he knew what their quarters looked like.
A twelve-by-twelve cell with white walls, a narrow bed, a vid- and halo-screen high on the wall and a partially enclosed shower on the other end.
Pretty swanky compared to the filthy cells and open toilets the Breeds were forced to use in most of the labs they were kept in. Few of them had had any conveniences outside of a mat or mattress to sleep on until they were old enough to put their training into use. Then, and only then, were they given decent sleeping areas or food in exchange for the services, or the killings, they were required to provide. And in the cases of those Brandenmore targeted, they had known nothing but the agony and horror of being nothing more than research projects.
Slowly, Mica eased up from the crouch and stared back at him in fascination. She knew for a damned fact he was more than eighty years old. But he looked no older than his early thirties, and if not for the evil glowing in his eyes, he wouldn’t have been bad looking. But that evil was there. In his gaze, in his expression, in the very air around him as they stared at each other across the distance.
Phillip Brandenmore shook his head somberly. “I can’t believe I had you in my grip and allowed you to live.” He sighed in regret. “Your life is one of those that’s considered to be one of importance among the Wolves. You do know there was a price on your head by the Breed’s enemies, right?”
“So I’ve been told,” Mica answered as she watched Brandenmore shove his hands into the pockets of the overly large pants he wore while his shirt seemed to hang on his well-muscled shoulders.
His smile was cunning and filled with sinister delight. “I helped put it there, you know. As the freak’s favorite friend, you would be invaluable. What would she do to protect you?”
Mica knew the answer to that. Cassie would kill to save her, or she would die for her. The same as Mica would do for Cassie. There was no other option. They were too close to ever allow the other to be harmed if they could stop it.
Mica didn’t tell Brandenmore that though, she just stared back at him silently, almost fascinated with the monster he had become and the fact that she was facing him.
“Excuse me for not dressing in my finest,” he said, excusing himself drolly. “But then again, I guess this can be called my finest, can’t it?” He leaned his shoulder against the glass, a dark brown eyebrow arching as he stared at her arrogantly. “Well, aren’t you going to talk? Don’t you think I get sick of listening to these pissant little Breeds? I’d like to talk to a human for once. Someone with more personality than a cat or a dog.”
Mica wanted nothing more than to leave to escape the vile sense of evil he filled a room with. He was a bastard and he knew it. Hell, he reveled in it.
“I can’t think of a single human or Breed that would want to discuss anything with you,” she told him, fascinated by the reptilian air Brandenmore seemed to possess. There was no way to hide what he was now. Despite the charm, despite the good looks, that aura of evil still surrounded him, still acted as a warning so heavy, a premonition so painful, that humans and Breeds alike were affected.
“How little you know,” he sneered, though he was clearly enjoying himself. “I knew several who would like to talk to you as well, my dear. About several matters. Your little mating anomalies as well as the fact that you’re the best friend to one of the most unique Breeds living. Tell me, if I kill you, what happens to her?”
Mica could only shake her head. “You would die and Cassie would shed a few tears, nothing more. There’s no way to hurt Cassie enough to destroy her. Her parents have done too good of a job in teaching her to protect herself and her heart.”
Brandenmore merely grimaced, though his gaze was filled with amusement. “My my, you’re not very important to anyone, are you, little girl?”
“Oh, I’m sure I am,” Mica drawled, though she was just as certain that those few were only her parents.
It would destroy her parents, but there was no lover, no sister, no brother. She would quickly be forgotten.
“I’m obviously important to you,” she stated. “Those were your men that attacked me in New York, wasn’t it?”
“Of course,” he admitted. “They would have traded your life for mine.” He stared around the exam room, his face pinching into a look of distaste. “They’re letting me die here.” He turned back and glared at her. “With you, I could have had my freedom.”
“You give me credit for having far more influence than I have,” she said, mocking him. “Trust me, Brandenmore, they would have never traded my safety for your freedom. You could destroy them. Only a few of them would miss me.”
“A mate?” His eyes widened as he laughed back at her. “Give me credit for far more intelligence than that. Before you proved yourself unmateable, my men could have commanded any price they wished for you, from either the Breeds or the Genetics Council. But now”—he gave her a look of pity—“you don’t have a human lover, and your Breed mate’s genetics are rejecting you. Poor little freak. Don’t you feel left out?”
“Actually, no, I’m mostly just feeling bored.” And wondering when the hell Ely was going to show up. Brandenmore just freaked her out, and he scared the hell out of her. Having a conversation with him wasn’t her idea of having a good time, but getting out of the exam room without help wasn’t going to happen either.
The longer she had to stay here, the worse he was going to get. She could see it in his expression, in his very demeanor. As far as he was concerned, he had a captive audience.
Turning, she moved to the door and the intercom that she knew connected to the security room.
