Mercury's War (33 page)

    She paled, staring back at him with eyes that flickered with fear now.

    “You were part of my pride,” he reminded her. “And admittedly, the woman I would have taken as my lover once you matured. Whatever mating hormone was showing up must have an error. Or some anomaly. You are not my mate.”

    “How can you say that?” she whispered.

    Mercury could feel the animal clawing harder, screaming out in rage in his head. The hormone was pumping into his tongue, making it hard to think past the haze of lust consuming him now.

    This had to be dealt with. No matter the distaste that filled him.

    “I say it very easily,” he growled. “I was pride leader then. In those labs, you were my responsibility. You were my woman, just as the other female was mine as well. I was an animal there. The animal ruled me and it guided me, and the animal needed to mate. It was that simple.” He turned and stared back at Callan, recognizing the animal there. Powerful. Honorable. The animal inside Callan blended perfectly with the man, in accord, strong and enduring. And Callan ruled.

    As powerful as Mercury knew himself to be now, knew his animal to be, he had no desire for the responsibilities that came with the pride leader position.

    “You’re Callan’s responsibility now. Perhaps he can deal with you.”

    “I won’t let that bitch take you.”

    The words were no sooner out of her mouth than the animal struck. His hand was around her neck, not bruising, but definitely threatening.

    She gasped, fear finally contorting her expression as Mercury leaned close to her and inhaled. “The smell of the men you’ve lain with permeate your pores. The scent of your jealousy and your greed, the maliciousness of who and what you are, sicken me. Your calculation to steal what you know belongs to another enrages me. Come near my mate again, and I’ll not be able to help myself, Alaiya. I will kill you. No one, neither man nor woman, threatens what’s mine. Do you comprehend me?”

    Her eyes locked with his, the need to challenge his power flickering within her gaze as his hand tightened around her throat and he growled in warning.

    “Yes.” Her eyes lowered, went to his shoulder. Acknowledgment of his strength filled her scent now, as did her submission to it. The animal inside her, that part of her genetics, the strength he knew she held, the qualities that had made her survive, he respected. The woman, he would never trust.

    He jerked his hand back from her and turned back to Callan and Jonas. The two men he followed into battle, respected and fought for.

    “We’ll talk later,” he growled back at them. It wasn’t a request. As much as he respected them, as much as he owed them, his mate came above them.

    Callan nodded as Jonas glanced at the vial of blood in his hand.

    “Run the fucking tests,” Mercury snarled. “Perhaps we all need to see exactly what we’re dealing with now.”

    He knew what they were dealing with. Pure animal genetics. Inside and out. Mercury was indeed a lion walking on two legs, and that blood would prove it.

    “Blade,” he told the Wolf enforcer at the head of the unit. “Inform them outside to have my Harley brought around.”

    “It’s snowing, Merc,” the Breed Enforcer informed him carefully. “Hard.”

    The Harley would go through a blizzard. Mercury had made damned certain of it.

    “Tell them now.” He turned back to Alaiya.

    She stood against the wall, watching him carefully, calculation filling her eyes before she jerked them away from his gaze.

    “Fuck with me, Alaiya, and it will be the last mistake you make.”

    He walked away from them all then and allowed the animal driving him freedom. It had been confined, so deeply hidden within him that even he hadn’t known it still lived.

    It wasn’t confined any longer, and it was going for its mate.

    As he stepped outside the mansion and moved for the Harley, he inhaled deeply.

    He could smell them now. Knew where they were. Each living, four-legged lion that wandered the grounds, protecting its two-legged cousins, following them.

    He roared out into the night, the animal and the man announcing their presence, their strength. And the calls came back to him. A symphony of animal screams, roars that filled the mountain, the acknowledgment from the animals that all moved to be near him, in triumph.

    He was aware of the Breeds guarding outside, watching him warily now. The sounds of the lions called back to him, roaring out their greeting, their challenge, the echo of the fury they heard inside him.

    He roared out again, filling the night with a sound he’d never known he possessed. His head tipped back, rage and triumph and the call for his mate tearing from vocal cords that were now more animal than human.

