Authors: Susan Laine
Then again, Kieran was in the dark when it came to mating anyway. All he knew was wolves mated for life, and apparently so did werewolves. And they were immortal, so that was one hell of a commitment. But how did mating work then? Was Gabriel being honest when he said she would never be his mate?
Suddenly Gabriel spoke again, startling Kieran out of his confused thoughts. “How do you feel, Victoria? Do you feel flushed and hot? Is your skin tingling? Are you out of breath? Does your heart beat itself right out of your chest? Do you want nothing more than to tear open that cell door, run in and tear my jeans off so you can take my cock down your throat and then so deep inside your pussy you’d think we were born one person?”
It was Kieran who was so hot and bothered that he barely knew which way was up and which down. Every one of Gabriel’s descriptions seemed written with him in mind, and he felt all those things, the sensations pooling in his groin like a boiling lake of molten lava. He couldn’t take his eyes off the prisoner, who didn’t look at him but whose attention for some reason echoed through every fiber of Kieran’s being.
Holy. Shit. Gabriel King is
my
mate
.
While Kieran was busy trying to come to terms with the fact that his whole life had just turned upside down in the span of a heartbeat, Victoria didn’t seem to know what to say, and she kept opening and closing her mouth like a fish on dry land. “Do not speak to me in that lewd manner, mister. I am a lady.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Lady or not, you still understood my meaning.”
Victoria’s fair cheeks blossomed a rosy pink as she blushed vehemently. “I see that this is the wrong time and place to get through to you. After a few days in here all by your lonesome, I am confident you will see things from my point of view.” All of a sudden, she let out a happy cry of girlish glee and clapped her hands in excitement, practically bouncing on the soles of her high-heel-clad feet. “Oh, you will
love
being with me! I have so many wonderful things planned for us. I thought about honeymooning in Paris. France, of course, not Texas. Or maybe in Firenze. Oh, Venice is absolutely
gorgeous
this time of year.”
As Victoria rambled, lost in an inner world, Kieran had a bad feeling, and it pressed tight in his chest. Accustomed to working for greedy, selfish people who desired some kind of edge over mythical beings, Kieran found Victoria Adler’s obsessive madness much more worrisome. The unit leader, Deck, had not mentioned any specifics about their client (he rarely divulged that kind of superfluous information), but surely he must have noticed that this woman was missing a few marbles.
Unless… maybe this woman was
not
their client, but just a representative. Yet she spoke in a possessive manner, as though she were the one signing their paychecks, so to speak. Not usually uncomfortable being kept in the dark, this time Kieran was painfully aware of all that he had given up by surrendering to Deck’s authority without question. How many Gabriel Kings had he sent to people just like Victoria Adler without question and without so much as a thought of what he had done?
Kieran shuddered, and he couldn’t look at Victoria anymore, so he sought out anything else to distract himself from a wave of remorseful nausea. It was in this moment of utter weakness, when his defenses were down, that his gaze found the darkened flames of Gabriel’s chocolate-brown eyes as the man stared at him from the other end of the room—behind bars, not backing down, and showing no sign of recognition or warmth. If this man was Kieran’s mate, he was certainly playing it cool, Kieran thought glumly.
Then it hit him.
Gabriel is trying to protect me. He doesn’t know me as anything other than an enemy who abducted him and took his freedom—and yet he’s protecting me
.
Kieran wished for the ground to open up and devour him right then and there as the full weight of his shame landed on his shoulders.
Shaking himself out of his reverie, he fought for calm. What was his next play?
Victoria sighed, and buried in her voice was fatigue. With all that bouncy energy, she must have depleted her resources, and she waved a hand through the air in an elegant but languid gesture. “I’ll make sure you’re fed the finest courses, Gabriel. You will not want to leave me ever.” Throwing her plentiful head of hair about, she gave a shining bright smile and left.
It wasn’t until the reinforced steel door closed that Kieran realized even now he and Gabriel were not alone. Cameras with microphones would record their interactions and their every move. He prayed silently that Gabriel would not try to speak to him yet. For a moment, unable to distinguish between relief and frustration, Kieran watched as Gabriel’s gaze dropped to the floor and stayed there, his whole position seemingly at ease—even in chains.
