He looked like a thug, but he carried himself with such supreme confidence, such arrogance, that every stupid feminine instinct she had possessed had been drawn to him.
"Your mugger is gutter trash," he finally muttered.
"So you didn't set that up?"
"I didn't set it up."
Her gaze narrowed. "Was it set up for you?"
"I had to find a way to make you trust me, quickly," he admitted. "That was the only way." Anger vied with fear. Damn him, there wasn't a chance he could let her live. She might as well go down letting him know exactly what she thought of him. She'd already watched him blow another man's head off. It wasn't like it could get much worse.
"You lied to me." She gritted her teeth in fury, surprised at how much it hurt.
"I didn't lie to you, Grace," he finally sighed. "I stretched a few truths and didn't tell you exactly why I was there."
"You used me to kill a man."
"I rid the world of a monster, and I'll prove it to you," he said. "What you do after that, is up to you."
"And if I go straight to the police?" Of course she would go straight to the police. Was there any question of it?
"Then I'll do everything in my power to protect you." The regret that shimmered in his voice had her chest tightening. "But once I'm behind bars, others will kill you. I won't be able to save you then." He was lying to her again, of course.
"Grace. Give me a chance." His hand lowered from the steering wheel to her knee. The shock of his calloused, scarred hand against her bare flesh for the first time sent a riot of sensation cascading through her.
It was his hand , for God's sake. On her knee . It wasn't like it was tucked between her thighs.
"I gave you a chance." She tried to jerk away from him, but his hand only tightened, holding her bound legs in place. "And look where it got me. More lies. And more threats. No thank you, Matthias, I think I've trusted you too much already."
CHAPTER THREE
Matthias felt his fingers tighten on the fragile width of her knee and forced himself to relax. He wouldn't hurt her, and he didn't want to frighten her further.
Already the scent of her fear was nearly overpowering the soft, subtle scent of the arousal that filled her each time he was near her.
It was one of the reasons he had rarely touched her over the past weeks. He had kept his distance as much as possible, knowing that until he had dealt with Albrecht, he didn't have the time to deal with what he knew was coming with Grace.
Jonas thought it was such a closely guarded secret that Wolfe Gunnar, the leader of the Wolf Packs, adhered to the strict order of silence on the subject of mating heat. But Wolfe wasn't a fool. He knew his enforcers were a danger to themselves if they weren't aware of what could happen at the most unlikely moment.
Matthias knew what mating heat was, just as he knew that Grace was his mate. The glands beneath his tongue had been sensitive for weeks, and he could feel them becoming swollen tonight. Those glands were filling with a mating aphrodisiac, a hormone that would push sensuality, sexuality, into the bounds of extremity.
It would affect Grace worse than it would affect him. She would be unable to deny her natural response to him, unable to hide from it. She would be as helpless within it as he would be once he began touching her.
The fine, almost imperceptible little hairs along his body were prickling with another hormone, one more subtle, but no less intense. His c**k was rock hard. His balls were drawn tight. And he had learned in the past week that jacking off only made it worse. There would be no satisfaction until he found his release within the snug depths of Grace's body.
And there the problems would truly begin. If what Wolfe, Jacob, and Aiden had explained to their enforcers months ago were true, then during his mating with Grace, he would become more of an animal than he could have ever imagined.
Even now, as his fingers lingered on the flesh of her knee, he found a pleasure in that small touch that he had never known before. Even in the midst of the most sexual acts he had performed during his sexual training in the labs, he hadn't felt such pleasure as he did now in simply touching. He was one of the younger Breeds. Barely thirty, but he hadn't escaped that phase of training. Not that the scientists had included sexual training for any pleasurable benefits. As in everything else, even that phase of training had held more sinister purposes.
When entranced by their lover, a man or a woman could be convinced to trade their soul for the love of the one capable of giving them such extreme pleasure. Powerful figures could be blackmailed, the sons and daughters of such figures could be used for information. Wives could be seduced, husbands could be tempted. It was all the same to the council. Every weakness could be exploited.
In the years since his release, Matthias had never used the talent he had found to please a woman, to betray one. Until Grace, he had refused to involve any woman in the dangerous, bloody life he led. He was an assassin. The council had taught him how to be an assassin. He carried the scars from his failed attempts during training, and he carried the marks of his successes since his escape. He didn't kill for money, and he didn't kill from hatred or greed. He killed for mercy. He killed to make the world a safer place, not just for his own species, but for the non-Breeds as well. Council members, scientists, trainers, and soldiers many had been released once they were revealed. If they were smart, they lived the rest of their lives without picking up their old ties. If they weren't, then Matthias or one of his kind made house calls. And there were many who eagerly, if more secretly, renewed those old ties.
He had gotten lucky with Albrecht, though. He was impossible to forget. And Matthias just happened to have been at the right place at the right time, before the Breed rescues ten years before. He had seen Albrecht with several scientists, heard the scientists refer to him as "director." Only council members were given that distinction.
Matthias had remembered, and he had given the bastard a chance. A chance Albrecht had deliberately ignored. The proof of that was in the bloody, broken bodies of the mated Breed pairs he had managed to capture over the past years. Young Breeds, independent. Rather than seeking the Wolf or Lion Breed compounds when mating heat overtook them, they had tried to figure it out on their own. And they had died in the effort.
The horrifying evidence that Albrecht was once again experimenting with Breeds was too much to ignore, and Matthias had been called in.