Tempting the Enemy (17 page)

“Because you have no idea what it means.” His forehead pressed to hers, his lids closing with what looked like effort. “Not for you, not for me.”

“Then explain it to me.” Following instincts that nearly drowned out her thoughts, she licked his lips, pleased at the earthy taste of him. She felt his indrawn breath and smiled. “Explain it…slowly.”

His hold tightened, but not in threat. More like a reflex. “If I claim you, it’ll be more than just sex. More than a mating. Heat exists to ensure we continue. It’s how, even as ruthless and inhuman as we’ve become, there’re still Wolf shifters being born. The rushes aren’t happening because you need contact. They’re happening because you’re fertile.”

Oh. But there were solutions to that, weren’t there?

The scarlets who returned from assignments were founts of information, thanks to her telepathic dorm mate. And sex was a topic Sage could spend endless hours talking about. “Couldn’t we just—”

He shook his head. “There’s no protection anyone has found that works for shifters. Even condoms.

Something in our chemistry weakens the latex.

Sometimes they work, most times they don’t.”

Dee Tenorio

145

“So the reason you won’t…” She swallowed, wishing she were somehow more comfortable with this topic. “You don’t want to get me pregnant.” Now there was a sentence she never imagined would come out of her mouth. The past seven years of her life had been all about finding a strong enough mate for just that purpose.

Children were essentially the only reason the Sibile bothered taking mates at all. But Rysen wasn’t talking about taking her as a mate. Only as a bed partner.

Rysen’s reaction was inscrutable. He leaned away from her fully, but his hand remained at her neck, his thumb rubbing absent circles over her pulse. “If we did this, you’d never have anyone else’s children but mine.”

She blinked, startled. “I’d
what?
”

“Mine,” he repeated, his gaze meaningful. “Only mine.”

Mine in every way you can imagine…

He took his hand away. “It’s called imprinting.

Females generally imprint on their first lovers, accepting his DNA as part of her own, part of her scent and part of her body. They only come into season around acceptable males, most of the time in their adolescence. Other males can challenge for her once she’s in Heat. If her chosen male fails to protect her, she can be taken by the victor.

From then on, she can only bear the young of the male who imprinted her, no matter who she bonds to emotionally afterward. It ensures our kind remain strong.”

And violated. “That’s horrible.”

Rysen nodded grimly. “There’re a lot of unwanted cubs as a result, now more than ever, though there have always been strays. They grow up in shelters, never knowing either parent. Our culture used to protect our daughters. Now everyone pretty much fends for 146

Tempting the Enemy

themselves.” His tone, dry and bitter, said more than enough about how he felt that worked. She considered the girl his brothers were burying and had to agree.

“Every generation is smaller. Throw in the genocide and we’re nearly extinct. A few do their best to protect the weaker ones, but there’s only so much we can do.”

A few. She wondered if that few numbered four—

three Wolves and a…whatever Aaron Favian was.

Rysen’s “idyllic” childhood took on a wider scope in her mind. He knew exactly how he’d come to be in the world, had always known. Each of them had. If what he’d been telling her was true, Wolves had become little more than a race of orphans in a world of cruelty. His carefulness with her, his need to protect her, even when he was sure she was a threat, spoke volumes about what that knowledge had shaped him into. The kind of man who would protect others, the kind people would flock to as a result. A leader. An Alpha. “You’re rebuilding the packs.”

He shook his head again, but she sensed the lie.

“That’s why that girl was in the woods. She was searching for a sanctuary.”

His unblinking glare aimed through the front windshield, but she didn’t think he saw beyond his own anger. “She’s the sixth Wolf to die that way. Young, defenseless. No one to protect her or avenge her because we miss him by minutes. Seconds sometimes.” She could see on his face how much that fact tormented him. “He’s been picking off our women on top of the kills in the city, and we have no idea how. Why. Nothing in this damn case makes any sense.”

And she’d been no help at all. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more.”

