Liza had no intention of being controlled.
“You sound as though you’ve come to your own conclusions as to my interest.” Bracing his palms on the table behind him, he leaned back and watched her with wicked male amusement.
Shrugging, Liza arched her brows at his comment. “There are a lot of rumors where a Breed’s interest in a woman is concerned. Rumors of addictive kisses, a Breed’s ability to control their lovers through some hormonal reaction to those kisses. All those stories could make a girl nervous.”
She was nervous.
She’d watched Isabelle in the weeks since she’d become Malachi’s lover, and the signs that the rumors could be true were all there.
“You’re listening to rumors?” The chuckle that left his lips matched the laughter in his gaze. “I would have thought you’d know better, considering your friend is a Breed’s lover. They’re considering marriage, you know.”
Liza couldn’t control her own mockery at that point. “They’ve been together less than two months and they’re already discussing marriage. Isabelle is so wrapped up in that Breed, nothing else matters any longer.”
Even the position Isabelle had attained on the team she’d trained with since she was a teenager was no longer important.
For some reason, Isabelle now considered herself a danger to the team, and none of them could figure out why.
Unless the rumor that lovers who were “mated” to a Breed carried a scent other Breeds could detect. Especially Coyote Breeds who worked for the Genetics Council. Add that to the fact that the reported attacks against Breeds and their lovers in the past few years by suspected Genetics Council Breeds were all against Breeds in committed relationships with their lovers. So committed there was no time, no room and no interest in anything else.
“What are you getting at, Liza?” Leaning forward, his booted feet planted squarely on the bench as he planted his broad forearms on his knees, he watched her thoughtfully. “I swear, I can feel that suspicious little mind of yours beating around something here.”
“The rumors of ‘mating heat’?” she questioned. “If that’s why you’re sniffing around me, then I’d just like to say right now I’d prefer not to be so chained to a man that I can’t get five minutes out of his sight.”
A smile curved his lips, but the amusement had dissipated just marginally from his gaze for the slightest second. If she hadn’t been watching his expression closely, she would have missed it.
“Come on, Liza,” he chastised her gently. “If it existed, don’t you think someone would have come forward already?”
She shrugged at the question. “The National Rumor says there’s a kill order against anyone who verifies information concerning Breed mating heat.”
Stygian had to laugh at that. Not because it wasn’t true. Because she’d gotten straight to the point and didn’t hesitate to inform him she wasn’t interested.
He would have let it go if he didn’t know for a damned fact she was more than interested. She could lie with her lips, but her body hadn’t yet learned how to play along.
“That rag? Sweetheart, you should try reading the National Press. It’s more fact than fantasy.” He evaded the implied question carefully.
Not that she was willing to back down. He doubted she backed down from much at all.
“The National Press is owned by the Tyler family,” Liza snorted. “Their baby sister is married to Callan Lyons, leader of the Feline Prides. I wouldn’t exactly suspect the paper of being impartial, would you?”
She had him there. But for the moment, he stuck to his evasion rather than the truth and prayed she didn’t push him any closer to lying.
Lying to his mate just somehow seemed wrong.
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed with a nod. “That doesn’t mean John Tyler reports fiction. He’s a damned stickler for truth in the articles he publishes as well.”
“And he just recently married a Feline Breed.” She smiled smugly.
Well, hell, that information was so carefully buried that even the Alphas of the other Breed communities were unaware of it.
“I think we should discuss this later,” he suggested—later, after he showed her, rather than telling her, the full truth involving mating heat.
“Why later, Stygian? When? After you’ve kissed me and tied me so irrevocably to you that I have no other choice but to keep your secrets?”
Pretty much.
The mocking thought had a rush of guilt pricking at his senses.
“Come on, Liza.” Sighing, he scratched at his jaw and watched her thoughtfully. “Do you need an excuse for wanting me so desperately that you’ll believe any trash story you find to explain it?”
“Why not?” Her brow arched suggestively. “It beats believing I’m suddenly so tired of living that I’ve chosen suicide by Breed.”
“Suicide by Breed?” Incredulity filled his expression then. “How do you figure that one? Baby, we might kill ourselves fucking, but I’d never physically harm you.”
Her face flushed, but the sudden darkening of her gray eyes and the scent of her pussy heating further assured him it wasn’t from anger or embarrassment.
“Emotional suicide by Breed.” She shrugged, though the subtle scent of her wariness wrapped around him like an invisible cloud.
“Emotional suicide?” he questioned her. “Do you think you’re in danger of losing your heart to me, Liza?”