“Call them, and we can’t share confidences.” Brandenmore’s confident, knowing drawl had her pausing before she activated the call button.
“And what confidences would we have to share?” she asked without turning, without looking at him.
“Well, we do have a bit of something in common,” he stated. “I may know a few things about that commonality.”
“And what would we have in common?”
They had Navarro in common. Brandenmore had been closely involved in the labs Navarro had come from. So closely involved that he had used many of the Breeds in those labs in his research projects.
“Your Breed. The mate who is not truly a mate,” he said slyly. “Would you like to know why?”
She wanted to know. She was dying to know. But she couldn’t bear standing here to talk to him. The vile, corrupted monster he had become sickened her to the point that it would never matter how desperately she wanted to know more about Navarro, she would never accept that information from him.
Her hand lifted to the button.
“What if I told you he was created to never feel strongly, to never have the emotions that drive a human?”
She paused again.
“If you could have done that, then you wouldn’t have stopped with just Navarro,” she said knowingly without turning back to him.
“That was always the hope, with each genetic design,” he told her. “To weed out emotion, to leave only logic, then to ensure it was only logical that they willingly give their loyalty to the Council and its membership.”
Mica shook her head again and lifed her hand closer to the intercom.
“And if I told you he’s already betrayed you?”
She shook her head as she swung around to stare at him once again. “Navarro hasn’t been with anyone else.”
“There are other ways to betray.” He shrugged.
“I don’t want to hear any more of this. You’re a liar, Brandenmore. A vicious, evil animal with no morals or conscience. Don’t expect me to believe a word out of your mouth.”
“I am not the animal,” he snarled back, suddenly erupting in fury. “I helped create that filthy creature you’re fucking, you little whore. Do you think I’d actually create something that could ever have emotions? Ever have loyalty? Don’t be such a stupid little bitch. He’ll never completely mate you, because he can never love you.??
?
Mica swung around and pressed the intercom button.
“Dr. Morrey?” There was a tone of surprise in the Breed that answered.
“This is Mica Toler. I was escorted here to see Dr. Morrey and she hasn’t shown up yet, but Phillip Brandenmore has. Could you please ask the doctor to hurry or send someone to let me out of here?”
There was no answer.
Mica was ready to depress the button and call out again when the door suddenly slammed inward and several enforcers rushed into the room, followed by Jonas, Navarro and Callan.
Brandenmore was laughing as Jonas stalked across the room to the window dividing the cell from the exam room and slammed the heavy wide metal shutters across the partition before locking them.
The sound of the laughter was cut off, leaving Mica to stare at the men, amazed at the air of deadly violence swirling around them.
“How did you get down here?” It was Navarro that spoke first.
Stalking to her, he gripped her arm, staring down at her as though he didn’t know whether to shake her or to fuck her.
“I walked,” she retorted mockingly. “What did you expect?”
“This is the wrong time.” His head lowered, his lips pulled back from his teeth, and she could have sworn she detected the faintest hint of a point returning to his canines. “Now answer me. How did you get down here?”
“As I said, I was escorted down here for an exam,” she answered from between clenched teeth. “Dr. Morrey hasn’t shown up yet though.”
“Because you didn’t have an appointment with her until this evening, with me,” he snarled. “Who came for you?”
She stared up at him in surprise. “But, Navarro, the message was waiting for me in my room when I came out of the shower, and it was Ely’s voice.”
“I escorted her down here.” The Lioness stepped from the doorway, her dark gaze lacking fear, but showing only resignation as Navarro’s gaze swung to her.
“I too had a message left for me by Dr. Morrey that I was to escort Ms. Toler here for her tests and examination. At least, it sounded like Dr. Morrey.” Her shoulders straightened as though preparing for a blow.
“Where is Ely?” Navarro growled as he turned back to Jonas.
“She’s in Buffalo Gap until later this afternoon,” Jonas stated, his gaze narrowed as he stared around the room. “But don’t worry, I’ll definitely find out how this happened.”
“He did it.” She nodded to Brandenmore’s cell before turning her gaze back to Navarro. “Somehow, he did it.”
“He doesn’t have the means,” Jonas answered before Navarro could.
“Bring a snake into your home and expect him to strike when you least expect it.” Jerking away from Navarro she stared from him to Jonas with disbelieving mockery. “I’m ready to get the hell out of here now. And you can inform Ely I won’t be returning this evening. Until my so-called mate actually begins experiencing this mating crap himself, then I see no reason to torture myself further. Later boys.”
She turned and stalked from the lab before turning and heading back to the elevators, knowing someone would follow her. It wasn’t as though they would allow her to actually roam the halls alone. God only knew who else they were keeping down there and intended to keep hidden.
