“Aiden.Aiden, help me.” She couldn’t stop the tortured whisper as she felt his lips caress her shoulder, his teeth raking her. “Please…Aiden, please. Do something.”

Despite the echoes of release that still rippled over her body, she needed more. Aiden groaned at her shoulder, his arms holding her close as he began to move. The hot shaft of engorged flesh dragged past the gripping muscles of her cunt, only to return in a hard stroke of such brutal pleasure that she swore it would kill her. Pain bit at the outer edges of sensation, but even that only drove her higher.

“Mine,” he growled then. “Do you hear me, Charity? Mine.”

His cock thrust into her greedy, clenching cunt with almost mindless fervor. The smooth hard strokes kept her body clamoring for more as the sensations intensified, built; growing into such a conflagration she could only gasp at the power. And with each stroke, felt the hard, tortured knot of need tightening in her womb.

Her thighs tensed, the muscles of her cunt involuntarily tightening on the surging shaft, feeling the thick veins, the throb of blood, the hard pulse that beat beneath the engorged flesh, and she knew his control was slipping.

“More,” he gasped, his hands lowering, gripping her thighs and forcing her legs toraise . He lay over her, his mouth at her shoulder, his teeth an erotic pressure on her skin as he began to fuck her hard, deep. She could feel his cock battering at the entrance to her womb, stroking her higher, filling her, driving her farther into the brutal maelstrom of sensation. When her orgasm came, Charity knew she had died. Her breath gurgled in her throat, her eyes blinded as her womb tightened further, then further. She tried to scream when she felt the implosion, but there was no breath for sound. She didn’t explode outward, but inward. A violent internal destruction that occurred with such pleasure she knew she would never survive the ordeal. She felt her own release splatter past his surging cock,then amazingly, her muscles clamped tighter on him, tighter…

“Aiden…” Reality ceased to exist as she simultaneously felt his teeth lock onto her shoulder as his cock began to swell.

She fought it.Fought him. The agonizing swell of pleasure, the feeling of a fist-sized knot growing halfway down the shaft was too much. Her body pulsed in frenzied orgasm as she tightened further, trying to force him away. She couldn’t move. With his teeth locked into her shoulder, his animalistic growls sounding in her ear as his cock swelled, she couldn’t force him away. Another smaller orgasm ripped through her body then as she felt the first splash of his hot seed inside her quaking pussy. His cock was pulsing hard, the beat of blood vibrating through her over-stretched muscles as his cock jerked inside her, spilling the thick, rich semen that seemed to soak into every cell it touched.

His hips jerked, his cock straining to thrust inside her farther as they both cried out at the pleasure/pain of it.

“God, yes,” he groaned, as his mouth lifted from her shoulder. “All of it, Charity. Take all of it.”

The knot pulsed, engorged, pushing her into another series of rapid explosions as yet more of his release surged inside the sealed channel. There would be no loss of seed. She could nearly feel her womb sucking each drop of it inside its hungry depths.

The head of his cock was buried against her cervix, each time her own hipsjerked, she could feel the bulging head moving against it. Each eruption from the thick crown shot straight inside the opening, drenching her womb.

Minutes, hours later, the painful sensitivity through the rest of her body eased, though Aiden stayed

locked tight inside her. His weight was now held on his elbows, though his head dropped against her shoulder. His damp hair caressed her cheek as his heaving chest rasped against her tender nipples. For the first time in six years, Charity felt her body ease. For the first time in six months, she felt the horrible pain disintegrate. She sighed, her arms falling to the bed as exhaustion began to overtake her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, sighing deeply. “I need to sleep now, Aiden. I haven’t slept in so long…”

She had been unconscious, but even then tormented with her body’s needs. With the inner fires of desperation quenched, the need for true rest overtook her.

Aiden would protect her, just as he had eased her. That thought comforted her as she finally gave into the weariness. Her eyes closed as she breathed out deeply, then darkness overwhelmed her. Sleep, she thought. Finally, sleep.

Chapter Fourteen

Aiden groaned roughly as he slid his sensitized flesh from the wet clasp of Charity’s tight vagina. The slick, moist sound as he slid from her had his cock twitching with the need to bury inside her once again, though he knew that such an option was, for now, impossible. He stared down at her, unable to make himself move entirely from her. Her short, dark blonde hair was damp, several strands clinging to the moist features of her face. Perspiration coated her body and ran in shallow rivulets to the sheets below her.

He touched her flushed cheek with the fingers of one hand, his thumb moving to caress the swollen contours of her lips. Asleep, she looked fragile, innocent, exhausted. Lines of weariness creased her face. The complete submission of her body to the sleep that had overtaken her went deeper than the unconsciousness that had held her after her escape. This was bone-deep, and soul-weary. How long, he wondered,had she been without restful sleep?

He walked into the bathroom and collected a small wash pan, cloth, soap and towel and returned to the bed. He couldn’t let her sleep with the sweat and semen drying on her sensitive skin. She wouldn’t rest well, and suddenly, knowing that she slept well was of primary importance to him. He sponged her off carefully, ignoring the hard throb of his cock while enjoying the satiny softness of her skin. From head to toe he cleaned her, ignoring her grumbling moans, his lips quirking in a smile as she finally rolled to her stomach to avoid him.

