“You knew I wouldn’t just walk away from you, Sherra.” He wasn’t backing down. He was right in her face, the heat of his anger and his lust wrapping around her like invisible chains as his hands gripped her arms. “Damn you, you knew I hadn’t betrayed you.”

His flesh burned into hers. She could feel each individual finger, every cell as they came into contact with her body and became inordinately sensitized. She fought to drag in enough air to clear her head, to reinforce her self-control, but all she could smell was Kane and hot male lust. Sherra stared at him, drawing in the scent of him, intoxicated by the sudden, overwhelming need to touch him. She was trembling with it, she realized. He was staring down as her as though he wanted to shake her senseless. His eyes were narrowed, thick lashes shadowing his cheeks, his usually sensually full lips pressed into a thin line of anger. And she wanted his kiss.

Her tongue throbbed as she strained away from him. She could taste the hormone spilling into her mouth as the engorged glands began to fill and demand the sharing.

“Get away from me.” She tried to pull back from him, to deny the need and the hunger sweeping through her, and the rage that lingered just under the surface. “If you had cared you would have taken me with you as I begged you to, Kane, but you left me instead.” Even she was surprised by the guttural sound of her voice, the harsh unbidden pain that echoed in it.

“God, do you think I don’t hate myself for that enough, Sherra?” His eyes were bleak, filled with his own pain, his own regret. “Do you think I haven’t literally prayed to go back and do it differently? To make sure you got out of there?”

He released her, as though he couldn’t bear to touch her any longer. His hands pushed through the short strands of his thick hair as he blew out a ragged breath. He was fighting for control just as much as she was.

“Look, Kane.” Sherra moved back, fighting to breathe past the emotions ripping through her and pouring off him. “It’s too late to go back, and too much has happened to go forward…”

“The hell it has,” he growled, staring back at her implacably. “Do you think I searched all these years,

Sherra, risked my life and my family’s and drove myself insane so you could wave me away as though none of it fucking matters?” A harsh laugh echoed through the night. “I don’t think so, baby. And I think you know it’s not going to happen as well. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be running like a scared little cat in the opposite direction every time I come near.”

His voice had risen, but even more, he had moved. Sherra backed away, realizing she was retreating a second before she bumped into the boulder behind her.

“I’m trying to be sensible,” she snapped. “Something you aren’t, Kane. You have no idea what could happen. You don’t know how it will affect you…”

“I know how you affect me,” he growled. “I know my cock is like steel in my pants ninety percent of the time, I’m so hot to get inside you. I know every time I see so much as a scratch on your flesh I want to take someone apart. A bruise makes me rabid. I know whatever the fuck happened in that lab that night, I’ve never gotten over it. I’ve never forgotten. And, by God, I never gave up. You gave up.”

“I accepted.” Ragged, hoarse, her voice reflected all the pain and rage of the past years. “And now it’s your turn, Kane. It’s time to accept it’s over. It was over the night those bastards raped me… Oh, God.”

She pressed her hand over her mouth as she watched him pale, watched the pain that washed over his face.

Pushing herself violently away from the boulder, she moved far enough away from him to avoid his touch, to breathe in the sultry night air rather than the bitter tinge of his pain. She barely remembered that night. It had been hazy, misty. The drugs had reacted against the hormones that were surging through her system. The scientists had no idea the mistake they had made until she began going into convulsions beneath the bastard raping her.

“Sherra. I would give my own life to have saved you from that,” he whispered behind her. “And that’s the God’s truth.”

She shook her head with a sense of fatality. “No, Kane. You nearly gave your life, anyway, and we never knew it. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t blame you for it.” And she didn’t. She merely accepted it.

“I’m not the girl you loved then. The girl who loved you doesn’t exist anymore. She died with the child she lost. All that’s left is the killer.” She couldn’t allow anything more. “I’m a Breed, Kane. Nothing more. Nothing less. And I’m in heat. It’s physical. It’s biological. And we have no idea how it could affect you. I’m not willing to risk it.”

She could feel him behind her as though the heat of his body were a physical caress in and of itself. Then he was touching her, his hands sliding down her arms, stealing her strength with his touch as she heard the whimper that left her lips.

His touch.

Her breasts were so sensitive they ached, the flesh of her arms transmitting each calloused inch of his hands directly to her straining nipples, her engorged clit.

“I’m a strong man, Sherra,” he whispered, his breath caressing her neck as she felt his head lower toward her. “I’ve lived when I wanted to die without you. I fought for you, even when I thought you were dead. Do you really think it’s just biological? That any force short of death will keep me out of your body, keep me from fucking you until you’re screaming for me to stop.”

His voice echoed with the building, blinding lust she could feel ripping her insides apart. Oh God, just once, she thought, weakening. To feel him inside her, stretching her almost painfully, fucking her with deep, hard strokes, his cock spearing inside her…

“Kane, please…” she whispered the plea, desperation thickening her voice.

“I’ll please you, Sherra,” he growled. “I’ll please you until you beg me to stop. I swear. Here. Now. Wherever, however you want me.”

