Primal Claim (12 page)

A low chuckle rumbled through the rain behind her. Dani spun around with a gasp.

"Well, well, well. Little Red Riding Hood lost in the woods. Couldn't find Grandma's house?" Mason asked, a wicked sneer pulling at his sensuous mouth.

Not knowing what to say, Dani kept quiet. He could probably hear how hard her heart was beating. She thought Sigma finding her was bad. At least they would keep her alive for the baby. With Mason, she wasn't so sure.

“You passed right through our security barriers, human. Mercury hasn’t claimed you yet, or marked you, and I set them up so you could leave whenever you wanted. I just need to make sure you don’t come back.”

“Why do you hate me so much?”

Mason gave a nonchalant lift of his shoulders. “It’s not you personally. It’s your humanity. We don’t want it in our bloodlines. Purity is our key to strength. First Jace mates with a human, and brings her to live with us no less. But he’s not a born Guardian, so I overlooked it. She’ll meet with a tragic accident soon enough.”

Dani’s mind raced. Her body felt like it should run, attack, something. Her mind told her that Mason was revealing way too much and she needed to pay attention. It also told her that he didn’t intend for her to survive this encounter if he wasn’t monitoring his words.

“But then you show up and a
Guardian
chooses you, a human, for his mate,” Mason continued. “And even worse, you’re going to reproduce and dull his lines. The purity of his power is staggering, though more than a little unfocused. We can’t have human taint on it.”

Pulling a gun out of his waistband, he pointed it at her.

She licked dry lips, “So that’s it. You’re just going to shoot me and think they won’t know. We might not be mated, but Mercury will hunt you down.”

“Sorry sweetheart. I got this off a Sigma recruit. It’ll look like I came up on the scene, and saw you trying to get back to Sigma, but they took you out rather than letting us have you.”

When he raised it a little higher to pull the trigger, she blurted, “I wish you dropped the gun!”

A momentary
WTF
look crossed his face before disbelief when the pistol ripped out of his hand and hit the ground.

Mason pinned her with a stunned look. “You shouldn’t be able to do that.”

Her triumphant moment was only fleeting.

He held eye contact. “Just stand there while I kill you with my bare hands,” he growled, using his compulsion on her.

Her body stilled as if frozen to the ground.
No, no, no!
She had to defend herself.

Mason lunged, bringing his hands up to wrap them around her throat. With a hard mental twist, she undid his compulsion and kicked out. Her soaked foot hit him squarely in the abdomen and she ducked under his reach, dancing out of the way.

“Wha-” she heard as the breath whooshed out of him. “You shouldn’t be able to do any of this,” he gasped, but quickly spun grabbing her arm and pulled her to him. She kicked and hit, but he was ready for her attack and the soggy ground gave her little purchase for fighting.

Dani was turned until her back was against his front, with his elbow locked solidly around her throat, air was getting squeezed out of her, none able to return. She kept kicking back and jabbing him with her elbows, but the mountain of steel holding her didn’t budge.

I wish he’d drop me!
her mind cried. His grip loosened for a split second, allowing her to draw in just a little air, but he recovered quickly fighting off her wish.

Her short life had started flashing through her mind when it stopped on this morning. Rain pelted her face, and while his clothing seemed to resist the soaking, hers did not. She was slick and slippery and it was still pouring. Her strength was waning, but unlike Kaitlyn’s final effort, hers would be fueled by the panic of knowing she wouldn’t come back from strangulation.

Twisting her feet back to hook behind his legs, extra strength poured into her movements as she jerked his feet out from under him.

He toppled back in surprise, his arm loosening around her neck enough for her to slide out and roll away. Springing up into a fighting crouch, she faced him.

Mason recovered nearly as fast as she did and was on his feet, lunging for her again, when a blast rang though rain-laden air and he went flying backward, a gaping hole in his chest.

Dani’s eyes widened, hope surging through her. Had Mercury found her?

“Silver. Gets ‘em every time.” The familiar female voice was definitely not Mercury’s.

Hope died a slow death within Dani. She searched through the dark trees and saw Agent X with her shoulder propped against a tree trunk. Her vivid green eyes flashed with their predator’s gleam, her usually crazy hair laid flat by the rain, with streaming rivulets of water running down her ivory face.

