Then it tore through her. She no longer had the energy to scream, but a low, continuing cry tore from her throat as it began. Energy hummed along her body, from her vagina, her clit, her very womb. It began to wrap around her, exploding her, destroying her. She shook from his hard thrusts, convulsing around his cock as he began to cry out with his own release.

“Fuck. No. No.” She heard his bitter curse an instant before she felt the change.

Hope’s eyes widened as she felt his cock harden further, and further. As though midway up that stiff stalk, it was becoming even more engorged. It stretched the tight muscles of her cunt, separating them more fully. And it wasn’t stopping. It kept swelling as Wolfe kept thrusting in shallow strokes, lodging it tighter and tighter inside her until it felt locked in, and the pull and tug began to trigger climax after climax as she felt his sperm begin to erupt from the tip of his cock.

Her vagina was on fire. A liquid, melting hotbed of sensations she couldn’t process all at once. She was stretched further than she imagined possible; Wolfe’s cock pulsing, her cunt gripping and tightening as shudder after shudder raced through her.

Wolfe was crying out behind her now. A sharp burst of heated seed would erupt, then stop. He would tug again, and another would release. Over and over, she lost count of his eruptions, and her climaxes. It continued for long, long minutes, the heat, the hard throb of blood where flesh was locked into flesh, the pump of hot semen until her body collapsed in total exhaustion, tiny orgasms still trembling through her like energized aftershocks.

Wolfe fell over her, breathing harshly, his body still jerking spasmodically as he attempted every few seconds to pull his cock from the fiery hold she had on it. Instinctively, Hope knew what was happening. It was too bizarre to be true, but she knew it could be no more than the tight swelling that accompanied canine mating. A knot formed along the cock, locking the male inside the female, ensuring that his seed was given chance to take root.

If she had the strength, she would have laughed. She should have known, as he should have known. The feline breeds had experienced their own animalistic qualities. The barb locked them into their female. She should have known that Wolfe, as intensely male, as dominate as he was, would bring with him his own brand of assurance.

“We’re locked together, Hope.” He breathed roughly, shocked, his body still shuddering in pleasure.

“Hmm, it would appear.” She shivered around the hard protrusion once again.

“This has never happened before,” he groaned against her shoulder, his tongue licking at the small scar that marked her as his.

She climaxed again, a soft flare of pleasure as she felt the pressure begin to recede. Then long seconds later she groaned as he pulled free, his engorged dick stimulating her sensitive vagina.

He fell onto the bed beside her, breathing roughly. His arms dragged her against him, holding her tight to his chest as his lips pressed against her forehead, caressed her cheek, then settled roughly on hers. He kissed her, not as a man starved to possess, but as one desperate for atonement.

Her lips opened to his, gentling him. Their tongues twined together, then slid apart as he raised his head to stare down at her.

“I nearly went mad without you,” he whispered, breaking her heart with the pain in his voice and in his eyes. “I knew you were safe the day the Labs were overrun. I set the explosions in the cells and ran with the others. I had to get them to safety, ensure their lives before I could come for you.”

She pressed her lips together as she fought her pain and her tears.

“I thought I had lost you forever.” She touched his lips with trembling fingers. “I merely existed, Wolfe. I would have preferred to fight the fight with you. To have been a part of your freedom. All of it.”

He shook his head heavily. “I could risk our lives because I had to. Not yours. You were too important to me, Hope. Without you, I had nothing. No prayer, no hope of ever attaining happiness. You are my hope. All of it.”

A tear slid from her eye, only to be caught by his calloused thumb.

“You are free now.” He grinned. “Are you still going to kick my ass?”

Hope breathed out in a weak attempt at laughter.

“I’m going to kick it really hard as soon as I get my breath,” she assured him. “Next time, I get to tie you up, and let you see how it feels.”

His eyes flared with a measure of worry. She considered it for long moments, knowing he would do it, for her. She finally shrugged. “Hell, I guess you need your hands free, huh?”

“It would make it much easier to love you,” he assured her with dark promise as his hands caressed her back, twined in her long black hair. “And I can love you well, my Hope.”

“Tell me what happened.” She needed to know why it had taken him so long to come for her.

Wolfe sighed deeply.

“When we escaped, it was with no money, no supplies, nothing but our instincts.” He shrugged heavily, grimacing at the thought of those early days. “We barely survived before I was able to arm us and train the males sufficiently to fight. Then we began hiring ourselves out. Kidnappings, search and rescue. A few stints as hired guns in petty wars. Our reputation didn’t take long to grow. We computerized, took only the assignments we were assured were not tricks of your mother’s, and grew more secure.”

“When did she find you?” She needed to know how long her mother had allowed her to live, grief stricken, in pain without him.

“Within two years. She made her first attempt to recapture us through a kidnapping she arranged. When that didn’t work, she began sending me pictures of you. Last year I received several, via my Internet connection, of you with several other men. I went insane, Hope.”

His simple words vibrated with agony and loss.

“I visit the gynecologist monthly, because of the effects of the ‘mating’,” she told him hesitantly. “Last month, I was sore, hurting afterwards. She must have had him rupture the hymen to ensure your belief in it.”

