Unleashing the Storm (15 page)

He’d
had to endure Babs, the Weimaraner, staring at him with her head tilted and a
look of
You’re gonna get it,
as he’d cooked right on Kira’s stove the
two huge hamburgers with real freakin’ meat Deb had snuck him. And then he’d
stuffed them into his mouth after he shoved them between the only bread Kira
seemed to own, some sprouted wheat shit that almost made him vomit. But he
needed the protein, and dammit, so did she.

“Don’t
start with me,” he told the dog. “Because you have no idea what I’m dealing
with. Oh, hell, you’re a female. Maybe you do.”

Babs
stood and wagged her tail, and he groaned.

He’d
been staying busy around the farm, keeping track of Kira and making sure
nothing else was going on behind the scenes. Itor would never hit during the
day anyway—too many people, too many tourists.

And,
like clockwork, every four hours Kira would look at him, the desperation in her
eyes hard for him to miss now that he knew exactly what it was all about.

He
wondered why the hell it bothered him, the fact that he could’ve been any stud
servicing her, that she just needed sex, not sex from him.
No ties that bind
forever
had always been his motto. But ties that bind for a few hours,
well, sure, those were the best kind.

The
kind that almost took you out last night, asshole.

Maybe
that was it. His ego had taken a nice hit, the bruise that ran across the front
of his neck a painful, visual reminder, and he was doing everything in his
power to live up to his boast, to prepare for when she whispered against him,
Come
on, Tommy. Take me, right now. I can’t wait.

Like
a living, breathing dream, except his dick was so sore he was afraid, for the
first time in his life, that it might actually fall off from overuse. Talk
about taking one for the proverbial team.

He’d
survived wars. Bullets. And sex was going to be the thing to kill him.

And
suddenly, he knew the reason why Dev sent him in alone on this one. Nothing to
do with his hard heart and everything to do with his sex drive and his
rejuvenative powers. But shit, Dev had underestimated this one, and so had
everyone at ACRO. Not that they’d have had any way of knowing that Kira needed
more than sex for survival. That was a nice little bomb she’d dropped in his
lap last night. Mate or die.

He’d
made sure she’d been mated with, all right. His pride stirred more than a
little, because he had to admit he’d done a damned fine job of keeping her
satisfied over the past twenty-four hours. Being an excedo did have its perks.

His
meal had energized him slightly. He checked his watch, saw that early evening
had come up more quickly than he’d realized. He had just enough time to make a
quick sweep of the area before Kira needed him again. She’d pop a vein when she
smelled the hamburger on him, and for the first time that day, he was actually
looking forward to seeing her.

WEDNESDAY
9 P.M. MST

It
was Kira’s favorite time of the day. After sunset when the refuge volunteers
had gone, and the exotic part of the sanctuary was alive with the sounds of nocturnal
animals becoming active.

She
made her rounds, checked the critters with health issues first. Inside the
small building used to house animals under veterinary care, a severely
malnourished black bear still struggled to survive, but the other dozen animals
that had suffered at the hands of humans were doing well.

She
only wished she could say the same. How could her life have gone bad so
quickly? Yesterday she’d been happy. As content as she could be anyway, given
that she was wanted in several states and had been entering into the seasonal
cycle that made her life a living hell. Now, twenty-four hours later, she’d
seen a man killed, had learned her farmhands had been slaughtered, had been
taken hostage by a thug who wanted her to work for his secret thug agency, and
then she’d practically forced said thug to have sex with her.

Swallowing
a groan, she stepped into the wolf pen and played with the dozen wolves and
wolf-hybrids, let them tell her about their day. The easiest of the nondomestic
animals to communicate with, wolves were so open to learning and sharing.

Unlike
a certain male human she’d attacked for sex.

This
time she did groan, sank onto a boulder and let the wolves surround her. She
had no idea what had happened, had very little memory of the events following
the oral sex. All she knew was that desperation had seized her, and then she
found herself on top of Tom, milking his orgasm for what she needed. Flashes of
her actions punched her brain in tiny, painful blows.

She’d
leaped on him. Nearly choked him with the cuffs. Snarled like a demon.

Never,
ever, in her twenty-seven years had she been so out of control. Not when she
diligently planned every aspect of her life in order to avoid desperation and a
loss of restraint. To avoid the sickness and pain that came when sex didn’t.

And
now the strangeness surrounding her had thrown all her careful planning into
chaos, had turned her life upside down and left her spinning and as powerless
as a turtle on its back. Tom certainly hadn’t helped things by taking her
prisoner and taunting her.

To be
fair, though, he’d revised his ultimatum, had at least given her the illusion
of having a choice. Go with him and live, or stay and die. The part of her that
liked to breathe wanted to go. The stubborn part of her, the same part that
didn’t trust anyone who even hinted at being military or government, wanted to
stay and prove she could make it on her own. Even if staying meant leaving on
her own terms later. She’d done it before.

Confusion
ate at her. She’d fed all her house animals and left notes for the owners, just
in case. But no matter what she decided, she’d still have to deal with Tom,
would have to actually speak with him shortly. Her time was almost up, and
they’d left things open-ended and awkward last night.

It
was clear that he’d been clueless regarding the seriousness of her sexual
needs, and oddly enough, he seemed to be trying to make it up to her. Their
matings since the incident in the field had been silent, but he’d been
attentive, had taken the time to make her come over and over.

He’d
stayed with her after the first time, like he wanted to talk, but she’d fled.
Her emotions had become a jumbled mess…she hated him for tearing apart her
life, yet her confusion over how she’d taken him like an uncontrolled beast
stabbed at her like the tines on a pitchfork. He could have stopped her, but
she wouldn’t have made it easy, and he’d have had to hurt her. Obviously, he
didn’t want to hurt her, or he’d have done it already.