Moving cautiously, he stared at Gabriel, who didn’t react in any way. Kieran turned to face the camera in the corner on the outside of the cell and used military hand gestures to indicate he was leaving his post and coming up to the control room. Without waiting to hear a reply through his earcom, he went up the stairs and left the room, closing the door behind him.
The guard change would be in two hours, now less than that. Victoria’s talk with Gabriel had eaten up precious seconds that Kieran did not have. Deck led a group of twelve men, himself and Kieran included, and the Adler mansion undoubtedly had its own security forces. At the moment, though, Kieran’s main concern was his own men—who he was about to betray.
H
IS
mate had disappeared up the stairs five minutes ago, and Gabe had little doubt that his message about the physical responses of the mating process had fallen on deaf ears. As he discarded the possibility his mate could help him escape, Gabe was forced to conclude that he had only his own wits to fall back on since he had been left to his own devices.
Despite her apparent lunacy, Victoria was Gabe’s best bet. She was in love with her own image of a man, but perhaps with a little persuasion and charm he could convince her to—
The door opened with a metallic clank, and two pairs of feet descended. Keeping his eyes aimed at the floor, Gabe wondered if it was chow time or if they had come to mock him or even hurt him.
“See? The lock looks defective. Thank God the puppy’s still in chains, or we’d be in some serious shit.”
Barely containing his confused frown, Gabe listened to his mate’s low cadence and his words, which made no sense. But he didn’t get the chance to ponder too long because as soon as the other man stepped closer to the lock to inspect it, Gabe’s mate grabbed him from behind, one arm wound tight across the man’s chest while his other hand was busy injecting something into the man’s neck. After groaning and flailing about for a few breaths, the man slumped, his eyes closed, and he went down.
“Quickly,” Gabe’s mate ordered with a low hiss. He twisted the cell door keys off the man’s belt, unlocked the door, and dashed close to Gabe to unlock his restraints with a fast snap of his wrists. “My name’s Kieran, and I don’t have time to explain. Take that man’s clothes and put them on. Fucking hurry! It won’t take the rest of the unit long to discover the control room empty and the cameras turned off.”
Practical as always, Gabe resisted the urge to pull his mate near. Every whiff of him was like an aphrodisiac, calling out to him. But he also didn’t fail to notice that Kieran veered off and intentionally avoided touching him.
I guess he did notice his instinct to mate after all
.
Gabe walked closer to the unconscious guard and disrobed him. Without a word he shucked off his jeans and plaid shirt and put on the pitch-black uniform. The pants were too tight and too short, and the button-down shirt looked about ready to burst at the seams. The small boots would not fit him, though, not even when he used a knife to cut open the tip of the shoes so that his toes could stick out. They were simply too cramped and uncomfortable, and he had to forgo them, praying no one would notice an absence of shoes.
“Ready?” Kieran spoke to him, and for the first time Gabe had the chance to actually look at his mate. There were gray slivers of steel within those blue eyes, and his hard-lined face had more than a few old white scars. Gabe wondered if the man ever smiled. The absence of laugh lines around his mouth and eyes suggested he never did. “Take his ball cap. Hide your face as much as you can.” Gabe put on the black baseball cap, and added to the disguise with the sunglasses from the guard’s chest pocket. “Take his gun.” Gabe complied without argument. He did not like guns in any way, shape, or form, but he was fluent in their use. “That is a semi-automatic, and you load it—”
Before Kieran could finish, Gabe had already taken a clip, inserted it into the gun, and made sure the safety was on before sliding the gun into the hip holster and strapping it on. He noted the mix of prideful awe and disconcerted suspicion in Kieran’s eyes as he took stock of what Gabe had just done. Then Kieran shook his head, as if to clear it from wayward thoughts, and went up the stairs to the door. Glancing over his shoulder, he said gruffly, “If we come across anyone, let me do the talking. Our destination is the side entrance. There’ll be vehicles there. You understand?”
