Stepping up, she gripped his arm with her spare hand before casting a wary glance over her shoulder to Jonas's cold, hard-eyed gaze.
There was death in those eyes. The latent fury gleaming beneath silver ice was frankly terrifying.
Perhaps there wouldn't be a chance to escape, yet.
"This is a mistake," she warned Styx as he pressed her into the elevator. "I will escape, Styx."
She couldn't forget how easily he had tricked her, how easily he had played her. She had given herself to him for a few moments of warmth and peace, and now she was truly paying for it.
"You can try." Still no brogue, no warmth. "That's all I can promise you, Storme, is that you can try."
What the hell was going on? Styx kept his expression clear, his temper calm, and that wasn't easy to do. He could feel the animal raging inside, clawing, snarling in fury.
Something wasn't right. The glands at the side of his tongue were irritated, swollen, but only the most minute quantity of the hormone had slipped free. As his release had torn through his cock earlier, he had felt the mating knot pulse in the middle of it, throbbing, the flesh trying to swell outward as his semen jetted inside her. Yet it had never fully emerged.
Beneath his flesh he could feel a low-level hum of electric sensation that he couldn't shake, that he couldn't eradicate.
As though she were almost his mate.
What the fuck was up with that? There was no such thing as an almost mate, was there?
As the service elevator they took came to a stop on the main floor and the doors opened, the Wolf Breed Enforcers waiting outside surrounded them and escorted them to the waiting vehicles.
He could smell Storme's wariness now, her mounting fear. As each second passed with the realization that there was no escape, her desperation was beginning to grow.
Exiting the rear of the hotel, he pushed her quickly into the back of the vehicle before climbing in beside her and hemming her in as Navarro slid in on the opposite side.
There was no escape. No way he could allow it. Jonas was wrong. She did belong to him; it was just that something seemed to be stopping it. He had to find out what that "something" was before he went crazy.
Jonas stood back and helped his mate into the wide seat in front of Styx and Storme. Rachel watched Storme compassionately yet firmly as Jonas slid in beside her.
There was no compassion inside Jonas though. This woman possibly held the answer to the hormone that had been injected into the infant Jonas had claimed as his own, Rachel's child.
Amber was a well-loved, well-protected babe within Sanctuary now, but months before Brandenmore had managed to outthink Jonas and take Amber as a hostage in exchange for her mother's agreement to steal certain documents from the Bureau.
Jonas had been waiting for Brandenmore's next move when Rachel had shown up, hysterical, bruised, beaten, and terrified that her daughter was being held by one of Jonas's enemies.
While in Brandenmore's less than tender care, Amber had been injected with what at first was thought to be a sedative. Now Jonas was certain there had been something more, despite the Breed scientists' inability to track any problems.
Jonas wasn't paranoid. If he said Brandenmore had somehow managed to inject Amber with something that was as of yet untraceable, then Styx believed him. He was a hard-edged, icy, controlled, dangerous bastard, but nothing in this world mattered to him as much as his mate and child did.
Once, the Breeds had been Jonas's full focus; now that focus had narrowed to two frail human females who held the heart of the silver-eyed bogeyman of the Breeds in the palms of their hands.
Since his mating, Jonas had become more dangerous, more determined to ensure their safety and security. At the moment, learning the truth of Project Omega, Jonas was certain, was all that could save his child.
Beside him, Styx felt a shudder, barely restrained, as it moved up Storme's spine.
She was moving past the anger now, and fear was turning to terror. He could feel it, scent it, just as Jonas could.
"Ms. Montague, no harm is going to befall you." The words seemed pushed between Jonas's gritted teeth, as though he hated admitting she had nothing to fear. "But you will not know freedom, or even your perception of freedom, again, until I have what I want."
Rather than stilling her fear, it only seemed to agitate it.
Rachel laid her hand on her mate's tense arm.
"Let her be, Jonas," she said softly, regretfully. "As you said before, she's spent ten years being terrorized by Coyotes and the few remaining Feline and Wolf Breeds that the Council controls. She won't overcome that hurdle overnight."
"Try never," Storme sneered as that fear began to fill the air of the vehicle. "I saw how compassionate and merciful Breeds were the night my father and brother died."
"Your father and brother had every chance at safety for months before those rescues, with or without their fucking secrets," Jonas snapped. "I extended to them the offer of rescue for your father as well as his son and daughter, and he refused. He was unable to walk away from the research that meant so much more to both of them than you did."
She flinched. For a moment, the scent of her confusion was so strong he knew it must be strangling her.
"Enough, Jonas," Styx warned him again. " Give her a chance to see she's safe."
"And if we don't have the time for that?" Jonas questioned him with icy disdain. "Excuse me for not having your exacting patience, Wolf."
"You're forgiven." It was Storme who bit out the words as she glared back at the Bureau director. "And there is no convincing me to give you something that isn't mine to give."
She wasn't lying. Oh, she had that data chip, but she truly believed it wasn't hers to give, that something prevented her from using it to secure her safety.
"Eventually, you will," Jonas assured her. "If for no other reason than to escape the pure fucking insanity that often resides in Haven. You would have been smarter to demand a bit more forcefully to be taken to Sanctuary, rather than entering the Wolf Breed lunacy."
Her head turned sharply, as though in surprise, as she stared back at Styx. Obviously she hadn't heard that Haven could actually be enjoyable.
"We just have more fun," Styx assured her as he shot Jonas a fulminating look. "Felines seem to have a more restrained concept of entertainment than wolves have."
Jonas grunted at that, as Rachel sighed heavily.
Jonas's mate was growing used to this argument, Styx was certain.
"I think you're all missing vital mental genetics myself," Storme stated, as though there wasn't a latent quiver in her voice. "But then, you've proven that over and over in the past years as you tracked me."
"As we protected you." Jonas leaned forward then, the danger that hummed through his system placing the animal inside Styx on instant alert. "Do not be in doubt, Ms. Montague, had we known the importance of the information you carried, then I would have been sure to capture you years ago rather than believing you would come to your senses and accept our protection over the Council's certain torture."
"Well weren't you wrong." Storme was almost nose to nose with Jonas before Styx gripped her shoulder and pushed her back against the leather seat.
"Enough," Styx ordered both of them as Rachel merely shook her head in resignation. "She's not ready to believe you, Jonas."
"She'll never be ready." She tried to jerk out of his grip as she glared back at him and spoke of herself in the third person with mocking emphasis. "And she won't make the same mistake again where you're concerned."
He smiled back at her, knowing there would be no comfort in the curve of his lips or the flash of the canines at the side of his mouth.