Styx's Storm (25 page)

"That has to be the third bar of chocolate I've seen you eat in the past three days." She stared at the chocolate with a hint of jealousy.

"It's actually most likely the twelfth or better," he drawled, allowing the smooth edge of the brogue back into his voice.

She reacted to it instantly. The soft edge of liquid heat wafted from her, tempting his senses and making his cock throb harder. Damn, at this rate, the pigs might overcook while he satisfied a far different hunger.

"Twelve?" Her gaze flicked to the chocolate bar again as he parted his lips for another bite.

"At least." He nodded. "I'm rather fond of the sweet."

"You're going to get fat," she muttered, her gaze flicking to his stomach.

Styx grinned. "Breeds have a very high metabolism, lass. It burns off near as fast as I eat it."

Yep, that was pure envy that lit her green eyes. She wanted the chocolate.

Stepping closer, he moved his hand to allow the chocolate to glance off her lips. The smear of the dark sweet was immediately collected by her little pink tongue.

"Do ye want a bit, lass?" he asked, teasing her again, brushing the soft chocolate against her lips once more. "I've no problem sharin' my chocolate wi' ya."

The soft scent of arousal peaked in her delicate body. Her tongue collected the taste before it seemed she had to force herself to step back from it.

"A minute on the lips, a lifetime on the hips," she sighed. "Normal people don't burn the fat that fast."

"Aye, being a Breed has its advantages, I must say, love." He finished off the treat before smacking his lips in pleasure. "Doesn't taste near as luscious as your sweet pussy, but it will do."

Her face flamed, though not in embarrassment. The flush raced up her neck and across her face as the heat in the soft flesh between her thighs intensified.

Damn, he'd love to stretch her across the kitchen table and lap at the honey of her heat. Doing so would ensure the pigs were tough, however. It was nearly time to take them out. He could smell the meat cooking and knew he hadn't much time before they would begin pulling it from the ground.

"What time do we head out?" Despite her attempt to appear nonchalant, he could sense the excitement beginning to rise within her.

Each evening he'd sensed her regret at not joining the activities. He'd been reluctant to force her, until tonight. Tonight, he wanted her to see the warmth, the affection and sense of family that existed at Haven. The mating anniversaries reflected that full sense of joy that radiated through the community with a mating. With the knowledge that Breeds were evolving despite man's determination to destroy them. That some higher force had deemed them worthy and granted them the ability to be loved, to have children, to survive.

"You know, Storme, you could eat the chocolate. You could be a part of Haven. And here, ye could have friends and family," he stated without answering her question. "I think ye know well now that what ye believed as a child wasn't the truth. That what the pure blood societies teach is a far cry from what the Breeds truly are."

She turned away from him, inhaling deeply, quietly, as he felt that regret rushing through her again.

"What I believe isn't what's important," she finally stated.

"Storme, is that information worth having the Council soldiers torture you for it if they catch you?" he asked. "It's information gained by the experimentation and torture of Breeds. Beyond the fact that this information could save Jonas's stepdaughter's life, aren't the Breeds more entitled to that research than the Council?"

Storme breathed in roughly.

"I don't deny the Breeds' right to the research," she finally whispered.

"Then why do ye hold back, lass?" She hated the sound of disappointment in his tone, the chastisement, as though he couldn't understand why she would be so cruel.

It wasn't cruelty. She wished it were something so simple as that, so simple as merely being a bitch, or wanting to make the Breeds pay for what had happened to her family.

"It's complicated," she finally whispered, before realizing that for first time in ten years, she had admitted to having the data chip.

She should have been surprised, but she wasn't. Lying to Styx wasn't something she could make herself do any longer. Looking into his clear blue eyes, seeing his appearance, at least, of attempting to give her time, attempting to save her from Breed Law and from Jonas.

"What's so complicated, lass?" he asked her gently. "Tell me what demons I must fight. Tell me, Storme, how to help ye make your decision."

She felt her lips tremble. The conflict inside her was tearing at her, confusing her. She hated feeling this way. Hated having her loyalties torn and divided.

"Conquer the past." She turned back to him, her chest aching as she felt a sizzle of some sensation race over her flesh. As though her body ached for his touch. "Bring my father and my brother back so they can release me from the promise I made."

