She could feel the glands swollen at the sides of his tongue, just a bit larger than normal. The taste of honey that filled the kiss had changed, just a bit, as well. It was wilder. Just as a primal hunger filled his touch and his caresses.
Long moments later his head lifted, his eyes black, as black as the darkest night, as his lips lowered to hers for a kiss so gentle, so filled with possessiveness that she had to fight back more tears.
“I love you, Mica,” he whispered back to her. “I love you as you’ll never know.”
As she would never know.
Mica felt her eyes fill with tears. “I always loved you, Navarro.”
As he touched her cheek with his fingertips, his lashes lying at half-mast while he held her gaze, Mica felt the final, heated bursts of his come inside her.
His head lowered. “Only you could have freed me,” he whispered against her ear. “You released what was hiding inside me, Mica, making me whole. Don’t let that part of me sleep again. Don’t let me lose you again.”
She could barely breathe. She could barely believe she was hearing his request. That he was there, that he was holding her. That he was admitting, finally giving, his love to her, when she had all but lost hope.
“Ahh, how sweet.”
The moment the heavy swelling had eased, the horrifying voice whispered through the silence of the room.
Dangerous. Heavy with menace. Rasping with animalistic fervor and cunning, Phillip Brandenmore stood just on the other side of a panel that had opened in the wall of the bedroom, revealing a hidden passageway that obviously led to the labs more than four stories beneath the ground.
“It’s okay,” Navarro mouthed. “Just follow me.” Moving his lips silently as he eased from her, careful to keep the blanket over her, Navarro moved to her side, then slipped slowly from the bed.
Keeping his attention on Brandenmore, he dressed with no apparent hurry.
His fingers slipped over the activator located behind the small Wolf’s head enforcer belt buckle he wore, sending a silent alarm out to the Breeds and activating the locator that would track them, no matter where they went.
“Is Ely still alive?” he asked the monster that had tortured the Breeds for so long as it watched him with curious disbelief.
“Unfortunately yes,” Brandenmore said and sighed as though irritated, a frown creasing his dark forehead. “Strange, I couldn’t kill her.” His teeth snapped together as an odd, sickeningly mutated purr was heard vibrating in his throat. “And why are you dressing? Strange, Navarro, I didn’t give you permission to dress.”
Navarro let a growl rumble, dark and warning, a dominant alpha sound that affected Brandenmore immediately. The gun nearly dropped from his hand before he caught himself, shaking his head and pointing it toward Mica as he stared at Navarro.
“Stop, or I’ll kill her.”
Genetics could be a bitch. Navarro was the natural alpha, and Brandenmore’s genetics were weak, submissive.
Navarro lowered the sound, knowing Brandenmore didn’t have to hear it to be affected by it. It was natural law. He could and would do whatever it took to Mica to get what he wanted. But he wouldn’t be able to strike against Navarro unless violently provoked.
“Put that gun down, Brandenmore. You don’t want to die here today,” he commanded.
It almost worked, but once again the crazed Brandenmore fought it back.
“I want the girl.” Brandenmore waved the gun he carried at Mica as he let a smile cross his lips. “No need to dress, love. You’ll just be undressing once I meet up with my friends. You’ll be my gift to them.”
Like hell.
Navarro wouldn’t allow it to happen.
Briefly, barely felt against his lower stomach, the vibration of the answering call from the enforcers moving into place came from the buckle.
They knew he was with his mate. They would know by now that there was no chance of ever allowing her to mate with another Breed. She was his. She belonged to him. And he would be damned if he would ever allow Brandenmore to take her from him.
“Get up, Ms. Toler,” the monster ordered, his voice brooding and deep, a gentle, pleasant sound from a creature of pure evil.
Navarro kept his eyes on the other man. Watching each move. Refusing to allow himself to be distracted even when Mica rose from the bed, dragging the sheet around her naked body and drawing Brandenmore’s gaze.
At the same time Navarro sensed the men on the other side of the bedroom door, just to the right of where Brandenmore stood. There was always the chance the animal genetics he possessed now would allow him to sense the Breeds moving in on the other side of the door.