Authors: Lora Leigh
Chapter One
Six years later
She could feel Jacob watching her. She could always feel him watching her. As long as Faith had memories, she had memories of Jacob and those light blue eyes as they followed her wherever she went. Or they had, until their escape from the Labs. Until he left six years before.
Since his return several weeks ago, he was never far from her though. He hovered over her now, making her feel self-conscious, on edge. She was a Liaison of Pack Security, not an Enforcer. She negotiated peace between the Packs, and carried information from the various informants within the secret Genetics Council members that still existed within America. She wasn’t a killer. She wasn’t a soldier. Not that she couldn’t do her job now. She could do what she had to do. But Jacob’s obvious concern that she couldn’t do it rankled.
They were Wolf Breeds. Created in a Lab, raised beneath the cold, unfeeling regard of the scientists, doctors and soldiers assigned there. Their DNA had been re-engineered at conception, their sex determined, their strength enhanced, their senses altered. She wondered if even the scientists who created them had known what to expect. She knew the soldiers that hunted them now could have no idea what they were walking into.
Faith watched the soldiers move silently along the mountain face. She held the automatic rifle close. She watched them with narrow-eyed intent, remembering so many more like them. The soldiers at the Labs. Those who held her down as Bainesmith injected her with the drugs that tortured her body, drove her insane with need. The same soldiers who had viciously whipped her brother Aiden weeks before that for halting their attempt to rape her. Soldiers who had in every way made the Pack members’ lives hell. They all deserved to die.
For the moment, the soldiers weren’t moving in her direction, thankfully. There were two teams, six men in each, scouring the lower point of the mountain. She was reasonably confident they wouldn’t find her, but one never knew. She fingered the trigger. They would be so damned easy to take out. She could blow their heads off with one bullet and no one would miss them. They were evil. Black hearted, inhuman, more animal than they claimed she was.
She could feel the adrenaline pumping through her system, the rage and anger filling her. They were there to destroy her, to destroy her Pack, and she was supposed to have mercy. Have mercy to ensure the approval of a government that had secretly backed the horror of the Genetics Labs. Have mercy to ensure her own survival. She was rapidly running out of mercy.
“You okay, Faith?” Jacob’s voice was a soft intrusion in the headset she wore.
She breathed in deeply. She fought to still the raging beat of her heart, the hatred that made her want to cover the forest in bullets. Screams resounded in her ears, memories, dark and brutal, threatened to rise up to swamp her.
“Aidan, take her position—”
“Leave off,” she hissed into the mic. “I’m in control, Jacob.”
Her voice was hard and cold. For a second she imagined the flare of heat and anger her tone would bring to his eyes. Another hard breath. This wasn’t the time to allow the anger to take control of her, to let her emotions surge so dangerously.
“Three are breaking off, heading up the mountain,” she reported, watching the camouflaged figures closely as they moved through the forest. “Looks like advanced scouts.”
They couldn’t afford to let them get too far up the mountain. The cabins, though well hidden, were not impossible to find. They were out of Pack territory though, so that made it harder to secure their location, and their safety.
“I have them.” Aidan’s voice had her lips twisting in anger. Of course, he was closer, but it was the need for violence that spurred her disappointment.
“Let’s see if we can’t find a way to push them back without a confrontation, or giving ourselves away,” Jacob told them quietly. “I don’t relish the thought of finding another mountain to hide in. We don’t strike unless they break the perimeters of the cabins. Remember that.”
The reminder was directed at her, Faith knew, it was also an order to move.
Staying low, she began a slow path parallel to that of the soldiers moving in a canvassing motion through the forest. As though they expected to find one of them hiding behind a tree. Or up a tree, or in a bush. They were morons.
She kept her eyes on them, the rifle ready, her finger on the trigger. She bit her lip, wishing this mission were over, that Wolfe and his mate were safe so she could return home, return to the comforts she had surrounded herself with. They were cold comforts. Replacements for the man who had never returned, but for now, they were all she had.
