Authors: Lora Leigh
She could feel Mercury’s tension beside her, increasing as they chatted, working closer to Horace Engalls, one of the men information was flowing to, and his snobbish wife, Cara Brandenmore Engalls.
Ria ran the information she had on the woman through her head quickly. There was nothing significantly important about Cara. She was on the board of both Engalls Pharmaceuticals and Brandenmore Research, of which Engalls was a division.
She was the daughter of Phillip Brandenmore, married to the man her father had chosen for her. She was younger than Engalls by ten years and her voice had risen against Breed law when it came up for vote several years before. She was a powerful figure in her own little set, regarded with wariness and considered a formidable enemy.
Horace Engalls had begun courting Sanctuary years ago in the hopes of acquiring Breeds to strengthen his security on his labs. He’d been turned down repeatedly. But he and Brandenmore both were associates of a very powerful senator that Sanctuary liked to keep happy. Which meant the two men had the invitations the senator requested for them.
Ria knew Cara well, just as she had known Cara’s mother before Phillip Brandenmore divorced her.
“Ria, my dear, what are you doing here?” Cara’s cool, superior smile hid the heart of a viper as she glanced at where Ria’s hand rested on Mercury’s arm. “And with a… man.” The pause had Ria’s eyes narrowing. “I’m surprised Dane allowed it.”
Ria arched her brow. “Dane’s my employer, Cara, not my brother.”
“I always assumed much more.” Cara’s laughter was light, vicious. “Perhaps I was wrong?”
“Perhaps you were,” Ria told her. “I haven’t seen Phillip tonight, though.” She glanced around the room, looking for Cara’s father. “I’d hoped to say hello to him.”
“He had an unexpected stop to make at the airport on the way.” Cara’s lips curved in smug satisfaction. “His newest little playmate, I believe, was delayed. He should be here momentarily.”
“I hope to see him before I leave then.” Ria smiled tightly, nodding to her as well as Horace. “Perhaps we can get a chance to talk later.”
“Oh, I’m sure we will, dear.” Cara’s tinkling laughter grated on Ria’s nerves. “I’ll make certain of it.”
Ria’s gaze sharpened on the other woman before moving away. The feeling of panic sweeping through her intensified.
“How is security holding?” she asked Mercury, keeping her voice low as they moved through the ballroom and he drew her onto the dance floor.
He danced as well as he made love, she thought, restraining her sigh, waiting as he checked the security points.
“Everything’s holding,” he murmured in her ear. “What’s wrong, baby?”
The endearment weakened her knees. Which was silly. Dane called her sweetheart or baby often. He always had. Yet the effect had never been the same.
She shook her head, lowering it as she let him draw her closer.
“Ria, we need to talk soon,” he told her softly, his voice deepening, almost a growl as she flicked her earlobe with his tongue. “Very soon.”
She closed her eyes and smiled. She could feel his erection beneath his dress jacket. She could feel
him
, warm and aroused, holding her as close as convention allowed.
“Do we have to stay very long?”
“Longer than we’re going to stay. Damn,” he cursed, his head lifting. “Let’s go. Jonas has just ordered us to Callan’s office.”
As he released her, she glanced at the minute receiver barely visible at his ear.
“What’s wrong?”
His hand settled in the small of her back, pressing her forward toward the ballroom doors.
“Hell if I know,” he muttered. “He’s not saying.”
The panic intensified. Ria couldn’t explain it; she couldn’t force him not to go to that office, but every feminine instinct she possessed was screaming out at her, demanding that she run, that she escape.
That instinct was a part of her. She always heeded it. The few times she hadn’t had seen her heart broken, her pride in shambles. And she had seen the pity for her weakness in Leo and Dane’s eyes. Always the sad, poor little orphan.
“Ria?” Mercury questioned her as they entered the foyer and moved to the back of the hall. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She sent him a smile she hoped wasn’t as brittle as she felt. “I think the shoes are pinching my feet or something.”
Or something. The closer they moved to that office, the more she had to restrain herself not to turn and run.
“I hate it when you lie to me,” he snarled softly.