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147

“You told me too much.” He turned to pin her again with a searing stare. “Do you have any idea what it was like, watching you running like that? Hearing you scream, knowing what he does to them?”

She didn’t know what to say to that. The Sisters hadn’t shown the slightest concern for what happened to her as a result of using her gift during training. They had dragged her as a screaming child to the bodies of their dead, demanding answers to their questions. Forced her to see things she’d been unprepared for until she knew well and good how hard a heart could become.

For the smallest of moments, she wondered what it would have been like to grow up free, under Rysen’s protection. Did his people understand what a gift he was giving them when he took them in from the cold and death? How much his concern for their safety must cost him? Even if they didn’t, she did.

At the least, she could spare him some of his worry.

“That wasn’t really me, Rysen. Those were
her
fears.
Her
pain. All I am is a conduit.”

He lifted his hand to her cheek, running his finger over the curve of her face to her chin. She didn’t have to search his color to sense his disbelief. “Someday, very soon if I have my way, you’re going to learn your own value, Jade-Scarlet. I vow that with my life, no matter what happens between us. You will know what you’re worth.” His voice rumbled with regret as he dropped his hand to his own lap again. “But until then, all I can offer you is comfort. Not completion.”

Meaning all those visions in his head weren’t coming true any time soon.

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“I don’t understand you,” she said, but at least the pain of rejection wasn’t present. She didn’t think she could take that again.

“Give it time.” Rysen put his hands on the wheel, gripping the leather tightly. He didn’t seem to like that prospect any more than she did.

“I don’t see how that’s going to help our problem.”

She already wanted to claw and bite him, and that was without the Heat shredding her nerves.

A wisp of humor entered his eyes. “Impatient for me?”

Years of training demanded she be demure. Ignore the innuendo. But the part of her he’d unleashed wanted him, was tired of the mixed signals. It demanded satisfaction and, so far, only antagonizing him seemed to get the job done. “Maybe I’m just curious to see if you’re as good as you think you are.”

His thick brow rose, his pale eyes coloring with something that sent the Heat flaring. She looked down at her hands, her fingers relaxed on her lap, the curving claws at her fingertips for once not bothering her. If nothing else, Rysen’s open appreciation for them had removed that stigma. Appreciative or not, he wasn’t going to change his mind about giving in to the Heat.

But one thing did need to be settled between them or nothing would change, period.

“I’ll make you a promise of my own, Detective. And before you doubt my word, understand that, despite your beliefs, the Sibile have codes too. We may be mercenaries, but the contracts we make, we do not fail.

They’re covenants. For us, there’s no greater crime than breaking our word. It’s worth more than our lives.” She Dee Tenorio

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set her gaze a hundred or so feet ahead, where a traffic light swung in the wind. At this hour of the morning, no one was here to see the lights change or care about the couple in the car too far away from it. “I will never betray whatever you’re doing here, for these people. I vow it with
my
life. If ever the Sibile come for you again, it won’t be because of me.”

He watched her quietly for long moments before leaning back into his seat. “I actually believe you.”

She smiled, her heart warming so much she wondered if he could see the glow. Leaving it at that, he faced the road and started driving again, this time at a speed that left the roads as quiet as they found them.

“This is not standard accommodations,” Jade breathed, staring around the hotel room Rysen had brought her to. Just off the lake, the hotel was definitely a luxury resort of some kind. The bathroom alone was larger than the dorm room she shared with Sage. The bedroom included a desk, a table already set for meals by the massive windows, and what looked like miles of thick, cushiony carpet. Her feet actually sprang up with each step.

With his usual efficiency, Rysen dropped her pack on the bed before searching the room, checking out each door and shadow. “It’ll do.”

“For a Rouge, maybe. I don’t need all of this—”

“Consider it a temporary bolt-hole. A place to hide for a few hours while you rest. Nothing more.” He unhooked his gun and phone, laying one on the bedside table. The other he flipped open, sighing at the screen.

“Frickin’ Kennison.”

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Jade opted not to ask what the captain wanted now.

