Enough that he knew he wanted this female. To mark her as his. To mate her, to share her with… “Hell. Gray.”
The female said nothing, but the dark look on her face warned him to beware. Before he could say anything else, she put her hands around his neck and squeezed. And he knew nothing more.
Ali couldn’t take her eyes from the rogue bleeding like a sieve all over the forest floor. After stepping past the dead bodies of the rogues and mutants she’d shot and killed, she neared her prize. The way they’d been fighting over him had shaken her, remembrances of her time in the labs not as dull a memory as she’d hoped.
She liked when they fought each other, but this seemed different. As did this rogue’s scent. The most delicious waft of chocolate, sex, and mouthwatering need drifted from his pores. She couldn’t resist. Not even when she sensed his own pheromones pulling her closer.
Good Lord, but the taste of him was enough to make her entire body come alive. She didn’t want him to die, but she couldn’t afford to play with him out in the open.
They sent more and more rogues after her lately. Worse, the ones turning mutant were no longer as dull-witted as the first batches sent to retrieve her. Either they’d evolved, or the labs had found a new way to leash their Circs. Oh joy.
With a low growl, she finished choking the male to unconsciousness. Then she hefted him over her shoulder, surprised when she staggered. As a Circ, she grew bigger and stronger than the strongest human men. Yet his size and weight stunned her. A solid male. A breeding male, her beast suggested.
The libido the doctors had tried so hard to start within her suddenly flared to life. And she knew. She’d been waiting all along for this male. She leaned her head closer to his and scented something more, a layered perfume that made her head spin.
She pulled her own scent back in and hurried, as best she was able, back to her cabin. Along the way, she wondered where to stash him. Her bedroom? The storage cellar? The cave nearby? Time to make some of those hard choices. Her intuition kicked in, and her beast increased the flow of blood to her limbs, releasing more oxygen so that she might move faster. She needed to make her choices before someone—or something—made them for her.
Gray didn’t know what to think. He had a terrible feeling about Bas moments before half a dozen humans with guns attacked. The dumb-asses didn’t realize their rounds wouldn’t penetrate his skin. It took him little time to knock them unconscious but not before reading their minds.
A part of the plan to delay him and Bas while they captured Al Ross. The humans were part of a security force combing through the mountains. Apparently the lab that had created Alison Ross wanted her back. A female Circ, hunted by rogues and men out to use her for what they could before she turned completely into the mutant they feared would make her unsuitable to breed.
No wonder the woman didn’t want to be found. But was she amassing a rogue Circ army, or was she a victim? The men didn’t seem to know.
And Gray didn’t care. He felt Bas’s pain as if his own, then a drugged need to find the scent clouding his mind. The thoughts came like the wind, there and gone. But as Gray raced miles to the eastern side of their perimeter, Bas’s cry came through the radio. Gray put on a burst of speed.
Only to be too late.
Four dead rogues littered one section of the woods. As did a patch of blood that smelled like his partner. Grief and rage brought his beast to the forefront, the notion his mate might be injured or near death intolerable. A loud psychic call to Bas’s mind came back empty. Using his preternatural gifts, Gray followed the barely there scent and subtle markings in the woods to a set of footprints. He followed the tracks that indicated a female, or a male with smaller feet, had taken something heavy with her.
Bas. His beast snarled. The Circ has Bas.
And then the trail just ended. No more scent. No more clues left behind in the woods.
He howled in fury. A warning and a promise to anyone stupid enough to come between him and Bas. Gray felt the vestiges of civilization leave him and gave his beast the head he needed. With another roar, he started a deeper search using his mind. One way or another, he’d find his mate. And death to the one who’d taken him.
Ali was glad she’d taken the time to mask her trail after stashing the rogue in her home. Not the safest place for her to take him, but it had the best security as well as restraints even a mutant couldn’t escape. Instinct told her to keep him close.
If he didn’t bleed out before she returned, she’d do her best to heal him and… Then what? Her beast provided her several detailed pictures of how best to take what she needed, and the heat in Ali’s body swarmed her from her core to the tips of her limbs. The need within her for a Circ overwhelmed, to the point she ached to be near him again. To touch him. She knew she’d eventually have to destroy him, but she could play with him for a bit.
Excited about the prospect, she returned to her home. Night had fallen, and she would make the most of the darkness and the soundproof sanctuary under the cabin her grandfather had left her. Once inside, she forced herself to take her time. No need to rush to the enemy so soon. Ali took a long hot shower and scrubbed the dirt and flecks of mutant blood off her hands. Though she’d shot three of them, she’d been forced to kill the fourth with a blade when the first bullet didn’t take, her bullet not close enough to the spinal cord to sever it the first time.
After lathering her hair with a lavender soap that made her feel at home, she cleaned thoroughly and left no patch of skin untouched. As she washed, her breasts felt heavy, her nipples sensitive. And there, between her legs. She throbbed.
The scent of the male filled her mind, and though she’d shifted back into her human form, her beast quivered at the thought of the strong Circ downstairs.
Ali toweled off and dressed in a loose pair of flannel pajama pants and a shirt, foregoing underclothes. Normally she’d wear a bra at least, but a part of her needed to flaunt her assets before the male, to seek his approval.
The foreign thought stopped her in her tracks. “Seek his approval?”
Angry at her beast for growing soft, she decided to leave him alone until morning. Better for her that he died tonight from his wounds, none of which she’d inflicted. Except she’d heard him call for Gray. Not just a color but a person, apparently. She needed to know if his friend would be joining them anytime soon.
Annoyed, she stomped to the rug covering the floor panel hiding the stairs and tugged on a loop. The rug and panel rose, and she walked down into the shadows and darkness. A few lanterns gave enough light to see into the tunnel that led to the sole room underground. From the room, an escape tunnel had been dug that led up a few hundred yards from the cabin. It too was hidden by a bookcase on the wall. Her last refuge should the bastards find her place.
“Gray?” The low drawl made her shiver. “Ross? That you?” He coughed and groaned, and she heard the rattle of his breath. An infection, most likely.
Her beast yearned to heal him. To taste him again and learn why this particular male smelled so right.
“I’m Alison Ross.” Ali left the corridor and entered the room, bathed in the low glow of the lantern on a nearby table. “Who the hell are you?”
“Sebastian Decker.” He coughed again, no longer a beast but human. The dryness in the air probably irritated his throat. Despite what most people thought when they saw snowcapped mountains, the Cascade Range and Bend weren’t wet. High desert lay to the east. If Ali didn’t drink enough, her feet cracked and her lips chapped something awful.