Megan's Mark (14 page)

“Is there a problem, Lance?” She looked to her cousin.

“Megan, meet Jonas Wyatt. You saw him the night the Coyotes were picked up at your house,” Lance reminded her with a cold edge to his voice.

Megan nodded.

“What’s going on?” Braden didn’t seem inclined to beat around the bush. He moved in front of her, facing Jonas.

She moved to go around him, only to raise her brows as he shifted in front of her, blocking her once again.

Jonas’s irritable growl as she pushed Braden out of the way had her eyes narrowing on him.

“Lance?” She turned to her cousin, growing tired of the disapproving frown Jonas Wyatt had leveled on her.

“Ask him.” He waved his hand toward the Breed. “He called the meeting with a demand for secrecy. I just live to serve.”

Megan winced. Evidently he had received an order from very high up to serve, otherwise he wouldn’t be nearly as pissed.

Jonas flicked Lance a cool look. “I do apologize, Mr. Jacobs. The need for secrecy was high. The report I received from Braden concerning the printout found in that cavern was disturbing. The information coming in from other sources even more so. I needed to assess the situation myself.”

“What was wrong with meeting at the house?” Braden was too close. He stayed on her ass, hovering over her like a dark shadow.

“The printout is being investigated,” Lance snapped. “I will find out who accessed and printed it. It’s just a matter of time.”

“What’s taking so long?” She shook her head in confusion. “The computers automatically log those passwords.”

The voice that answered sent chills racing over Megan’s flesh. “The password used was Sheriff Jacobs’s.”

Lance stared at her. She could feel the pain radiating from him, but also the protectiveness. Lance would never hurt her. She knew that just as she knew the sun would rise in the morning and night would come later.

“We have a problem then.” She turned and looked at Jonas. She was seriously starting to dislike this one. “Someone has obviously managed to steal passwords.”

“The sheriff assures us he doesn’t write his password down or share it. He changes it weekly and uses strict privacy protocols on his computer.”

Megan watched Jonas for long moments. Lance was still, quiet. And that wasn’t a good sign. An explosion was brewing and it was one Megan didn’t want to witness.

“Tell him to stop, Braden.” She stared into the savage silver eyes as she spoke to the man behind her. “Now.”

“I’d like to hear an explanation myself, Megan.”

She turned to Braden carefully. “I said now,” she reminded him, keeping her voice soft, her fury throttled.

She didn’t know the game Jonas Wyatt was playing, but she knew he was playing one, and he was using Lance to do it.

“I don’t need your protection, Megan,” Lance snapped then. “I’ll find out…”

“If you’re still in this office.” Jonas’s voice was condescending. “Such mistakes are not just criminal, they are also incriminating, Sheriff Jacobs.”

“You son of a bitch…” Lance was out of his chair and halfway around the desk before Megan could step in front of him, placing her hand on his chest. But she jerked it back quickly. She stared down at her hand, feeling the sharp sensation of distaste at the touch before staring back up at Lance. “Fuck ‘im.” She kept her voice soft as she let a small smile assure him of her trust. “We both know better, Lance. And I know you’ll find the proof. Don’t let him get to you.”

“Dammit, Meg…” He reached out, his hands gripping her shoulders, sending pulses of a pain-like sensation that attacked her nerve endings. She flinched back a second before Braden’s surprising snarl filled the room and he pulled her away from her cousin.

“What the hell?” Lance stared at her in shock. “Meg, are you okay?”

He reached for her again, only to have Braden pull her quickly behind him, ignoring her struggles as he did so.

“Dammit, Braden…”

“What the fuck is going on?” Lance’s voice was filled with confusion. Anger. “Is she hurt?”

Megan forced her way back in front of Braden, her elbow stabbing into his hard stomach as he tried to stop her.

“Don’t push me back behind you again.” She stared up at him furiously. “When I need you standing in front of me, I’ll let you know.”

The rumbled growl that came from his chest might have intimidated someone less pissed off, Megan thought. But it did little to impress her.

Jonas shifted impatiently, drawing her gaze back to him.

“He won’t allow another male to touch you, Miss Fields,” Jonas snapped furiously. “Test him and you might get more than you’ve bargained for.”

“I didn’t ask you.” She turned on him, enraged, aware of Lance watching her in surprise. “So you can just shut the hell up.”

