There was no escaping it.
There was no escaping him.
And as she understood it, there was definitely no escaping Mating Heat.
...
Rule watched his mate warily, sensing something changing, something hardening inside her. It wasn’t a scent, it was a sense, as Jonas had explained it to him. An undefinable feeling whenever the mate was out of sync, or out of sorts with her Breed.
The director had smiled, a curve of his lips at once unfamiliarly softened and terrifying for all the love it held as his gaze had found the sight of his mate while she played with their child.
He understood it now, Rule thought as he urged her into the shower with him so he could wash her hair, wash her body. The need to do such things for her confused the hell out of him. He’d actually laughed in disbelief at the rumor that another Breed mate and benefactor to the Breeds, Seth Lawrence, had bought exquisite handmade, often hand-painted silk panties as well as unique handmade soaps of one-of-a-kind scents from around the world for his mate during the ten years he’d been unable to claim her.
It was said that the scents that Dawn Daniels Lawrence’s skin was infused with were so unique that some Breeds had offered him a fortune to disclose who had made them.
Seth had refused. He had a one-of-a-kind mate, he’d declared, and as long as it was in his power, he’d ensure that she had one-of-a-kind scents.
Rule wished he had a one-of-a-kind scent to give her. Something that she could possess that she knew none but he could give her. Something besides that animalistic mating that overtook him each time he touched her.
“You don’t have to dry me, Rule.” Irritation was blooming in her tone as he grabbed her towel and began drying her sodden hair, watching the curls that filled the silky mass as he dried the water from them.
“Would you stop complaining over every little thing?” he breathed out roughly as the instincts clawing at him in self-disgust refused to relent.
It was obvious the Breed spirit he harbored inside him wasn’t happy with him at the moment. But hell, it hadn’t been happy with him since the night he’d first glimpsed her nine years before.
Oh yes, he remembered now.
He’d realized how unsettled he was months later, and hadn’t tied the restlessness to the young girl being brutalized by those bastard Council Breeds that night. The fact that he’d moved to pull his weapon faster than he had ever done in his life should have warned him, though. If that hadn’t warned him, then the fact that he’d fired on the head of the Breed preparing to rape her before being given the order by Jonas should have.
Everything had happened so fast that night, though. All he remembered was seeing those horrified, shock-filled green eyes as the Coyote fell from her a second before the four Coyotes with the bastard had fallen dead as well.
Then Lawe and Jonas had hidden the sight of her from him. Rule had turned and rushed from the cavern. He’d called the Reever ranch for their medic, a female he knew would take care of her. He’d ordered blankets warmed and rushed inside, made the arrangements for her parents, ensured that her brother’s body was cared for properly. And he had nearly beaten the Coyote Loki to death before Lawe and several others had pulled him from the Breed. He’d refused to hear the Coyote as he swore he had been the one contacting Jonas that night.
Rule had wanted to kill him. He’d wanted to kill every f**king Coyote bastard there who hadn’t kept Mark McQuade alive for his fragile, broken little sister.
Everything that could have helped her or meant anything to her, he had taken care of, and he hadn’t even thought to wonder at the impulses that had driven him to take charge in such a way. To ensure that nothing else could hurt her, that no one else could harm her.
When her parents had arrived and had refused to go to the vulnerable, broken child who stood alone in the desert, staring back at them miserably, that animal had nearly rushed to her. Not until Jonas and Lawe had stepped to each side of her—his brother, along with the only man they called a friend at the time—positioning themselves as a protective barrier alongside her, had the animal stood down. At least a bit.
Rule remembered his anger at the parents, his disgust with their hesitancy to rush to her rather than standing at the son’s side as though he would suddenly open his eyes and declare the night some joke. It had been no f**king joke. Their son was gone; better to protect and ensure the life of the living child and grieve later, than to leave the living in the cold while trying to warm the dead, he’d thought at the time.
Grimacing at the memory, he finished drying her, then allowed her to move away from him while she combed her fingers through the long tresses of her hair. He’d actually had Lawe purchase him a particular brush when he and Diane had gone out the past evening. One he could use on silky, soft waves without harming the delicate strands of hair.
He’d looked forward to using it once the unbreachable shock of the night before had passed.
He’d longed to go to her last night as she’d lain in their bed alone and silent. The pain of being unable to confront her parents and the truth of what her mother had done had enraged her. Sometimes rage was better slept off, he’d learned over the years. And though the rage was gone, he thought perhaps he’d made a mistake, because something had hardened inside her instead.
“Am I allowed out of my perfect little prison today?” The caustic tone of her voice as she slid her arms into a bra and secured the front clasp had the animal stilling while the man watched her carefully.
He winced at the sudden, sharp pinching sensation that came and went too quickly to be anything but those animal instincts extracting vengeance for causing his mate to feel as though she were a prisoner.
Dammit, he was the man, he was the one in charge, yet he swore he could feel an alternate, detached spirit inside his soul growling out a refutation of that thought.
“You’re no prisoner, Gypsy,” he told her, glowering silently as those instincts settled marginally inside him.
Fucking animal instincts. If he could wrap his hands around that being’s throat and choke the life out of it, then he would do just that for driving him f**king insane.
“I can come and go as I please, then?” The confrontational expression and tone had him tensing at the knowledge that in pissing off the woman, he would be pissing off the animal side of her mate.