Her voice thickened as she felt moisture threaten to gather in her eyes. Her father and her brother were dead. How many times had her friend Gena told her that the dead wouldn't know what choices she made?

She didn't believe that. Sometimes she felt as though that promise chained her, locked her into a world that she would have given anything to escape.

"Your da said you would know the one he sent for the information?" Styx asked.

Storme nodded in reply. "No one came, Styx." Her breathing hitched as she fought against the pain that began to radiate inside her. "I waited for so many years. I even answered Jonas Wyatt's phone calls each time he reached my cell phone. I always answered the Council, I never refused to talk to the former friends of my father's when they managed to reach me. But no one ever had the words that would even make me suspect they could have been the one my father meant."

She watched as he moved slowly to her, his arms circling her shoulders to pull her against his chest.

Closing her eyes tightly, Storme fought against the need to cry, to shed the aching pain that seemed to build by the day.

"I wish I had the words for ye, lass," he whispered as she felt him kiss the top of her head. "I wish I could ease that conscience that seems to torture ye far into the night. Perhaps though, like your da, the one he thought would come to you may have died before he could complete his task. Remember, Storme, so many Breeds perished in the rescues. Perhaps the one to collect it was one of those Breeds."

And what should she say to that? In the past days as she sat in the cabin alone, she had considered it. She had fought to convince herself of it. The more she was with Styx, the less she cared if perhaps he was merely playing her, working her for the data chip.

This time at Haven had shown her that there could be peace. She could find a life somewhere. She could be safe. Without the data chip hampering her, there would be no reason to strike at her, would there?

Wrapped in his embrace now, she swore she could taste his kiss. That hint of cinnamon and chocolate she always tasted when they kissed. As his hands stroked over her back, her thighs tensed, her clit ached, and the need to have him take her almost overwhelmed her.

She hadn't wanted this. She hadn't wanted to need him, and that was what was happening. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate all Breeds, just as she had done for the past ten years. It made it easier to keep the promise she had given her father, the one he had feared she would break.

"Dad told James he couldn't trust me," she whispered as he continued to hold her. "Once, Scheme Tallant came to Omega, and I caught her talking to several Breeds secretly. I told Dad and James she was up to something, and they didn't say anything then. Later, I heard them talking. Dad told my brother that I wasn't loyal enough."

She pulled back from him as she wrapped her arms across her breasts and moved to the back door, where she gazed through the window into the courtyard.

"I was loyal," she whispered. "If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have told him about Scheme. I was loyal to my father and my brother. I wasn't old enough and didn't know enough to give my loyalty to anyone else."

And this was the battle she fought, Styx thought heavily. A battle that would be impossible for Storme to turn her back on. As the only daughter living in the Omega labs, facing the monsters the Council wanted to turn the Breeds into, seeing their savagery and their agony, she could have easily mistaken it for animal brutality.

The same type of animal that killed her family, the ones that shadowed her for years, pressuring her into giving up the information her father had made her swear she would protect.

She would protect it with her life, he thought. And it might very well come to her life.

"Your da loved you, Storme," he promised her softly. "He knew you were young, he knew you feared the Breeds and giving them your loyalty wouldn't be easy. Perhaps this was what he meant."

She turned back to him, a bitter smile curving her lips as she rubbed at her arms. "Perhaps," she whispered, then fought to shake off the pain, and the past. "You didn't answer me, when are we leaving?"

Styx almost sighed in regret. For a moment, for just a moment, he had felt as though, at the least, she was prepared to discuss the possibility of giving him the data chip. Now he could feel, smell, the refusal in her.

She had pulled back with an inner strength and determination that was integral to woman she was.

"I'll give my life to protect you, Storme, whether against Breeds or against the Council."

Shock flashed in her eyes. He had heard his own voice, the animal inside him coming to the fore and revealing itself in the growl.

"What?" She shook her head as though what he were saying made no sense to her.

"My loyalty is to you," he stated, knowing he would not attempt to hide that from her any longer. She was his mate, and she might not have accepted him, but he had accepted her the moment he tasted her first kiss.

