Sharone turned and left the room as Anya felt her breath hitch. She was going to miss them. They were more than friends, and they had always been together. Since she was a little girl and had first found the cells where the five Coyote females were being held.
She, the princess of the Chernov facilities even at age five, had twisted the scientists and doctors around her little finger until the girls she wanted to play with were given partial freedom. They had then formed a bond that had never been broken.
They had never been separated, until now.
“Anya?”
She stiffened at the sound of Del-Rey’s voice at her side. She turned her head, staring at him, seeing the heaviness in his expression, a heaviness reflected in her heart.
“You would have hurt me less had you used that knife you held at my throat in Russia,” she said, breathing out roughly.
“I’m a Coyote,” he said, his voice low. “The most hated and feared of the Breeds, across the world. My coya will live in constant danger. If the world perceives that she is no more than my lover, if the other Breeds perceive that she holds only my body, then she’s safe. If I make a mistake and allow a traitor into our midst here at Base, then you’re safer.”
“Will our children be safer?” she asked.
“Kiowa’s wife hasn’t yet conceived,” he stated. “She doesn’t use the hormone for conception either. We have time to work this out.”
It seemed he had already worked it out.
“I didn’t ask for explanations.” She rose to her feet and disconnected the computer.
There had been no emails, no Breeds asking for advice or assistance. None of the often dozens of requests that filled her inbox. There had been a single email, nothing more.
Just that easily she had been wiped away.
“Anya.” As she moved around her desk, he stopped her, moving to her, his body pressing against hers. “You are every part of my soul. I can’t risk you.”
Keeping her back to him, she closed her eyes at the pain in his voice, at the pain that vibrated through her own soul.
“I understand that,” she finally whispered, and perhaps a part of her did understand. “I’m your lover, nothing more.”
“Only in others’ eyes.” His hands slid around her. “What’s between us is between us, Anya. You’re my mate. My coya. No matter what the world sees.”
But she wasn’t his coya. That power, that privilege, had been taken from her. She was his bedmate. In the eyes of the world, and now in his eyes as well. Because the benefits she would have brought to his life as anything more had been stripped from her with a single memo.
She was crying inside as his lips pressed against her neck. Crying as the familiar need began to burn low in her stomach, began to curl through her body and rage through her nerve endings.
And still she couldn’t deny him.
As his fingers lifted the hem of her shirt, drawing it over her head, she couldn’t deny him the touch he sought. When he turned her in his arms and pressed his lips to hers, she couldn’t deny him the kiss she needed herself. The taste of him, that little bit to hold on to. A part of himself he couldn’t steal from her, simply because nature demanded that he take satisfaction from her alone.
Her arms twined around his neck; emotion seared her insides. This man was her life; every ounce of her belonged to him, no matter how much it hurt. She had realized that in the past two days. He owned her. She, who had sworn she would never be owned, was owned by this man, this Breed.
“God yes,” he growled as she softened against him. “Hold me, Anya. Hold me close, baby.”
His flesh seemed to warm against her, hers heated beneath his touch. She pushed her shoes from her feet as he released her jeans and drew them over her hips.
She grew hungrier for his kiss, desperate for this connection. The one thing that couldn’t be stolen from her, that couldn’t be taken.
She was sinking beneath the waves of pleasure as he pulled back and turned her, pressed her along the desk until her fingers were curling against the broad forearm he laid beneath her head.
He surrounded her. Not like that first time, when he had just been behind her. As he bent her over now, he surrounded her. His lips were at her neck, licking, biting, sending flash flares of heat surging between her thighs as she felt the crest of his c**k tuck against her.
“I need you.” He nipped at her neck. “I need you until I can’t breathe for the need. Until I’m dying inside for you.”
Her chest tightened, ached at the emotion in his voice, the torment that filled them both now, bound them, held them together.
One hand gripped her hip as he turned her head to him, took her lips and worked the thick length of his c**k inside her. Slow, steady strokes filled her flesh. He stretched her, burned her until she was gasping against his lips, her legs parting farther, her lips and tongue moving against his in a kiss that bound her spirit to him.