“Only if you’re in danger of being honest with me.” She snorted. “I detest liars.”
“Honesty goes both ways, baby,” he retorted. “If you want it, then you have to give it as well.”
How could one woman look and smell so fucking innocent no matter the provocation?
“Your boss has no doubt had me so thoroughly investigated that the lot of you know the last time I masturbated.”
She didn’t even flush as she made the statement.
Innocence, sensuality and pure bravado.
Damn, she should have been born a Breed.
“The masturbating part we’re actually uncertain of,” he stated with a grin. “But next time you go there I wouldn’t mind an invitation to join you.”
The grin that edged her lips had his dick swelling impossibly harder and his balls drawing so tight they felt tortured.
Hell, no woman should have the ability to destroy a man’s senses so easily.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” The look she threw him was less than reassuring.
He wasn’t going to hold his breath waiting on that invitation.
And wasn’t that too bad.
Damn, he was killing himself here, aching for her as he’d never ached for anything in his life.
He was here on a mission. A mission he’d been working for over a decade: Find Honor Roberts. This woman didn’t appear to be the one he was searching for, but he was damned if he could pull himself away from her.
Watching as she shifted her head, her eyes moving to the lake again as her expression turned thoughtful, he realized there was nothing about this woman he didn’t like.
Her strength. Her will. Her pride and determination.
She would make him crazy, but every instinct he possessed assured him this woman was one he’d gladly spend his days—and his nights—with.
“My family and I used to picnic here nearly every Sunday for years when I was a kid,” she said softly, nostalgia and wariness mixing with a near-undetectable scent of deception.
What could she possibly be hiding from him here? Now?
Or was she trying to distract him?
He didn’t doubt that in the least. Fortunately for her, he was already pretty distracted and really had only wanted to spend a few hours with her.
She was his mate, after all.
The need to get to know her, to understand the woman behind the secrets was nearly as fierce as his need to possess her. To cover her—to mark her. Hell, to wrap her in so much pleasure she couldn’t even consider living a single day without him or his to
uch.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been on a picnic,” he said with a faint smile. “That wasn’t exactly part of our training.”
A faint frown touched her brow, though she didn’t glance back at him. “Every kid should know how great a picnic is. I remember when the first Breed came here to Window Rock after Callan Lyons made his incredible announcement that Breeds existed. He called himself Gabriel. He was there searching for his family. He told Dad what training versus raising truly meant.”
Stygian nodded. “More than half the Breeds created died in the first three months from lack of touch and care. The nurses didn’t hold or cuddle us. They fed us. They removed the pads beneath us when they were soiled and bathed us when they had to.”
Stygian didn’t remember that, though some Breeds claimed to remember their own infant years.
Being a Breed had been hell until the rescues. But life wasn’t bad now.
Actually, sometimes, it was pretty damned good.
“Did Gabriel find his family?” Stygian finally asked when Liza said nothing more.
She breathed out heavily. “A half sister. His mother was one of the lucky ones. She was released, rather than killed, after giving birth to her second child. She later had a daughter but died in childbirth. Gabriel disappeared with her just after finding her.”
Stygian watched her closely, knowing there was more to the story than the brief moment in Gabriel’s life that she had mentioned. Like many Breeds, Gabriel, whoever he may be, had gone searching for roots that were often destroyed long before a Breed ever escaped.
“So, you tell me something now,” she demanded, her look thoughtful.
“Ask.” He would answer if he could.
“Why were you named Stygian?”
He chuckled at the question. “Breeds developed a habit in the labs, long before release, of naming themselves. Many, like Gabriel, took biblical names. They believed if we took the names of those God had found favor in, from the Bible, then He would find favor in us as well and gift us with a chance to see Heaven, as our human cousins took for granted.”
“You didn’t take a biblical name,” she pointed out.
“True.” Inclining his head in agreement, he allowed a smile to curve his lips. “I had a trainer who didn’t always follow the Council’s directives. From the time I was ten until my rescue at twenty, he convinced me that my chances at an afterlife were just as good as those of any human ever born.”
“Man or woman cannot take that first breath of life without first the gift of the soul that only God can bequeath.” She recited the declaration President Andrews had made when he had accepted and signed into law the mandates of Breed Law.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“So why did you choose the name Stygian Black?” She looked at him, her dove gray eyes somber.
She had no idea the temptation she was at that moment.
There was no pity coming from her, merely regret and sadness for the hell the Breeds had known as children.
“Actually, my birth mother chose it,” he told her. “The trainer I was paired with had grown close to her before she died in the labs. She asked that he find a way to ensure I carried the name she chose for me.”
