Fever Claim (The Sigma Menace) (18 page)

She remained still, finally looking directly at him. She looked just as gorgeous now as she did when he picked her up last night. Her rumpled, gauzy shirt hinting at the curves that lay underneath, the capris complementing her world-class runner’s legs, her sandals—amazingly still on by those leather straps he’d love to snap with his fangs, displaying polished toes he’d imagined himself nibbling on.

Shiiiit
. Her scent was overwhelming the small structure. X was right, he normally was half-mast around Cassie, but this was… intense. He was hard and throbbing, and it hurt so good. She must be in equal discomfort—hot and needy, wanting only release after release. What would it feel like to slide into her slick furnace as she wrapped her legs around him, clutching his ass, pulling him in deeper—

“You’re eyes are glowing,” her voice shook.

What a shitbag he was. They weren’t shut in here even five minutes and he was imagining his pleasure over her pain.

Cassie moved to pace again, but he cut her off. “I want to talk, Cassie, but you need to trust me to be close to you. We can both resist.”

“And if we can’t resist—”

“Cassie.
Trust
me
.”

Her cocoa eyes searched his, determining the sensibility of his words. She crossed her arms around her middle. “I
burn
.”

“I know, Tinkerbell. I’m sorry.” Jace eased toward her, and when she didn’t dart away, he wrapped his arms around her. Fuck, she was on fire. It was the first time he was able to just hold her since he’d met her. What he wouldn’t give for it to be under different circumstances.

Cassie melted into him, seeking emotional comfort from his embrace. Soon she would be seeking physical comfort, and in a cruel twist of fate after months of waiting for her, weeks of chasing her, when she came begging to him, he was somehow going to have to resist until they escaped.

“Does it bother you?” she asked. “Being kept in this tiny room?”

“’Cuz it’s the size of a prison cell?” he chuckled softly. “No, there’s so much more that bothers me about this than another tiny cell.” Jace leaned down to speak directly in her ear. “And besides, unlike prison, this place we may actually be able to escape.”

Wide, questioning eyes met his as her body moved tighter against his. He didn’t know if she realized it, but she’d started a steady rocking into him. Every fraction of excess pressure hardening his cock more. Maybe they could escape… if he had any blood cells left to power his brain when the time came.

“Let’s move to the bed, so we can talk easier.” When she stiffened, he added, “So you can lay next to me instead of rubbing up on me.”

Her flushed face reddened further and she almost jumped the short distance to the bed. She lifted the sorry excuse for a blanket and inspected the sheet before deciding to crawl on. He joined her, both on their sides facing each other.

“How are we going to escape?” She hissed in a pain-laced voice, her legs were slowly scissoring against each other, trying to find some relief to the mounting pressure begging to be released.

“I don’t have an exact plan.”

The crestfallen look she gave him spoke volumes.

“There are more chances here than we had before,” he tried to reassure her. “The Agents hate each other, the snipers I sensed were only human, they expect me to use my telepathic power, but to my knowledge they don’t know how well I can fight. They’ll expect me to fight four-legged, but I’m better on two and they won’t be ready.”

“So we wait.”

He nodded. They lay in silence beside each other, waiting. Her squirming worsened, her hands inching their way down to her crotch, then she’d snap them back up.

“Tell me something bad. Something that will keep me from crawling on top of you. Talk about Sigma.”

Keeping his arms folded in on himself, helpless to watch her struggle but knowing his touch would make it worse, he tried to resist drowning himself in the waves of delectable pheromones rolling off her, clouding the room. She was right. Talking about Sigma would put a slight damper on his mood.

“I don’t know specifics, really. Maybe I would’ve if my family stayed with the pack, but I lived more human than wolf until the last few years. They were the bogeyman when I was little. An afterthought as I was growing up. Then at the club I heard things, watched for things. It’s clear now they’re well-funded, highly organized, increasingly trained, and there’s rumors it might all be by vampires.”

“Why?” Cassie curled into a loose ball, her hands clenched in between cramped thighs, rocking gently.

Talking about Sigma wasn’t going to help lessen her urges, but she needed to be educated. He kept on, trying not get distracted at the exhilarating thought of watching his mate get herself off.

“You can’t conquer the world from sundown to sunup without the aid of another species that can tolerate daylight. The great battle between shifters and vampires revolves around stopping bloodsuckers from trying to take over the world. They want to establish their own brand of feed lots, with shifters comprising the prime herd, and humans the chattel and slave labor.”

“Why the prime herd?” Cassie managed the question between whimpers. Jace was beginning to doubt waiting it out until someone checked on them. Her desperation was getting to be too much for her and too much suffering for him to watch his mate go through, even if it was to save them both… and a yet unmade baby. No, he wouldn’t fuck for them; they wouldn’t get his mate or any of his future progeny.

“If a vampire drains a shifter, it can acquire our strengths and our abilities. It could tolerate sun for a short period of time, it could use our mental capabilities temporarily. Then we’d heal, and they’d drain us again.”

“It?” More moaning, then some shuttering breaths. “What do vampires look like?”

Ugly fuckers
, Jace wanted to say. How did he explain without disturbing her further, that they were stunning? Beautiful. Creatures of the night that hunted humans with their minds and bodies. “They look like you’d want them to suck your blood.”

“Great. Hot vampires. Awesome,” Cassie ground out between moans. “I really need the Guardians to come with me to talk to that patient I had committed. I really thought he lost it, but I think everything he was saying was true.”

Tears ran down her face. “Jace… I can’t do this. It hurts so bad. What do we do?”

His mind raced for answers. “Let me ease you. We can give them a show. We’ve got a blanket for cover, we can make it look and sound like we’re having sex when I’m just giving you some release.”

