He watched her pale. Terror flashed in her eyes a second before she ran. He cursed violently, dragging his hands through his hair as he tamped down the beast that demanded he run her down. He couldn’t. He never could. She was his mate, and yet he would be forever denied her touch. His ravenous, grieving howl echoed through the mountains now, as it echoed through his soul.

Damn Bainesmith, the Labs and Faith. For those three reasons he had stayed away from his Pack, and the woman who tempted and tormented him. For two of those reasons he would leave again.

He couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t trust the lack of control that had raged through his body the first time he had taken her. And he couldn’t face her fear of him now. He saw it in her eyes each time he came near her, heard it in her voice when she spoke to him, and he hated it. Hated hearing it, and hated himself for causing it.

He stalked to the jeep awaiting him several feet away. It was already packed and ready to go. Wolfe wouldn’t need him any longer. The others could clean up the mess, and Wolfe would have them all packing up and heading out soon. There wasn’t much left for him to do. He started the ignition, stared toward the cabin Faith had stayed in and shook his head. Damn, if only she was a little older, a little more experienced. If only they had been born, rather than created, raised rather than trained. If only he could have stayed—

* * * * *

Faith watched the jeep pull out of the cabin yard, her eyes narrowing in anger and pain as Jacob drove away. He wouldn’t be back. She knew he wouldn’t be. Her mate. The thought was a silent sneer.

She hadn’t seen him in six years. Had waited each day with bated breath, thinking that would be the day he would return to claim her. That he would realize he needed her. Realize she needed him.

Her teeth clenched as anger seared her insides, as hot and devastating as the arousal that often plagued her as well. She didn’t need him. She ignored the little voice inside her that assured her she did. She could live without him easily. She tamped down the protest from her heart and from her body that she couldn’t. She had her vibrators; she had her home, her coffee and her freedom. Who needed a mate? She did of course, sarcastic and mocking, her inner voice jumped to the fore.

She sighed wearily, sadly. It would be time to return home soon. They would get Wolfe and Hope back to the Pack compound outside New Mexico, and then she would return to New York. Back to her life. Back to her job. Back to her loneliness.

Chapter Three

Six months later

He knew that ass. Jacob watched the woman as she shifted her hips, looked around the bar, then turned back to the bartender. Her short auburn hair was cut close, framing her irregular face and giving her an almost pixie look. She was barely five feet five inches, dressed in soft black jeans, a black leather jacket and hiking boots. And she had the prettiest rear he had ever seen on a woman. She was tempting seduction, hot lust and a warning he didn’t need. He groaned silently.

She shifted again. Her buttocks flexed and his dick throbbed. Hell, he didn’t need this. It had taken more years than he wanted to remember before he stopped waking in a sweat, the feel of that tight ass gripping his cock, driving him crazy. Hell of a time for a rescue, he had always thought. And here she was, six months after he was forced to walk away from her again, somewhere she shouldn’t be, tempting him and the fragile control that kept him away from her. And this was the wrong damned place and the wrong damned time to be tempting his control.

The dirty little South American bar was filled with thieves, cutthroats, mercenaries and whores. He was here to buy information, get laid and get out, in that order. And she walks in. He sighed wearily. His internal trouble barometer was going off the scales, and the six yahoos at the table nearest her looked much too interested in that cute butt to suit him. That was his ass. Didn’t matter that he had never finished fucking it, or the tempting little cunt beneath it. He still considered it his if it was anywhere in his vicinity. And what the hell was that man doing with her? She wasn’t supposed to be with a man.

Every possessive instinct he possessed roared out in protest. The soft, feral growl that rumbled in his chest was no surprise. It was all he could do to keep it to a soft warning rather than the vicious snarl he wanted to release.

“Jake, what the hell’s wrong with you?” His companion, a gunrunner and general badass, hissed from beside him.

“Problems,” Jacob grimaced then tossed back the rest of his whisky. “We’ll have to fight our way out.”

“Why?” Confusion filled Danson’s voice.

Jacob glanced at the other man, seeing the calculation in the hazel eyes that watched him. He nodded at Faith.

“See that tight ass?”

There was a moment’s silence. Jacob glanced at the other man only long enough to get more pissed than he already was. Danson’s quiet, intense perusal of those tempting curves was an insult to Jacob’s possessive instincts.

“Nice ass,” Danson’s voice was too appreciative to suit Jacob.

“That’s my ass, Danson, twisting around at that bar. My ass, my woman, and she’s about to get herself and me in a hell of a mess.”

He stood to his feet, grimacing at the sudden tight fit at the crotch of his jeans. His eyes narrowed as the six bastards ahead of him geared themselves to confront the pretty little ass flexing as the woman looked around the room again. Damned fine ass, he sighed. He was gonna wallop it first chance he got for being so damned stupid as to walk into this bar.

* * * * *

“It’s gonna turn into a fight,” her friend and adopted Pack mate, Hawke drawled lazily as he leaned back against the bar and watched the small group of men who had been calling out obscenities and impossible suggestions for the past few minutes.

There were six of them, and Faith could smell the rancid scent of unwashed bodies and violent lust. They were men looking for a fight and a woman they could hurt. Evidently, the whores in this place were too damned easy if they actually thought picking on her right now was a good idea. She shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t need this. She was here to find Jacob, that was all. Despite the pulse of adrenaline that sped through her veins, she fought for enough common sense not to push the bastards further.