“So why Stygian?” she asked again. “Especially Stygian Black?”
“She wanted me to carry the name of her ancestor. One known for his merciless vengeance decades before her birth. When his wife and child were taken by his enemies, he began spilling the blood of their abductors’ families, beginning with cousins and working his way up until they were returned to him. They were dead, though. By the time he finished, every member of three family lines was wiped off the face of the earth. My trainer believed she wanted that same vengeance, and she wanted me to be the instrument of it.”
“And were you?”
Stygian shook his head at the question. “I don’t kill children or innocents no matter the provocation. And that’s what it would have entailed.”
There had been more than once that he swore his mother had reached out from beyond the grave in anger at his choice.
“What about you?” he asked, pausing until she gave him a questioning look. “Who created Liza Johnson? A woman willing to face a team of Coyote soldiers with no more than a knife in her sneaker, three skin tags on her body and a communications link to God only knows who tucked in her pretty little ear? What made you think you could face four men you believed were soldiers sent by the Genetics Council and survive without help?”
He hoped the bastard who had allowed her to do it had to made his peace with his maker. Because Stygian intended to kill him for daring to send his mate into such danger.
Not that she seemed inclined to answer him.
Oh hell no, it couldn’t be that easy.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you tell me why a Breed’s kiss is so addictive? Or did you intend to wait until I couldn’t walk away before telling me the truth?”
Bingo.
His expression never changed, but Liza assured herself she wasn’t stupid. It had taken her a few minutes to figure it out—but once she had, she’d been certain of her conclusions.
“I asked first,” Stygian growled.
His expression might not have changed, but his tone sure had.
She’d turned the tables on him, and he didn’t like it.
As a matter of fact, he seemed completely surprised by the fact that she had done so.
A second later, she narrowed her eyes on the smug smile that tugged at his well-molded, sensual lips.
“I’ll take it that the rumors of a Navajo-based Breed Underground Network that helps Breeds and humans running from the Genetics Council is true. I’ll also assume you’re part of that network.”
A soft laugh left her lips. “You know what ‘assume’ does,” she reminded him. “It makes an ass of you.”
“Touché,” he congratulated her. “But the statement stands.”
Her arms crossed over her breasts defensively, but Stygian sensed her amusement.
Damn, she was enjoying every minute of the dangerous byplay.
Stygian knew well the consequences of allowing Liza more information on mating heat that could contradict the Breeds’ stance that it was all rumor and false accusations.
Breed Law—the Breed mandates rather than those President Andrews had signed into law—expressly forbid the sharing of the information before mating occurred.
If Liza were to betray the information—before or after mating—then Breed Law could see them both dead. Unless Liza were pregnant, then it would merely see them imprisoned for life.
“We’re at a stalemate then?” she asked when he said nothing more.
“Not exactly.” He grinned and considered her bravado. “You could always let me kiss you. That would settle the issue once and for all.”
Only then would the risks of discovery, and the laws forbidding exposing it, be revealed to her. Perhaps then it would mean something to her as well.
“And the risk of being at your beck and call night and day because I’m so addicted to your kiss that I can’t walk away?” She snorted at the thought. “That’s okay, Mr. Black.”
So much for the subtle dare. Not that he had really expected her to fall for it.
“At least there’s a way to prove or disprove the theory.” He shrugged. “What do you have to offer to disprove my suspicion that you’re part of the Navajo Breed Underground Network that relocates and rescues Breeds that the Council has targeted?”
“The same as you have.” She shrugged as one little brow cocked a little higher than the other and laughter gleamed in her eyes. “Yep, sounds like a stalemate to me.”
Oh, he could show her a stalemate.
Stygian stood slowly, straightening before moving toward her.
“Just because you’re not lying doesn’t mean I can’t smell the deception beneath your words.”
He faced her as the primal hunger tearing through him fought for dominance. Keeping his h
ands off her was possibly the hardest battle of his life.
“Just because I’m human doesn’t mean I can’t sense your deception,” she informed him defiantly as she stared back at him with narrowed eyes. “And don’t think you can intimidate me so easily.”
She straightened, anger flaring to meet the irritation she could see brewing inside him.
“It’s a damned dangerous game you and your friends are playing, Liza.” Raking his fingers through his hair, Stygian clenched his jaw and fought to deny the animal instinct that he bind her to him immediately. That he turn her need to fight against the Genetics Council and their soldiers to a hunger so hot it would blister both their senses.
