Lawe's Justice (20 page)

Pleasure was such a tame word. Ecstasy didn’t even come close.

A supernova of such intense sensations that she couldn’t make sense of them exploded inside her with a starburst of energy. Color and light whipped through her mind, exploded behind her eyelids as a wail of violent ecstasy burst from her lips.

Lawe came over the shuddering form of his mate, his teeth clenched, primal pleasure and power tearing through him as he rolled her to her stomach and lifted her hips to him.

Her fingers curled into the comforter. The scent of her cunt, a soft, feminine sweetness that filled his senses drew him, possessed him. Gripping the base of his dick, he moved in behind her, one hand gripping her hip as he lined the swollen head of his erection with the wet silken folds of her pussy and began pushing inside her.

Delicate inner muscles gripped him immediately in a hold that stopped just short of pain. Milking the thick head to pull him deeper, her grip tightened and released, her juices flowing and easing his way as he fought to hold back the primitive response to his mate’s pleasure.

He hadn’t anticipated this.

He had known it would be an animalistic response. He’d known that once he got between her thighs she would loosen the control he’d fought for all his life.

But not to this extent. He hadn’t anticipated this. Hadn’t anticipated the animal inside him taking over completely or stealing away the control necessary to ensure he took her with the gentleness, with the depth of aching pleasure he so wanted to give her.

He was an animal, and God help him . . .

He clenched his teeth tight as he fought and failed to hold back the primal response.

A snarl of hunger tore from his throat as he pressed inside her, pushing, thrusting into her as he worked his hips, pushing his cock inside her with short, shallow thrusts.

He couldn’t ease in. Despite the desire to take her slow and easy. Despite the vow he’d made to himself that he would take her in such a way, still, he took her like the animal he was.

Gripping her hips he came over her, his lips at her shoulder, his kisses meant to soothe her as he buried inside her to the hilt, over and over. The fierce grip of her pussy pulled him deeper, fluttering against the sensitive flesh of his cock as he felt the pleasure–pain of the barb throbbing just beneath the swollen crest.

He nipped her shoulder, then growled in self-loathing at the fierceness of the bite.

“God, yes!” Her cry was as much a shock to his system as the loss of control was.

Her hips moved into each thrust, her cunt clutching at him, clenched tight on every fierce stroke inside the moist depths as her slick, honeyed juices eased the raw possession.

Not that the animal inside him cared. It was on fire for her, so hungry for her that for the first time in his life, Lawe was helpless against it.

“Mine!” he snarled at her ear, overtaken by the sense of possession that ran hot and deep inside him. “Do you understand me, mate? You. Are. Mine!”

He had to imprint it on her as deeply as possible. He had to show her, convince her, make her see that she could never run from him again. Ensure that she could never overlook her safety as she had in the past.

His survival depended on hers.

“Tell me,” he growled as he thrust inside her harder, faster. “Tell me, Diane. You’re mine!”

“Fuck you!” she cried out. Her scent whipped around him, lust, hunger, fury and a need that made no sense to his primitive brain.

“Oh no, baby. Let me fuck you!” he snarled back at her as his head lowered to the vulnerable crook of her neck, the sensitive flesh where her shoulder met her neck, and he licked her with erotic hunger, forcibly holding himself back from the bite he needed to deliver.

His hips slammed against the rounded curves of her ass. Perspiration covered both their bodies, the wet slide of flesh and the primal joining creating an erotic, animalistic coupling that sent his senses reeling.

Control. He’d always had the control to never take a woman in such a way.

He’d always had the consideration, the knowledge of what his strength would do to them.

And still, he was helpless in taking his mate.

Helpless, filled with such hunger for her that each throaty cry from her lips, each proof of her pleasure only spurred him further, pushed him to take her with all the hunger that had burned inside him since the day her scent had slapped the animal inside him awake.

And it was awake now.

Her pussy tightened impossibly further, the burning grip of her muscles intensifying, the fluttering response that vibrated in the depths stroking against the throb of the barb beginning to emerge from captivity.

Lawe was certain he couldn’t lose control of the animalistic urges inside him more than he already had. He was certain he couldn’t mark her deeper, certain the pleasure couldn’t blaze higher or hotter.