Damn him, she thought, and damn Wolfe for sending her here. She was doing just fine where she was. A nice little apartment, a job she could work at as needed, and no problems. Four years was a long time out of training, and six years out of the Pack was even longer. Her last dismal failure as an Enforcer, after Hope’s kidnapping six months ago, should have shown him that. She doubted his decision in this little mission he had given her. Didn’t they all have cell phones for a damned reason?

And to top it all off, he sent Hawke with her. Not that Hawke wasn’t a damned fine fighter and a hell of a guide when she needed one. But he was a man, and a male Breed at that. Dominating, bossy, particular, and one problem right after the other. Regular human men were hard enough for her to deal with nowadays, but a Breed male was an insult to the independence she had established over the years.

“Faith, I say we come back later,” Hawke muttered as the men behind her became a bit more restless. “I don’t want to be fightin’ for your virtue, hon.”

So much for his willingness to fight, she sighed. Any other time he would be pitching head long into the fray. They had been searching for Jacob for two months now, and she was tired of being bruised and bloody from the fights he instigated.

She glanced over her shoulder, restraining the urge to roll her eyes. It wouldn’t be her first fight or her last, she was sure. But she definitely wasn’t in the mood tonight. She just wanted to find Jacob, give him the information and the message she had, then return home and sleep for a month.

Why she had to go traipsing after his ass, she didn’t know. Orders. She was Liaison, she mocked Wolfe’s words silently. It was her job. Like Jacob wanted her running around after him. He had shown how important she was to him when he walked away from her, again, six months ago.

“Don’t worry about my virtue, Hawke, it’s been in doubt for years,” she replied mockingly.

She pushed her hand impatiently through her short hair. She wasn’t going to think about it, she promised herself. She had more important things to deal with than the memory of her lost virtue or the man who had taken it. Or if it even counted as lost virtue.

She shifted impatiently, her hand falling to the revolver strapped to her thigh, thankful that she had checked it before entering the seedy little bar. If things got out of hand too much, it was there, but she sure as hell didn’t want to have to deal with the problems that would come with using it.

“Faith, this could be a bad thing,” Hawke drawled lazily. “We draw too much attention and we’re screwed. We’ll never find your man then. “

“He’s not my man,” she muttered as she sipped impatiently at her beer. “And he’s supposed to be here tonight. He better be, I sure as hell paid enough money for the information.” Damned good thing it was Wolfe’s money and not hers, she thought. She got testy where her money was involved.

“Uh oh, they’re getting up from the table. Gang rape time, baby. We better get the hell out of here,” Hawke warned her with a hard edge of amusement. Damn him, he sounded like he was enjoying the thought of the coming fight. Energy pulsed through her own veins, the restless, charged anticipation inside her longing to escalate into the hard driving fury the fight would produce.

“Shit!” She slapped her beer on the bar and turned to leave, furious that male morons were going to foul this up for her. She didn’t need another fight. Didn’t need the all consuming arousal it produced later. No vibrator, no mate. She would be in hell.

As she turned around, she came face to face with the first of the morons in question. Suddenly, a large area cleared around the bar, the two dozen or so patrons now watching with interest, but little intervention as the six goons faced her.

The biggest, a broad, football player sized behemoth stared down at Faith with lustful, dull brown eyes.

“You readee to play, leetle gurl?” He asked her in halting English.

Faith barely managed to keep from rolling her eyes. Oh yeah, she really wanted to play, her life’s ambition was to play with a King Kong wannabe with the brains of a gnat.

“With you?” She arched a slender, auburn brow with curious amusement. “Sorry, babe, but I already have a date tonight.” She moved back carefully, aware of the other three men lining along the other side of the bar.

If he didn’t understand the words completely, he definitely understood the sneer in her voice. One hand gripped the flesh between his legs as he smiled, displaying the rotten teeth he seemed so proud of.

“I say you play, leettle girl,” he grunted in rough English.

“I say you fuck off,” she said easily, her body tensing for the fight to come.

“Faith, your manners,” Hawke reminded her sarcastically. “Not every women gets such a gentle proposition.”

“Manners be damned.” She grimaced. “I’m going to kick Jacob’s ass for getting me into this.”

* * * * *

Hawke grinned. He needed her mad. Faith’s antipathy was beginning to worry Wolfe and the rest of the Pack. She lived, and that was all. She did her job as required, collected her pay, and the rest of the time she stayed holed up in that kick ass apartment she had managed to con someone out of. She was one of the few Pack members who didn’t live within the perimeters Wolfe had set out for them. She was their messenger, informer, and a general spy among spies from what he could figure out. But he liked her. Get her mad enough and she could kick ass with the best of them.

Her training was rusty though, as Wolfe had warned him it would be. He had spent two months getting her back into shape before steering her to Jacob’s true location. Not that she seemed too impressed with his efforts to get her back to peak ability. All she did was bitch about her bruises and scratches. Anytime he expected her to light into him over a broken nail. Damned woman, this was what he got for bringing her back to her mate? He controlled his snort. He would be smarter and mate with a much less stubborn female.