“You didn’t have to ask.” His tight smile was cold and dangerous. “I was being nice by offering the information.”

“Jonas, you’re not exactly making sense,” Braden pointed out, his voice not as lazy as before, but no less confused than Lance’s had been. “And accusing Jacobs of betraying his cousin wasn’t your brightest move.” There was a question in his voice as he obviously chose to ignore the earlier statement regarding his possessiveness toward her.

“The evidence is there,” Jonas pointed out. “The schedule comes from this office alone, no one else should have had access to it. The information we’ve managed to extract from the Coyote you captured indicates someone working from the inside. Jacobs is on the inside.”

Lance’s fists bunched, his expression contorting into lines of fury as he turned on the Breed. “ I’ve had my fill of your accusations Jonas.”

Megan struggled to fend off the whiplash of emotions slamming into her. She moved closer to Braden and threw up every shield she could force in front of them, but nothing helped. Lance’s anger was white-hot, his voice pain-filled, edging into violence as Jonas’s silver eyes darkened dangerously. She shook her head, staring at him, fighting the stirring cauldron of sensations as the swirled around her.

She couldn’t run. She couldn’t escape the emotions.

“I’ve had my fill of your incompetence,” Jonas sneered. “Tell me, Jacobs. Are you the one who directed Mark and Aimee into that desert? Did you play liaison to the Genetics Council and their Coyotes?” His anger was like wildfire, engulfing everything in its path.

“Like hell.” Lance moved for the other man, his muscles bunching as Megan felt the whip of another emotion. Deceit. A lie. A carefully constructed game.

“No. Lance, he’s playing you.” She jumped in front of him again. “Don’t give him the satisfaction of a fight.”

“Playing what?” he snapped, attempting to pull away from her. “I’ll be damned if I let him stand in my office and accuse me of trying to kill you, Megan.”

“Stop.” She shook his arm, ignoring the discomfort, staring back at him fiercely. “Listen to me.” Her fingers tightened despite the building fire beneath her skin, the harsh reaction to touching someone else that made no sense. “He’s playing with you, Lance, He knows you didn’t do a damned thing. This is no more than a game.”

She barely realized she was shuddering. She could feel Lance’s rage beating within him, beating within her, demanding action. She couldn’t let him fight; wouldn’t let him fight. It was all a game, carefully constructed, for what reason she wasn’t certain.

“Megan, let him go.” Braden seemed to tower over her, his hand covering hers. His touch was cool, comforting where the touch of Lance’s flesh filled her with pain. “He’s hurting you. I can feel the pain pouring from you. Let him go.”

She was shaking, fighting the sensations, staring up at the cousin who had been one of the mainstays in her life for as long as she could remember. The pain made no sense; the sharp discomfort in her hands streaked through the rest of her body, cramping her muscles, searing her skin.

“Hurting her?” Lance’s frown was bewildered. “Meg, what the hell is going on?”

Lance moved back, pulling his arm gently from her grip as he retreated, his concern washing over her as some dark sizzle of satisfaction speared through the room. She turned slowly to Jonas Wyatt.

“I don’t like you,” she informed him, gritting her teeth in anger. “You are a sick son of a bitch.” He knew. She could feel it. He was aware of her abilities, testing them, pushing them all. His lips curved sardonically.

“Perhaps.” He tilted his head in acknowledgment of the insult as she stared back at him in confusion.

“Why did you do this?” she asked quietly.

“Because it needed to be done.” Jonas arched his brow. “You see, Miss Fields, we have a spy somewhere in this little setup. If not here in this office, then elsewhere. Possibly both. I’ll find out who it is, one way or the other. Thank you very much for assuring me that in this case I was wrong. Sheriff Jacobs is innocent.”

Her lips parted in shock.

“It’s all a game,” she whispered. “You knew I was empathic. You used me to try to trap my cousin,” she accused him, the anger growing in her voice as she twisted her head to stare up at Braden. “You told him.” It made sense now. Somehow he had learned of the empathic abilities and turned them against her by confronting Lance in front of her and then watching her reaction. “You bastard!” She struggled against Braden’s grip. “You cold-blooded, unfeeling son of a bitch.”

“Megan. Stay still.” Braden’s arms surrounded her as she tried to slam her elbow into his abdomen, jerking against his grip. “You don’t want to do this alone. Not right now. Too many emotions are whipping through you. Settle down and think first.”

