Authors: Lora Leigh
“More than you’ve likely bargained for,” he assured her as he felt a rush of sudden joy infuse him. “But you have to win this little bet for me first.”
“No problem,” she assured him, her gaze sliding to him with a hint of sensuality, a subtle little flirt that had his cock twitching in excitement as she turned back to the traitor who had failed more than once in his attempt to kill her.
“You betrayed me, Malcolm.” She loosened the belt and holster at her hips. “What made you think you were smart enough to get away with it?”
She could feel Lawe’s concern, she could feel his love and the unfamiliar, confusing demands of the primal strength and determination of the animal she could glimpse in his gaze.
He wasn’t comfortable with it.
He would always fear for her, but if he didn’t, then the love wouldn’t be as strong as she knew it was between them.
“Unfortunately, you survived,” he sneered. “You weren’t supposed to. You got Padric killed. He was ten times the soldier you were, and then you ran your fucking uncle off before I could kill him. Bitch, how do you like knowing he’s hiding from you?”
“He’s dead.” she said with a sigh. “He never would have hid from me. He wouldn’t have deserted me, Malcolm.”
“He did worse than desert you.” He laughed. “He deserted you for a Council scientist,” he screamed. “For a dirty fucking monster maker instead of killing her as he was hired to do.”
She would never convince him that her uncle hadn’t deserted her, or that he wasn’t hiding with the Council scientist he had been hired to find just before he was killed in that warehouse. And she didn’t care.
“I’ll kick his ass for you if he ever shows himself. How’s that?” she promised.
“Kick his ass and let’s roll, baby,” Lawe murmured. “Dog is friendly and was here to collect intel for Jonas before deserting the Council completely. But the dozen moving in on us are heavily armed and gunning for us. I’d like to be gone before they get much closer.”
She paused, her gaze going to Dog and the cigar he was giving her a toothy grin around. Lifting his arm, he tipped two fingers to his forehead in greeting.
“I should have known.” Loosening her muscles she stepped closer to Malcolm. “You never did inspire loyalty, Malcolm. I should have known you hadn’t done so now.”
“Fifteen minutes,” Lawe reminded her as his head bent to bestow a kiss to her forehead, a loving tribute of confidence, love and his belief in the self-confidence he could sense surging through her.
“Fifteen minutes.” She nodded then turned back to Malcolm.
She rolled her eyes. “Oh look, he’s stripped his shirt,” she stated mockingly. “God love his heart, does he really think it’s going to be that easy?”
He thought the sight of his muscles intimidated. That the flex and ripple beneath his flesh had the power to make mere mortals flinch.
Diane didn’t flinch. She didn’t leer.
She scratched at the back of her head with a sigh. “So, Malcolm darling, are we gonna rumble?”
He flexed his shoulders. “Come on, whore, let me kick your ass.”
Lawe snarled, but Diane was riding a high that held no fear of her mate’s interference, and no fear of his inability to allow her to finish the fight.
Fifteen minutes.
“This will only take ten,” she promised.
“Just make sure you save enough energy to enjoy your punishment for slipping out on me again, mate,” he suggested. “I may understand, but I’ll ensure it will never happen again.”
Pausing, her gaze raked over him, from head, to the proof of his erection beneath the jeans he wore, to the military ankle boots he wore and up again. “Have no fear, mate.” Her smile was cocky, feminine, and assured. “I’ll save plenty of energy for all the punishment you can dish out.”
“This fucking lovey-dovey bullshit is getting on my nerves, bitch,” Malcolm snarled. “Get your ass over here and let me show that unnatural son of a bitch how fucking weak his mate is. Then my friends can collect all your asses and haul you in.”
Diane grinned as they began circling each other. She’d kicked Malcolm’s ass before. It wasn’t easy. He was a dirty gutter fighter, but she knew his weaknesses. She wasn’t certain, though, how Lawe was going to react when Malcolm managed to actually pierce one of her weaknesses.
Straight off.
He jumped for her, his fist colliding with a glancing blow across her cheek and knocking her off her feet.
A violent feline snarl echoed around the clearing.
Diane didn’t bother to come to her feet. Instead, she caught herself on her shoulders, swept her legs out and knocked Malcolm off his.
Fifteen minutes or less. She didn’t have time to play fair. Not that she would have bothered anyway, but she might have drawn it out a bit, just for the humiliation Malcolm would have suffered.
As he went down, she was up. Her steel-toed boot, reinforced to add to her strength buried itself in his side before she jumped back, rounding an openhanded caress to the ground where she swept up a handful of desert sand.
Malcolm came easily to his feet, though blood smeared his side now and he favored it instinctively.
Moving in close enough to direct the sand straight to his eyes, Diane came back, her leg swinging out and up to slam the steel-toed boot straight into his jaw.
She heard it crack as he went down again.
This time when he came up, he caught her short, his fist slamming into the back of her knee and driving her to the ground as she twisted around.
She wasn’t fast enough.
Before she could stop him Diane found herself pinned to the ground, blood easing from the deep slice on her lip as she felt the side of her face burning from the blow to it. She could feel the discomfort, the searing rejection of his touch lancing through her body. Rather than weakening it, it pissed her off.
She had to smile despite the slicing pain to her lip.
“Oh, you’ve been practicing,” she sneered. “Too bad you’re still a slow fucker with an ego that’s going to get you killed. What do you think is going to happen when those buddies of yours show up, and I’m not here. Dog’s not here. Just you, all alone without the prize you promised to deliver.”
“Then they’ll come after you.” He swung out in triumph as Diane tried to duck and move in.
Her foot swung out, collided with his balls but not fast enough to avoid the fist that slammed into her cheek.