He should have known better than to tempt his genetics with such thoughts. As her cunt began to ripple tighter around his dick, as her juices flowed hotter, her pleasure peaking to an explosion he could sense rippling through her, Lawe lost that final edge he maintained on his control.

Turning his head as he pushed the hair from the back of her neck, his lips parted over the vulnerable nape of her neck, and he bit.

He tasted her blood as his canines broke her flesh. Tasted the hormone flowing from his tongue as he felt his cock twitch, felt it swell thicker, harder, as his semen began spurting from the tip with violent ecstasy.

Immediately, a growl from his chest as the barb emerged from its position just beneath the flared head at the top of his dick, stretching his flesh, throbbing, swelling inside her and locking into that hidden curve deep in her cunt to spill its own release.

Fluttering against the ultrasensitive female flesh there, finding the bundle of nerves just beneath her clitoris and pressing inside it, the barb locked him inside her and increased the ecstasy for them both.

Rapture exploded over and over inside them.

Beneath him, Diane convulsed again, the second wave of release more intense than first, fueled by the barb spurting and fluttering against the sensitive curve it held in its possession.

Lawe growled against the nape of her neck, his hips jerking, his release spurting inside her again, blinding him with the pleasure of it until the last eruption sent a shudder racing through him.

His teeth were still locked in place, his tongue licking, stroking, easing the sting that might have existed if it weren’t for the hormone spilling into the womb.

The mating hormone.

Easing his teeth back from the shallow bite, he laved it again, this time with more languorous licks as he felt the final pulses of the hormone easing from the glands beneath his tongue.

Covering her, Lawe felt her body relax into the bed, exhausted, sated, her ragged breaths matching the pace of her still-racing heart.

Still buried inside her, locked in place to allow his seed every chance to find fertile ground, Lawe too fought to simply breathe.

A part of him felt shattered. An emotion much too close to terror began to grow insidiously inside him.

He could lose her. Even now, over twenty years after the vivisection that had killed his mother and her mate, there were still those scientists who used the pure blood groups and other various Breed enemies to secure live research specimens for them.

Mates.

Those Breeds who found the one whose unique biological, chemical and pheremonal makeup came together to ensure they stayed together as long as they lived. Because each was the perfect match to the other to ensure conception and the survival of the species.

He’d heard some say God had adopted them.

The reverend he knew said God had touched man’s creation and bestowed the Breeds with a soul to show man, once and for all, that only God could give life. And still others said they were no more than a fluke of nature, like a reptile. Soulless, capable of nothing but survival and dark evil.

And there were those who would give their own children to possess a hybrid Breed, a child of a mated pair, to learn the unique secrets the Breeds could one day possess.

Proof of any of their abilities would almost certainly ensure the destruction of the Breeds if used the wrong way.

This was all that contained the information. Keeping it confined to mates for the most part. Men and women who understood exactly what they had to lose if the world ever knew.

This.

Their souls.

“Diane,” he whispered her name as he clenched his eyes closed for the impossibly long moment it took him to bite back that dark emotion threatening to engulf him.

He’d get her back behind the protective walls of Sanctuary, deep in the middle of the compound, surrounded by the cabins, tents and lairs of the unmated Lions and Lionesses, Wolves and Coyote Breeds that constituted the Breed community.

Once there, she would be safe from the fanatics as well as her uncle’s enemies. The men who had taken her nearly a year before had been but one of the teams searching for her. They were the only ones who knew who they were searching for or at least knew the face of the woman they believed could lead them to the man they were seeking and the secrets they believed he held.

Secrets she was rumored to hold as well.

“You’re heavy, Lawe,” she answered moments later, her voice drowsy, lazy.

She would sleep well tonight.

She didn’t always sleep well, Jonas had informed him several months ago after Diane had spent a few days in the new wing of the main house, which had been built for Jonas and his mate.

Jonas was a member of the Pride family, whether he liked it or not, and his Pride leader half brother, Callan Lyons, had insisted on building the new wing to house Jonas, his new mate and their daughter. The main house was connected to a series of underground protected rooms and tunnels that had once been used for Breed research. It was now used to protect the mated wives and children on the few occasions the compound had been attacked.