Or
maybe his bosses had wanted her unharmed. So they could harm her themselves,
experiment on her, like what happened in movies. And what if his agency was the
bad one, and Derek had belonged to the good one? What Derek had said about the
lemonade had sparked a memory, and after putting two and two together, she
realized her curry had not gone bad, that Tom had drugged them. Besides, she
had no proof that one word Tom said had been the truth, and she’d smelled meat
on him during their last mating, so really, she shouldn’t suffer guilt over
anything.

Feeling
inexplicably better, she bid the wolves good night and headed toward the big
cat pens.

At
the entrance to the fully enclosed area that housed nearly fifty cats ranging
from ocelots to tigers, she paused. The throbbing had begun, and she’d need Tom
again in a few minutes. She hung her head and closed her eyes, because dammit,
she’d give anything to have another man right about now, one who wasn’t so
scary, who didn’t bury bodies as easily as he breathed. Maybe she should have
tried to run for it today, tried to sneak out with the visitors.

But
if he was right, if he was her only hope…she couldn’t risk running. Not even to
find someone else to service her.

One
thing was certain: She wasn’t joining his stupid agency. Once the threat was over,
maybe she could return here. If she was still in danger, she could assume yet
another name and find work elsewhere. She was an expert at starting over, had
been ever since she’d been forced to leave her dog training business after some
men had piled out of a van one day and tried to drag her inside. Her dogs had
saved her, but at a high price—a dozen had been killed. She’d had to go on the
run, because the men came back two days later, and suddenly the police, who had
lauded her as the best trainer of police dogs in the world, had suddenly
decided to arrest her.

She’d
had no doubt that the government had been behind the van incidents, as well as
the sudden police turnaround. She’d been arrested too many times for disturbing
the peace and for suspicion of being an accomplice in violent animal-rights
crimes. But now, after what Tom had said, she wasn’t so sure about who had
tried to grab her.

The
sound of a tiger chuff brought her back into the present, where her body was
craving Tom, but if this was the last time she’d ever see her babies, she
needed to spend time with them first. Besides, he would be keeping a close eye
on his watch and would find her, if he wasn’t already nearby. She sniffed the
breeze but caught no trace of him, which meant little; he could be upwind.

“Hey,
kids,” she said, as she stepped inside the main entrance and then carefully
closed the gate.

A
black jaguar stretched up the chain-link fence next to her in greeting, and she
stuck her hand through the feeding slot to scratch his belly. Smiling, she
passed the lynx and cougar pens, giving everyone an affectionate pat. She
entered the two lion and liger—lion/tiger hybrids—pens to play with them for a
bit, and then she visited the refuge’s three Siberian tigers.

The
two females, Anya and Nika, immediately settled into deep, rumbling purring as
they brushed against her hips, knocking her around the pen with their gentle
enthusiasm. Anya playfully hooked her paw around Kira’s calf and pulled, nearly
dumping her on her butt.

Across
the pen, Pasha, the big white male, paced. He kept his head low, his eyes
locked on Kira. One lip lifted in a half snarl.

“What
are you doing, boy?” she asked, and he didn’t answer.

Pasha
often didn’t. Fiercely intelligent, he’d always been difficult to read, one of
the few animals she’d encountered who could block her probing mind.

Anya
and Nika began a wrestling match, and Pasha roared. He took a step toward Kira,
his sharp teeth flashing in the overhead refuge lights.

“You
think you’re tough, huh?” She bent at the waist, caught his gaze and held it,
something no one should ever try with a big cat.

Pasha
snarled, crouched.

She
took a slow, stalking step toward him. He growled low in his throat. She
growled back.

“You
don’t want to mess with me, baby,” she whispered, and this time she got a
response. A vision. A picture of her trapped beneath him, his mouth closed
around her skull.

She
wheeled around, took three steps, and then suddenly she was on the ground with
seven hundred pounds of tiger on top of her. Rancid, hot puffs of breath washed
over her face as Pasha opened his mouth around her head. Hard teeth bit into
her scalp, but the pressure, though intense, didn’t hurt.

You
win, Pasha. But I’m getting faster. I got an extra step in tonight.

The
big cat made some snorting noises and released her head, but he held her down
just because he could. She felt a mouth close around her foot, and another
around her arm. The affection, respect and gratitude all three cats felt for
her shimmered across her body, made it tingle in the way it always did when
animals communicated their emotions.

The
tigers sensed her worry, and were, in their tiger way, trying to comfort her.

She
sent all the love and comfort right back at them, because she had no idea what
the future held for them, and they needed support more than she did.

Lying
there like a big chew toy, she glanced at her watch, surprised that she’d spent
over two hours saying good-bye to her babies. Then again, the tension crackling
inside could have clued her in to the time. She closed her eyes, concentrated
on holding back the throbbing need that would, in a moment, force her to seek
out Tom. Heat built in her veins, desire stretched through her like a deep,
sexy moan. The scent of sun-warmed skin and grass tickled her nostrils as her
body remembered his smell. Wetness bloomed between her legs as it prepared to
mate, and ravenous hunger clawed at her.

The
beast wanted to be fed.

WEDNESDAY
11 P.M. MST

Twenty
hours and counting, and Ender found himself flat on his back on the bed in his
overheated room in the old farmhouse, staring up at the ceiling. He wanted to
be on the road before midnight. Midnight was when the security that surrounded
the refuge pared down considerably, leaving two lonely guards on either side of
the large plot of land. Since the refuge didn’t officially close until ten, and
some nights even later depending on foot traffic and tours that got waylaid
looking at the more exotic animals, he wasn’t worried that Itor would come in
much sooner than that. Many animals preferred to hunt their prey under the
cover of night, and he was no exception.