Kiss of Heat (9 page)

The last thought was like a knife wound in her soul as Kane suddenly dragged the straps of her top over her swollen breasts and back to her shoulders and she adjusted the neckline. He was struggling for control himself. She could see it in the raging emotion glittering in his dilated eyes, the tight grimace on his flushed face as fury began to envelop him.

“I’ll kill the fucking bastards!” Enraged, Kane forced the heavy length of his cock back in his pants. He hurriedly snapped the material together, jerked the belt closed, and grabbed one of the rifles from the wall along with a loaded clip.

He slammed the ammo in place, checked it and turned quickly from her.

“Kane.” Grabbing her belt and holstered weapon from the shelf, Sherra jumped to the floor and rushed behind him.

“Stay put.” He turned on her, his eyes blazing. “After I kill whoever dared set those sirens off, you’re fucked, Sherra. Accept it and get the hell ready for it. Because I won’t wait much longer.”

Sherra stood still in shock as she watched him disappear out the door. Precious seconds were lost as she fought to make sense of what happened and Kane’s sudden fury. The hormone.

A cry tore from her throat as she rushed after him, pulling her revolver from its holster as she reached the door to see the Jeep spinning from the small parking area in front of the shed. She jerked the communications unit from her belt and attached it to her ear as she raced for the other Jeep.

“Report!” she yelled into the mic as she flipped it to her lips.

“We have intruders.” Tamber maintained control as she reported to Sherra. “The front gates have been breached. I repeat, we have a breach. All available units to the main compound. We have a breach.”

Sirens were blasting as Breeds poured from the barracks and raced on foot or in Jeeps to the main gates where the long, black, stretch limo had managed to break through the barrier.

“Someone grab Kane!” Sherra shouted into the mic. “Callan, where the fuck are you?”

She was nearly in tears as she slammed the Jeep to a stop, nearly an acre from where the limo was surrounded. “Callan, damn you. Get Kane. Now. He’s not rational. Callan, where are you?”

She raced across the distance as voices raised and positions were taken to surround the vehicle.

“Sherra, stand down!” Callan ordered her suddenly, his voice rough through the mic. “Stay back. Kane’s in control. Get up to the house with Cassie. We need Merc out here.”

She slid to a stop at the warning tone in Callan’s voice. Her chest tightened with fear. Merc was the strongest of the Breeds. Six and a half feet, his body corded with muscles. He was also the finest shot in the compound. Trained as an assassin, so far, no one could beat his aim. What the hell was going on that they would need Merc?

She turned for the house, meeting Merc as he tore from it, his rifle in hand.

“Merc.” She slid to a stop, staring up at him, terrified. “Kane…”

“Get inside with Cassie, Sherra. Kane can take care of himself.” He rushed past her, racing for the tower in the center of the yard.

The sniper’s nest. Sherra gritted her teeth furiously as she ran into the house, only to be welcomed by Cassie’s inconsolable cries as she wailed for her momma from Merinus’ arms.

Several of the younger Breeds stood inside the room and crowded the hall, staring at her, looking for direction.

She switched the channel on the communications pack quickly, going straight to a private line to Tamber. Access to the line was given only to those highest in security.

“Tamber, what the hell do you see?” Tamber’s position within the communications shed would have her in a position to see everything going on.

“We have the limo surrounded with no movement so far,” she reported.

Sherra moved to one of the long windows in front of the door, watching the activity outside carefully. They were too far from the main gates to see exactly what was going on, but with over a hundred Breeds surrounding the vehicle, it wasn’t going far. They were sitting ducks for Kane’s fury.

“Get me a main line to Callan,” she ordered. “This is priority one, Tamber. I have to talk to him now!”

Kane’s control had been nonexistent when he tore from the shed; the hormone wreaked havoc on logic. Normally even-tempered, his control had been nowhere in sight when he left her.

“Main line…on…” Tamber responded as the low hum indicated the switch.

“Callan. Dammit, are you there?” She couldn’t stand the fear whipping inside her.

“Hurry, Sherra,” he snapped tersely in reply, giving her the go-ahead to claim his attention for valuable seconds.

