~*~
“Here you go, love. Sixty seconds, and you’ll be good as new.”
William capped the vial of imbine oil and arranged Zee’s limp form comfortably on a cushion in the far corner of a steel cage, which sat a safe distance from any and all possible weapons in his fire and lantern-lit chamber. He risked a few seconds to lift her eyelids to examine her pupils. Dilated, but shrinking rapidly as the aromatic antidote took effect.
Too rapidly.
“Bugger,” he muttered, launching himself backward and slamming the door just milliseconds before a fully shifted Zee hit it. The force of her charge scooted the heavy steel structure several inches across the floor.
Holy shite. He kept backing up, because her arm shot between the bars, missing his throat by inches. Her rich scent assaulted his nose, and he fought the wildness that swelled his cock.
“Bastard!” she snarled. “I thought I smelled you. What the hell is this?”
Her glorious body vibrated with rage, every inch of her firm, bare skin flushed. Her black hair waved in a wild cloud around her face. Her gaze zinged rapidly to all sides of the cage, and an entirely different expression took over. Panic. He knew that feeling well.
“Let me the fuck out of here,” she said, low and hoarse. “Now.”
“Not until you’ve had a chance to calm down, love—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“—and I’ve had a chance to explain.”
“This is for the Lisbon job, isn’t it? I beat you to that amphora fair and square.”
He bit back a retort and forced himself to say, “That you did.”
His admission did nothing to calm her, and she began pacing the cage, whacking the flats of her hands against the bars, narrowed eyes searching the steel for any weakness.
“William.” Her tone went strangely flat. “I have to get out of here.”
She paced in ever decreasing circles until she ended up frozen in place in the center.
He cautiously approached the cage, eyes narrowing as he watched her breasts rise and fall, rise and fall. Then stop.
“You have to breathe, love.”
After an agonizing few seconds, her chest heaved.
“It’s a natural reaction. It will pass.”
She wrapped her arms around her smooth, flat belly and turned her light silver eyes on him. “What would you know about my reactions to anything?”
“Because you and I…we are the same kind.”
Eyebrows slammed together. “We are nothing alike. I would have sensed it.”
“No. You wouldn’t. You were raised outside the enclave and never taught the finer skills.”
Suddenly she was at the bars of the cage, lifting her arms to grab a handhold high above her head.
“I’ll show you skills. Just let me out.”
Her nipples were tight little buds, and he couldn’t keep his hungry gaze from caressing them. Her warm scent washed over him. Sweet mother of Camma, she was ripe and ready. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to get her back to the enclave without mating with her.
When he made no move to comply, she shoved away from the bars and continued pacing. She kept herself side-on to him, which put her high breasts and curvy butt on display. If she was looking to distract him, it was working.
“What enclave?”
He swallowed hard. Blood pounded painfully in his groin. To distract himself he busied his fingers taking off his cloak. Big mistake. Her gaze swept down to the front of his pants and she purred at his reaction. He kept talking, because it helped him to remember to breathe.
“Our ancestral home in Scotland. You, along with your entire litter, was stolen from us not long after you were born.”
“Us? Who’s us?”
“Clan Cugar. Our families have hidden in the Highlands for thousands of years. It’s time for all of us to come home.”
A strange expression chased across her face. Hope? He couldn’t be sure; it was gone too quickly.
“Home. There’s a concept. Funny, you people never seemed terribly interested in bringing me ‘home’ before. Why now? After all the years we’ve been in competition?”
He risked moving closer to the cage, resting his hands on a crossbar. Her eyes followed the movement and her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips.
Concentrate, you fool.
“Once a Cugar is separated from the clan, our wild, loner nature takes over and it’s near impossible to bring anyone back. Our numbers, particularly our females, are dwindling. These past months we have been gathering what’s left of our clan for the Choosing. You are the most feral of the lost ones, so you were left for last.”
“Ah.” She padded closer to him, completely unconcerned about her nudity. In fact, she seemed to be enjoying it—and its effect on him. Only a tell-tale ripple along her jaw line and the sheen of moisture on her skin betrayed her distress at being caged. “So that’s why my last few jobs have been so easy. You’ve been busy herding cats.”
She was only inches away now, her silvery eyes fixed on him. He stared at her lush lips, tightened his fingers on the bar to keep from reaching for her. He must wait for the Choosing. She might not be for him. With so few pureblood females left, there was a very real possibility that none of them would be for him.
The thought of another male plunging his cock inside her body, marking her satiny skin… His knuckles whitened on the bar, and sweat broke out on his forehead. Not even his years of disciplined training could prevent it.
“No. Not a herd. Just one. One’s—”
She reached for him first, slipping her hands through the bars and closing them over his cock, pumping him hard through his pants.
“—enough,” he groaned. He let go of the cage and cradled her breasts in his hands, thumbing the tips and reveling fiercely in the sounds she made.
“And the stone?” Her face loomed maddeningly close, so close her breath poured hot over his lips. “That was a plant, wasn’t it?
“No, it’s not. But I let you have it first because it was the only way I could get you in one place long enough to…shite.”
She caught the head of his cock between her thumbs and toyed with it.
With a low growl he reached around her as far as the cage would allow and pressed her closer. The cold metal dug into her flesh, and she shuddered in reaction but kept up her assault and reached for his lower lip with her tongue.
A single tiny taste of her, and he knew he would be lost. He shut his eyes to try one last time to regain control.
By the time he realized his mistake she had his cock gripped in one hand, and with the other she pressed his own belt buckle knife to his throat. He was trapped on the outside of the cage, suspended between heaven and hell.
Damned hormones.
“Would you like to hear where my ‘home’ was for the first three years of my life, William?”
He managed a ghost of a smile. “I’m not going anywhere, lass.”
Her chest pumped air in and out. “A cage. In a zoo.”
His smile fled and he stared at her face, now twisted with fury.
“When they tried to use me in their breeding program—”
William closed his eyes and hissed.
“—I went crazy and learned damned quick that I could shift. The zookeeper learned, too. He learned, after they scraped his balls off the floor of my cage, there wouldn’t be a next generation in his family. Now if you’re planning on having your own litter someday…Get. Me. The fuck. Out of here.”
He ground his teeth. “The key is in my left front pocket.”
Quick as light, the knife left his throat and sliced soundlessly through fabric.
“Easy down there, love.”
“Easy is the one thing we never were, love.”
She planted one hand on his chest and sent him into the nearest wall.
He bounced right back, but she had already skinned out of the cage. He snagged her around the waist in mid-air as she leaped for t
he window, never mind the stained-glass panes weren’t designed to open, and they were 70 stories up.
His momentum carried them both into the far wall, where he had to use every skill he possessed to pin her, spread-eagled, to the cold stones. The damp chamber air chilled his back where her nails had ripped his shirt to shreds and left stinging scratches behind.
The only part of her not under his control was her mouth. She opened it, and he braced himself for the curses he was sure were about to pour out.
She extended her fangs and sank them into his shoulder.