“There are, to count, three mated Feline pairs as well as Dash and Elizabeth as the first recorded Wolf mating,” Callan informed him. “If it brings you any comfort, we’ve found nature to be very generous in her pairings. We love our wives, Kiowa, and they would have been women we would have chosen even without the mating heat.”

Fine, well and good, Kiowa thought mockingly. So, because his dick got hard for her while he watched her, and he admitted, harder than normal, then nature thought she could just pull a fast one on him?

Just his luck.

“Remind me to refuse you next time you need help,” he told Dash politely. “As I said, I was doing fine on my own.”

Dash snorted. “Come on, Kiowa, that was a lousy job and you know it.”

“Someone has to do the shit work.” Kiowa shrugged, though he silently admitted that working as a bouncer wasn’t his all-time favorite sport. It was just too damned easy to start with. Scum wasn’t that hard to keep track of.

“We have another problem here.” Kane leaned forward at that point. “President Marion, at this moment, is willing to trust us with his daughter. I talked to him within seconds after your arrival. Official word will be that she is ill and recuperating in an undisclosed location while his son launches an investigation into the situation. The fact that he’s willing to trust us with his daughter indicates his security in Breed honor. He wants to talk to her later, but otherwise agrees it would be foolhardy to head out here and bring more trouble down on her.

“Official report on the helicopter attack was that Callan was attacked while on his way home from meetings in Washington, where he had been earlier. We can keep her safe here until the vote on Breed Law. Then, he’ll want to see her.”

That gave him a week, Kiowa thought. Not nearly enough time.

“That chopper wasn’t government issue either,” Taber said. “It was private, and modified for weapons. Communications we intercepted indicates they weren’t certain who was in the vehicles though. They were taking a shot and hoping. But if they got other Breeds that was fine too. Innocents didn’t matter.”

“A week isn’t long,” Dash said then. “Marion will be here the moment voting is over to see his daughter. We’ll have to have answers for him then.”

“And that concerns me how?” Kiowa lifted his brow fractionally. “She won’t be leaving with him, so he can come now for all I care.”

He wasn’t certain where that declaration came from, but once it passed his lips he guessed he committed to it.

“There’s a ban on relating the information on mating and the mating heat, Kiowa,” Callan said then, his voice hard. “If we’re to protect ourselves, we need to keep this information hidden from the general population as long as possible. We can’t tell Marion why his daughter can’t leave. You’ll have to convince her to stay.”

Kiowa stared back at the Pack Leader for long moments. They were idiots, he thought. What the hell made any of them think that Ms. Amanda Marion was going to agree to anything so outlandish?

“I can gag her.” Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Come on, Kiowa,” Dash snapped then. “Let’s be serious for a few minutes here.”

“Fine, then say something serious,” he shrugged loosely, careful to keep his body relaxed, to hide the internal fury pouring through him.

His mate thought he was an animal and the swelling inside her sickened her. She had been kidnapped, fucked, and mated and Kiowa didn’t see a chance in hell of her accepting any of it easily.

“She’s a reasonable woman…” Dash began.

“She’s a child.” Kiowa crossed his arms over his chest as he stared back at the other man. “She’s twentyfour years old, first year out of Daddy’s care, and not exactly mature enough to handle the fact that within days she’s going to be carrying an animal’s ba—” He broke off as he caught sight of movement at the bedroom door.

There she stood, stock-still, the flannel gown Callan had brought her dwarfing her figure, the dark blue color emphasizing the pasty white complexion of her skin. Her scent filled the room then, drawing all eyes to her. Honey and spice, so sweet she made his mouth water as her arousal reach out to him. He stayed in place, forcing back the impulse to rush to her, to protect her. Dammit, he had enough trouble protecting himself at this point.

She swallowed tightly, her throat working convulsively as she obviously fought to keep her stomach from heaving.

“You talk to her,” Kiowa suggested then. “Maybe you can convince her it’s really not so bad. What do you think, Amanda? Can you handle carrying my pup?”

She swayed, her hand gripping the doorframe as she went impossibly whiter.

“Fuck, Kiowa,” Callan snarled as he jumped to her as her knees buckled while Kiowa forced back the screaming objection as the other man kept her from falling to the floor. He hadn’t believed them, he admitted a second later. When they said she could bear no other male’s touch, he hadn’t believed them.

Her pain-filled cry shattered his soul the moment Callan touched her, hard shudders racing over her body as she tightened to breaking point, going to her knees from the pain. Kiowa raced across the room, jerking her to him, his arms enfolding her as her hands gripped his waist, dry heaves spasming her body as she fought back the reactive sickness to the Feline’s touch.

“Shit,” he sighed wearily, one hand cupping her head and holding her close to his chest as she fought for her composure.

“Kiowa, you’re a bastard!” Simon snapped furiously.

“Get out of here,” Kiowa growled. “Just get the hell out until I can figure out what the hell to do.”

He was aware of their gazes locked on him—Callan and Simon’s filled with anger, Dash’s just quiet, regretful. The emotions filled the air, assaulting his sensitive sense of smell as well as his patience.

“Good luck, buddy,” Dash murmured on his way past him. “Good luck.”

