had never seemed so impossibly entwined.
CHAPTER 24
It had taken several hours to clear the city and put down all of the Rogues. With dawn soon to break, Lucan and the patrol teams had returned to headquarters. He’d barely had a chance to clean his weapons and wash away the grit and filth of combat when Gideon excitedly summoned him down to the command center’s tech lab.
Lucan entered the room filled with computer equipment. Monitors were mounted on nearly every square inch of wall space, all of them busy with scrolling data and images. “I hope you’ve got good news.”
“I think we could be only minutes away from something,” Gideon said, giving him a distracted glance over his shoulder as he continued typing on a keyboard with one hand, while the other swiped through data on a tablet.
Darion was in the room, too, seated in front of one of the large monitors. “He broke through a second layer of encryption. This machine is running a series of decryption key programs and looking for vulnerabilities in the network security.”
Dare must have come straight from his post-patrol shower to the tech lab. His dark chestnut hair was still damp above the collar of his black T-shirt as he avidly studied Gideon’s work.
Lucan’s son had always been possessed of a curious mind in addition to his shrewd tactical skills and dauntless courage in the field. Gabrielle liked to say their son was a born leader, like his father. As much as Lucan was inclined to agree—and as much as the commander in him valued Dare as a warrior and comrade—he much preferred to see his son pursuing enemies in the virtual realm, as he was now with Gideon.
“How many layers of encryption are we looking at?” Lucan asked, glancing at Gideon.
“I’ve detected five, but I could be wrong.”
“Meaning there could be less than that?”
Gideon’s dubious look wasn’t promising. “I told you, man, whoever’s working Opus’s communications knows their shit. And then some. Brick wall after dead end after quicksand trap. But we’re getting there. All I need is one little piece of luck with this decryption key sequence, and I’ll have—”
As Gideon spoke, the monitor in front of him went dark.
Then another one went black.
“What the fuck?” Gideon vaulted to his feet and hurried to a different computer.
One by one, every screen in the room blinked from buzzing activity to full-stop, nothing.
“It’s not the power,” Darion said, gesturing to the lights that hadn’t so much as flickered.
“The entire command center is on private underground generators,” Gideon murmured distractedly. “We can run for a full year without power. He tried another workstation without success, swearing harshly.
Lucan scowled. “Then what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Fuck.” Gideon raked both hands through his spiky blond hair, disheveling it. “This shouldn’t be happening. It’s completely impossible, and yet it’s as if something has interrupted our…”
His words trailed off as each monitor abruptly came back online.
Not with Gideon’s data or program feeds filling the screens.
But the face of a woman.
An incredibly beautiful woman with long, platinum hair and eyes the color of Arctic ice. Those frigid eyes stared out of a heart-shaped face with high, sharp cheekbones and pale, milky skin that glowed with the luminescence of a pearl. Her beauty was too menacing to be called angelic. Too ageless and unearthly to be confined to any description at all.
There was no need for introductions.
This woman could be none other than the Atlanteans’ queen.
“Holy shit,” Gideon whispered.
Darion’s response was a low hiss. “Selene.”
Both Breed males moved in to flank Lucan in front of the largest of the monitors.
Selene’s gaze traveled deliberately over each of them before settling on Lucan.
“Lucan Thorne,” she said, her voice clear and unrushed. The voice of a being accustomed to reigning over all others. The voice of a disapproving goddess. “This conversation is long overdue.”
“Not to mention u
nexpected.” He didn’t as much as blink as he spoke. “Of course, the way things have been going lately, I shouldn’t be surprised that you’d choose to make your appearance now.”
Her brows arched, as if their troubles amused her. “Don’t tell me the mighty Order is being pushed to their limits by a gang of violent opportunists?”
“Do we have you to thank for that?”
“Me?”
He grunted at her noncommittal reply. “Someone’s calling the shots for Opus Nostrum. Is it you?”
She smiled now, a cold smile full of disdain. “Don’t be absurd. Opus is nothing to me. Their trivial efforts are nothing compared to what I am capable of on my own.”
Darion exhaled a sharp breath. “That’s what Reginald Crowe said about you too. Right after he tried to detonate a UV bomb in the middle of a Breed peace summit. He lost his head to the Order for that.”
Selene’s narrowed glower slid to Dare. “When the time comes to wipe out your kind, Darion Thorne, I won’t need someone like Reginald Crowe to do it. Or Opus Nostrum.”
Lucan’s blood spiked to hear the Atlantean queen speak his son’s name. As leader of the Order, to hear her confirm what Crowe had asserted—that Selene was plotting war against the Breed—only added more fury to the fire that flared in him.
“What do you want, Selene?”
“To start with, the traitor, Ekizael. He is one of my subjects and I will see him stand trial for his defection.”
Lucan kept his expression neutral. “Why do you expect that I can help with that?”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m a fool,” she replied, her smile cold. “Zael is in your city. Unless I miss my guess, he has allied with you against me.”
“If he has, you’ve certainly given him ample reason,” Lucan parried back. “You had his comrade, Cass, struck down in the street like an animal by your guards. Then you sent more guards after Zael when he tried to protect Cass’s daughter from being captured by you.”