“I hate it when you ask me questions I don’t know how to answer,” she hissed back. “I’ve had a bad feeling all day.”
She clutched the side of her dress, lifting the long skirt as they moved closer to their destination. She could run now, she told herself.
Like hell. She wasn’t a coward. And it wasn’t physical danger she could feel awaiting her. She couldn’t explain the premonition. She had never been able to explain them.
“Jonas, Callan and Dane are waiting in Jonas’s office,” he told her. “Dane wouldn’t allow you to walk into danger.”
She shook her head. “It’s not danger.”
She could see the door. It was closed. They moved closer and she wanted to scream. She licked her lips nervously, ignored her sweating palms and waited as Mercury knocked on the door.
It opened, but only partially. Dane stepped outside.
“Mercury, I’ll stand outside with Ria.” His expression was livid.
“The hell you will.” Mercury tugged her closer to his side. “She doesn’t need a babysitter.”
The door swung open.
“Mercury.” The soft, feminine sigh shattered her as she stared back at the other woman in horror.
Shoulder-length golden hair, hazel brown eyes shadowed with a light dusting of bronze over the lids. High cheekbones, exotic eyes and a smile that trembled. And a face Ria had seen in her nightmares over the past weeks. Except that face had been younger, softer-and death had taken her years ago. Or it was supposed to have.
“Alaiya?” Shock filled Mercury’s voice, and seared Ria’s heart.
She stood still. Frozen.
Another woman’s arms touched his face, caressed it, though he almost pulled back. Another woman’s arms wrapped around his neck, and another woman snuggled against his chest.
“Oh, Mercury. It’s been so long.”
Those eyes blinked back at Ria, and for a moment she could have sworn she glimpsed malicious pleasure in the eyes of Mercury’s mate.
CHAPTER 18
She was going to disintegrate into a million pieces. Shards and fragments of her soul would be found on worlds light-years from Earth before the pain completed its journey.
She had been so certain she was his. So certain she had finally found a place to belong, because he owned her soul, and no one else ever had.
She felt Mercury pull away from her. His hand slid from the small of her back, and she heard a growl. An angry sound of pain that she wondered if she might have made herself.
She wanted to smash her fist into that perfect face. She wanted to tear all those perfect hairs from the woman’s head. She wanted to howl in rage, fear and pain.
“Ria, sweetheart.” Dane’s voice was at her ear. She could have sworn it was thick with grief. “Darling. Hold on. You don’t want to break here.”
She shook her head and stepped back, pulling her arm from his grip. She didn’t want him touching her. She couldn’t bear to be touched, not right now. Not while the pain was exploding in her brain, shattering her heart, nearly stopping it.
The slow, sluggish beat reminded her. It had done that the moment she realized her mother was never returning to her. That she would always be alone. She should have remembered, should have known it couldn’t be real.
“If you break here, you’ll never forgive yourself.” Dane’s voice lashed at her, a quiet male hiss of fury as Alaiya tilted her head up to Mercury and spoke.
“I knew when I read the tabloid stories what happened.” She sighed against Mercury. “Mates. That’s what we are, aren’t we? That’s why I never forgot you, Mercury.”
Ria couldn’t breathe. Oh God. It hurt. It was knifing through her chest, shredding flesh and bone, and she was going to scream with the rage and the pain of it.
Don’t touch him!
The words were whipping through her mind as Mercury gripped the other woman’s wrists and pushed her back. Just a little. Just enough to keep Ria from collapsing, from begging him not to hold her.
“Alaiya?” There was a wealth of surprise, shock and perhaps anger.
Of course he would be angry. Eleven years they had been separated and here she was, mere hours after he had pledged himself to another woman. To some stupid human that just couldn’t understand where her place was.
“Ria.” Dane’s arm was around her shoulders.
He was trying to shelter her. He had done that when she was a little girl, every time he saw her. He would wrap his arm around her shoulder and try to shelter her from whatever had hurt her while he was away. There was no way to shelter her from this.
Ragged, gaping wounds tore through her soul. She could feel herself bleeding from the inside out, ripping apart and not a sound was made.