His voice was at her ear, slicing through the chaotic din of the blood thundering in her ears, of the emotions and sensations that attacked her brain. Fury. Anger. It was her weakness. She couldn’t manage even the simplest shield against them on her own.

Lance was trying to pull his own emotions back, to spare her the pain of his fury; but it was still there, whipping through the room as though it were a separate entity.

She could feel herself shuddering in Braden’s grip. She was breathing harshly, her mind soaking up the psychic waves rolling through the room. So many emotions. But over them all, satisfaction. Satisfaction, as well as anger, that poured from Jonas Wyatt.

Her gaze rose to his as she grabbed hold of the fragile barrier she could feel surrounding her, the calm that flowed from Braden and encompassed her in its protection.

“Get the hell out of this office, Jonas,” Lance snapped. “Now. And don’t bother coming back here.”

“Sorry Sheriff.” Jonas’s smile was flat, tight with his own anger now. “Unfortunately, we’re not quite finished yet. I came to find a spy; instead I find out that my best Enforcer has now mated your cousin. Quite an interesting little development, I must say.”

Braden froze behind her as Megan blinked back at the Breed.

“What are you talking about?” she snapped.

Suddenly, the air in the room felt too thick, too tension filled to allow her to breathe. Jonas glanced behind her at Braden.

Jonas’s smile was cold. “The Mating isn’t going to do her much good unless you carry it through, Braden. Hurry and knock her up before she loses her mind.”

None of this was making sense. Jonas wasn’t making sense.

“You’re pushing me too far, Jonas.” Braden’s growl was savage, animalistic. “Insult her again and I’ll kill you.”

Jonas’s brow arched, his gaze locked with hers. “Did I insult her?” he murmured. “I stated a fact, Braden. You have mated this woman. It’s a little-known phenomenon that began with Callan Lyons, the Pride’s leader, and his woman. You are both in the middle of Mating Heat. You marked her, kissed her, infected her with that hormone in your tongue that is more binding than marriage. And there’s only one cure.” His lips curled coldly. “Well, perhaps not a cure exactly, but one of the few hopes of easing the arousal that will become so painful, so debilitating that she’ll risk every area of your life. Congratulations, buddy.” The last remark lacked any sincerity whatsoever. Not that it mattered.

Shock now filled the room. It slammed into her, ripped through her brain as she turned slowly to meet Braden’s gaze and felt the absolute, complete horror that raced from him and struck her mind, blinding her to every other emotion.

His denial was so strong, so fierce, it slapped her like an open-handed blow, pushing her back, reaching into the depths of her soul and withering a hope she hadn’t known had bloomed within her.

In that moment, she cursed her abilities with everything she had, just as fiercely as she cursed the men staring back at her.

“I didn’t want you either,” she finally whispered as something in her soul flamed in agonizing pain, forcing the lie past her lips as she turned and moved jerkily away from him. “What I do want are explanations.” She turned to Jonas, blinking back the tears that were gathering in her eyes as she met his flinty look. “Now.”

Chapter Nine

Mating Heat. Megan listened in silent shock as Jonas explained the physical symptoms, the need, the arousal and what had caused it. He was very clinical about it. She was thankful that he had asked Lance to leave before explaining more fully.

It began with a certain touch. A kiss, a nip, any caress that allowed the Breed saliva-infused with the hormone that caused the glands at sides of their tongues to swell into a body’s system.

The nip on her ear would have done it, perhaps. She remembered the sensitivity of her earlobe after the confrontation, the slow-rising arousal, the clash of emotions that kept her so off balance.

It hadn’t exactly begun there. She remembered following Braden through the tunnels, intrigued by his scent, by the air of danger and excitement that flowed around him. She would have wanted him anyway, but would she have wanted him with the strength she did now? That quickly?

She risked a quick glance at him and admitted she would have. He had drawn her to him, fascinated her, became a conspirator in adventure within the first half hour of their meeting. And she knew, despite the conflicting emotions raging within her, that the little nip he had given her had little to do with that.

That didn’t make his rejection of her easier. Her chest was tight with the tears she was holding back. She assured herself she wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. Though maintaining control on her emotions became harder by the second as Jonas’s explanations whipped through her head.