"Exactly what I said, lass. My loyalty is yours. I'd die to protect you, whether from Council soldiers, scientists or Breed Law and Jonas Wyatt. I'll no longer allow anyone or anything to steal the security I can give you. I'd prefer to make it easy." He gave her a soft smile. "I do rather enjoy my lazier side. For you though, I'll deal with whatever I must, unless you make the choice to give the information to anyone other than myself or Jonas."

The line was drawn, but it wasn't a line she had a problem with. Until she could decide the consequences to herself, and perhaps to the world, of breaking her promise, then it was all she had.

"We're not as bad as the pure blood societies would have you believe, love." He chided her as she continued to stare back at him.

She smiled. Tentative, soft. A curve of her lips that blended with the soft scent of . . . His head tilted as he drew that scent in. It was darker than affection, but nowhere close to the scent of mates that he had known from what others experienced.

But it was a start, a sliver of hope. And he would take what he could get until he had the time to steal her heart fully.

CHAPTER 15

Styx gave Storme a reprieve. A few minutes to pull together the emotions raging through her as she fought the realizations he knew she was coming to.

He was making headway. There came a time in a man's, or a Breed's, life, when he had his own realizations. One of those was the knowledge that pushing Storme further could be more detrimental than simply walking away and allowing her to consider her options.

The first pig he and Navarro had placed in the fire pit had come out more than an hour before. That was the ceremonial roasted pig served to the mated couple's table, where the special guests of the couple sat.

The rest of the pork for the pig roast was ready to come off the spits now. It would be laid on the large banquet tables set up to hold bowls and platters of other contributions to the feast as well.

As he and several of the Enforcers extracted the roasted pork and laid each pig on one of the specially made wooden platters, Styx turned and caught sight of one of the Coyote Breeds currently working outside Haven.

"Marx, good to see you." Styx nodded to the Coyote as he strolled into the banquet area.

Marx Whitman was one of the rougher cut Coyote Breeds. As though the genetics for exceptional good looks and grace had somehow gone awry.

At five feet, eight inches, stocky, with a heavily muscular chest and arms, the quiet, normally antisocial Breed walked slowly to him.

"The Sinclair mating anniversary." Marx looked over the heavily laden tables. "You can smell that pig roasting all the way to the main gates."

"Aye, the Breeds on duty this evening have already called, bitching. The scent they say is starving them to death."

Marx chuckled at the comment before standing awkwardly for long moments.

"I hear you have a captive," he drawled. "Something about a woman that's leading you a merry little chase."

Styx grinned. "She is at that."

Marx shook his head, his brown eyes filling with amusement as he inhaled slowly. "There's no mating scent, man. What the hell is going on with that?"

Styx lifted his hand to rub at the back of his neck as he gave Marx a confused look. The other man rarely poked his nose into anyone else's business. Hell, when he wasn't on assignment he rarely came down from the mountain the Coyotes used as their home base, unless he had to.

"No one said it was a mating," Styx informed him.

Styx was unwilling to discuss the details or the problems associated with this particular mating.

"True." Marx inclined his head in agreement as he looked around at the food once again.

Most Breeds were difficult to read at the best of times. They learned to control their emotions and therefore their hormonal scents, making it harder to sense if a Breed were lying, telling the truth, or perhaps hungry and needing to join a celebration he wasn't familiar with.

"Are you going back to Haven for a while?" Styx asked as he covered the last roast pig with a large sheet of foil, aware of other Breeds beginning to move into the courtyard.

"For a while," Marx answered absently. "Hey, have you seen Wolfe and Hope around? I wanted to say hello while I was here."

Talking to Marx was never easy. He shifted from one conversation to the next without warning and normally without finishing the previous conversation.

"They're visiting with Dash and Elizabeth," Styx informed him.

Dash didn't normally keep his family in Haven on a full-time basis. Cassie actually spent much of her time in Sanctuary. At the time that Dash had needed Breed help in protecting his new mate and her child, Haven had been a carefully guarded secret. Sanctuary, the Feline Breed compound, had been fully operational, with the Breeds of all species arriving almost daily from rescues and escapes. Dash had called the Felines, and Cassie had stayed there while Dash and her mother neutralized that first of many threats to the child.

"I'll catch up with them." Marx nodded. "See ya later, Styx."

Styx watched the other man leave, a frown on his brow before he shook his head. Marx had always been an odd one.