“What the fucking hell is going on here?” Guttural, ragged and filled with fury, Mercury’s voice echoed around her. Sliced into her. She looked into his eyes, and they were nearly blue. They weren’t amber. They weren’t hammered gold. They were blue, the color they had been when he showed the first signs of mating Alaiya in the labs.
Alaiya was back. And, it appeared, so was Mercury’s animal.
“You need to take care of this,” she whispered to him, glancing at Alaiya. “I know it’s been a long time.” She backed away from him. “You’ll need to”-she waved her hand helplessly-“talk.” She couldn’t imagine anything else. If she did, she would die. Right there, she would lose her will to live.
She couldn’t bear it. It hurt. Nothing-no desertion, no vicious words from cold, cutting lips-had ever hurt as this hurt.
“Mercury, could you step into the office please?” Jonas’s voice was like a whip slicing through the tension. “Dane, Ms. Rodriquez might be more comfortable in the receiving room across the hall.”
She stared back at Jonas. His silver eyes seemed alive, an entity separate from the rest of him, swirling and clashing with tempestuous anger as he watched her.
Of course, he would be angry. He would believe this could affect her job. That it would affect Sanctuary’s relationship with the Vanderales.
She shook her head. She was the poor little orphan to the family, not really family at all. She had always known that.
She backed away, feeling Dane’s hand on her arm like a live current, painful, unwanted.
“The hell she will.”
Before the words were out of Mercury’s lips he had hold of her, jerking her to his side, his arm curved around her back, pulling her to him.
“Don’t do this to me.” The sound of her voice shocked her. It was barely passable, so thick and rough it was hardly understandable. “Don’t make me see this.”
His eyes were almost pure blue; now the gold flickered in tiny pinpoints rather than the opposite.
“This isn’t what you think.” He glared into the room before pulling her outside it, out of sight of the others, pressing her against the wall as he stared down at her, his eyes raging.
And the pain was raging inside her. She had to get away from him. Before she begged him. Before she pleaded with him,
Please don’t leave me alone.
She pressed her hands against his chest. “Take care of this. I’ll wait with Dane.” She shook her head, knowing he wouldn’t be returning to her.
Mating heat was like a drug, an addiction. He wouldn’t be able to leave his mate’s side until it eased. And Ria would be long gone by then. Long gone and far away.
“Like bloody fucking hell.” He snarled the words into her face. “Not happening.”
“Mercury, listen to her,” Dane urged quietly from behind him. “Do you want to hurt her like this, man? I could smell the mating heat on you the moment Alaiya flung herself into your arms. Denying it isn’t going to keep Ria from hurting.”
Her knees turned to rubber.
Oh God. She couldn’t fall. She stared up at Mercury in horror.
“It’s not like that. Ria, listen to me.” His hands gripped her face, his expression twisted in agony. “Baby, you have to listen to me. It’s not like that.”
His head lowered, and she knew what was coming. He was going to kiss her. Let her taste what she couldn’t have. Let her know what belonged to another woman. And he would destroy her with it.
“No!” Her hand jerked up, covered his mouth. “Let me go, Mercury. Let me go.”
“You’re my mate.” He shook her hand away. “Damn you, you will listen to me.”
“Let her fucking go.”
Dane spun him around, away from her, but none of them could have expected what happened next.
A roar tore from Mercury’s chest and Dane went flying. He slid across the waxed floor, ending up in a pile against the wall before he shook his head and came to his feet with a snarl of rage.
“Touch my mate and you die.” Mercury placed himself between her and Dane. “Do you hear me Vanderale? I’ll gut you like I did that fucking bastard in the labs and I’ll shove it down your throat.”
His voice-wasn’t his voice.
Ria backed away from him, shaking her head as Callan, Kane and Jonas rushed from the office, putting themselves between Mercury and Dane as Jonas held his brother back, snarling in anger as Dane fought him.
“Mercury?” Alaiya stepped from the office. Sensuous silk hissed as she moved, like a serpent’s whisper. Her voice was almost childishly soft, confused, but her eyes-Ria stared into Alaiya’s eyes, and she saw the smug satisfaction there. “Mr. Vanderale hasn’t touched me.”