“No worrying, little one.” He reached out before he could stop himself and touched her cheek with the tips of his fingers.
It flared then. That connection, that something he had felt growing over the years. And she felt it as well. He watched her lashes lower, watched her lips become fuller, more sensual. A flush filled her cheeks, and the arousal that filled her young body each time they met flared to full, heated life.
He was a Breed. He could smell her dampness, the rush of her sweet juices filling her pu**y, her body preparing for him.
She wasn’t a child any longer. She was twenty-two years old, old enough. Mature enough, he prayed, because he was still a Breed and still a hard man. It was a bad combination when lust was eating at his insides.
When she tugged her teeth over her lower lip, his teeth ached to nip it. When her tongue dampened it, he nearly groaned at the erection that filled his jeans.
“Tell your people to be waiting,” he warned her. “I’ll contact you and we’ll arrange the date and time. Agreed?”
She nodded slowly. “And you’ll not harm my family?” she asked him again. “They don’t believe in what is going on here, Del-Rey. This is their job. They’re military. They are following their orders, just as your men do. Promise me, you won’t harm them.”
“I’ve sworn this, Anya.” He let the backs of his fingers smooth over her silken cheek. “My men know which of the forces are your family. We will know where they will be at the time of the attack. It’s going to be fine. I promise you.”
And he was lying to her. Her father and cousins were soldiers, but they could have taken the responsibility that Anya had taken on her own young shoulders. They could have aided the Breeds a thousand times over, but they hadn’t. They had followed orders.
All attempts would be made not to kill them, but they would suffer for allowing this young woman to take the risks she had taken to do the job she was doing.
“Trust me,” he whispered again.
The scent of her arousal intensified at the soft croon of his voice. The need that filled her eyes made him ache in regret.
“I trust you.” A smile trembled at her lips. “I’ll always trust you, Del-Rey.”
Sadly, he knew that statement would soon be retracted. Anya knew fierce loyalty, but she also knew how to hate. She was a woman whose passions would always run deep, no matter which way they ran. And before much longer, she would know only hatred for the man she stared at with such longing now.
Regret. It seared inside him. An emotion he had never felt in his life, and it wasn’t one he liked feeling.
CHAPTER 1
Anya was where she was supposed to be, but things weren’t going as they had been planned. Nothing had gone as planned. When she returned to the labs that evening, within hours the attack came.
There was no warning. There was no call. Security alarms were blaring, cell doors were opening, as safeguards were overrode and locks on the weapons rooms deactivated.
She pushed the scientists behind a secure, hidden wall she had found the month before. They hadn’t been here long enough evidently to know all the secrets of the labs. Dr. Chernov had replaced the aging scientists ten years before and brought his protégée, Sobolova, a much younger female scientist, along with him.
“Don’t leave. Don’t move,” she ordered them. “Stay here until you hear only silence.”
Pale, shaking in shock, the two scientists did as they were told, huddling in the little room as Anya slid the secured door closed and rushed to the exits that led to the cold, desolate land aboveground.
“Anya, get out of here.” Sofia Ivanova, one of the administrative assistants, gripped her arm and dragged her down another hall. “Go that way.” She pointed to the stairs. “They’re free. I’ll cover you.”
Cover her? Anya stared behind her as doctors raced from labs with weapons drawn. They were firing on personnel? Shock rushed through her, tore through her mind. She knew those men and women. Knew them well. And they were firing on the personnel attempting to escape?
“Run, damn you!” Sofia pushed her to the exit. “Get out of here before I have to shoot you.”
Anya ran. As she ran, fury fed the fear and the shock coursing through her adrenaline-laced mind. This was the exact plan she had given Del-Rey for the rescue. Had he not trusted her? He had attacked only hours after her return, giving her no time to ensure her father and cousins weren’t here.
No, it had to be something else, she decided in desperation as she raced up the stairs. She gripped an older woman’s arm, one of the secretaries, and pushed her ahead of her.
“Hurry, Marie,” Anya urged the other woman as she sobbed and nearly fell. “We must hurry.”
Other personnel were racing past them as Anya grabbed Marie’s arm and all but dragged her up the steps. Marie had children, grandchildren. A husband that was ill. She was needed. And besides, she always brought the Breeds cookies. She was kind and gentle.
The door was broken from its hinges above, lying on its side as security forces were waving personnel through, urging them to hurry, to rush. Masks covered the guards’ faces to protect them from the cold. It was bitterly cold outside, and Marie had no jacket, no coat to wear.
“Run for the barracks,” she told the other woman. “It will be warm there and safer. We’ll hide there.”