"Faith, the pork is perfect and ready." He turned to the Wolf Breed liaison to the Bureau of Breed Affairs.

Vivid black eyes, shoulder-length reddish brown hair and a creamy, satiny complexion. Tall and lithe, competent and deadly when she had to be, and still, she managed to look soft, gentle and without a merciless bone in her body.

Styx knew for a fact that Faith could and would kill as fast as any Breed male. Perhaps faster. Breed females were hardened in the labs in ways the males weren't. In many cases they were considered no more than toys to the soldiers and Council trainers. The fact that they had managed to maintain the innocence of their hearts amazed Styx.

Faith had escaped the worst of it, but still, life had been brutal for her there.

"Great." A ready smile crossed Faith's lips as she moved from the vegetable table to the roast pork. "It smells wonderful."

"Aye, a'course it does." Styx winked. "I did the deed myself."

Faith laughed, those unusual black eyes twinkling in delight.

"Is your captive coming to the feast?" she teased him then. "She's stayed hidden in the past weeks. I was hoping to get to meet her."

"Aye, tonight she'll be here." He nodded. "I wanted to get the pork from the pit and finish preparations before escorting her to the party."

Faith nodded. "Nikki mentioned the tests she's been doing." Her gaze flashed in concern. "Have there been any answers there?"

Styx shook his head. "And they're beginnin' to piss me off, Faith," he growled.

Where he had been unwilling to discuss the "almost" mating with Marx, he found himself able to talk to Faith about it.

"Mating heat makes you crazy anyway." She grinned, obviously not too crazy yet. "Once it hits, you'll be praying for a break." A teasing wink belied her words; her smile assured him she was perfectly content with the life and the heat she shared with her mate.

"Lass, at the moment, I'm just prayin' for the damned heat to make up its mind when tae begin burnin'. A Breed can only take so much pressure, ya know."

Laughter slipped past her lips, bringing a smile to his face. He'd known her before she and Jacob Arlington had completed their mating, when mating heat had taken its grip on the pair at a very inconvenient time, during a mission that had revealed another species of Breed. One that still caused disbelief and remained a mystery to the general population. But Styx had been there when Jacob and Faith reunited after several years apart, and he had seen not just the love, but also the fiery, dedicated hunger they shared.

"Lass, before your havin' me believin' I should commit myself to an asylum afore mating, I believe I'll go find my almost mate and see if the wee thing is ready tae eat yet."

Faith arched a brow, the amusement in her gaze contagious and causing the smile to linger on his lips even as he headed back to his cabin.

Breeds were beginning to enter the courtyard slowly, all navigating first to the appetizer table and the seating spread around the courtyard that allowed for different sizes of groups to congregate.

The lights strung in the trees would flicker on as dark began to fall soon, casting shadows among the artfully landscaped courtyard and shining down on those men and women who had never known laughter, camaraderie and joy until the past decade.

And even now it was rife with danger.

That danger might not end anytime soon, Styx feared as he reached the cabin. But each battle, each missing piece to the Breed puzzle brought them ever closer to the security they craved. The freedom they prayed to give their children.

And wasn't that why any species fought? To survive? To preserve the future of their species for those they loved?

Stepping into the cabin, Styx came to a slow stop, his senses exploding at the soft, almost-not-there scent that crossed his senses.

It wasn't mating heat, but it was similar perhaps, at the least familiar, though he couldn't quite place it.

It was a scent of cinnamon candy. Sweet and tinged with heat, but so subtle, so barely there, that he couldn't be certain if it was the scent of the woman or the scent of candy. Except, Styx kept chocolate in the house rather than cinnamon. Other than a hint of it in the coffee, it wasn't a sweet he bought often.

He would be buying it more often now though. A scent that would always remind him of this.

Storme stepped from the bedroom, her long black hair pinned to the top of her head, a small frown on her forehead, her face flushed.

"I can't find anything wrong with the air-conditioning, but you have a problem. It got damned hot in here after you left," she told him irritably.

It wasn't mating heat, but it was damned close. As though the slow simmer had finally heated marginally.

Styx tilted his head and watched her intently as he drew in the scents emanating from her.

His hardened cock and tight balls pulsed, throbbed. Shards of sensation wrapped around the sensitive shaft, tightening in the need to fuck.