He’d called twice already that she knew of. “Why not find some place less…”

“Opulent?” At her nod, he pushed out a breath.

“Because they won’t look for either of us here. Don’t kid yourself, either. They’re looking.”

“Who?”

“The city council,” he finally explained, levering his large frame onto the bed. “First rule of surviving out here is not to trust anyone who works for the city, or any arm of the government, for that matter. They send all the Sibile to the same hotel. Makes me suspicious.”

“Why?” Clerks of any kind might occasionally be ruthless with their official power, but they weren’t exactly in the same terror bracket as a displeased Sibile.

He hitched a shoulder, his dark hair looking blacker than usual on the crisp white pillows. She wouldn’t have thought she’d find a man indolently lying back attractive, but something about him stretched over a bed—
her
bed—

triggered a stirring. “The world’s running out of shifters to blame for their problems. People like that Senator Thompson are smart enough to start looking for other targets. Wouldn’t doubt it if they’re tagging Sibile already. If they are, I don’t want it happening to you.”

Neither did she, considering the memories of the girl they’d just left. “If the city isn’t paying for this room, then who is?”

The answer glittered at her in his eyes.
Mine to
protect. Mine in every way you can imagine.

What she imagined is that he would stretch that claim to cover more than his rule about her safety. So why didn’t that bother her the way it should?

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151

“Relax, Jade. I know the manager here, he owes me.

You’re exhausted and so am I. We’re only here to sleep.”

Not that she’d get any next to him. Still, when he patted the wide-open space at his side, she only chewed her lip for a moment thinking about it. Circling the edge of the bed, she let herself sit. Rysen rolled onto his side, propping his head on one hand. When he made no further move toward her, she relaxed more and lay back on the pillows. The softness was its own kind of seduction.

Closing her eyes in pleasure, she almost forgot about Rysen completely. Until his large hand slid over her midriff.

He pulled her closer, fitting his big body around her from behind, positioning them both to his liking until one of his big legs was between hers and her hand was holding on to his broad forearm beneath her breasts. His warmth surrounded her, giving her an unexpected sense of security. Intimacy that tempted for other reasons than sex.

“Any chance you’ll let me take this bowl thing off you?”

If she let him take anything off her, they’d both be naked in seconds.

He must have picked up on her thinking because his chuckle rumbled against her back. His breath on her cheek tingled just before he dropped a soft kiss near her ear. “Sleep.”

“Pushy,” she mumbled, already slipping under the spell he wove. He said something in response, a warm whisper she felt against her ear, but as she drifted into dreaming, she didn’t hear what it was.

Instead, another voice slipped into her consciousness.

“You’re doing well,
chère
.”

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“Jalla?” Jade turned, finding herself in Jalla-Rouge’s garden. The roses were in bloom and, all around, everything was green. Jade frowned, knowing that she herself had helped winterize the plants months ago, covering them with sackcloth so they wouldn’t freeze and break in the deep snows.

“Try again,” Jalla said gently.

“But it’s so hard.”

Jade froze, recognizing that small voice. It was…her own. She walked deeper into the garden, toward the gazebo in the middle. Moving closer, she could see the two figures on the padded seats lining the edge. One was Jalla, her hair pulled up as usual, its color the blond she only remembered, barely streaked with silver. Next to her sat a small marron in a thin brown robe, no bigger than a six- or seven-year-old, her jet-black hair shining and sleek down her little back.

My
little back, Jade realized.

Jalla’s hand lifted and smoothed down the girl’s hair while concentration shook her small shoulders.

“It’s not working!” Jade’s younger self cried out suddenly, throwing herself into Jalla’s arms. For a brief second, Jalla held on, her eyes closing with what looked like…pain. Then she stiffened and removed Jade’s arms from around her neck.

“It
will
work, Jade. You have to work at it.”

“It doesn’t in the daytime. It
never
works anymore.”

Anymore?

“Ah,
chère
. Your gift is part of you. In your blood. If you fall down and cut yourself, do you not bleed because the sun is up?”