“Me and my friends?” She propped slender fingers over the curve of her hips, facing him with innate feminine defiance. “Excuse me, Mr. Black, but the Navajo did not come on your land demanding your most precious treasures, nor did we lie to you to search for ghosts that may or may not exist. You and yours came to us.” Her stubborn chin lifted stubbornly. “You’ve all but taken over our capital. You attempt to force our president to bend to your will and you take advantage of an agreement the Navajo made in good faith to aid the Breeds in their battle for freedom. You”—one delicate finger was suddenly pushed with feminine arrogance into the center of his chest—“have done all that and more. If a foreign country attempted this with the U.S. president, then war would have been declared.”
Her finger retreated.
The delicate hand returned to her hip, fingers spread, legs braced slightly apart in an unconscious fighting stance.
“And you think withholding information to punish Jonas is somehow justified because we didn’t come to you begging?” he bit out between clenched teeth.
“And you believe because we do not know where three tortured victims of the Genetics Council are hiding that you can attempt to poke and prod and demand access to every part of our lives?” she questioned incredulously. “We owe you nothing, Mr. Black. But for more than a century, each time a Breed has come to the Navajo for help, we’ve given it. If we could help that poor little baby, then have no doubt every Breed in the Navajo Nation would be on Jonas Wyatt’s doorstep attempting to do just that.”
“Until now, the Navajo have always extended the information Breeds have needed.” Until the information they needed possibly imposed on a promise to another.
“Listen to you,” she snapped. “What promise was made and to whom? Do you think I lied to Jonas when he all but kidnapped me to question me about people I’ve never seen in my entire life?”
“You came into that hotel with a live link, possibly to an enemy, and didn’t even attempt to inform us,” he growled back at her. “You and your underground organization deliberately deceived us for your own agenda.”
Disbelief filled her expression and turned the soft scent of summer to one infused with flashes of heat as she glared back at him.
“I am an undercover agent for the Navajo Law Enforcement Agency,” she gritted out. “The op I was a part of to draw in the Coyote Breeds watching me for the past weeks had nothing to do with the Bureau of Breed Affairs, Jonas Wyatt or any Breed outside those currently stalking me. That was none of your business, nor was it any of Wyatt’s or anyone else’s, thank you very much.”
It wasn’t a lie. She was an agent for the covert division of the Navajo Law Enforcement Office. The operation was conducted by several of the agents of that office, and the Breeds would have been turned over to the proper authorities if caught, Liza knew.
If Stygian, Jonas or anyone from the Breed communities did as she and Cullen expected them to do and hacked the Law Enforcement Offices computers, then they would find that same information.
Stygian stared back at her, his lips pressed tightly together as he held back the curse that would have slipped past his lips.
An undercover agent? His mate was an investigator attempting to draw out Coyote soldiers so merciless that even their own Breed refused to claim them?
“There is no record of you working with the Law Enforcement Agency.” One more second, one more confrontational remark and he was going to kiss her.
The need was pounding through him. It was racing through his blood veins and pounding hard and heavy through his dick.
“Well, now, if that information was so easy to find, then the undercover part would be rather useless, wouldn’t it?” The question was heavily laced with sarcasm. “What was I supposed to do, Stygian? Take out an ad in the paper first, just for you?”
If she didn’t stop, the tenuous grip he had on his control would be shot. The defiance and sheer stubborn will was awakening a part of him he had no idea how to force back.
Before Stygian realized he was moving, before he could stop himself, he had his hands on her.
Gripping a hip with one hand, he pulled her to him. The fingers of the other threading through her hair, he drew her head back for his kiss as his lowered.
“Mate me, bind me to you without my knowledge of what you’re doing or how it will affect my life, and I promise you, I’ll make your life a hell you will never forget.”
His lips were almost on hers.
The glands beneath his tongue were swollen and throbbing, aching for the heat of her kiss.
She knew, damn her. She knew what she was doing to him. She knew the agonizing need tearing through him and still, she was defying him, attempting to force from him what she had to know he had vowed not to give up.
“This time,” he growled furiously, his hips pressing into her, his cock pounding at her lower stomach. “This time you win. But be prepared.” His lips were all but touching hers. “Be prepared, Liza, because you are mine. Mine. And I promise you, I will claim you soon.”
And it would be a claiming he swore she would never escape.
Her lips parted, he could see that mocking, sarcastic little tongue of hers getting ready to push him further, to shred the final threads holding back the animal inside him that was snarling for release.
And he could feel fate getting ready to completely kick his ass, because he knew, knew he was going to kiss her. It was just such an accepted, forgone conclusion that the explosion of splinters suddenly tearing from the wood post behind her took nearly a heartbeat to register.
A heartbeat