For a second, for just a second, he tasted cinnamon.

Running his tongue over the edge of his teeth, he felt the slightest swelling. It was more than an irritation, but it wasn't quite the hormone-enflamed mating scent other Breed males had experienced.

She propped her hands on her hips and her frown deepened as she stopped just inside the kitchen and glared at him. "Did you hear me?"

"Aye." He cleared his throat. "I heard ye, lass."

"Power cells are testing full, the diagnostic came up clear." She shook her head. "But it's hotter than hell."

A fine sheen of perspiration glistened on her forehead and at her neck, and her pussy was hot. Sweet and hot and the scent of it was tinged with cinnamon.

He should call Nikki. Hell, he'd sworn he would call Nikki the minute anything changed. That he wouldn't touch Storme, wouldn't dare be tempted to forget his promise. Nikki had threatened to neuter him if he did.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked as he watched her breathe in deeply, trying to hide it by doing it slow and easy.

Her heart was racing though. He could see the vein pounding in her neck, almost in time to the pounding in his cock.

Hell, he wasn't going to be able to get to a phone to call Nikki, let alone wait for her to actually get here to do whatever the hell it was she had to do.

"You're beautiful, lass," he growled.

He couldn't exactly tell her the truth. That the sweet, soft scent of her as she neared mating heat was driving him insane. And that was what it was. He knew it was. He could sense it. She was almost a mate. A closer "almost" than she had been before he left the cabin earlier.

"I know that look," she muttered.

Aye, she knew it, and she reciprocated the need pulsing through him.

She was sweet and soft and so ready for him.

"Take those jeans off, lass." If he had to take them off himself then he would likely end up tearing them off.

Perhaps he should warn her what could be coming, but if the heat still hadn't progressed to the point that the mating knot emerged, then warning her could be useless, and would likely scare the hell out of her.

Her face flushed further. Beneath the camisole top she wore her nipples puckered tighter than seconds before. The delicate, soft scent of her heat washed through the room as he inhaled deeply.

He felt as though he could become drunk on her.

"You're joking," she whispered breathlessly as she glanced toward the door. "I thought you had to be outside for your little get-together? Don't you have a date with Cassie or something?"

Ahh, she hadn't forgotten, and her jealous reaction had only grown stronger at the idea of him having an evening with the charming little sprite Cassie. Not that anyone could be as charming as his wee little "near" mate.

He'd seen her as he chased her over the past two years with that sparkle of humor, those timid smiles.

"Not tonight." He wasn't going to argue over this and he wasn't playing this game any longer. "There's no other woman, lass, you've no reason to fear."

He belonged to her. Not that he would tell her that at this moment. Something that he feared his lovely little "almost" mate might not be ready to hear.

But there were other things, such as the male Wolf Breed mating knot, that there would be no way to hide.

Her fingers moved to the metal buttons of her jeans.

Styx followed suit. His belt loosened. As she pushed the jeans and panties over her thighs and stepped out of them, he pulled the buttons of his own jeans free and allowed the heavy wedge of his cock to slip from the parted material.

The camisole and tank top came over her head, leaving her gloriously, beautifully naked.

The soft, swollen flesh of her pussy was glazed with her syrup.

Stroking his dick, Styx grimaced at the electric sensations racing through the shaft to pierce the mushroomed crest. The middle of the shaft pulsed and throbbed, the burning presence of the unrevealed knot ached with need.

Moving to her, Styx gripped her waist and lifted her to the open counter between the living room and the kitchen. There were going to be few preliminaries, he thought hazily. The need heating her flesh was brighter than ever, hotter. His fingers smoothed through the heavy glaze covering her pussy, the soft, rich cream heating the tips of his fingers before he tucked two in at the entrance and thrust.

At the same moment his lips covered hers, taking the whimpering cry that fell from her mouth. And there was that taste of cinnamon. Where the hell had it come from? He could taste it, but the glands at his tongue still weren't fully swollen.

Still, the hint of the taste of chocolate and cinnamon teased his senses as he pushed his tongue between her lips and groaned as her lips closed around it, sucking it inside.

She would burn him alive.

Storme moaned again as she tasted that distinctive taste of Styx. Chocolate and cinnamon. She could so easily become addicted. Hell, she was terribly afraid she was already addicted.