His lips touched her neck, wrenching a cry from her soul as she felt the pounding, burning need racing through her.

“No!” She jerked from him. “I won’t let you do this to me again. I won’t love you, Kane.”

A short, sarcastic laugh escaped him. “You must take me for a hell of a fool, Sherra.” He shook his head, surprising her with the edge of amusement in the sound. “You’re good, baby. So good, I think you may have even fooled yourself. But you haven’t fooled me. Think about that. And start counting the days. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll let you run much longer.”

Chapter Four

As though she had any intention of obeying any command Kane Tyler gave, Sherra thought, still more than furious later that night after joining the mountain patrols above the estate. He hadn’t ordered her back to the house. Not that it would have done any good, and he appeared smart enough not to try. She was thanking God he hadn’t. Her body was rioting, the very fact that she now knew he was aware of the physical arousal seemed to only make it worse. Too many celibate years, that was all it was, she assured herself as she moved among the trees, aware of the soft silence of the night, the caress of it upon her senses. It reminded her of Kane. Everything reminded her of Kane.

Touch me, Sherra.His voice had stroked her like the softest breeze as her hand gripped his erection, causing her flesh to electrify with pleasure. He had been iron-hard, hot and thick. A cock that would have pleased even the most discriminating woman. And it had more than pleased her. She shivered, her pussy clenching at the thought of how well he had pleased her in the labs. Moving inside her, his body had been tight with the effort to control the need to rush to his own release as he drove her higher in hers.

Stop, she ordered herself as she breathed out roughly. Remembering would do nothing but make her weaker, hungrier. She couldn’t afford to get any hungrier.

“Sherra, we have undeclared movement coming in east of you. Are you secure?”

Tamber Mason, a small, shy female Lion Breed, spoke over the communications link with an edge of tension as Sherra stilled against the broad base of a tree.

“How close?” Sherra kept her voice low as she checked her watch. It was a little after one, hours after having slipped away from Kane’s threat.

“Less than a quarter-mile, moving in a diagonal line along the three o’ clock marker to your location. A slow progression on a current heading that leads them directly to the back gates of the main compound.”

The link clicked several times as the channel continued to update to assure security as Tamber spoke. Sherra pulled her weapon easily from its holster, checking the clip quickly as she moved into a stalking position. Her body fluid, ready for whatever threat she would come across, she began to move quickly to the location.

“Keep me updated on heading and distance,” she murmured into the link. She pulled the night field goggles over her eyes and slid the transparent radar display into place. Two small dots popped immediately into a small map on the peripheral of her right eye. Her own in blue, the undeclared heat source in red. She eased along the mountain, keeping low, easing through the dense underbrush and thick foliage as she headed for the intruder.

Undeclared meant Tamber had checked each link taken out and locations of the Breeds that were supposed to be on the mountain. There was one more pinpoint of movement than there should be, with no confirmation of the same location from the guards she had hailed before checking with Sherra.

“All I’m picking up at present is the one anomaly,” Tamber said quietly as Sherra moved in closer, keeping a wary eye on the green fluorescent display of the goggles that now shielded her upper face.

“But this one showed up out of nowhere. One minute we were clear, the next he was there.”

Trusting the other woman to watch her back, Sherra noticed several blue displays moving in from other locations as well. Skirting a stand of shoulder-high boulders, she continued to move toward the anomaly, keeping a careful eye on the small red point as it slid along the map, coming ever closer to the gate that led into the main compound. It, too, was heavily guarded, which made no sense. It would have been easier for an intruder to gain entry from many other points rather than the back gate. As light as a breeze, she slid through a thick stand of foliage, ducking easily to escape the upper branches which would have alerted an experienced tracker to the fact he was being stalked. Council or fanatic, it didn’t matter, they just kept trying. The attempts to gain entry into the compound seemed to worsen with every news report that slammed the airwaves. Some of the insinuations in those so-called reports were more than insulting, they were downright dangerous. Keeping up with them was next to impossible and counteracting them was becoming harder by the day. And they kept trying. The attempts to kill the new human species seemed to grow daily. Moving slowly closer, Sherra eased past a stand of young pines and moved behind the intruder slowly. When she had him in sight, terror slammed hard and heavy in her heart.

“I wouldn’t.” She aimed the automatic weapon as he was preparing to lift the long, cylindrical missile launcher to his shoulder.

He froze for a long second. She smelled the fear radiating off his body just as she could sense his determination for murder.

“So much as shift and your head comes off,” she snapped. “Tamber, alert the fucking house. We have a missile launcher.”

She had no idea if she could take him out before he shot that missile off. His hand was on the trigger, the weapon nearly in place for a direct hit at the house.

“Evac, Tamber. Evac.” Sherra gave the order to evacuate the house, listening distantly as chaos erupted in the control room.

“Is it worth dying for?” she asked the assailant, seeing his hand tighten on the trigger. “I can arrange it, buddy, if you don’t lay it down now.”