Would he believe her? She stared up at his quiet face, seeing none of the disgust, the fury that had been there earlier.

He shook his head. “I should have known. I should have thought. But all I could think about was another touching you. I have not been stable these last months beloved.” He kissed her lips gently, an apology, an unspoken plea in his eyes that she forgive him. And she could do no less.

“Well, after such incredible orgasms, I guess I can forgive you,” she whispered with a sensual smile. She was more than ready for another.

Hope frowned then as his eyes closed with weary resignation, and though he appeared relaxed, she could see his muscles slowly tightening as though his body was preparing for a blow. His arms tightened around her as he took a harsh breath a second before she heard her mother’s sneering voice.

“So it would appear the animal has made an appearance. You knotted her good, Wolfe. You should be proud. I’ll enjoy training your brats to obey me a bit better than you did though.”

Terror shot through Hope. She turned to roll from beneath him, to keep him from sheltering her body with his own, but he controlled the movement with a tightening of his arms around her.

“I love you, Hope,” he whispered a second before he raised his head, staring in cold fury at the woman who had invaded his life once again as she leaned casually against the framed doorway.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Hello, Bitch. Why am I not surprised to see you here?” His voice was filled with disgust at the vision he saw before him.

Wolfe looked over at the small, diminutive woman who stepped into the room. She was dressed casually in a pullover sweater, twill pants and loafers. The very picture of a successful doctor, if you discounted the lethal pistol in her hand, and the gleam of vicious triumph in her black eyes.

“I knew the altered pictures of those men fucking her would bring you out,” she chortled gleefully. “Did you really think my frigid daughter would allow one man to touch her, let alone two at a time? Her doctor had to rupture her hymen, she was so damned cold. Really, Wolfe, you two made it frighteningly easy to capture you.”

He smiled. The trap was sprung, just as he had anticipated. But he was more than thankful to the monster for clearing up the matter of his sole possession of Hope.

“Yeah, I did, didn’t I? Perhaps you were the easy one though,” he suggested with a smile.

Delia Bainesmith’s eyes narrowed.

“You always were a rogue,” she sneered. “Never obeying orders, always attempting to escape. You were mine. My animal, my possession. I created you.”

Her voice echoed with her fury, her insane belief that he should always be in her control.

“You created me, but you will never own me,” he promised her lethally. “You forget, Bitch. You used the DNA of a wolf, not the lap puppies you should have. No man or woman controls the wolf.”

“Then I will control the whelps you’ve bred on my traitorous daughter,” she sneered, raising the gun, her finger tightening on the trigger. “And I’ll kill you.”

He flipped the switch on the wall behind him before she could react. The gun flew from her hand, clattering over the floor as she was knocked off balance by the falling sandbag and imploding plaster from the ceiling.

It was the opening he needed. Wolfe jumped from the bed, reaching down for the gun as she flew at him, a dagger in her hand, maniacal hatred contorting her expression. He heard Hope cry his name out in fear, her voice filled with tears, with terror. He flung himself away from the monster, angling one leg out in a quick, arching motion, taking a swipe at her feet as she passed by. A startled cry erupted from her throat as she fell.

Wolfe jumped to his feet, gripping the gun as he pointed it at her, watching her carefully. It was then he saw the blood oozing slowly from beneath her body. Hope must have seen it as well. He heard her breath catch, glimpsed her pale, horrified face.

He went to the scientist, once the terror of the labs he had been confined to. He turned her over carefully, grimacing at the sight of the dagger lodged between her breasts.

“Bastard.” Blood bubbled from her mouth as she stared at him in hatred. “Ruined it. You ruined it all.”

Wolfe glanced up at Hope. Shock lined her expression, wiping all color from her face. The woman’s gaze followed his. She sneered at the child she had bore.

“Animal. No better than a dog—” she gasped. Her eyes widened, then dimmed.

“Wolfe.” The others were rushing through the cabin now, voices raised in fear. “Wolfe dammit, she got by us—”

They came to a sudden halt inside the bedroom. The three women and three other men, all out of breath, were smeared with blood, but triumphant.

“Did you get the soldiers?” he asked them quietly as he moved to Hope, drawing the blanket around her silent body as he picked her up from the bed.

“All of them,” Jacob reported. “We didn’t kill them though.” He nodded to the still form of the scientist.

“Get her out of here,” he ordered them. “Find a deep, dark hole and bury the bitch in it. She won’t get a chance to hurt anyone else.”

He carried Hope into the living room, sheltering her body with his as he felt her low sobs against his chest.

“I won’t grieve for her,” she whispered tearfully. “I did that when I was a child.”

“It’s okay to grieve, Hope,” he assured her sadly. “Grieve for what never was if you need to. But let it go.”

He sat down on the couch, cradling her to him.

“She would have killed you,” she whispered. “She would have killed me as well, eventually.”

He smoothed her hair back from her face, grieving for her.

“Can you forgive me for her death? Forgive me for what I put you through? For not trusting you?” He touched her with adoration, with pain, with thanksgiving.