His hand smoothed down Amanda’s hair as she slowly composed herself, the arm around her waist tightening as she pressed herself closer to him. It had to be unconscious, he thought, she wouldn’t want his warmth, wouldn’t need it. It was biological. An urge brought on by the hormone and the situation nothing more.

She thought he was an animal. And he guessed he was, because it would be a cold day in hell before he would let her go now, no matter what she wanted.

Chapter Thirteen

He thought she was just a child, too immature understand the facts the life. Amanda moved slowly away from Kiowa after the initial reaction to the other man’s touch. The pain had been…horrendous. Every nerve in her body has screamed in agony, rejecting the touch, no matter how helpful.

Moving through the living room, she rubbed her arms slowly, concentrating on just breathing, on allowing the information she had heard to process in her head. She wasn’t a stupid person, and she wasn’t a child. She had managed to understand every word of what she had overhead. And she had overheard a lot. Too much.

“I didn’t mean to call you an animal after…” She waved her hand as she turned back to face him. “I was shocked.”

“Yes, you did.” He shrugged his broad shoulders as he refused to accept the apology. “I’ve watched you for a while, Ms. Marion. Several weeks in fact. My impression of you is that you pretty much say what you mean.”

“So watching me allows you to form a basis for your opinions?” she asked him curiously, trying to still her anger at his arrogance.

“In most cases.” He nodded sharply before moving past her to the kitchen. “I’ll fix breakfast then you can sleep. We’ll be here for a while, so I guess we’ll be bombarded by Callan and Taber’s wives as well as their sisters. Damned welcoming party, I guess.”

She turned as he entered the kitchen. The half wall between the two rooms allowed her a clear view to what he was doing. Moving about bare-chested, muscles rippling as he moved ingredients out of the refrigerator and onto the counter.

She couldn’t exactly call him handsome, though he was definitely unique. At least six feet two inches tall, leanly muscled. If there was an ounce of fat on that body she hadn’t found it. And her hands had been in places they shouldn’t be.

His thick, devil’s black hair fell to his shoulders and when he turned toward her, the stark, well-defined features of his face held her gaze. He was simply mesmerizing. Not handsome, she assured herself. But his sharp nose and well-arched brows over deep black eyes were definitely worth looking at. And his lips.

She really didn’t want to look at his lips. But she did. They made her mouth water at the thought of the pleasure to be had there.

“I heard what they said,” she said. “About the mating.”

He didn’t pause, his expression never changed.

“So I assumed,” he finally said as he flicked a glance toward her.

“It won’t work,” she told him. “We can’t let this happen, you know we can’t.”

She couldn’t imagine being tied to this man in such a way. If she thought her brother was hard, then Kiowa was pure steel.

“If you can stand it, then so can I.” His voice didn’t raise; it didn’t lower. She had seen him furious, heard him enraged, filled with lust and just plain mocking in the few hours she had been with him. This confused her.

“Kiowa…” She licked her lips nervously. “I don’t even know your last name.”

“I don’t have one.” He turned away from her, bent at the waist and dragged a teflon skillet from under the cabinet.

“Everyone has a last name,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “You have to have one for a social security number, to get a job.”

“Innocence is so refreshing,” he said. And dammit, his voice didn’t change. Unemotional. Flat. She was beginning to appreciate her brother more and more.

“What do you mean by that?” She crossed her arms over her breasts, mostly to hide her hard nipples.

He kept looking at them. Though she admitted they were hard to miss.

“I mean, Ms. Marion, that if you move in the right circles, or should I say the wrong circles, you can get away with damned near anything. I have a dozen false identities, social security numbers and passports. All with very illegitimate last names. But I do not have a last name. My mother’s family refused to allow me hers, and it’s hard for a Breed to claim a father. Therefore, I am, lastnameless.”

“School… Birth records…” She shook her head. This was impossible.

“Schooled myself for the most part.” He filled the skillet with bacon. Evidently he ate a lot. “My grandfather kept me hidden in the mountains after I was weaned from my mother. As I grew older, he left me there alone. He always provided books, though. Television. I wasn’t deprived.”

She blinked in shock. “That’s not a childhood,” she whispered.

“I wasn’t a child.” He looked at her again, his eyes dull. “I was an animal, Ms. Marion. One he had no choice but to protect because his honor demanded it. His blood was in my veins whether he liked it or not. He did his best.”

There was acceptance in his voice. No regret, no recriminations, no anger or pain. Just acceptance.

“You’re not an animal,” she snapped, trembling in shock that anyone would treat a child so cruelly. “I said I was sorry. I was…” She drew in a hard, deep breath. “I was frightened, Kiowa. I reacted and it was wrong.”

He stared at her for a long moment before turning away, dismissing her as though she didn’t matter. God, this was hard. The lust rising in her body wasn’t making it any easier.

“Tell me,” he said then, turning back to her as the bacon sizzled on the stove. “What will you do when you’re swelling with my child, knowing you had no choice in its conception, that you’ve whelped a child that is as much an animal as it is human? Will you hold it to your breast and cuddle it with love? Or will you give it to strangers to raise? Will you give that child your name? Or will you attempt to kill it before it has a chance to draw its first breath?”