Lawe knew that a wing of the main house was something he would never want himself. He’d never aspired to such things. He preferred a measure of privacy, and Lawe knew Jonas often chafed at the lack of it at times.

Lawe’s home was located close to the main house, though, less than a half acre away. As the head commander of the Bureau of Breed Affairs, his position necessitated a close proximity to the Bureau director as the commanding force behind the Bureau’s teams of Enforcers.

He worked with Jonas on each phase of every operation and mission going out of the bureau and ensured Jonas stayed up to date on each one.

Diane would be as protected as any of the Prime family, he would ensure it.

Forcing himself to ease from her, the barb finally retracting back into its position beneath the hood of his cock, Lawe collapsed beside her, exhaustion weighing his own muscles down.

He hadn’t been able to close his eyes in the nights past since the shooter had attempted to take out Diane’s head with one of the outdated sniper rifles he’d used.

Outdated, yes, but the bullet-propelled weapon was also entirely more effective, if highly illegal. The laser-powered weapons afforded more control, but their response time was much slower. Waiting for such a large weapon to power up before firing in succession didn’t leave much room for error.

A compulsion entirely foreign to him had him pulling his mate close to him, tucking her against his chest and shielding her with his body.

He made certain to lie between her and the door and window. Just in case.

Just in case anyone was stupid enough to come through the door or attempt to slip into the room. Just in case he wasn’t fast enough. He shielded her, giving her a chance to live, a chance to escape, and perhaps . . .

His jaw clenched and the fear he’d fought back earlier returned.

Just in case she had conceived his child.

•CHAPTER 10•

“Diane, you know this isn’t going to work.”

Lawe watched as Diane cleaned her weapons. Efficiently, smoothly, and with an ease that bespoke far too many years of practice.

“How long have you been breaking down and cleaning your own weapons?” he asked when she didn’t comment on the previous statement.

Her expression softened then. The look was one filled with longing and memories she often cherished.

“Since I was barely seven and staying with Uncle Colt while my parents were out of the country on their various
business
trips,” she remembered with a gentle laugh. “They were spies you know. CIA agents. They met while they were both at Langley, just after they joined while in college. And they died together.”

“There’s a lot of missing information regarding Raymond and Esmerelda Broen’s lives,” he stated as he watched her double-check the cleanliness of the barrel of one of the weapons. “Their deaths and what they were chasing are two of those missing links. Did Colt tell you what happened?”

She looked up for a second, her expression stilling somberly.

“He told me.” She sighed heavily. “We had a deal. Once I managed to successfully command my first mission, then he would give me the information. Just after I did so, he told the others we were celebrating family-style. His idea of family-style was to take me to the mountain in Kandahar where my parents died. They were ambushed and killed while tracking the identity of a man rumored to head a network secretly transporting files, genetic material, Breed DNA formulas, cryogenic embryos and possibly many of the infants and young Breeds that were missing at the time.”

His brows arched. “I was unaware the CIA was working on the behalf of the Breeds. The last records we had, many of their agents were actually involved in the training and information control of the various labs.”

“My mother left a diary,” she said, “several of them, actually. She knew many of the agents who were working in just such capacities, but they were also slipping information out to those they knew were working to reveal the brutality the Breeds lived under. There were opposing interests in the CIA, according to her. Only a few substations were actually involved with the Genetics Council. Langley was actually trying to verify the rumors, track down the labs, and aid the Breeds’ escape. I gave Rachel the diary last year and I believe she turned it over to Jonas.”

Lawe nodded. “Yes, I read it. From what I read, your parents were far too reckless for a couple with two children depending upon them.”

It was a trait they tragically shared with her uncle, Colt Broen. As a mercenary, Colt had been in the perfect position to funnel information back to the States or to ensure that U.S. interests, as well as the CIA’s, were preserved.

Raymond and Esmeralda Broen had coordinated their trips with their missions, ensuring that if they weren’t home to protect their young children, then Raymond’s brother would be. Still, they had died while their children were young, and according to the reports Diane turned over after she came into the Bureau, their parents’ enemies had immediately gone after the uncle, as well as the children.

She didn’t comment on his criticism, nor could Lawe detect any emotion other than regret. There was no anger toward her parents or her uncle, and no resentment for the life she had led.