And there temptation reigned. He sponged her shoulders, the graceful line of her back, her slender legs and tempting thighs. He paused before carefully washing the soft contours of her buttocks then drying them slowly. His fingers trembled as he ran the dry towel down the shadowed cleft of her rear. His cock

throbbed in hard demand.

He wasn’t satisfied by a long shot. He needed her again, harder, deeper, until his cock could swell and explode inside her once more.Right there. His fingers glanced over the tight little entrance to her anus. He needed her there.

His disgusted curse was a silent expulsion of air as he moved from the bed. He returned the basin to the bathroom,then set about changing the sheets of the bed as smoothly as possible. She grumbled irritably but continued to sleep as he finally tucked the fitted ends on both sides of the mattress. A clean sheet covered her then, as well as one of the quilts the women from a nearby town had donated.

She lay on her stomach, almost boneless, her breathing even and deep as she slept. The dark blonde strands of her hair fell silky and soft to her shoulders, though still damp from her earlier passion. He remembered how long it had once been, falling nearly to her hips in a fall of silk. Whyhad she cut it, he wondered. And why did he care?

He grimaced at the thought as he made himself leave the bedroom. She had once again turned his world upside down and he was left to deal with it as she slept.

Sometime between finding her once again, and finally taking her, he had accepted the mating. He had known in those damned Labs that his connection to her was unbreakable. She could make him respond when no one else could. She softened him when he wanted to be cruel; she had given him hope when he had thought it was futile.

Aiden stepped out onto the porch of the cabin, gazing out at the darkness of night, which had fallen over the compound. He could barely glimpse the high walls that ringed the ten-acre compound. Set with motion sensors and guarded by a team of highly trained enforcers and guard dogs, the chances of the area being breached were slim. But they were still enclosed, imprisoned in many ways. There was no place on earth that was truly safe.

The compound now held over two hundred Wolf Breed inhabitants, from the ages of sixteen to early thirties, and more straggled in monthly. There were several small prides of Feline Breeds that had come in, but they were quickly transferred to Callan in Kentucky, where a similar protective area had been set up.

Six years after the breaking story of the Genetics Council and theirhorrors, and still there was no resolution. The monsters still practiced their evil, and finding and destroying their Labs was becoming harder each year. Aiden often feared that it would never end.

“Aiden.”Dr. Armani stepped from the shadows of the night, joining him on the porch.

“She’s asleep. Let her rest for now,” he bit out, his body tensing at the thought of Charity being awakened by yet another scientist set on more experiments.

A sigh broke the night. Regretful, yet tinged with mockery.

“I never knew how selfish you could be,” she snorted. “I thought you were more the beta type. Where did you hide all these alpha tendencies over the years?”

He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the rough wood of the cabin and stared at her. He was the damned security expert here, what made her think he didn’t know how to fight?

“Even genius doctors can be wrong, it seems,” he said as though in regret. “I’m sure you’ll survive the mistake, though.This time.”

She grunted in disbelief. “I need to see her when she wakes up. You know that. I would have preferred to have seen her before you mated her.”

“We’ve discussed this.” He tensed as he watched her. “She’s not strong enough for more tests.”

“I need samples, Aiden. I don’t need her body to run the preliminary tests. If she conceives, then your opinion won’t matter. Charity knows the score here. When she’s more herself, you won’t be able to stop her from coming to me.”

Aiden bared his teeth at her statement. “You forget, Armani, she is in my cabin, in my care.My mate. She will do as I say.”

Armani smiled. Just like that, her teeth flashing in the dark as she sat down slowly in the wide, rough wood chair he had made weeks before. She crossed her legs casually, adjusted her light jacket and regarded him with a mocking glitter in her gaze.

“How the mighty will fall,” she sighed sarcastically. “The male mind truly amazes me. The male Breed mind astounds me. What makes you think you can stop her, Aiden? Will you tie her to your bed?”

“If I have to.”He wanted to snarl, but he knew exactly how cutting the little woman could be. He had no desire to be on the wrong end of her cutting sarcasm.

She shook her head sadly. “Charity is well aware of the importance of what’s going on here. Trust me, Aiden; you can’t control her just because it’s your wish to do so. She’s stronger than that.”

“I won’t argue with you, Armani,” he growled, careful to keep his voice low.

“Aiden, I have never considered you a stupid man. Don’t start playing the role now.” Her voice was cold, lethal in its sarcasm. “Not just Charity’s survival, but the survival of your race depends on her at this point. Don’t let your possessive instincts destroy the good that came of what they did to her. She would only hate you for it.”

“And how do you know this?” he bit out. “You have no idea who or what she is.”

“Ah,and here is where you show your ignorance once again,” she sighed in regret. “Charity was, from the very beginning, a plant within the Council, Aiden. A very well hidden mole whose job it was to keep a careful accounting of everything that went on, day by day.All the tests, all the results. How do you think we’ve gained the information we have so far?”

Aiden’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who is this ‘we’?” he asked her carefully. She sighed again. “Do you think I am the only doctor who turned down the Council and suffered for it?

There were several of us. You know how hard I’ve worked, Aiden, for your people. There are others who have worked with me.”