Stygian's Honor (14 page)

He hoped the bastard who had allowed her to do it had to made his peace with his maker. Because Stygian intended to kill him for daring to send his mate into such danger.

Not that she seemed inclined to answer him.

Oh hell no, it couldn’t be that easy.

Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you tell me why a Breed’s kiss is so addictive? Or did you intend to wait until I couldn’t walk away before telling me the truth?”

Bingo.

His expression never changed, but Liza assured herself she wasn’t stupid. It had taken her a few minutes to figure it out—but once she had, she’d been certain of her conclusions.

“I asked first,” Stygian growled.

His expression might not have changed, but his tone sure had.

She’d turned the tables on him, and he didn’t like it.

As a matter of fact, he seemed completely surprised by the fact that she had done so.

A second later, she narrowed her eyes on the smug smile that tugged at his well-molded, sensual lips.

“I’ll take it that the rumors of a Navajo-based Breed Underground Network that helps Breeds and humans running from the Genetics Council is true. I’ll also assume you’re part of that network.”

A soft laugh left her lips. “You know what ‘assume’ does,” she reminded him. “It makes an ass of you.”

“Touché,” he congratulated her. “But the statement stands.”

Her arms crossed over her breasts defensively, but Stygian sensed her amusement.

Damn, she was enjoying every minute of the dangerous byplay.

Stygian knew well the consequences of allowing Liza more information on mating heat that could contradict the Breeds’ stance that it was all rumor and false accusations.

Breed Law—the Breed mandates rather than those President Andrews had signed into law—expressly forbid the sharing of the information before mating occurred.

If Liza were to betray the information—before or after mating—then Breed Law could see them both dead. Unless
Liza were pregnant, then it would merely see them imprisoned for life.

“We’re at a stalemate then?” she asked when he said nothing more.

“Not exactly.” He grinned and considered her bravado. “You could always let me kiss you. That would settle the issue once and for all.”

Only then would the risks of discovery, and the laws forbidding exposing it, be revealed to her. Perhaps then it would mean something to her as well.

“And the risk of being at your beck and call night and day because I’m so addicted to your kiss that I can’t walk away?” She snorted at the thought. “That’s okay, Mr. Black.”

So much for the subtle dare. Not that he had really expected her to fall for it.

“At least there’s a way to prove or disprove the theory.” He shrugged. “What do you have to offer to disprove my suspicion that you’re part of the Navajo Breed Underground Network that relocates and rescues Breeds that the Council has targeted?”

“The same as you have.” She shrugged as one little brow cocked a little higher than the other and laughter gleamed in her eyes. “Yep, sounds like a stalemate to me.”

Oh, he could show her a stalemate.

Stygian stood slowly, straightening before moving toward her.

“Just because you’re not lying doesn’t mean I can’t smell the deception beneath your words.”

He faced her as the primal hunger tearing through him fought for dominance. Keeping his hands off her was possibly the hardest battle of his life.

“Just because I’m human doesn’t mean I can’t sense your deception,” she informed him defiantly as she stared back at him with narrowed eyes. “And don’t think you can intimidate me so easily.”

She straightened, anger flaring to meet the irritation she could see brewing inside him.

“It’s a damned dangerous game you and your friends are
playing, Liza.” Raking his fingers through his hair, Stygian clenched his jaw and fought to deny the animal instinct that he bind her to him immediately. That he turn her need to fight against the Genetics Council and their soldiers to a hunger so hot it would blister both their senses.

“Me and my friends?” She propped slender fingers over the curve of her hips, facing him with innate feminine defiance. “Excuse me, Mr. Black, but the Navajo did not come on your land demanding your most precious treasures, nor did we lie to you to search for ghosts that may or may not exist. You and yours came to us.” Her stubborn chin lifted stubbornly. “You’ve all but taken over our capital. You attempt to force
our
president to bend to
your
will and you take advantage of an agreement the Navajo made in good faith to aid the Breeds in their battle for freedom. You”—one delicate finger was suddenly pushed with feminine arrogance into the center of his chest—“have done all that and more. If a foreign country attempted this with the U.S. president, then war would have been declared.”

Her finger retreated.

The delicate hand returned to her hip, fingers spread, legs braced slightly apart in an unconscious fighting stance.

“And you think withholding information to punish Jonas is somehow justified because we didn’t come to you begging?” he bit out between clenched teeth.

“And you believe because we do not know where three tortured victims of the Genetics Council are hiding that you can attempt to poke and prod and demand access to every part of our lives?” she questioned incredulously. “We owe you nothing, Mr. Black. But for more than a century, each time a Breed has come to the Navajo for help, we’ve given it. If we could help that poor little baby, then have no doubt every Breed in the Navajo Nation would be on Jonas Wyatt’s doorstep attempting to do just that.”

“Until now, the Navajo have always extended the information Breeds have needed.” Until the information they needed possibly imposed on a promise to another.

“Listen to you,” she snapped. “What promise was made and to whom? Do you think I lied to Jonas when he all but
kidnapped me to question me about people I’ve never seen in my entire life?”

“You came into that hotel with a live link, possibly to an enemy, and didn’t even attempt to inform us,” he growled back at her. “You and your underground organization deliberately deceived us for your own agenda.”