The mark on her shoulder throbbed in reminder. Jacob’s mark. Her blood thundered, her cunt clenched. Faith fought to breathe. She had done that before. When the merciless bastards injected her with their drugs, making her body and her mind betray her. Her pulse thundered, rioted as arousal, stark and all consuming, filled her once again at the memory.
Her breath hitched.
“Faith.” His voice was soft, gentle, but she could hear the command beneath the tone. “Fall behind me, Faith.”
“I’m fine,” she whispered, almost stumbling as the dark memories poured over her.
Was it reality or a dream? How often had she questioned her memories of that evening? Jacob, his voice hard and dark, thick from his need as he touched her. His hands hadn’t been rough, yet neither had they been gentle. His mouth had been ravenous, his tongue destructive, sweeping over her cunt, plunging into her vagina.
Then his hands, harder, rougher as he turned her, positioning her before him, preparing her, not for the invasion she had expected, but one more primal, and much more dominate than she had ever expected.
A sound to her right, faint but warning, had her turning in alarm. The heavy male body tackled her. For a moment, Faith didn’t know if it was reality or memories that had her falling beneath the heavy weight as hard hands groped at her breasts. She could hear Jacob screaming in her ear, the retort of gunfire, the screams of wounded.
She dropped the rifle, twisting away from the heavy weight as she came to her feet, her dagger falling into her hand from the sheath at her thigh. She grinned as she faced the bastard who aimed his rifle at her face.
Fury, thick and hot surged through her veins as she snarled, giving him a clear view of her healthy canines. She almost terrified herself with her daring as she growled low and threatening. Death didn’t frighten her now, not anymore. All the wasted years that stretched ahead of her, deprived of her mate, did though.
“Do it,” she whispered. “You die either way.”
His finger tightened on the trigger. Faith flinched as a shot broke the sudden silence, and blood sprayed around her. Not her blood. The soldier’s blood. She stood still, silent as he fell to her feet, his eyes wide in surprise.
Breathing heavily, she looked up. Jacob stood tall and fierce thirty feet from her. His eyes were narrowed in fury; his face chiseled from cold hard marble as he took in the blood that she knew marred her face and neck. He inhaled deeply, growling with a low, primal sound that echoed in her womb. His light blue eyes glittered in his dark face, his expression so taut it was savage.
She backed up.
“Go.” His voice carried a ring of fury, lust, and pain. “We have to get to the cabins. These are Bainesmith’s soldiers. I’ll deal with you later.”
Chapter Two
Dr. Delia Bainesmith was dead. That was all that mattered now. The evil she spread with her human DNA re-engineering was over. The cruel, malicious pleasure she found in their pain had been put to an end. And now, with Hope curled on his lap, Wolfe was finally reunited with the mate he had given up six years before.
His second in command and Enforcer of Pack Security, Jacob, turned from them, fighting the alternating joy and envy he felt for his leader. Wolfe had nearly waited too long to claim the woman he had been forced to leave. Now, they would be able to make up for those years they had lost.
Jacob refused to look back at the couple as he left the cabin. Anger and need rode him hard, arousal was a steady beat of blood in his cock to torment and torture him. But it wasn’t the woman Wolfe held that kept Jacob’s body in a constant state of readiness. It was the one who awaited him outside.
As he closed the door behind him, Faith moved from her position at the end of the house, her black eyes watching him warily as he stalked toward her. She was a Wolf Breed, the slender, compact lines of her body were lightly muscular, her breasts high and firm beneath the black T-shirt she wore with black jeans. Her reddish brown hair was a raggedly cut cap of silk and framed her slender face in a way that gave her a vulnerable, untouchable look.
“They’re all right?” she asked as he neared her.
Jacob growled, baring his teeth in warning as she stepped back from him. She was always stepping back, never forward.
“Were they not, you would have known,” he bit out, furious with her once again.
“Well, bite me, why don’t you,” she snapped, her brows lowering in a frown. “It was a reasonable question.”
“From a most unreasonable female,” he accused her harshly. “Return to the cabin and rest. You have not slept in days and I’m tired of the shadows under your eyes.”
The shadows, and the light of fear that haunted her gaze ate into his soul. She was still small, delicate, the sight of her made him tremble in hunger. The thought of how he must have hurt her before made him shudder in fear.