He expected resistance, some sort of excuse from his rational female who never acted on impulse. Instead, she flipped the blanket over them and frantically unbuttoned her pants. Before he could tell her to slow down, she grabbed his hand bringing it into the furnace of her feminine folds.

The breath whooshed out of him.
Fuuuuck
, she was on fire. The bed should be smoldering under her delicate body. Still holding his wrist with both hands, she fervently rocked against him. Jace clenched his jaw so hard his teeth might break. He didn’t move otherwise. Didn’t kiss her, didn’t wrap her up in his embrace, didn’t even twine his legs through hers—not that he could, they were securely clenched.

His mate fell apart against his hand within seconds, the strength of her orgasm slamming against his mental shields, urging him to finish joining their bodies. For a brief moment she lay still, sweat beading her forehead, eyes closed, her breathing slowing for the first time since the drugs hit.

“How do we stop this?” Cassie pondered, eyes still closed. The fire burning within her temporarily cooled, but the insidious burn began again where his hand was still joined with her body. “I want my body back. I want that sick feeling in my chest to go away.”

Sick feeling?
Was the dose effecting her whole body? Or did she mean their connection, the place in her heart where she could feel him and know he was hers? They were forever linked, two joined as one. Did she want to break that link? The very thought devastated him.

“
Jaaaace
.” Her hands released their clasp on his wrist to grab his shirt collar and press herself closer to him.

“I’ll help you as much as you need, baby. Just like this. If I do more—kiss you, hold you, see any bare inch of your lovely body—I don’t think I can stop. Your scent is calling to me, driving me crazy, making my wolf want to howl sensing your need.” With that he rolled her over onto her back, and rose above her, his fingers deftly working her fevered flesh. She was soaked, her juices coating him and her panties as she rode his hand. He longed to be down there, using his tongue instead to lap at her sweet release
before taking her with the part of the his body that was in extreme pain, straining against his jeans to get to her, continuing to thicken with each wave of his female’s desire. 

He slid one finger into her tight channel. Cassie bucked, clenching around him so he couldn’t slide a second one in. Grinding his teeth together, thinking of only her comfort and ignoring his own raging need keeping him as solid as granite, he leaned his head down next to hers, in case he did something detrimental to this situation and kiss her, because it wouldn’t stop at a kiss. He concentrated only on his fingers, working them in and out of her taut body, and not on how the creamy tops of her breasts peeked from her shirt. Rejecting how easy it would be to lift the hem up and expose her flushed skin so he could cool her off by licking paths along her torso and blowing on them. Yeah, he had to disregard all that.

She fisted his shirt, twisting, almost tearing it off as her second orgasm slammed through her. Her jean-clad legs spread far apart underneath him, wrapped around his waist briefly, before falling limp to the rumpled sheet. With her eyes closed again, utilizing this moment of reprieve to finally relax from the tension coursing through her splendid body, her head lolled to the side and she appeared like she could drift off into an easy sleep.

“You’re beautiful,” he couldn’t help but murmur in her ear.

“You’re full of shit,” she murmured back. Turning her head and opening her eyes, their faces an inch apart, she said, “This isn’t right.”

“We’ll make it work,” he reassured her. They were forcefully mated, but he was confident that he could’ve won her over, gained her acceptance so it would’ve been inevitable. They were still together, he’d continue to be patient until she felt comfortable with their joining.

“No,” Cassie shook her head. “We’ve got to get it out of me.”

Confused, he didn’t have time to ponder what she meant. She abruptly pushed him back, sliding out from under him. She retched as she hit the floor and dove for the bucket in the corner. Cassie curled over it, gagging and heaving, her body trembling.

Her sudden illness tamped down his raging desire. She lost what was left of their supper and the dessert they’d shared last night. Soon she’d be out of undigested products and her heaving showed no signs of letting up. Massaging her shoulders, he kept telling her she’d be okay, he’d make sure of it.

In between retches, she gasped, “I can’t keep doing this. It won’t stop. What did they give me?”

Grimly, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t account for any interactions with other meds you’re taking. Are you on the pill?” He didn’t scent her fertility at any point they were together so he suspected she was taking something to stop it. Female shifters didn’t need to as they only became fertile with their mates, and then it was cyclic after that with long periods in between. They lived a long time; there was no need to yield to a monthly need to procreate. The theory was that human mates continued their normal cycles since it was more difficult to create interspecies young.

Another round of dry heaves. His ears just caught her answer of “shot” in between. Sigma fucked up something they gave her. The drugs were intended to keep her writhing on the bed until he gave in to palliate them both. If they were going to keep her like this instead, she wouldn’t survive the rest of the day. Despite the waves of pheromones rolling off her, he didn’t sense fertility from her. Either it was too soon, or the drugs weren’t working like Sigma thought they should.

Cassie sat back on her knees, wiping her mouth weakly with the back of her hand. Jace remained behind her, rubbing her back. There was no bathroom, no sink in this hut. To Madame G, they were just rutting animals ruled by instinct and hormones.

“God, I still burn,” she croaked, squirming. But the movement set off another tidal wave of pheromones and again the intended response did not occur, instead she bent back over the bucket retching noisily. 

Cassie continued for a few more rounds, while Jace pounded on the door yelling that his mate was sick. After one intense episode, he abandoned the door to kneel beside her again. She pushed away the bucket and remained on her hands and knees, attempting to crawl away.

“Do you want to be back on the bed? Let me carry you.” He reached around her to help her up and she fell limp in his arms.

***

Splintering wood drew Cassie back to consciousness. This structure might be enhanced like the Agents, but it wasn’t going to hold up to a male terrified for his mate. The building shook again as Jace rammed the weakening door with his body. Voices shouted outside, the Agents preparing to take him down as soon as he stepped into daylight. They could kill him.