Authors: Lora Leigh
“Get out of my office,” Del-Rey ordered him coldly. “Now.”
He turned his back on Brim, listened until the other man walked to the door. Brim paused then and Del-Rey tensed further, knowing he wouldn’t like the other man’s parting shot.
“I’m your brother.”
Del-Rey flinched at the reminder.
“We lost our sisters in that hellhole. We lost brothers. Do you know, Del-Rey, until I received that memo this morning, I actually resented you for refusing to acknowledge that tie between us.” There was amusement in his voice.
Del-Rey turned back to him slowly.
Brim shrugged at the glare he directed to him. “I’ve decided it really wasn’t personal. Nor was it the fear for your brothers’ lives that caused you to deny those few of us still living.”
“And you decided this based on what?” Del-Rey could feel the fury building inside him, tearing through him.
Brim’s lips twisted into a cold smile. “You’ve just rejected your coya, Alpha Leader. Any man that could do that doesn’t have a soul. He doesn’t have brothers, nor does he have sisters. I think I’ll simply count myself lucky you have enough honor that you didn’t drown those of your bloodline while we were still pups.”
With that, Brim opened the door and left the room, closing it slowly behind him, a second before Del-Rey’s snarl of fury echoed through the room.
Fuck them. Fuck them all. He had a soul. A soul that cringed in horror at the memories, a soul that writhed and bled at the bottom of his guts at the thought of everything he had lost over the years. A soul that wept for everything he couldn’t have.
Because having meant losing. And God help them all if he lost his coya.
Anya sat down at her computer hours later, weariness tugging at her as she pulled up the keyboard and activated the hologram monitor.
One email. Private and encrypted.
She pulled it up, noted the date and time of the meeting, confirmed, and then deleted it. She covered her face with her hands as she rested her elbows on the desk and forced back her tears, as well as the need beginning to burn inside her.
She’d received her copy of Brim’s memo that morning before going to the kitchen. She felt as lost now as she had then. She felt as though spring had been canceled. As though the warmth she had so looked forward to had been snatched away from her forever.
“Coya?” Her office door opened and Sharone, Emma and Ashley stepped inside.
Anya swallowed tightly as she lowered her hands and stared at the women who were the same as sisters to her. They had been reassigned by their pack leaders. She had received that particular memo as she moved from the kitchen back to her rooms.
“Don’t,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You can’t use that title any longer, Sharone.”
“You have to do something,” Sharone demanded fiercely. “Do you think a lack of title is going to save your life? He can’t be as insane as to believe that.”
Anya shook her head. “You’ve been reassigned. You still have your scheduled off hours by my request. We’ll have our last girls’ day out in one week. We’ll make a party of it,” she told them.
“Dr. Armani and hopefully Lupina Gunnar will be joining us as well. Be prepared for that.”
Sharone’s eyes widened as the meaning behind Anya’s words became clear.
Ashley slouched against a wall while Emma sat on the couch, her head down as she stared at the floor of the small office.
“And after that?” Sharone asked. “We can’t leave you undefended. Anya, the Breeds that came out of Russia with us are incensed. They’re muttering about leaving the alliance the alphas have built. This is the worst insult he could have dealt you.”
Anya shook her head. No, the worst insult he had dealt her was when he convinced her to come to him, charming her, seducing her with his lies. She was his coya. She was his life. She reaffirmed that he had a soul.
“Coya,” Ashley whispered, her voice heavy. “What he’s done is wrong.”
Anya held her hand up slowly. “Please. Tell the others it’s my wish they remain with the alliance.
They pledged their loyalty to Del-Rey under certain rules. That I be his coya wasn’t one of those rules. They can’t afford to break their word in this world, Sharone.” She shook her head and had to swallow back her tears. “Please. Report to your pack leaders as they asked. I’ll be fine here.”
Ashley moved. She jerked the door open and slammed it closed with a strength that had Anya flinching. Emma rose from her seat and left more slowly, her hands shoved in the pockets of her jeans as Sharone stared back at Anya with a pain-laden expression.