“Nice shootin’ Biggie.” X nodded to Agent E, who was somewhere behind Dani. “Gotta say, Doll, that baby’s giving you some fierce shifter juice to face off against a Guardian.”

Dani still couldn’t see E, but knew he was getting closer.

“What did she do to my baby, X? What did Madame G do?” Dani tried to get some information before she faced another struggle. Her body was aching from Mason’s attack, her throat raw, and now she was facing two Agents. Not just any two either. Two that knew her abilities and taught her what little she knew.

A look of dismay highlighted X’s beautiful features. “Of course she did something, Doll. She’s tied to the baby somehow, like a really wicked fairy godmother.”

“How do I get her out of me?”

“And why would we tell you that?” E’s deep timbre came from right behind her.

She spun around. He held no weapon anymore and wasn’t crouched to attack her. His hands were tucked into his waistband like they’d all just met to chat in the middle of the dark woods during a major storm.

“Because not even you two would want to see an innocent baby used this way. Of all people, you know what she’s capable of.”

“Madame G’s depravity surprises me sometimes, I have to admit. But no one knows what she’s really capable of,” X informed her, then cocked her head at Dani. “Or why.”

The wind suddenly picked up, tearing through the trees, strong enough to lift soggy leaves and broken branches. Dani felt the sting as they pelted her legs and face.

“Uh oh,” X’s eyes glinted in the dark. “Who let the dogs out?”

Wind and rain whipped around Dani’s face. Mercury was on his way. She could feel him in the power flowing around her before she heard the howls buffeting through the wind.

Agent E moved to grab her from behind and she ducked and spun out of his reach, slipping easily away since he couldn’t get a good purchase on her slippery, wet coat. Although they wouldn’t kill her and would try not to hurt the baby, she was at a definite disadvantage with the slick ground, her human eyes having trouble making out the Agents.

It was like a sixth sense kicked in, along with her previous training. She couldn’t see X or E very well, but she felt where they were and guessed their moves before they were made. Over and over, they lunged in for her and Dani spun, kicked, jabbed, and danced out of their reach. Much of it was her previous training with these very Agents, the rest though...

She heard Mercury’s howl in the wind. He was only seconds away.

The two dangerous Agents made one final attempt to grab her and haul her away. They’d have to run and run fast. It wasn’t just Mercury coming to her rescue. More howls filtered through the wind.

X’s strong hands wrapped like steel around Dani’s wrists, trying to twist her around while E was targeting her feet. Both Agents had bindings of some sort and Dani had to keep out of them.

When she felt hard metal close around one wrist, she reacted, “I wish it’d fall off.”

The cuffs slid off. Dani sprang out from between a startled X and a crouching E, landing poorly and losing her footing. She twisted her body as she fell, using the motion of a front roll to carry her even farther away the Agents.

The howls were on top of them now. She felt, more than saw, the Agents disappearing into the night. Their goal of her capture would not be fulfilled tonight.

“You were a good Agent, Doll,” X called back, the wind carrying her words clearly. “I’ll miss our time hunting shifters.”

Oh. Shit.

Dani knew the time would come when the major detail she’d been omitting had been revealed. She’d just hoped that when it did, Mercury and the other Guardians would trust her enough to listen to the rest of the story. She seriously doubted they’d reached that point yet.

He stopped just feet away from where she crouched in the rain. Her eyes met the swirling, shining eyes of the familiar mammoth black wolf.

Two more large wolves were highlighted by the lightening behind Mercury. With stunning synchronicity, they flowed from their wolf state into stunning human males. They were several inches taller than Mercury with longer brown hair plastered to their identical chiseled faces and their eyes were probably brown when they weren’t highlighted by the hunter’s shine. Like the rest of the Guardians, they were heavily muscled and devastatingly handsome. And naked.

“The Agents are gone. Those bastards run fast,” informed one of the twins in a deep baritone. His gaze locked onto her. “Or should I say, most of the Agents are gone.”

“I’m not an Agent,” Dani rushed to explain.