    And the animals answered. He felt their response, felt them moving toward his destination. They were his pride and they would protect what was his. His woman. His mate. Their alpha female by choice and by nature.

    The Breed that brought him the Harley stood back, wariness and respect filling his gaze as Mercury strode to him.

    The Breed was awed by the sight of him. Eyes so blue they could rival a summer sky, the thick mane of hair flowing back from his savage features, his shoulders appearing broader, his body larger, than ever before.

    The Lion Breed male saw something that both terrified and awed him, because this vision was a true Breed. The pure merging of lion and human. And he was enraged. That roar had been one of pure fury, and in it, it had held a message. A message so primal, so demanding, that the Breed himself nearly followed it.

    Protect Mercury’s mate.

    Ria heard the roars in the exhaustion of her sobs. They still tore from her, but the screams were no longer ripping through her. They were trapped inside her now, flowing out with the tears that had swollen her eyes and left her wrecked, clinging to Mercury’s pillow, his scent the only solace she could find.

    The memory of his smile flitted through her mind. The knowledge in his eyes when he stared at her. He knew her. There were things she hadn’t had to tell him. He knew who she was, when no one else ever had, even the Vanderales.

    She hadn’t wanted others to see who she was, so she had hidden it. But Mercury had seen her. He had felt her. And now she was losing him.

    She had walked away. Should she have fought for him? Her sobs became deeper at the thought. Oh God, she wanted to fight for him. She wanted to claw that woman’s eyes out. Tear her away from Mercury and rip at that perfect hair that had framed those perfect features.

    And what good would it have done? Where did love fall into place within mating heat? She had done her homework. She knew there was no denying the heat. And the heat hadn’t been between her and Mercury. At least, not with Mercury.

    She was bleeding agony through every pore of her body at the thought of another woman touching him. How would she survive it? How was she going to do her job then walk away?

    She curled tighter around the pillow she held to her. She couldn’t stay here. Dane was right. There was no way she could survive it, but she couldn’t survive returning to South Africa either. Where Elizabeth would fuss over her and Leo would watch her with sad disappointment. Because she had messed up and let herself care again.

    No, that wasn’t it, she realized. It was because he knew her. He knew she refused to share her hurt, and he’d always been disappointed in her because she didn’t fight when she hurt. She hid, and she tried to heal. And Leo only knew how to fight.

    And Dane? Dane always brought her baubles, trinkets and bling when she hurt. As though he knew no other way to try to ease her pain. And she had always taken them, because she had always known it comforted him. Even if it didn’t comfort her.

    She was the poor orphan relation because she had allowed herself to become one. Because, as Mercury had accused her, it allowed her to hide. It kept men at a distance, and it kept her heart safe. Because she didn’t want to hurt. Because that six-year-old child still existed within her. The one who knew that life could so easily take the center of her world.

    She heard the lions roar outside again, just outside the cabin.

    Did animals feel the death of a soul? A heart? Were they moving in like scavengers to partake of the destruction? She had seen the lions on Leo’s estate. Large and powerful, they always attacked the weakest in a group first. The ones that were injured. That couldn’t fight.

    For the first time in her life she was willing to fight for something or someone, and she knew the battle was hopeless. A woman couldn’t defeat mating heat.

    But he had made her promises. He had called her his mate. He loved her. Love could fight biology, chemistry. It could move mountains.

    She shook her head. She would destroy both of them in the process, wouldn’t she?

    “From all evidence I’ve gained, as well as the tests I’ve conducted on myself and Leo, I have to say mating heat always comes with emotion.” Elizabeth had stood before her more than a year ago, frowning as she worked, while Ria went through Leo’s transmissions and updated the security of his encryption. “What do you think, Ria? Does love conquer all?”

    Ria had looked up from the computer to meet Elizabeth’s gaze.

    “How would I know? I’ve never been in love.” She had smiled back at the other woman.