“Tell him,” Sharone said softly. “If you’re harmed, he’s made enemies, Anya. More than he could ever imagine.”
Sharone turned and left the room as Anya felt her breath hitch. She was going to miss them. They were more than friends, and they had always been together. Since she was a little girl and had first found the cells where the five Coyote females were being held.
She, the princess of the Chernov facilities even at age five, had twisted the scientists and doctors around her little finger until the girls she wanted to play with were given partial freedom. They had then formed a bond that had never been broken.
They had never been separated, until now.
“Anya?”
She stiffened at the sound of Del-Rey’s voice at her side. She turned her head, staring at him, seeing the heaviness in his expression, a heaviness reflected in her heart.
“You would have hurt me less had you used that knife you held at my throat in Russia,” she said, breathing out roughly.
“I’m a Coyote,” he said, his voice low. “The most hated and feared of the Breeds, across the world. My coya will live in constant danger. If the world perceives that she is no more than my lover, if the other Breeds perceive that she holds only my body, then she’s safe. If I make a mistake and allow a traitor into our midst here at Base, then you’re safer.”
“Will our children be safer?” she asked.
“Kiowa’s wife hasn’t yet conceived,” he stated. “She doesn’t use the hormone for conception either. We have time to work this out.”
It seemed he had already worked it out.
“I didn’t ask for explanations.” She rose to her feet and disconnected the computer.
There had been no emails, no Breeds asking for advice or assistance. None of the often dozens of requests that filled her inbox. There had been a single email, nothing more.
Just that easily she had been wiped away.
“Anya.” As she moved around her desk, he stopped her, moving to her, his body pressing against hers. “You are every part of my soul. I can’t risk you.”
Keeping her back to him, she closed her eyes at the pain in his voice, at the pain that vibrated through her own soul.
“I understand that,” she finally whispered, and perhaps a part of her did understand. “I’m your lover, nothing more.”
“Only in others’ eyes.” His hands slid around her. “What’s between us is between us, Anya.
You’re my mate. My coya. No matter what the world sees.”
But she wasn’t his coya. That power, that privilege, had been taken from her. She was his bedmate. In the eyes of the world, and now in his eyes as well. Because the benefits she would have brought to his life as anything more had been stripped from her with a single memo.
She was crying inside as his lips pressed against her neck. Crying as the familiar need began to burn low in her stomach, began to curl through her body and rage through her nerve endings.
And still she couldn’t deny him.
As his fingers lifted the hem of her shirt, drawing it over her head, she couldn’t deny him the touch he sought. When he turned her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, she couldn’t deny him the kiss she needed herself. The taste of him, that little bit to hold on to. A part of himself he couldn’t steal from her, simply because nature demanded that he take satisfaction from her alone.
Her arms twined around his neck; emotion seared her insides. This man was her life; every ounce of her belonged to him, no matter how much it hurt. She had realized that in the past two days.
He owned her. She, who had sworn she would never be owned, was owned by this man, this Breed.
“God yes,” he growled as she softened against him. “Hold me, Anya. Hold me close, baby.”
His flesh seemed to warm against her, hers heated beneath his touch. She pushed her shoes from her feet as he released her jeans and drew them over her hips.
She grew hungrier for his kiss, desperate for this connection. The one thing that couldn’t be stolen from her, that couldn’t be taken.
She was sinking beneath the waves of pleasure as he pulled back and turned her, pressed her along the desk until her fingers were curling against the broad forearm he laid beneath her head.
He surrounded her. Not like that first time, when he had just been behind her. As he bent her over now, he surrounded her. His lips were at her neck, licking, biting, sending flash flares of heat surging between her thighs as she felt the crest of his cock tuck against her.
“I need you.” He nipped at her neck. “I need you until I can’t breathe for the need. Until I’m dying inside for you.”
Her chest tightened, ached at the emotion in his voice, the torment that filled them both now, bound them, held them together.
