“And you will have me,” he grunted. “Sooner than you know. But not while you are bleeding to your death.”
“You owe me,” she cried out bleakly. “You do, Aiden. You owe me. Please make it stop hurting.”
His arms tightened around her, his pace increasing as she moved against his chest. She was in need. The lightning flashes of aroused pain were torturous, worse than they had ever been before.
“Soon, Charity.” His answer was a breath of sound. A promise or a warning? She wondered. “Sooner than either one of us needs.”
He was striding through the jungle, moving at a rapid pace, holding her snugly to him, sharing his heat, his strength. Beneath her hand the blood flowed from her body. She could feel the chilling weakness washing over her and knew that this time she would not survive the loss of blood. She had lost too much, and the transfusions took too long for her body to accept. She would escape in death. What he had sought so many years before had now come to her.
“Can I sleep now, Aiden? I’m very tired,” she asked him faintly as she felt the weakness closing over her.
She heard him curse. The sound was dark, deadly. The scientists had once again stolen what he believed was his. First his control, and now his vengeance.
She allowed her head to fall to his chest, a smile to shape her lips. And on a silent breath she whispered goodbye as darkness stole over her.
Chapter Two
“She’s your mate, she can only accept your blood.” The doctor hastily prepared for the transfusion as her assistant stitched the incision on Charity’s abdomen.
The pale skin was smeared with blood, too much blood. It had run in slow rivulets down her abdomen, smearing her thighs, and the smooth bare flesh between them. He had felt her weakening seconds before he reached camp, felt the fight that had always been so much a part of her slowly drain from her fragile body and knew he was losing her. She was dying in his arms.
His jaw bunched as he fought the anger surging through him. He turned his face from her, staring at the side of the tent that held the field hospital. If he watched her, looked at her lying there so pale and helpless, he didn’t know if he would be able to contain his rage.
He had been warned of what was to come, though he had given little credence to the Breeds’ declaration of psychic abilities to the point they claimed to possess them. He had scoffed at their knowledge of the bonds he knew would exist between them. Had mocked their predictions of the events to come. He had assured himself that night in the Labs had been due to the drugs, nothing more. Even though some internal sense had warned him otherwise.
He had been prepared to treat her as coldly, as cruelly as he would any Council lapdog. But the moment he had caught her scent, had seen her face, so pale, so distressed, he had been unable to maintain his determination. Her scent called out to him, her delicacy terrified him. She was so tiny now; so fragile he wondered how she had managed to escape on her own. She appeared too weak to even stand under her own strength, let alone to have escaped into the jungle.
He was within seconds of destroying every Council soldier and scientist they had taken, rather than holding them for questioning later by the Breed lawyers and government officials heading for the area. Remembering the smell of blood, of her impending death was nearly more than he could stand. They had done this to her. They had stripped her of all dignity and used her for their insane experiments. They had nearly killed her in their drive to play God.
He didn’t stop to question his conflicting feelings regarding Charity. His fury over her betrayal of him, his hatred that she had stayed with the Council rather than fighting to be free. His desire for her, his fury at her. It all converged inside him until the morass of emotions became overpowering.
“Stop growling at me, Aiden,” the doctor bit out nervously, her dark face watching him intently. “It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a needle.”
She inserted said needle into the vein, opening the valve to allow his blood to ease gently through the tube that connected him to Charity. He didn’t care about the damned needle. Over the course of his lifetime he had seen more needles than he could count.
“She’s not my mate,” he snarled, unable to hold the words back any longer. He knew the lie for what it was, though. “I have not accepted this.”
The doctor snorted. She was young for her remarkable skill in Breed medicine. A bit on the short side, with full breasts and hips most men would ache to clasp close. Her skin was as pretty as milk chocolate, and she had long, sleek black hair that fell down her back in a multitude of braids.
“Her body says otherwise.” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts as she stared down at him, glancing often at the speed of the transfusion. “You can’t deny the mating, Aiden. You know that.”
He looked up at her broodingly. She watched him as she would a recalcitrant child. The forced patience and mocking amusement had him baring his teeth in warning.
“I can deny whatever I wish,” he snapped. “I did not mark her. How can she be my mate?”
She frowned at the question. Her studies into the mating phenomena that began with Hope were well known. She was determined to learn why the Feline Breeds had bred so easily, whereas the Wolf Breeds had been unable to. The scientists had theorized for years that the inability to breed could reverse. It had been proven with the Feline Pride. The Wolf Packs had not yet accomplished that last battle with nature, though.
“If what I suspect is true when she swallowed your semen in that Lab six years ago, that was all it took. I suspected the mating could occur without the mark, and this proves it. The blood tests don’t lie, Aiden. Her body is bound to yours. The hormone and unique DNA that marks it matches yours perfectly. The enzyme in her blood that rejects any other transfusion further proves it. Deny it all you like, but she’s a part of you.”
Aiden refused to answer the charge. His blood boiled at the thought of being tied to this woman. Any woman. The life of a Breed was too dangerous. The life of a Breed mate was even more so. The low, vicious growl that rumbled in his throat couldn’t be silenced. The silent disapproval of his conscience was just as loud.
Had it not been for Keegan warning them that her body would accept no other blood but Aiden’s, they would have lost her. Not that Dr. Armani hadn’t run the first vital testing for blood match. She had run the tests as her assistant prepped Charity for the transfusion. Each second had seemed a lifetime as she bled uncontrollably.
“How much longer will this take?” He flicked a contemptuous glance at the blood-filled tube that led from his arm. “I have work to do.”
The scent of her need, even unconscious, was destroying him. Sweet and tempting, the subtle fragrance stirred him, keeping his cock engorged, his body ready to take her. He hated the uncontrolled response. The need, as hard and brutal as it had been while the drugs pumped through his system years before.
“She is more important,” she informed him, her voice turning cold.
Aiden lifted his lip contemptuously. To the doctor, she might be more important. To the Wolf Breeds she might be more important. To him, she was the enemy, he assured himself. He would not let his unruly body sway him where she was concerned. She had worked with the Council for years now, been a part of their inner workings, knew their secrets and their evil. Even when she could have escaped them, she stayed. Working with them rather than fighting to be free.
No sane person could have spent so many years in the bosom of such monsters and not be like them. The denial that clawed in his heart for so many years refused to accept this, but Aiden knew it was no more than the truth. He would not be led by his emotions in this.