    “But you’ve helped me with many of these tests,” Elizabeth pointed out. “The matings are strengthening in the American Breeds, though we’ve had rare matings among Leo’s pride.”

    Ria snorted. “Leo’s pride rarely leaves the plains. What are they supposed to mate? The zebras?”

    And Elizabeth had laughed at that one, agreeing with her.

    “Look at this. Devotion, Ria.” She laid out pictures that had been taken of the mated couples. “Look at their eyes, their expressions as they watch each other. These are more than biological, chemical or pheromonal. That’s why the mating tests are not always conclusive. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they aren’t.” Ria knew Elizabeth often worked secretly with the Breed scientist Ely Morrey. “This is love. Love, the predisposition for it, or the animal sense that that woman is somehow more perfect, more worthy than others. It begins the mating heat.”

    Ria had stared at the pictures. The pride leader Callan Lyons and his wife at a news conference after they announced to the world what the Breeds were. Taber Williams and his mate, Roni. Tanner and Scheme. An enforcer, Tarek, and his mate, Lyra. In their expressions that extra something that had always fascinated Ria. It was love. It was always love. Mating heat had managed, in every instance, to combine the chemical, biological and pheromonal with love.

    Mercury loved her.

    She heard the roar outside. Closer, throbbing with rage, reminding her of Mercury.

    He loved her. She knew he did. Her soul was being ripped from her body without him.

    He didn’t love Alaiya. Mating heat came with love. Mercury had shown signs of the mating hormone in those labs. Not mating heat.

    She buried her head deeper into his pillow, drew in his scent.

    He was hers. He was meant to be hers. Yet what should have been hers had come alive for another woman. The scent of mating heat that Dane had smelled. The moment Mercury saw Alaiya.

    She was tensing to move, to force herself from the bed, when the slam of a door had her stiffening. A snarl filled the cabin and the bedroom door burst open, thrown into the wall with a force that shook the room.

    She jerked up in the bed. The light from the bathroom speared over him.

    Mercury. Savage. Enraged.

    “You ran from me, mate.” Buttons ripped from his jacket as he tore it from his body.

    She watched in shock as he undressed. Boots thudded to the floor. His pants slid from his powerful hips. His erection was thicker, throbbing, his eyes pure blue as she stared back at the apparition prowling to her bed.

    “Mercury…”

    “Mate,” he snarled, his canines flashing as he moved to the bed.

    She watched, entranced as he paused at the foot of the bed. He looked bigger, his muscles more powerful, the strength in his body amplified.

    She swallowed tightly. “You didn’t mate me, Mercury.” Her breath hitched on a sob. She was going to cry again, and she couldn’t bear crying in front of him. She wanted to be strong, wanted to give him the chance to choose without being burdened by promises made to her.

    “There’s no heat for me.” The tears dripped from her eyes anyway, the pain scoured her soul.

    His eyes flashed with rage. Blue eyes, pinpoints of gold flaring in them like fire. As they had been in the labs. As they had been for another woman.

    She reached out to him, then drew her hand back, fighting her sobs.

    “Why are you here?” she whispered. “Why? Oh God, Mercury. I can’t bear this. I can’t stand losing you twice. Don’t do this to me.”

    The roar that filled the room had her flinching. It was animalistic, it wasn’t Breed. It was filled with all the power and the rage of genetics that had somehow been increased with him, that poured through him. That sound was pure animal.

    When his head lowered again, the expression on his face terrified her. Because she knew he wasn’t letting her go. She knew he would ignore mating heat and it would destroy them both.

    She moved to jump from the bed, to rush from the room. He caught her before she did more than tense. He was on her, pushing her down, snarling. His fingers tangled in her hair, held her in place, and the enraged lust that filled his face had her heart tripping in fear.

    “My fucking mate.” The growl was savage.

    “No…” Because he was going to kiss her. Give her something that belonged to another woman. Not to her.

    And she couldn’t evade him.

    His lips came down on her, slanted over hers, and his tongue passed into her mouth with determined hunger. Greed. With a desperation that surged through her senses and a taste that had her going still inside.