But then, he had no doubt she was able to, and definitely would, hide any emotion she didn’t want him to see.

The Breeds who had been a part of her group until the past months had taught her how to bury and conceal her emotions. As they had explained to Lawe, it had become a game between them and their “commander” to detect her moods, her emotions or other various states of being that she experienced.

In the end, Diane had become far more adept at it than either of them had imagined she would.

“Are they the reason you followed your uncle into war?” he asked her finally.

“Their enemies took care of that,” she stated, her voice hardening as she glanced up at him. “They attacked children, Lawe. They came after us like a plague and refused to give up for years. As though they would tell
children
any secrets they had kept from their superiors over the years.”

“If they manage to capture you again, and kill you without the information they’re looking for, do you think they would then go after Rachel and Amber?” he asked her.

Diane wanted to roll her eyes. He obviously believed he was making a point. It was a point she had no intention to acknowledge. He never lost an opportunity, never allowed a relaxed moment to be preserved.

“Ignoring me isn’t going to solve the problem facing us,” he finally warned her as Diane fought to keep from clenching her teeth.

“I’m not trying to ignore you,” she assured him as she finished reassembling the small, handheld, laser-powered personal defense weapon she usually carried strapped to her thigh.

She was lying through her teeth and he knew it. He didn’t need to smell it.

“Do you think I’m going to allow you to continue this search, Diane? To risk you against a rogue we know so little about, as well as whatever assassins have been sent out to eliminate Brandenmore’s research projects? If they’re even still alive.” It was the wrong way to go about it, and Lawe knew it, but he was damned if he could figure out a better alternative.

She laughed at him, though the sound carried no amusement. What it did carry was disillusionment and a sense of pain. He could feel her pain as though it were his own. And for the first time in his life, Lawe ached for more than his own inability to be anything or anyone other than what his past had shaped him into.

“Do I act as though I need your permission to do anything?” she asked as she repacked the weapon and turned back to him, disdain reflected clearly in her gaze. “Really, Lawe, I’m a big girl now. I don’t need your permission to stay out after dark.”

Technically, she was right since she reported directly to Jonas.

“I’m quite certain Rachel was smart enough to warn you about the effects of mating heat,” he stated instead of tying and gagging her as he wanted to and forcing her back to Sanctuary. “You can’t just return to the same life as before. It doesn’t work that way.”

He couldn’t let her continue this mission either. She wasn’t just facing a rabid Breed in what was suspected to be the throes of a medically induced feral fever but also a team of Council-loyal Coyote soldiers searching for the same prey. And if the Breeds who once fought with her were right, she was also dealing with a traitor within her own ranks.

None would hesitate to kill her if she dared to attempt to interfere with their acquisition of the Bengal Breed Judd, Fawn Corrigan, or Honor Roberts. And they knew she was doing just that, as was evidenced by the attempt on her life before she slipped away from him in D.C. And if they didn’t kill her, the Council scientists would surely love to get their hands on a female experiencing mating heat.

“I can damned near do anything I want to do, Lawe.” Getting to her feet, she packed away the cleaning materials before storing them in her ammo bag and securing it firmly.

She kept her back to him, which was something else he hated. Diane was fairly skilled at lying with her lips and keeping the scent of it covered, but she hadn’t yet perfected lying with her eyes.

It was the only way he would have of detecting her emotions for now.

While she was able to hide certain emotions and their scents, she couldn’t use it as a reliable shield against Breeds for long. Especially not from Lawe.

“Any Coyote who detects the scent of your heat will make it his job to kidnap you and turn you over to the Council and their scientists,” he argued. “That’s not a pleasant place to be, nor is it a pleasant way to die.”

He was restraining himself and the effort to do so was about to snap his back teeth as he clenched them so tight his jaws ached. If he were human, he had no doubt they would have already been ground to the gums.

He had never clenched his teeth so often or as tightly as he did whenever he and Diane faced off in a disagreement, which was pretty much every time they came in contact.

“You should have stayed in D.C. rather than following me,” she told him as she lifted one of her duffel bags to the bed.