First Jeffery Amburg. She hadn’t seen him, but she knew from Cassie that he was safely hidden in the labs and working for the Breeds now, rather than against them. Then Brandenmore. Who was next? The head of the Genetics Council himself?
She snorted at the thought.
“If you don’t stop running from me, we’re going to have words.”
The sound of Navarro behind her had her heart rate tripling and her pussy creaming. The response was just enough to piss her the hell off.
Where was the fairness in it? It wasn’t as though he was dying for the taste of her as well.
As soon as the thought passed through her mind she found herself pulled around, pressed into the steel wall, lifted until her legs automatically gripped his thighs, and his lips covered hers.
Ambrosia.
The subtle taste of honey filled her senses as his tongue pressed inside and stroked against hers.
Oh yeah, that was what she needed.
She needed this kiss, deep and drugging, filling her senses with the taste of wild sweet honey, and male heat. One hand wrapped into the strands of hair at the back of her head, tugging on them, caressing her scalp with heated little pulls as she begin to sink into the sensuous swirls of arousal that rose like a tidal wave inside her.
She wasn’t alone anymore.
She wasn’t aching, needy and hungry by herself at this moment.
She could feel the glands swollen at the sides of his tongue, just a bit larger than normal. The taste of honey that filled the kiss had changed, just a bit, as well. It was wilder. Just as a primal hunger filled his touch and his caresses.
Long moments later his head lifted, his eyes black, as black as the darkest night, as his lips lowered to hers for a kiss so gentle, so filled with possessiveness that she had to fight back more tears.
“I love you, Mica,” he whispered back to her. “I love you as you’ll never know.”
As she would never know.
Mica felt her eyes fill with tears. “I always loved you, Navarro.”
As he touched her cheek with his fingertips, his lashes lying at half-mast while he held her gaze, Mica felt the final, heated bursts of his come inside her.
His head lowered. “Only you could have freed me,” he whispered against her ear. “You released what was hiding inside me, Mica, making me whole. Don’t let that part of me sleep again. Don’t let me lose you again.”
She could barely breathe. She could barely believe she was hearing his request. That he was there, that he was holding her. That he was admitting, finally giving, his love to her, when she had all but lost hope.
“Ahh, how sweet.”
The moment the heavy swelling had eased, the horrifying voice whispered through the silence of the room.
Dangerous. Heavy with menace. Rasping with animalistic fervor and cunning, Phillip Brandenmore stood just on the other side of a panel that had opened in the wall of the bedroom, revealing a hidden passageway that obviously led to the labs more than four stories beneath the ground.
“It’s okay,” Navarro mouthed. “Just follow me.” Moving his lips silently as he eased from her, careful to keep the blanket over her, Navarro moved to her side, then slipped slowly from the bed.
Keeping his attention on Brandenmore, he dressed with no apparent hurry.
His fingers slipped over the activator located behind the small Wolf’s head enforcer belt buckle he wore, sending a silent alarm out to the Breeds and activating the locator that would track them, no matter where they went.
“Is Ely still alive?” he asked the monster that had tortured the Breeds for so long as it watched him with curious disbelief.
“Unfortunately yes,” Brandenmore said and sighed as though irritated, a frown creasing his dark forehead. “Strange, I couldn’t kill her.” His teeth snapped together as an odd, sickeningly mutated purr was heard vibrating in his throat. “And why are you dressing? Strange, Navarro, I didn’t give you permission to dress.”
Navarro let a growl rumble, dark and warning, a dominant alpha sound that affected Brandenmore immediately. The gun nearly dropped from his hand before he caught himself, shaking his head and pointing it toward Mica as he stared at Navarro.
“Stop, or I’ll kill her.”
Genetics could be a bitch. Navarro was the natural alpha, and Brandenmore’s genetics were weak, submissive.
Navarro lowered the sound, knowing Brandenmore didn’t have to hear it to be affected by it. It was natural law. He could and would do whatever it took to Mica to get what he wanted. But he wouldn’t be able to strike against Navarro unless violently provoked.
“Put that gun down, Brandenmore. You don’t want to die here today,” he commanded.
It almost worked, but once again the crazed Brandenmore fought it back.
“I want the girl.” Brandenmore waved the gun he carried at Mica as he let a smile cross his lips. “No need to dress, love. You’ll just be undressing once I meet up with my friends. You’ll be my gift to them.”
Like hell.
Navarro wouldn’t allow it to happen.
Briefly, barely felt against his lower stomach, the vibration of the answering call from the enforcers moving into place came from the buckle.
They knew he was with his mate. They would know by now that there was no chance of ever allowing her to mate with another Breed. She was his. She belonged to him. And he would be damned if he would ever allow Brandenmore to take her from him.
“Get up, Ms. Toler,” the monster ordered, his voice brooding and deep, a gentle, pleasant sound from a creature of pure evil.
