“And that of course is all that should matter, isn’t it?” Mica snapped back. “For God’s sake, Navarro, there is such a thing as holding out for that last, great hope. And you’re a fine one to let just such a high principle have your back up now, when you lied to me in the worst possible way last night.”
“And don’t all Breeds know the value of that last, great hope?” Heavy mockery filled his voice. “We lived it daily in those f**king labs, Mica. Tell me, did that last, great hope ever give a damn about us then?”
The pain and the cynicism in that single question had Mica’s heart constricting in the knowledge of what the Breeds had suffered there. She knew it, she understood their nightmares, she’d lived with the knowledge of the horror they’d suffered. But still, that was no excuse for his actions, or his threats.
“That doesn’t give you the right to ever make such a threat.” Knowing that pain, and those nightmares, didn’t mean he could make her understand why he had lashed out at Jonas as he had. “You and I both know you’ll never lay a hand on Phillip Brandenmore unless you simply have no other choice.”
“Oh, there you are wrong.” He lowered his head, his palms braced on the gurney as he came over her, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a furious snarl. “Trust me, Mica, if you trust nothing else. If I see him but one more time outside the cell he’s to be locked within, without a full team of Breed guards restraining him, then yes, I will kill him, before he has the chance to harm anyone else. Especially a woman. And most especially.” He leaned closer. “My woman.”
His woman?
“Your woman?” Mica was incensed. Livid. The sheer arrogance in the words, the dominance and utter, contemptible confidence he displayed raked over her pride like nails on a chalkboard. “Not in this lifetime, Wolf,” she sneered back at him. “The last I checked, you weren’t spilling a mating hormone, and I wasn’t on my knees begging for your cock, and Dr. Morrey wasn’t being forced to create that vile concoction of hormones for me. Three strikes, Breed. You’re out of the running to ever claim me.”
For a second. One dangerous, heart-stopping second, the image of Mica on her knees, lips parted and swollen, face flushed as he sank his dick inside the sweet depths of her mouth nearly shattered his control.
He almost reached for her.
His fingers curled into fists as he felt his chest tighten with another of those rumbling little growls he wasn’t used to displaying.
Hard, thick, so fully engorged and throbbing in desperation, his c**k ached to f**k her lips, to slide in slow and easy, filling her mouth and stretching her lips erotically.
“Navarro!” It was Ely’s voice that brought him back from the brink.
The hard, cold command in her voice was pure steel. This room, for examination and testing, was her territory. It was where she ruled. The cavernous underground area was separated by partitions rather than walls, and imprinted with an indelible, invisible mark that made her demand all but impossible to ignore.
“Stand down, Wolf,” she ordered firmly. “Jonas, Callan and Kane are awaiting in control room C, where your pack leader is demanding your presence on vid call immediately.”
He straightened slowly. She was backing the imperious demand of right of territory with a summons by his pack leader. Again, almost impossible to ignore. But he’d ignored his responsibilities to Wolfe before for this woman lying before him; he could well do it again.
And he would have. It would have been so easy to lean into her, to steal her kiss and force her submission with the pleasure that would wrap around them both and hold them in place with bonds of sheer heated eroticism.
He could have done it so easily, if he weren’t staring into her eyes. If he hadn’t seen the distress that went beyond anger and physical pain in the incredible depths of her golden green eyes. Like lace, the green surrounded a ring of golden brown, weaving in and out and creating such a unique color she all but mesmerized him when he stared into her eyes.
Instead, he straightened. Slowly.
“I’ll be back, Dr. Morrey,” he promised her, shocking himself with the hoarseness of his tone. “When I am, you have tests to run.”
Ely didn’t speak.
He turned his head slowly, staring at her as she stood across the room, shoulders straight, her long dark brown hair pulled back into an intricate braided bun, defining the sharp Feline features of her face and the exotic dark brown eyes.
She was a Lioness ready to defend her charge, and he couldn’t blame her. He was certain he wasn’t giving the most confidence-inspiring impression at the moment.
She nodded sharply though, her gaze moving to the entrance to the lab as the secured doors slid open.
“Navarro, are you really going to make me look bad by refusing to accompany me down the hall, man?” Lawe Justice stepped into the exam room, and the fact that he seemed uncertain was almost amusing.
“How could I make you look any worse than you make yourself look, Lawe?” Navarro asked conversationally as the other Breed stepped closer.
Head tilted, his long black hair free around the defined, sculpted planes of his face, Lawe looked as though he’d already been in more than one fight that morning.
Ah yes, Phillip Brandenmore.
Lawe’s cheek was scraped with smears of blood on one side of his face, the other one was sporting what was sure to be a beautiful black eye come morning.
Lawe grimaced at the question. “Actually, it probably wouldn’t be too damned hard,” he grunted.