“You rest.” Her body came to attention immediately, anger pulsing through her, scenting the air. “Do I tell you how often to sleep?”
He turned to her more fully, fighting the need to reach out to her, to drag her to him.
“Do as I said,” he snapped.
“Fuck you, Jake, you go to sleep…”
“Do not worry, the day will come when you will do just that, Faith. Until you can handle it, I suggest you run now and run fast, or you may learn what it feels like to have your mate mount you without your permission.” Fury snapped in his body. Her continued defiance roused the beast and made it howl.
He watched her pale. Terror flashed in her eyes a second before she ran. He cursed violently, dragging his hands through his hair as he tamped down the beast that demanded he run her down. He couldn’t. He never could. She was his mate, and yet he would be forever denied her touch. His ravenous, grieving howl echoed through the mountains now, as it echoed through his soul.
Damn Bainesmith, the Labs and Faith. For those three reasons he had stayed away from his Pack, and the woman who tempted and tormented him. For two of those reasons he would leave again.
He couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t trust the lack of control that had raged through his body the first time he had taken her. And he couldn’t face her fear of him now. He saw it in her eyes each time he came near her, heard it in her voice when she spoke to him, and he hated it. Hated hearing it, and hated himself for causing it.
He stalked to the jeep awaiting him several feet away. It was already packed and ready to go. Wolfe wouldn’t need him any longer. The others could clean up the mess, and Wolfe would have them all packing up and heading out soon. There wasn’t much left for him to do. He started the ignition, stared toward the cabin Faith had stayed in and shook his head. Damn, if only she was a little older, a little more experienced. If only they had been born, rather than created, raised rather than trained. If only he could have stayed—
* * * * *
Faith watched the jeep pull out of the cabin yard, her eyes narrowing in anger and pain as Jacob drove away. He wouldn’t be back. She knew he wouldn’t be. Her mate. The thought was a silent sneer.
She hadn’t seen him in six years. Had waited each day with bated breath, thinking that would be the day he would return to claim her. That he would realize he needed her. Realize she needed him.
Her teeth clenched as anger seared her insides, as hot and devastating as the arousal that often plagued her as well. She didn’t need him. She ignored the little voice inside her that assured her she did. She could live without him easily. She tamped down the protest from her heart and from her body that she couldn’t. She had her vibrators; she had her home, her coffee and her freedom. Who needed a mate? She did of course, sarcastic and mocking, her inner voice jumped to the fore.
She sighed wearily, sadly. It would be time to return home soon. They would get Wolfe and Hope back to the Pack compound outside New Mexico, and then she would return to New York. Back to her life. Back to her job. Back to her loneliness.
Chapter Three
Six months later
He knew that ass. Jacob watched the woman as she shifted her hips, looked around the bar, then turned back to the bartender. Her short auburn hair was cut close, framing her irregular face and giving her an almost pixie look. She was barely five feet five inches, dressed in soft black jeans, a black leather jacket and hiking boots. And she had the prettiest rear he had ever seen on a woman. She was tempting seduction, hot lust and a warning he didn’t need. He groaned silently.
She shifted again. Her buttocks flexed and his dick throbbed. Hell, he didn’t need this. It had taken more years than he wanted to remember before he stopped waking in a sweat, the feel of that tight ass gripping his cock, driving him crazy. Hell of a time for a rescue, he had always thought. And here she was, six months after he was forced to walk away from her again, somewhere she shouldn’t be, tempting him and the fragile control that kept him away from her. And this was the wrong damned place and the wrong damned time to be tempting his control.
The dirty little South American bar was filled with thieves, cutthroats, mercenaries and whores. He was here to buy information, get laid and get out, in that order. And she walks in. He sighed wearily. His internal trouble barometer was going off the scales, and the six yahoos at the table nearest her looked much too interested in that cute butt to suit him. That was his ass. Didn’t matter that he had never finished fucking it, or the tempting little cunt beneath it. He still considered it his if it was anywhere in his vicinity. And what the hell was that man doing with her? She wasn’t supposed to be with a man.