Navarro kept his eyes on the other man. Watching each move. Refusing to allow himself to be distracted even when Mica rose from the bed, dragging the sheet around her naked body and drawing Brandenmore’s gaze.
At the same time Navarro sensed the men on the other side of the bedroom door, just to the right of where Brandenmore stood. There was always the chance the animal genetics he possessed now would allow him to sense the Breeds moving in on the other side of the door.
God, he prayed this worked. There was no way to warn them of his precise location, but their senses would have picked it up, just as they would have picked up Brandenmore’s scent.
They were prepared.
As Brandenmore let his gaze focus entirely on the rich rise of the mounds of Mica’s breasts above the sheet, Navarro moved.
Shock crossed the other man’s face, because Navarro didn’t jump for him.
He didn’t move to take a prisoner, there was no time.
“Move!” Grabbing her wrist, Navarro jerked Mica to the floor as his hand moved to the side of the nightstand, jerked his weapon from the attached holster, rolled his body over Mica’s and fired as the bedroom door was thrown open and Breed Enforcers rushed in.
Mica watched Brandenmore’s body fall. A red stain bloomed across his chest as his eyes widened, first in shock, then surprisingly, in absolute horror.
His lips formed a desperate “No!” His hands reached out as though searching for something, someone to hold on to as he went to the floor, his gaze locked on hers, a pleading desperation filling them as he realized he wasn’t escaping death.
She watched the evil cunning slowly fade from his eyes, the light of life dimming until it was gone.
It was over.
Brandenmore had killed so many. He had tortured Breeds as though they were of no worth. And now he was gone. He couldn’t torture, he couldn’t hurt anyone else.
Slowly, Navarro eased from her, lifted her to her feet and held her safely in his arms as he stared at the silent, icy facade of the director of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, Jonas Wyatt.
“I had no choice.” Navarro knew the fears, the nightmares that would haunt Jonas now. And God help them all if his daughter suffered for this, because Navarro knew it would kill the other man.
Navarro couldn’t help but believe Brandenmore no more knew what he had done to Amber than he knew what he had done to himself though. If he’d known, he would have traded the information, he would have given it to Ely for even the slightest chance it would save his own life.
No, he didn’t know what he’d done. He had no idea the concoction he had taken himself. Navarro was beginning to wonder if it was something he had even created himself.
There was an evil that he could tell was slowly easing from the room, from the overall atmosphere of Sanctuary. As though Brandenmore’s existence had somehow darkened the community and thrown a shadow over it.
“None of us did,” Jonas answered as he gave the fallen Brandenmore a last look, one filled with loathing and burning rage. “None of us ever did.”
As his head lifted, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled, a new scent suddenly caught his attention. At the same time, it caught everyone else’s but Mica’s.
Oh hell, they were all fucked now.
He reach for Mica, intending to get her into the bathroom until she could dress. To hide her until he could figure out how to handle this new threat.
“Mica!” Cassie burst into the room at a dead run, black curls flying around her, her blue eyes filled with tears, her face pale as she rushed for her friend.
Mica tightened her hands on the sheet, her gaze meeting her mate’s as Cassie’s arms enfolded her.
“Oh God, I didn’t get here in time,” she cried out desperately. “I didn’t make it, Mica. I was supposed to be here before Brandenmore. What if Navarro hadn’t been here?”
Cassie was clearly distraught, clearly upset. But it wasn’t Cassie that worried either Mica or Navarro. It was the sight of Dash Sinclair and Mike Toler standing in the doorway.
Mike’s gaze went from the dead Brandenmore to his daughter, his expression composed, calm. Thankfully, Navarro didn’t seem to sense a building fury in him, or even an overwhelming anger.
The other man simply stared at his daughter as she kept a death grip on the sheet and the other Breeds began to file slowly out of the bedroom.
Mica couldn’t believe it.
She stared at Navarro, then her father, then back again, almost fascinated by the two men she loved most in the world and their silence. She didn’t expect the silence to last for long.
From the corner of her eye she was aware of Jonas ordering two Breeds to get the body out of her room, which she appreciated, but the blood was still there, and the memory of the corrupt evil he had been wouldn’t disappear so easily.
Her father still watched her silently.
“Mr. Toler.” Navarro cleared his throat, clearly nervous as her father turned to him.
Taller by several inches, wider, but older and definitely not as powerful, still her father wasn’t a comfortable man to have that fierce stare directed from.
“Yes, Mr. Blaine?” Her father had been around Breeds too long. He’d learned how to growl.
“Sir, I would like to request your permission to marry your daughter.”
Mica’s head swung around in shock as she stared back at Navarro in disbelief.
Wasn’t he supposed to ask her first, or something?