Disbelief filled her expression and turned the soft scent of summer to one infused with flashes of heat as she glared back at him.

“I am an undercover agent for the Navajo Law Enforcement Agency,” she gritted out. “The op I was a part of to draw in the Coyote Breeds watching me for the past weeks had nothing to do with the Bureau of Breed Affairs, Jonas Wyatt or any Breed outside those currently stalking me. That was none of your business, nor was it any of Wyatt’s or anyone else’s, thank you very much.”

It wasn’t a lie. She was an agent for the covert division of the Navajo Law Enforcement Office. The operation was conducted by several of the agents of that office, and the Breeds would have been turned over to the proper authorities if caught, Liza knew.

If Stygian, Jonas or anyone from the Breed communities did as she and Cullen expected them to do and hacked the Law Enforcement Offices computers, then they would find that same information.

Stygian stared back at her, his lips pressed tightly together as he held back the curse that would have slipped past his lips.

An undercover agent? His mate was an investigator attempting to draw out Coyote soldiers so merciless that even their own Breed refused to claim them?

“There is no record of you working with the Law Enforcement Agency.” One more second, one more confrontational remark and he was going to kiss her.

The need was pounding through him. It was racing through his blood veins and pounding hard and heavy through his dick.

“Well, now, if that information was so easy to find, then the undercover part would be rather useless, wouldn’t it?”
The question was heavily laced with sarcasm. “What was I supposed to do, Stygian? Take out an ad in the paper first, just for you?”

If she didn’t stop, the tenuous grip he had on his control would be shot. The defiance and sheer stubborn will was awakening a part of him he had no idea how to force back.

Before Stygian realized he was moving, before he could stop himself, he had his hands on her.

Gripping a hip with one hand, he pulled her to him. The fingers of the other threading through her hair, he drew her head back for his kiss as his lowered.

“Mate me, bind me to you without my knowledge of what you’re doing or how it will affect my life, and I promise you, I’ll make your life a hell you will never forget.”

His lips were almost on hers.

The glands beneath his tongue were swollen and throbbing, aching for the heat of her kiss.

She knew, damn her. She knew what she was doing to him. She knew the agonizing need tearing through him and still, she was defying him, attempting to force from him what she had to know he had vowed not to give up.

“This time,” he growled furiously, his hips pressing into her, his cock pounding at her lower stomach. “This time you win. But be prepared.” His lips were all but touching hers. “Be prepared, Liza, because you are mine. Mine. And I promise you, I will claim you soon.”

And it would be a claiming he swore she would never escape.

Her lips parted, he could see that mocking, sarcastic little tongue of hers getting ready to push him further, to shred the final threads holding back the animal inside him that was snarling for release.

And he could feel fate getting ready to completely kick his ass, because he knew,
knew
he was going to kiss her. It was just such an accepted, forgone conclusion that the explosion of splinters suddenly tearing from the wood post behind her took nearly a heartbeat to register.

A heartbeat that could have cost his mate her life.

CHAPTER 7

Liza knew the instant splinters of wood began raining around them exactly what had happened.

The report of a weapon couldn’t be heard, but with the cover a sniper would have in the woods surrounding them, a silencer would have been sufficient.

“Down!”

The word exploded from both of them as they went to the side, rolling over the small incline that led to the bank and the water lapping below as another projectile slammed into the picnic table.

“Oh yeah, the safest ride I’d ever take.” Liza snorted as she threw the Breed a hard glare. “Tell me you at least have a radio on you.”

Flattening against the incline, she had to resist the urge to peek over it and attempt to get a bearing on the shooter.

“We’re covered.”

Oh, he sounded far too complacent as he kept a tight hold around her waist and kept her from checking above to see if anyone was moving in on them.

Turning her head, she looked over at him instead. “Was this Jonas’s idea to draw someone or something out?” she asked, fighting back the urge to kick him, since Jonas wasn’t there to take the blow himself.

“If it is, then I’ll kill him myself,” Stygian grated as he removed one arm from around her and flipped his wrist over to stare at the face of his watch. Maneuvering the arm still holding her to him, he depressed the small cylindrical post at the side. “Rule, do you have eyes on the bastard?”

“Eyes on. We’re moving in. Stay where you are,” a voice came through the link as the watch face slowly disappeared to reveal the image of the Lion Breed Rule Breaker.

The urge to growl was beginning to tighten her throat.

“Bastards,” she muttered.

“Only technically,” Rule drawled without a change of expression. “Hold tight. We have a team moving in on your position.”

Hold tight her ass.

“We’re too exposed here,” she warned Stygian. “If they don’t have a bead on the son of a bitch firing at us, then we’re going to be screwed here.”

“Tell her to hold on to her panties,” Rule stated as though she weren’t even there. “We may not have a bead on the shooter, but we have thermal imaging all around you. He won’t get close enough to do any damage.”

“And did he have thermal imaging before we were shot at?” she questioned. “If he did, then he’s falling far short on the job, Stygian.”

Stygian didn’t say a word.

Glancing at him, she nearly rolled her eyes at the black and brilliant blue fury gleaming in his gaze.