Gabe nodded in response. No point in wasting time with small talk.
The outside corridor was empty, but there was a breeze, suggesting a doorway nearby. Gabe remembered they hadn’t walked far inside before he’d been led down the stairs to his underground prison. Painted light yellow, the walls around them closed in narrowly and indicated they were in the back of the mansion, far from the wide-open spaces reserved for guests.
The scent of gardenia, jasmine, and waxflower filled the fresh, cool air even with the occasional hotter gust from the outside, and Gabe felt like sneezing. He preferred cold mountain air and the scent of grass, the earth, and pine trees. He’d hated the pungent smells of the Deep South when he’d been here nearly a hundred years ago, and not much had changed since then.
His clothes constricting his movements, Gabe followed Kieran down the hall to the back door, which was, surprisingly, unguarded. Outside, under the shade of massive magnolia trees with moss hanging amid the foliage, there were two parked black SUVs and no one in sight.
“Must be my lucky day…,” Kieran murmured under his breath as he took quick stock of the area before hurrying to the first car with a silent Gabe in tow. The car doors were unlocked, and the keys were in the ignition. Kieran started the car and eased down the driveway. “If and when we make it to the front gates of the estate, keep your head down, but for Christ’s sake, play along if necessary. Can you do that?”
Gabe took a good look at his rescuer and saw how pale his skin was, slick with a light sheen of sweat, how shallow his breathing was, and how his features had hardened into sharp angles and rough lines in anticipation of their escape plan going awry. All Gabe said was, “Yes.”
C
AN
the fucker sound any calmer?
Kieran gritted his teeth, annoyed at how little emotion Gabriel seemed to display, but he knew this would have been the wrong time for that mess anyway. All he could do at the moment was hope they got out of the compound in one piece.
The driveway was at most three hundred yards in length, but the drive from the back of the mansion to the front gates felt like a hundred miles.
Fuck
. Cursing inwardly, Kieran was aware that the only reason he felt so nervous now was because he had a charge he needed to protect. If it had been just him, he would have been able to bluff the pants off the president of the United States. As it was, his anxiety was palpable.
Squaring his shoulders and fidgeting in his seat, he searched for a laid-back position, and by the time they reached the gate, he was secure enough to hustle. There was a small booth by the closed gates, with a house security guard inside. The big man in the natural white uniform of the security company exited the booth as they pulled up.
Kieran rolled down the window of the passenger side with a flick of a button, and with a wicked smile, he leaned over Gabriel to speak to the guard—who had a slight paunch and breath that held a hint of bourbon.
Easy peasy
.
With a courteous nod, Kieran said almost lazily, “Deck and the guys wanted a drink, and your fucker friends in the house wouldn’t let us near the liquor cabinet. So now I gotta haul ass to the closest liquor store after the fucking retrieval’s done just to sate their fucking drinking habit. You believe that?” Shaking his head as if mortally wounded, he ground out a low-pitched curse and huffed indignantly, “But the boss is the boss, you know?”
The guard chuckled. “Yeah, I hear that. Ain’t no ‘no’ when it comes to the boss.” He waved toward the road and said, “Go on through.” Back inside the booth, the guard pushed a button and the front gates opened.
“Hey,” Kieran called out to the guard, recapturing his attention. “Where
is
the nearest fucking liquor store anyhow?”
Now the guard was really laughing out loud, snidely. “Go south. There’s a gas station a couple of miles away. Behind that there’s a hardware store and a liquor store.” Then he winked more than a little maliciously. “You pussies have fun now.”
Kieran flipped the guard a finger, eliciting a new set of chortles from the man. With as much composure as he could muster, Kieran eased the SUV through the now-open gates and onto the tarmac, heading south just like the guard had suggested.
And just like that their ordeal was over—for the time being anyway.
Kieran was damn near bursting at the seams with all the questions bubbling inside him.
Chapter Two
G
ABRIEL
, however, was all business, Kieran noted. “Where are we?”
For a brief second Kieran was confused. In a car? But understanding soon dawned on him as he observed Gabriel giving the GPS a thorough once-over. “Louisiana.”