“Fuck!” she cursed as Lawe roared in rage. “He’s going to fucking kill you before I get a chance.”
Racing the few steps to where he’d fallen to his knees, Diane threw another hard kick, this time with the flat of her foot to the side of his head.
Hard.
She put all her strength into it. Using the well-toned muscles of her thighs as her uncle had taught her and putting all her power into it, she kicked with the single driving hope that it would take his head off.
It didn’t.
Instead, it slammed it back, throwing him to his back and forcing a hard groan from his lips as he lost consciousness.
As she knew he would.
Her uncle had worked with her for months in secrecy to teach her how to take care of Malcolm specifically. He’d been a hardheaded bastard who hadn’t wanted to listen to orders on the occasions she’d pulled in contracts for the team.
That was the deal. Her uncle would give command to the team member who procured the contract if that individual wanted the experience in command.
Diane had.
Thor hadn’t, but he was always more than willing to give her his contracts and play second-in-command. As though he had always known what was coming.
Breathing harshly, her body aching painfully, she watched as Dog hurried over to Malcolm and checked his pulse with cool efficiency.
“He’s gonna be out for a while,” he reported, lifting his gaze to Diane. “Want me to finish this for you?” he asked with a subtle hint of anticipation.
She glared back at him. “If I wanted him dead, I would have killed him myself.”
His brows lifted. “Ever killed a man?” he asked softly, gently, as though he believed she were too gentle or perhaps too weak.
She stared back at him in disgust. “Do you want the list?”
“Bullets don’t count.” He rose to his feet, watching her with that mocking smile of his.
“Do knives?” she asked softly. “Hands? I can break his neck as easily as you can, never doubt it. He simply hasn’t suffered enough.” Her gaze narrowed in determination. It was the only way to stare a Breed down. “And I want him to suffer.”
“He’ll suffer.” Dog nodded. “Because the commander of the Coyote team moving in is a crazy son of a bitch. He’ll make sure he dies for you. And if we don’t get the hell out of here, he’ll attempt to make certain we join the little bastard.”
She shrugged and turned back to her mate.
“You made promises again,” she murmured as he stepped to her, the very air around him pulsing with primal hunger and the need to reassert his dominance.
Over her.
She grinned back at him.
A second later he had one hand buried in her hair, the other wrapped around her back and his lips covering hers.
The kiss was wicked, openmouthed, tongues tangling and the taste of the mating hormone spilling to her system.
Ah God, this was what she wanted too. The pain would go away, the need for his touch would never be sated.
Her fingers fisted in the shirt he wore, her hips tilting up to him as he suddenly lifted her, holding her to him as his tongue pumped deliciously into her mouth and within seconds had her pussy burning for him.
“We have trouble rolling in,” Rule suddenly announced. “Roll out before we’re in a firefight with no backup.”
Between one breath and the next, Lawe released her. His hand gripped hers as they began to run for the cover of pines and the safety of the Breed-enforced hotel on the other side.
Megan and Braden had already left with Liza and were headed back across the golf course in one of the fully loaded Desert Dragoons used for military desert operations.
Passing him and heading to where Thor was being helped from the trees by Josiah, two other Dragoons sped toward Lawe, Diane, and the group following them. Jonas drove the vehicle, with a Breed manning the powerful laser-powered weapon mounted to the roll bars. Behind him the second Dragoon bounced over the rolling landscape with Dane Vanderale at the wheel, his partner, Rye Desalvo manning the weapon mounted to that one. The calvary was riding in and if the expressions on their faces were anything to go by, then they were anticipating a hell of a fight.
This was Lawe’s area of expertise. He loved the firefights, Diane loved the investigations, the rescues. There was no rescuing needed here. And it wasn’t that she didn’t get a hell of an adrenaline rush from the firefights. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t aware she would be involved in far too many where Lawe was concerned.
But in this case,
he
would be in danger if he was forced to worry about her in this instance. He’d given her the investigation, the fight, the chance to prove herself, and she knew it wasn’t over yet. Honor Roberts was still out there, and Liza Johnson had yet to be questioned. Gently.
But her part in this particular battle was over; she would wait and see what the war brought.
Turning to him, she threw her arms around his neck and smacked a joyful kiss to his lips.
“Get yourself wounded and there will be hell to pay, Mate,” she warned him.
Surprise filled his eyes, but the anticipation that brightened them was something she was familiar with. Something she knew herself. The anticipation of the job he loved.
Justice.
It was what he had taken his name for, and it was a part of him.
She was his mate, but the adrenaline was his mistress just as it was her admirer.
“I love you.” He touched her cheek before turning to the Breed Diane hadn’t seen until he jumped from the Dragoon that bounced to a stop before them. “Tarek, take care of my mate.”
“As though she were my own,” Tarek promised.
Tarek Jordan, mated himself and out of active status, but still part of the support teams when he was available. “Let’s move out.” He give a quick nod to Diane before they moved out quickly, racing across the golf course to the safety of the hotel.
Worry was a part of leaving him behind, but she knew he’d never be able to do his job if she were at his side during a firefight. A battle with a dozen Coyotes and human soldiers was far different than allowing her to fight Malcolm, and Diane knew it.
She glanced over her shoulder to see the dust of the vehicles racing to meet the oncoming Council soldiers as another Dragoon raced toward them from the hotel.
“Here’s our ride,” Tarek shouted as Thor was first loaded in.
Reaching the vehicle themselves Diane jumped in the open side, taking one last look at the disappearing dust as Lawe and Dane’s Dragoons disappeared over the rise, and four others raced from the trails that cut through the pines to meet them.
Reinforcements. Dane and Jonas hadn’t taken chances. There were enough Enforcers joining them, along with Dog’s teams, to ensure victory.