Disillusionment covered her. As though there had been some glimmer of hope that he would allow her to continue? The sad part was he had tried. Hell, he was still trying, yet all he saw each time he tried to formulate a plan to allow her to complete the mission, was her blood. Her screams. Her death.

Pulling down the heavy tab of the zipper, she opened the luggage and began packing the few items she had used the night before into the bulging interior. It was evident she had no intention of listening to him.

Which only left Lawe with that idea of tying and gagging her.

“Don’t push me like this, Diane.” Anger had the mating heat boiling inside him. Strong emotion, especially anger, had the effect of intensifying the rush of the sexual hormones and sending them surging through the body. “You won’t win.”

At that point, she did turn and face him, her gaze clashing with his as he got a glimpse of the burning emotions she was still keeping tightly reined.

He was amazed at her ability to do so. The deep brown of her eyes held a darker, almost burgundy tint. Rage had to be eating her alive for her eyes to have turned such a startling color. Yet not so much as a hint of the scent drifted to him.

“What will you do to force me to obey you, Lawe?” Her head tilted to the side as he watched her visibly struggle to keep the emotions reined in. “Will you beat me? Tie and gag me before dragging me back to Sanctuary? Because those are your only options.”

“I would never harm you,” he managed, fighting the urge to snarl in outrage. His fingers tensed, the desire to clench them almost overwhelming as he faced her and the suspicion in her gaze. “And you know I would never strike you.”

“Then that leaves tying and gagging me.” Her hip cocked, a delicate hand resting on it, and the scent of her fury finally drifted to him for the briefest second.

It was viciously hot, nearly searing him and making him want to take a step back from it as the edge of pain slapped his senses. God, what emotions did she hold back on a normal basis for such intensity of feelings to slip past her careful control?

The animal side of him flinched at the thought that he could be the one hurting her. That his need to protect her, to ensure her life could possibly have created such a well of agony.

“Those are your only options,” she stated. “Because I refuse to return to Sanctuary to be kept locked away like a favored pet.”

A favored pet?

Lawe felt his jaw bunch and his dick jerk with an imperative demand as she confronted him. He would fuck her into exhaustion if it weren’t for the fact he’d be doing the same to himself. Throughout the night she had proven she was more than a match for his sexuality, and his hunger.

Just as she was more than able to keep up with him in other ways.

“Better a favored pet than a mate tortured to death. Do you know what the Council scientists, Brandenmore’s research monsters or even the government’s so-called Breed geneticists would do if they got their hands on you? Do you have any idea of their preferred means of learning how mating heat changes the body? How horrifying a vivisection is? What it would do to me to be forced to watch such a thing happen to you?” he questioned, hearing the harshness, the guttural quality of his own voice. “And you. Could you bear to hear my screams as they dissect me alive? Perhaps more than once? Over and over again? Because, baby, I would sure as hell scream. Even the strongest of us eventually break when they lay the knife to our guts.”

Diane wanted to turn from him. She wanted to hide the painful, horrifying knowledge that she was very well aware of what any scientist would do to either of them now.

“I’ve seen it.” Agony raged in his eyes as he crossed to her, his fingers curling around her arm as he pulled her to him. “I watched, Diane. Forced to pretend disinterest. Forced to show no fucking reaction.” Animalistic, filled with horror, his voice rasped with the words. “I watched as they first cut into the Coyote commander who made the mistake of mating one of the breeders in the lab where Rule and I were confined. Then, I watched as they cut into his mate. My mother. The woman Rule and I fought to find freedom for since we were barely old enough to realize we were captives. I couldn’t roar in rage. I couldn’t beg them to cease, because if I did”—his expression was filled with tormented memories, dragging a muffled sob from her lips—“if I did, then three others in that lab would have died. It could have been Rule. Or the young Cheetah female they kept separated from us. Or another of the young that Morningstar Martinez reached out to in their dreams.”

Her lips parted in surprise. “In their dreams?”

Lawe released her slowly and stepped back. Pushing his fingers through his hair he drew in a hard, painful breath. “In our dreams. As far back as we could remember. Morningstar came to the children she was fertilized with in vitro. She rocked them. She sang to them. She painted pictures of the place she called home, the family she was certain was searching for her, and all the joys she had known as a child.”