"Let's go." Styx's fingers curled around her arm to pull her from the chair before the ready retort could pass her lips.
"Styx, this is a mistake," Jonas advised him as Storme was forced to her feet.
"Don't make the same mistake Mercury did when he was younger. You can't try to claim what isn't yours."
She stared back at Styx, a vague suspicion pricking at her mind. They couldn't be talking about that damned mating fever the Council had been warning the pure blood societies was true, could they? Surely not. There were symptoms of that. She didn't have symptoms, did she?
"This has nothing to do with one of your Lion Enforcers, Jonas," Styx stated, his voice harsh as he tugged Storme behind him. "This has to do with Storme and me, no one else."
"Nothing has anything to do with us," she promised him as she turned to stare over her shoulder at Jonas and Rachel. "Hey, I'm all for Sanctuary. Haven just doesn't sound like my kind of place, ya know?"
Besides, if the mating heat crap was true, she wanted to be as far away as possible from this particular Breed. He already seemed to have found some hidden entrance to emotions she had no idea she could feel. She sure as hell didn't want to risk an even bigger vulnerability.
Besides, there was more information to be had on Sanctuary, security wise.
Where Haven was concerned, there was supposedly no weaknesses in their security, no way to escape the almost clandestine atmosphere of the Wolf Breed mountain.
Adding to the security were the Coyote Breeds that inhabited the sharp rise that led into the mountain. Caves were said to be carved into the mountain there, allowing the Coyotes a view that assured constant surveillance of each entrance into the main compound, as well as the compound itself.
Once, Coyotes, all Coyotes, had been the enemy of both Wolf and Feline Breeds.
Now certain factions of Coyotes were banding together and joining the side that seemed to be winning in the battle between Breeds and Council supporters.
"Come on." Styx pulled her after him, gently but firmly. The hold on her wrist assured her that she wasn't going to get away easily.
There would be a chance though, she assured herself frantically. There was always a chance, right?
"Go ahead and try to escape," she heard Jonas mutter just behind her. "I dare you."
Fear shook her then, listening to Jonas. On second thought, she didn't dare let herself be forced under his control. Styx would be the far better choice. For the moment.
She hoped.
Stepping up, she gripped his arm with her spare hand before casting a wary glance over her shoulder to Jonas's cold, hard-eyed gaze.
There was death in those eyes. The latent fury gleaming beneath silver ice was frankly terrifying.
Perhaps there wouldn't be a chance to escape, yet.
"This is a mistake," she warned Styx as he pressed her into the elevator. "I will escape, Styx."
She couldn't forget how easily he had tricked her, how easily he had played her.
She had given herself to him for a few moments of warmth and peace, and now she was truly paying for it.
"You can try." Still no brogue, no warmth. "That's all I can promise you, Storme, is that you can try."
What the hell was going on? Styx kept his expression clear, his temper calm, and that wasn't easy to do. He could feel the animal raging inside, clawing, snarling in fury.
Something wasn't right. The glands at the side of his tongue were irritated, swollen, but only the most minute quantity of the hormone had slipped free. As his release had torn through his c**k earlier, he had felt the mating knot pulse in the middle of it, throbbing, the flesh trying to swell outward as his se**n jetted inside her. Yet it had never fully emerged.
Beneath his flesh he could feel a low-level hum of electric sensation that he couldn't shake, that he couldn't eradicate.
As though she were almost his mate.
What the f**k was up with that? There was no such thing as an almost mate, was there?
As the service elevator they took came to a stop on the main floor and the doors opened, the Wolf Breed Enforcers waiting outside surrounded them and escorted them to the waiting vehicles.