She turned from the room, breathing roughly, rage and violence shimmering through her system.

“He kissed me, Callan,” she told him quickly. “He wasn’t rational when he left the shed, he may not be rational now. You have to get him out of there.”

The silence was thick, discordant with the mechanical buzz of the unit as she waited.

“Son of a bitch, if his timing doesn’t suck,” he cursed.

Sherra couldn’t agree more. But Kane had never used anyone else’s idea of a schedule. It had always been his way, however he had to manage it. Just as he had done this time.

“Agreed,” she snapped. “Now get him out of there.”

A second later, Sherra tensed, her eyes widening as shots fired and all hell broke loose both inside and out.

“Cassie, no!” Merinus’ frightened cry heralded a small bundle of determined energy as she threw herself out of Merinus’ arms and to the door.

A youthful, enraged wolf’s howl echoed through the house an instant before she evaded Sherra’s grip, wrenched open the door and flew out into the sun-dappled nightmare awaiting her.

Chapter Nine

Hours later, Kane could still feel the insidious crawl of the overwhelming terror that had filled him when he heard the screaming announcement that Cassie had escaped the house. At the same time, one of the younger Breeds panicked and sent off a barrage of bullets as the door to the limo began to open.

One little girl, over a hundred battle-hardened animalistic warriors and no one had been able to catch her before she threw herself into the dark interior of the car a second before the door slammed shut.

Kane sat alone now, the scene replaying in his mind as the near consequences of her actions slammed into his brain. She could have died. Right there in front of his eyes, that precious bundle of energy could have died.

He came to his feet in a surge of energy, restrained, vibrating with violence as he jammed his fists into the pockets of his jeans, ignoring the flash of pain in his engorged cock as the material tightened further.

First, he had failed to protect his own unborn child and now he had nearly failed with Cassie. It didn’t matter that the situation had quickly been diffused and the intruders had turned out to be Roni’s irate half-brother Seth Lawrence and her long lost father.

The Breeds could have whisked the intruders from the property, no one would have questioned it and then arranged a meeting outside the estate between Roni and her brother. That option was not feasible now. Cassie had ensured that.

“Cassie’s still crying.” Merinus stepped out on the porch, her voice soft in the growing darkness as Kane kept his back to her.

Kane hunched his shoulders against the guilt flaying him alive.

“At least she’s alive to cry,” he finally snapped, so damned angry at himself, Sherra, and an innocent child that he could barely make sense of anything else.

He could still see her running, her face tear-streaked, fear contorting her expression into a snarl as she launched herself through the men and women attempting to stop her until she disappeared into what could have been an enemy’s arms.

“She’s making herself sick, Kane,” Merinus told him as she came close to him, leaning her heavily pregnant body against his side. “She’s just a little girl. One who believes in herself enough to do what she feels is right. She knew there was no danger…”

“No, goddammit,” he cursed roughly. “She didn’t know anything of the sort, Merinus. She could have died…” He broke off, shaking his head as he moved away from her. “Hell. I lived a thousand deaths when Sherra alerted us she was out there. Bullets ripping around like a damned war zone and she throws herself into an unknown vehicle. If I had anything to throw up I think I would have done it then.”

He moved away from her. He had spanked Cassie. He shook his head against the knowledge. When he got her back in his arms he had taken her straight to her room, set her on her feet and spanked her twice before ordering her straight to bed. Then he had yelled at Sherra. Hard, bitter words that had ripped from his chest as he watched her eyes go blank with shock.

You were supposed to keep her fucking contained. Dammit to hell, there were four of you watching her. Couldn’t one of you keep her contained for ten fucking minutes?
He had thrown the words at her furiously.

“God, I’m a bastard,” he muttered. “I’m not just an asshole, Merinus. I’m the worst bastard to ever walk. Someone should have shot me.”

She sighed heavily behind him.

“You’re human,” she finally said softly. “I know about the kiss you shared with Sherra. I can imagine what you’re going through without the burden of protecting everyone that you place on your shoulders, Kane. You can’t protect us all alone. Shit happens. That’s what you used to tell me. All you can do is be as prepared as possible when it unloads and get through the stink the best way you can.”