“Did you or did you not hunt shifters?” Bennett’s voice from behind her spooked her, but she didn’t spin around. He was probably naked too, having transitioned already. Only Mercury remained in his wolf state, his unblinking gaze locked onto her.

“Only the ones that killed my family. And they were feral.”

“How many of us have you killed?” the same twin who spoke before asked.

“There were three who were responsible for my parent’s death,” Dani hedged, still unwilling to get to the complete truth.

“And how many of us did you
kill
?” Bennett asked, from between clenched teeth.

Dani swallowed and hoped it wouldn’t be all black and white with them.

“There were two others, also feral. The three that took out my family were part of the deal I made when I joined Sigma.”

A sharp inhale from Bennett spoke volumes.

“I would join to become an Agent if they allowed me to take out those males. By the time I was done hunting the feral males, I had seen enough. Realized I made a mistake, then...” She looked at Mercury, pleading with him to believe her.

“Then they decided to make you an incubator for one of our abominations?” Bennett said with a caustic tone.

That made Dani angry, but before she could react, Mercury swung around and loped off into the night. The three other Guardians silently watched him, then locked their incensed gazes back in on her.

“Three drinks and that’s final, X,” Demetrius bargained.

“Two sips,” X countered.

A slow, sensuous smile curled Demetrius’ full lips and he opened the door to let her in.

X sauntered in, dropping the trench coat from her shoulders, wearing only black heels.

“I want the information before we’re done.”

Demetrius’ eyes glittered as he scanned X’s naked body. His tongue stroked one fang. “Deal. But I need to warm you up. It’s been a while hasn’t it? Since the last time you needed some intel?”

X’s fiery green eyes narrowed, she put her hands on her hips. “The warm up counts as one sip.”

A low chuckle reverberated through the big male’s body.

“Fine,” he agreed, closing in.

She looked up at him through her lashes as he neared. Demetrius probably started as Madame G’s vampire equal, heading up this chapter of Sigma. But she far surpassed his power and no one knew how. X suspected Demetrius had insight. She also suspected his powers weren’t as far surpassed as everyone thought and he was always helpful, for a price.

Taking in his shoulder length amber hair that reflected the light filtering in from the compound’s exterior, his pale green eyes swept over her breasts and naked lower half, heat flaring when he noticed she still wore her heels.

There were worse missions. Fucking Demetrius for information was something she did occasionally. Getting to drink shifter blood, freely without a fight, was a rare treat for vampires with the added benefit that her strong shifter body could take the pounding of a male feeding vampire. Otherwise, they tried to separate the two. Too many casualties. She chose Demetrius, because although his motives seemed aligned with Sigma, they were still his own. In that respect, she felt a kinship. He was cruel, but not unnecessarily so. Madame G often tried to tempt him with female shifters, but he refused to force or seduce the captives. With X, he played the game of give and take.

It was a fine line X walked. To do this, she had to give up on any hopes for her own future. Walking around with the stench of a vampire on her would burn a bridge that made her heart ache. But that stench would keep her in Madame G’s good graces and ward off suspicion that the evil matriarch’s top pet was turning over a new leaf. Using her body was inevitable, but at least she reached a point of power where she could choose who, when, and how often.

Demetrius, wearing only black leather pants, his defined chest and chiseled abs on display, wrapped his hands around her back and slid them down to her backside, his mouth close to her neck.

“Oh, my first sip won’t be from here.”

Reaching down, he lifted her up from behind and set her up on his table. A single vampire didn’t need a six foot dining room table for family gatherings. It was obvious he enjoyed many different courses on it.

X stretched back, allowing him to spread her legs. He knew she liked to get down to business. Don’t play with breasts, don’t suckle anything longer than needed, take your drink and pass the information.

He dipped his head down to her center, where she was spread for him. His soft hair tickling her inner thighs. As he used his strong fingers to spread her, he looked up at her. She raised an eyebrow. He chuckled again and got to business.

Demetrius’ talented tongue quickly warmed her up, but she knew he needed to prep her for his second feeding. It had indeed been awhile and this was not the male she wanted inside of her. What she wanted was irrelevant. She had one mission and one mission only. And this exchange between her and Sigma authority aided in that mission.