One hand gripped her hip as he turned her head to him, took her lips and worked the thick length of his cock inside her. Slow, steady strokes filled her flesh. He stretched her, burned her until she was gasping against his lips, her legs parting farther, her lips and tongue moving against his in a kiss that bound her spirit to him.
“So sweet. So giving,” he groaned into their kiss before taking her lips in a hungry exploration that mimicked the firm, delving strokes of his cock.
He stroked nerve endings so sensitive from the pulses of pre-cum that she burned for him. He touched her, inside and out, he held her to him, his hips bunching, moving, grinding into her as the spiraling sensations of need began to tear through the last barriers of control she possessed.
The last barriers against the emotions twisting inside her.
“Hold me, Anya.” He tore his lips from hers, embracing her fiercely as he made the male demand.
His cock dug inside her, deep, burrowing thrusts that had her gasping, pleading for release. Her muscles clenched around him, spasmed, milked him as she felt herself climbing higher, always higher. She burned in his arms like wildfire and couldn’t halt the destructive force of it within her mind.
It tore aside any chance to remain aloof, from the man or from the pleasure. Both wrapped around her, spurred her own hungers.
She pressed back, opened herself and screamed out his name as she felt his lips, his tongue, the scrape of his teeth against the mark he had left on her flesh.
Shudders worked through her body. Her nipples ached as the lace of her bra rasped them; her clit was burning, throbbing mindlessly for release as he pounded into her from behind.
Shaking from the need, she gripped his arm as she felt his other hand move between her thighs, as though he sensed, as though he knew this position alone wasn’t going to afford her the relief she needed there.
“Love me again, Anya.” His head pressed against her shoulder. “Please, baby. Love me, just one more time.”
His palm covered the hard bud and ground against it. Quaking tremors of response began to build inside her. Warmth surrounded her now, every part of her. It moved inside her, heated the cold spots and eased the agony that resonated through her soul.
She loved him. She loved him until nothing else mattered, until she was lost inside him and she knew she would never fully escape.
“Love me,” he whispered again.
The pleasure built inside her until it was a whirlwind. Until it raced through her blood, centered at her clit, in her vagina. Until she was exploding with a force that lifted her to her tiptoes and had her teeth biting into his arm as he sank into the bend of her shoulder, his tongue lashing at the mating mark as she felt him swell inside her.
Agonizing throbs of pleasure tore through her. Perspiration dampened both of them, and between them rioting flames of release seared across their nerve endings.
She was shaking in his arms. Shudders that seemed to go to the bone trembled through her as she felt the deep jets of his semen pulsing inside her. Filling her. Completing her until she knew that living without him wasn’t possible. Existing without him wasn’t going to happen.
Anya heard herself whimper as he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed long, long minutes later. He finished undressing her, undressed himself, then moved over her.
“I need you again.”
He was still erect, still hard.
Her thighs parted as she felt him move inside her, working slowly into the swollen tissue as they both cried out at the pleasure of it.
“Sweet Anya,” he groaned as he filled her.
Dely-Rey had never known pleasure as sweet, as rich as fucking her. Sliding his cock inside her, feeling her pussy clench and tighten around him, those convulsive, sucking little motions destroying his control.
The scent of sweet female cream and male lust filled the air as his lips feathered over her lips, then moved to her tight, hard nipples.
She arched to him as he sucked first one, then the other of the hard tips into his mouth. He drew on the tight tips, feeling her nails digging into his shoulders, her legs wrapping around his hips.
This was what he needed from her. All of her. All of her centered right here, in his bed, taking him, needing him. Loving him.
Sweet God, he was losing himself in her and he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t hold it back. He needed more and more, until he shafted into her with hard, hungry thrusts. Until he felt her exploding, heard her screaming his name as he locked inside her again, spilling his release and growling her name like a demented animal that could find sanity nowhere else but in this woman’s arms.
He had hurt her, wounded her pride, he knew that. Her safety was more important. His peace of mind was more secure knowing the risk of being his coya was no longer something he needed to fear.