He grunted at that. He was an arrogant ass to boot, it seemed. He stared around the darkened yard, the tall fence that stretched below the wood line, the guards patrolling the area. It was like an armed camp, not much better in its restrictions than the Council labs had been.

In the farthest distance of the main compound, lights blazed in one of the small guesthouses. Seth Lawrence, his father, and chauffer were presently under close watch as Taber and Dawn attempted to convince Seth and Aaron Lawrence that right now, Roni wouldn’t be told who they were or why they were there.

It wasn’t so much that Seth Lawrence had disregarded all their requests that he wait before forcing such a meeting. It was the damned hairs at the back of Kane’s neck. They prickled in warning, making his nape tingle with an itch that wouldn’t go away. He had agreed with Taber’s fears about not allowing the meeting yet. Roni’s physical health had been precarious when she first came to the compound.

The length of time she had endured the mating heat, along with exhaustion, the sexual excesses and resulting pregnancy had worn her down. But that wasn’t Kane’s only worry where the Lawrences were concerned. The timing was off. Two mated females pregnant, the only known Wolf Breed child in existence living there with them, and now this.

“Hell. I saw Cassie running for that car and you know what ran through my mind, Merrie?” he asked her painfully.

Merinus sighed deeply. “That you had failed.” She surprised him with that answer. “You couldn’t protect your own, and now you hadn’t protected Cassie either.”

He turned to her slowly.

“Yeah,” he breathed out roughly. “But how did you know?”

“Because it’s the same thing Sherra told me before she locked herself in her room,” she answered him gently, forcing him to embrace her as she moved into his arms.

She was another man’s wife now. She carried a child, would be a mother and would face more danger than he could have ever envisioned. But she was still the little girl he had bribed with the chocolate. The young woman he had held as she cried over the loss of her mother. The same who had called him an asshole for most of her life. He fought not to hold her too tight as his arms constricted around her.

He could smell baby powder and chocolate for just an instant. The scents that had been uniquely Merinus’ when she was a child. A precocious bundle of energy that got into more trouble than seven men could keep her out of.

He kissed her forehead gently before pushing her to the door. “Go on in. You need to be resting or terrorizing Callan. Not out here messing with my head.”

She didn’t laugh as he expected her to, and neither did she go in the house.

“I get scared, Kane,” she said softly as she looked up at him worriedly, her hands laying protectively on the mound of her stomach. “I’m scared for you. You can’t go on like this, and neither can Sherra. I want our children to be safe; our lives to be led with some measure of peace. Until this thing between you and Sherra is resolved, that won’t happen.”

“Give it time, Merinus,” he told her gently. “Go on inside. I need to take care of some things before I head to bed myself. I’m beat.”

Sleep was the furthest thing from his mind, though.

“Good night, Kane,” Merinus said softly. “If you get a chance, check on Cassie soon. She’s devastated that you’re angry with her. She’s convinced she saved lives. And she’s just a little girl.”

She possibly had saved lives. His and Lawrence’s. If it hadn’t been for the alert that Cassie was speeding toward them he would have been in the line of fire when the bullets started flying. Only the alert and his attempt to intercept the little girl had saved his own life.

“I’ll look in on her soon,” he promised, steeling himself against the tears he knew he would see in the little girl’s eyes and her plea for her momma.

“Merc and Tanner are leaving in the morning for Dash and Elizabeth’s location. I’ll place Cassie with Dawn if that’s okay. I think they’ll do well together,” Merinus told him softly.

Merc and Tanner’s absence would leave a weakness within the group as a whole; he could only hope the situation in California resolved itself soon.

“Dawn’s a good choice,” he agreed. “Hopefully we’ll not have any more surprise visitors to push Cassie into such reactions. I still can’t figure out why she pulled such a damned fool stunt.”

“Because her fairy told her to,” Merinus said worriedly. “And that, Kane, terrifies me. She’s withdrawing too deeply into herself and this fairy issue. We need to talk to her mother about it when they collect her. It’s going to get her hurt.”

Or drive him over the edge of his sanity. Sherra already had him teetering; Cassie could well push him over.